The plains of eastern Gable had potential. Despite centuries of human expansion up the Amano river, much of the northern Kasimnini valley remained a savanna dotted by settlements and broken only in places by rivers and highways. Its population was modest and only in 1575 did it come to discover the wonders of modern technology. While the radio was modestly common, only the largest villages had even a communal television, much less a car. Still, as the southern farmlands slowly encroached on the forest, communication came with it.

Only in 1575, a year after the Lanlanians had withdrawn from Gable, did some of the more remote settlements even hear word they'd been there--or that there'd been a war in eastern hills. That the eastern hills even belonged to the same state. That they were now free citizens of a democracy who elected their leader rather than subjects of some faraway king. The Holy Lanlanian Emperor?

Information spread much more quickly afterwards, of course. The free election of President Ulrik Thorssen. The flow of Lanlanian money. The construction of the Dashinogi-Tatanisa Highway.  The defeat of the last rebel holdout. The free election of President Ulrik Thorssen. The discover of petroleum. The flow of Lanlanian money. The free election of President Ulrik Thorssen. The construction of Gable's first skyscraper. The spark of civil war in the country to the north. The expansion of the national highway. The free election of President Ulrik Thorssen.

By 1582, as televisions spread through the countryside, the peoples of the plains and hills had noticed that something was wrong. Where was their Lanlanian money? Where were their bridges? Their national highway? Their Internet? Their car? Their free vote for President Ulrik Thorssen?


Eastern Gable
19 Treizen 1586

Kofi Nze lived in a small village a few days north of Kasimano. While the immediate few kilometers north of the city were fields of privately-owned farmland, Kofi's village was located well away from civilization. Only a dirt road, that coincidentally crossed the national highway between Kasimano and Badiano connected it to the rest of the country. His village was one of the luckier ones too--there were others deeper into the savanna, barely visible from aircraft and just as connected to other settlements.

His village had no specific name, despite being visited once in the last decade by a cadre of suits claiming to be from the nation's census bureau. The Brigidnan man had promised great change would follow the census--power and phone lines would be propped up and roads would be built, the village and the lands around it would be developed, polling stations would be set up. None of it happened, of course. Kofi's neighbor had traded a chicken for the village's first radio back in '78, and the village chief had trade his mule for the first television only last year.

The television changed their lives. While they'd heard of skyscrapers, aircraft, and democracy from the radio, they didn't quite understand it until they saw it on television. The evening news had blown their minds with the first flyover the of Amarane and it happened again when they saw a jumbo jet taking off--it'd been the talk of the town for days. But they began to ask questions when the subject turned to politics.

At first, they'd been simply mesmerized by democracy--the courtrooms, the parliament, President Ulrik Thorssen. The citizens of the inner cities gleefully celebrating the exercise of their rights, and celebrating how it was available to everyone.

But not them.

"That census guy didn't come again this year," said Kofi's cousin, Mobuto. The village had many questions for this census man but no idea how to reach him. They'd thought he'd come every so often, if for no other reason than to collect their vote.

"Maybe they forgot about us?" said his other cousin, Mosi.

"Again," Mobuto replied sharply.

It was early morning and the entire village was gathered outside the chief's house again, where he'd set up the analog television. They did this every so often and especially following elections.

"Quiet kids, they're about to announce the results."

The village chief turned the volume knob and the television did what it could, "and the winner of our 6th national presidential elections is..." the young woman checked the papers in  her hands again, which'd been given to her moments earlier by a man offscreen. "Ulrik Thorssen!"

A solemn atmosphere fell over the village as the chief lowered the volume. It was a large difference from the cheers and celebration the first two victories had brought. While the older adults began to whisper to one another, the kids ran off to play and the young adults disappeared into the huts.

"You know," Mobuto said to Kofi and Mosi, "I heard the craziest thing on the radio last night. They said it doesn't have to be like this. We have more power than we think."

"Listening to the Free People's Radio again?" Mosi asked with a sneaker.

"Hey!" Mobuto shot back. "What they say makes sense. Much more sense than the CTV makes."

"They're rebels, Mobby." Mosi sighed. "Let's just grab our guns and go. I wanna catch something before the sun gets too high."

Scenario
Yessiree, after almost exactly four decades, the Holy Lanlanian Empire is returning to once again save Gable from itself. The Lanlanians first liberated Gable from an evil military coup in 1556 and had a sizable presence in the country until 1574. They withdrew that year, largely content with the level of DEMOCRACY that gable had achieved.

