MattXG

Today, the FBI is doing something it rarely does — talking, in public, about spies.

In a nationwide advertising campaign launching today that includes bus shelters, billboards and a website, the FBI is targeting corporate espionage — and encouraging employees of American corporations to be wary of spies in their midst.

“We’re doing something we’ve never done before, and it’s almost counterintuitive in the espionage business,” FBI Counterintelligence Assistant director Frank Figliuzzi told CNBC Thursday. “We’re talking to the general public about the threat from economic espionage.”

The FBI says the sheer scale of economic espionage against the nation’s top companies threatens America’s economic and technical dominance of the global economy.

According to Figliuzzi, the current FBI caseload shows that secrets worth more than $13 billion have been stolen from American companies — often by insiders or former insiders at the companies that have been victimized. The FBI says its arrests for economic espionage have doubled in the last four years, and that it has already surpassed last year’s arrest total halfway through this fiscal year.

Figliuzzi said espionage has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. “The target has changed to unclassified or what I like to call pre-classified technology, data research, the things that we all have at our place of employment, and we need to make the general public aware that the threat is to them and where they work,” Figliuzzi said. “They want what America has.”

The billboards and bus shelters will be visible in cities and regions that the FBI chose for their high concentrations of government contractors, including Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and North Carolina.

In recent months, US law enforcement agencies have wrestled with a large variety of corporate espionage cases that affected companies as diverse as Bridgestone, DuPont, and Motorola.

In February, a federal grand jury in San Francisco charged five people and five companies with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for trying to obtain secrets surrounding the development of chloride-route titanium dioxide (TiO2), a white pigment with various industrial uses. Among those charged were two former DuPont employees. In that case, the U.S. government said that the government of the People’s Republic of China had specifically targeted the TiO2 production capabilities for exploitation.

Also that month, a former software engineer for Motorola was found guilty of stealing trade secrets from that company. The Defendant, Hanjuan Jin, possessed more than 1,000 proprietary documents when she was stopped by U.S. customs officials while attempting to travel on a one-way ticket to China in 2007, the government said.

Citizens of America, you are into some kinky sex (or at least reading kinky erotica). Here’s the proof:

The number one best-selling fiction book on the New York Times’ Best Sellers list is “50 Shades of Grey” by first-time author E.L. James.
The number two best-selling book is the follow-up, “50 Shades Darker.” The third best-selling book is the final novel in the BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, masochism) trilogy, “50 Shades Freed.”

The first two books in the erotic trilogy have been on the best seller list for eight weeks, and the final novel has been on the list for seven.

James, “not a great writer” by her own admission, started writing the series as “Twilight” fan-fiction. You know, the kind of writing where an author imagines what kind of sex Bella and Edward would be into once they got a little older, and said author presumes that they would be into some really kinky stuff.

Now, the books are literally the only thing people in America are reading these days. Once someone takes a peek into the bedroom activities of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey — yes, those are actually the names of the characters — in the first novel, the reader apparently cannot get enough and so they are thrust into the last two books.

For those of you who have already salivated over all three novels, you will soon get the chance to see all the action on the big screen once “50 Shades of Grey” is made into a major motion picture.


Read more: http://dailycaller.c.../#ixzz1uTens6RA

The U.S. Air Force's secretive robotic X-37B space plane mission continues to chalk up time in Earth orbit, nearing 430 days of a spaceflight that — while classified — appears to be an unqualified success.

The space plane now circuiting Earth is the second spacecraft of its kind built for the Air Force by Boeing’s Phantom Works. Known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2, the space plane's classified mission is being carried out by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

The robotic X-37B space plane is a reusable spacecraft that resembles a miniature space shuttle. The Air Force launched the OTV-2 mission on March 5, 2011, with an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket lofting the space plane into orbit from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, briefly saluted the high-flying X-37B space plane on April 17 during his remarks at the 28th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"Our second X-37 test vehicle has been on orbit for 409 days now" — much longer than the 270-day baseline design specifications, Shelton said. "Although I can't talk about mission specifics, suffice it to say this mission has been a spectacular success," he added. [ Photos: The X-37B Space Plane's Second Mission ]

In a follow-up meeting with reporters, Shelton told Space.com: "It's doing wonderful." When asked specifically about when the craft will be brought back down to Earth, Shelton's response was guarded.
"When we're through with it … it's going great," Shelton said.

