Letter Never Sent

December 12, 2002; In 1999, a Russian firm, AviaConversia offered for sale four different models of GPS jammers (for about $4000 each). This gear only puts out 4-8 watts, making them very tough to find and bomb. And the jammers can effectively block GPS signals out to 150-200 kilometers, depending on terrain. The jammer can run off batteries and weighs between 18 and 26 pounds (without batteries). When operating, the jammers consume less than 25 watts of power. Since AviaConversia announced their product, plans for building your own (from off the shelf components) have appeared on the Internet. Apparently, the parts can be obtained for less than a hundred dollars. Soldering skills required. Already assembled units are also available on the Internet for as low as $40. AviaConversia has since apparently disappeared. AviaConversia made much of its connections with the Russian armed forces and the implied assurance that its jammer worked. There have been no reports of the cheap jammers on the Internet being used, or to what effect. U.S. military experiments found that the cheap jammers were not that effective, and larger ones, built from off the shelf components, and costing nearly $10,000. For the last few years, the Department of Defense has been building and testing GPS Jammer detectors, and building homing systems sensitive to go after them. Other nations, such as Australia, have also been working on ways to defeat jammers. One method already available is to change the GPS frequency. But someone with access to the GPS satellites has to do this.

I came across an article in the Washington Post about the methods of torture employed by the US Government and how they skirt provisions in our laws to get away with torture.

Free from the scrutiny of military lawyers steeped in the international laws of war, the CIA and its intelligence service allies have the leeway to exert physically and psychologically aggressive techniques, said national security officials and U.S. and European intelligence officers.

Although no direct evidence of mistreatment of prisoners in U.S. custody has come to light, the prisoners are denied access to lawyers or organizations, such as the Red Cross, that could independently assess their treatment. Even their names are secret.

This month, the U.S. military announced that it had begun a criminal investigation into the handling of two prisoners who died in U.S. custody at the Bagram base. A base spokesman said autopsies found one of the detainees died of a pulmonary embolism, the other of a heart attack. …

According to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often “softened up” by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep. The tone of intimidation and fear is the beginning, they said, of a process of piercing a prisoner’s resistance.

The take-down teams often “package” prisoners for transport, fitting them with hoods and gags, and binding them to stretchers with duct tape.

Bush administration appointees and career national security officials acknowledged that, as one of them put it, “our guys may kick them around a little bit in the adrenaline of the immediate aftermath.” Another said U.S. personnel are scrupulous in providing medical care to captives, adding in a deadpan voice, that “pain control [in wounded patients] is a very subjective thing.” …

Jordan is a favored country for renditions, several U.S. officials said. The Jordanians are considered “highly professional” interrogators, which some officials said meant that they do not use torture. But the State Department’s 2001 human rights report criticized Jordan and its General Intelligence Directorate for arbitrary and unlawful detentions and abuse.

“The most frequently alleged methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions and extended solitary confinement,” the 2001 report noted. Jordan also is known to use prisoners’ family members to induce suspects to talk.