But, sadly, peace in Gable did not last. In 1590, ethnic and social-economic tensions between the cities and countryside turned violent as the country was influenced by a civil war raging to its north. The war escalates in 1595, after the Gablese President is assassinated by rebel forces on his way to a peace conference. At the same time, the civil war north of Gable has began to wind down, with the government there pushing the ideological rebels south into Gable.

I will most likely set the first few posts before 1595, to set the tone and shit, but the bulk of RP will most likely be set after 1595. While Lanlanian air and special forces have likely been in the country since 1592, it won't be until after the President is assassinated that Gable requests boots on the ground. At that point, Lanlanian involvement will begin a steady escalation until Gable is "secured."

The Lanlanians might certainly end up being in the country for another two decades, we'll see.

Parties

Goldecia
Currency:Goldecian Pound
National Symbol: three x's
National Anthem:I vow to thee my country
Signified Animal:Lion
Official National Colours:blue,red ,yellow and orange

Nation's Official Name:Kingdom of Goldecia
Time Zone:
Demonym:Goldecian
Capital City(ies):Goudadam(Executive(officially),Arthuria(executive, legislative and royal),Cair Para(royal)
Population:24,343,449
Other Major Cities: Deoraby , Goudadam, Cair Para,Fieldam,Meadowdam,Porterdam, Brummagem,Raytown,Whaleton, Seasouth, Seamouth,Poolville,Rutterdam,Fentown, Solihull, Castlehill,Sandmouth(Seasand), Harlem,Hove
Cites population
Geography:189,657.00 km²
Population density:128.35 /km²
Urban:89.75%

Nyköping, Nyland

Niklas Westerberg, director of the Federal Security Department's Section IV/D, charged with the operations against domestic terrorism, presided over a joint meeting with the Cabinet and the heads of Section V/E, responsible for the surveillance of sabotage and political extremism in Nyland. The reason for the meeting was plain and simple: a recent politically motivated hate crime, resulting in the deaths of 16 civilians, committed by NMP sympathizers. The attack had taken place in the context of recent rapid radicalization of the NMP, with increasing political activism, looking to stretch the limits of the law, and the use of inflammatory rhetoric and hate speech against minority groups.

The recent attack, classified as a terrorist attack by the Nylander authorities, had been the direct reason for the FSD to seek presidential approval to launch an intensive intelligence operation against the NMP and affiliated groups, an unprecendented step as the NMP was elected to the nation's legislature. Total secrecy was of utter importance to avoid potentially enormous political scandals. The FSD had as task to investigate any and all individuals and groups who, through their activities or goals, give rise to the suspicion they pose a serious threat against the constitutional order and the national security.

The operation that the FSD was setting up had to provide both strategic intelligence, current intelligence and tactical intelligence on the threat of NMP radicalism. The strategic intelligence had to support long-term policy towards the more general threat posed by radical right wing terrorism and political violence. The current intelligence had to provide both the FSD, the government and law enforcement bodies with an insight in the existing threat of the NMP. The tactical intelligence, if available, concerned the most difficult information to acquire. It was the sort of information that can be used to thwart a terrorist attack or disrupt a plot. It may seem illogical and contradictory, but tactical intelligence was not the main priority of the FSD. Discovering and thwarting terror plans is more often the result of incidentally picked up information, or of accidentally caught information in the process of looking for a bigger picture. But looking for that next big attack is as searching for a needle in a haystack, and unlikely to succeed in preventing it.

Nevertheless, the previous attack did justify the use of heavy intelligence tools. In fact, the FSD could use any legal means it had at its disposal to penetrate the NMP and its social networks. Operation Vertigo would be a joint operation of Sections IV and V. IV would lead the operation as a counter-terrorist operation, but Section V would supplement the team with its knowledge and experience in dealing with political extremism and the Nylander far-right.