Tracy Bunko, the Pentagon's spokesperson for the X-37B project, told Space.com that the space plane's current mission "is still on track … and still ongoing."

Bunko said that a third flight of an X-37B spacecraft — slated for liftoff this fall — will use the same craft that flew the first test flight, the OTV-1 mission, back in 2010. That maiden voyage of the X-37B space plane lasted 225 days. It launched into orbit on April 22, 2010, and then landed on Dec. 3, zooming in on autopilot over the Pacific Ocean and gliding down onto a specially prepared runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.



U.S. Air Force / Michael Stonecypher
An X-37B robotic space plane sits on the Vandenberg Air Force base runway during post-landing operations on Dec. 3, 2010. Personnel in self-contained protective atmospheric suits conduct initial checks on the robot space vehicle after its landing. This same craft is due to launch again in fall 2012.

Return on investment
Each X-37B space plane is about 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 15 feet (4.5 meters) wide. It has a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed and is outfitted with a deployable solar array power system.

What isn't known about these space vehicles is the nature of the payloads they carry. What purposes they serve is classified. [ Video: Skywatchers Spot Secret X-37B Space Plane ]
Last March in a Washington, D.C., briefing with reporters, Shelton advised that the winged, reusable robot plane is a vehicle the U.S. Air Force wants to keep using. But there is currently no go-ahead to add space planes (beyond the two already built) that would increase the fleet size, he said.

When the second X-37B cruised by its one-year milestone in orbit in March, Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office lauded the spacecraft's endurance run.
"We are very pleased with the results of ongoing X-37B experiments. The X-37B program is setting the standard for a reusable space plane and, on this one-year orbital milestone, has returned great value on the experimental investment," McIntyre said. "Upon completion of all objectives, we look forward to bringing the mission to a safe, successful conclusion."

AIAA / Grantz / Boeing
A size chart shows how the Boeing-built X-37B robot space plane compares to NASA's space shuttle, a larger version of the spacecraft called the X-37C and an Atlas 5 rocket.
Skywatchers on alert

According to Ted Molczan, a Toronto-based leader in a network of amateur skywatchers that keep an eye on the whereabouts of spacecraft, the X-37B/OTV-2 has maintained its orbit since mid-August of last year.

Last observed on April 22 by fellow skywatcher Greg Roberts of South Africa, the craft was in a 42.8 degree, 332 kilometer by 341 kilometer orbit, Molczan told Space.com.
"It makes frequent small maneuvers to maintain that altitude against the significant atmospheric drag that is present. That orbit causes its ground track to repeat nearly precisely every two days," Molczan added.

"Ground tracks that repeat at intervals of two, three, or four days, have long been favored for U.S. imagery intelligence satellites, so this may be a clue to the mission of OTV-2," Molczan said.
Scaled-up X-37B space planes planned?

An intriguing sidelight to the X-37 program is whether or not Boeing's Phantom Works is keen on using the spacecraft for other, nonmilitary missions, or even upgrading the X-37 space plane concept for human spaceflight

Last year at Space 2011, a conference organized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), an X-37B derivatives plan was sketched out by Arthur Grantz, chief engineer, Experimental Systems Group at Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems (S&IS) in Seal Beach, Calif.

Grantz detailed a vision for the spacecraft and scaled-up versions to support space station cargo deliveries and even carry astronauts into orbit.

At the one-year milestone of the now orbiting X-37B, Space.com contacted Boeing for more information on Grantz and his view on use of X-37B evolving to support the International Space Station.

"That AIAA presentation was a one-time event and we are not saying anything more publicly about the X-37B," said Diana Ball of Boeing’s S&IS Communications in a response to Space.com. "Sorry we cannot help you out this time."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of last year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for Space.com since 1999.