Although both sections dealt with political violence of some sorts, they did differ from eachother. The Counter-terror unit was focused relatively on medium-short term operations, studying networks and radical groups and individuals with the sole purpose of figuring out whether they were planning to commit violence. If a suspicious target over an extended period showed no inclination towards using violence, his priority was downgraded and eventually surveillance would stop altogether. The Extremism section was the opposite: they mainly ran long-term operations to study the development of radical and extremist groups, not necessarily looking for signs of violence, but simply keeping an eye on their activities, ideas, strength and followers. The Extremism section was more passive, conducting more traditional surveillance operations. The CT unit was pro-active, always looking for the next clue or hint of danger, and ready to sound the alarm and intervene. The Extremism section seldomly intervened in the world of their surveillance targets. If their targets would know they were being monitored by the FSD, it would only serve the confirm their conspiratory worldview and potentially further antagonize and radicalize them.

The FSD had been busy collecting all available police information on the NMP. Its rallies, activities and violations of the law had been carefully documented by local law enforcement, and these files formed a starting point. The two teenagers who committed the terrorist attack formed a second starting point, as the FSD would comb through all their confiscated computers, phones, contacts and communications to look for any possible links with other radicals.

First of all, the FSD wanted to know the strength of the NMP in numbers, and especially the strength of its active, fanatical core. Who belonged to it and with how many. Secondly, the FSD wanted to know their economic resources and access to weapons. Secondly, the FSD wanted to locate extremist networks that existed within and outside the NMP organization, the dangerous, underground cells that used, or abused, the NMP as a cover for a more sinister political agenda than either the authorities or NMP leadership was aware of. What networks existed within the NMP? And which networks or individuals had (hidden) ties to extreme right wing groups outside the NMP? The FSD was also interested in individual sympathizers of the NMP, who seemingly were not part of any dangerous network, but whose ideas, profile or internet behaviour betrayed them as potential lone wolves. With these questions, the FSD tried to map the NMP's most threatening elements and undertake action against them if the situation required it.

First of all, open sources would be used. FSD observation units would observe NMP rallies, suspicious members, study police files, and monitor social media communities and accounts. Then they would request banks to hand over whatever financial information they had on the NMP, its members suspected of extremist ties, the identities of donors, and what the money was spent on. HUMINT operations were to be set up - FSD and police moles would be used to attend NMP gatherings, become acquainted with NMP members and sympathizing groups, looking to gradually infiltrate the movement to help identify the potentially violent individuals and networks. The NMP leadership would also be under intense surveillance, to establish the degree to which they supported, rejected, condoned or encouraged violence. They would be under covert physical observation, their phones would be tapped, their financial affairs looked into, and their internet providers would be requested to provide lists with internet contacts they had.

Furthermore, the FSD would search its databases of intercepted internet and communication data from the air, for possible bits and pieces of communication between NMP persons of interest, while also drawing on existing intelligence on Nylander far-right networks and underground cells. Furthermore, the FSD considered employing agent provocateurs and honey-traps to lure extremists within the NMP towards it, but Westerberg believed this would have to be done as a separate operation. Another consideration was to place recording and tracking equipment in cars of leading and suspicious NMP adherents, and to place recording equipment used as safe homes by the most radical circles in the NMP who might only speak openly about their ideas and plans in their safe home-environment in presence of like-minded friends.

Such heavy methods were to be used later during the operation however. They would start by a massive effort to quickly identify the internet accounts and identities of the producers of extremist content and its consumers. The propagandist seldomly carries out the acts that he is calling for, but its their audience that the FSD was interested in. Operation Vertigo was set to take at least 6 months, but depending on its outcomes, might be extended to an entire year.

If your answer to that question is "yes" , post in this thread and I'll do l33t hax0r things to recover your Very Super Important Post™.

Just link me to the thread/posts where that were goblined away by the super high level codething some idiot on the backend ran to restore your sad, sad, Evil Ethnic un-American Characters.

Decide on the Aureum Coast seats and distribution of seats. Please note that results may be edited if they stray too far from what a realistic result would be. The results will also be used to distribute for presidential votes.

Presidential and Vice President Candidate:
Communist Party and Workers Party:
Presidential:Shadi Masood
Vice Presidential:Maka Hale

Peoples Democrats an Together:
Presidential:James Perrier-Abbott
Vice President:Viollette Ferret

Republicans:
Presidential:Anthony Harlton
Vice President:Lisa Karlro

National Front:
Presidential:Harrison Hawkins
Vice President:Ren

The existence of intelligence services, or secret services, within democracies always brings an element of tension. Democratic government is supposed to be accountable to its people, transparent, and not supposed to keep secrets from voters. At the same time, no democratic government can adequately protect itself from those who abuse the open nature of a democratic society for anti-democratic purposes without a secret service.

A democratic intelligence service is characterized by its lawfulness and democratic oversight. The intelligence services are not free to operate the way they see fit, such as Nerysia's Ministry of Security, they have to follow proceedures as described in the law - made by democratically elected politicians. Secondly, the intelligence services have to answer for their conduct and their use of taxpayers' money to the political leadership of the country.

Political and public oversight and intelligence work are difficult to combine. Intelligence operations are at their most effective when everything is kept secret. The moment our adversaries find out about the methods or details of operations, or the sources used, they will be in a position to adjust their own behaviour to make it more difficult for the intelligence services to do their job. Secrecy is an operational necessity for the security of the country. At the same time, it is important that the democratically elected politicians of Nyland have a way of checking and ensuring the intelligence services are operating within the law and doing what theyre supposed to do.

Another aspect to keep in mind is that proper oversight needs to protect the intelligence services themselves from politicians and from being abused for political ends, or from having their work become politicized. A clear example of how too much political influence on the work of intelligence services can actually hinder their effectiveness is the politicization of the CIA and its reports on Iraq, that went from being nuanced reports to becoming an echo chamber for Washington politicians that exerted pressure on the CIA to confirm their suspicions of existing weapons of mass destruction.

Before we continue...

Before we continue to discuss the democratic oversight on the FSD, I've made a simplified chart to explain how the FSD operates and what it mainly does. A description will be given below.



The National Security Council
The FSD answers directly to the executive branch. The Minister (or secretary?) of Homeland Security is politically responsible for the Federal Security Department. Together with the National Security Council, he coordinates the intelligence needs of the Nylander executive, including those of Homeland Security, the Defence Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, other intelligence services, and the President. Based on those National Security meetings, the Homeland Security minister formulates the tasks and objectives of the FSD.

Policy and Planning
The Director of the FSD plays a key role as an advisor in the Security Council and in translating the demands of policy-makers into policy. When an objective has been determined, the Director and the FSD Cabinet hold preparatory meetings to determine how to meet the objective. The relevant section heads participate in this meetings, along with legal advisers to translate policy objectives into intelligence operation plans. When planning operations, the FSD constantly has to take into account the legality, proportionality, effectiveness and available capacity of the methods that are employed.

Collection
When an operational plan has been formulated, it needs to be approved. Sometimes, because very heavy intelligence methods are employed (such as hacking computers and phones, human infiltration, or placing recording equipment in cars or homes) the Minister (or possibly the President) needs to be informed and give explicit approval. This is because these measures mean such a heavy breach of someone's privacy, it is necessary to give ultimate responsibility to a politician, who is answerable to the public.
The FSD employs various means and methods of collecting ''intelligence''. We call it ''intelligence'' and not simply ''information'', because the difference is that intelligence has restricted access and is required for decision-making. The choice of means through which the FSD collects intelligence is largely determined by how difficult it is to access particular intelligence and the importance or necessity of obtaining it, which is in turn determined by the threat posed by the target. As soon as a target is no longer of interest to the FSD, all intelligence collection operations have to be terminated immediately.

Processing
Intelligence that has been collected is still mostly raw data. It requires processing in order to be used. The FSD employs a host of specialists with various skills to help process the data that is being collected. This can range from data analysis, translation and proper storage of intercepted communications, decryption, and proper filing of raw data. The data that has been collected may be stored for a limited amount of time, after which it has to be destroyed.

Analysis
The crucial stage is the analysis stage. The FSD's experts and analysts develop hypotheses or working assumptions and then go through the processed intelligence that has been collected, in search for relevant details, patterns, and evidence to either confirm or falsify their hypothesis. If new unknowns are discovered, this results in another phase of planning, intelligence collection and processing, until the analysts have the answers they need. More often than not, we do not have the time to repeat the cycle often enough until we have all the answers. The analysts work under time pressure to deliver their estimates, analysis and warnings in time to the policy-makers or relevant authorities.

Dissemination & Warning
The FSD's operational intelligence teams will jointly put together a report or briefing to inform policy-makers and other clients of their conclusions. The FSD's liaison officers, analysts and briefers go out to whoever needs to be made aware of the intelligence of the FSD or needs to be warned so they can be mobilized to take proper actions to reduce the threat. The FSD could, for example, send a report to the Department of Justice concerning a terrorist plot in the making that needs to be stopped. The Department of Justice can then alarm the police, arrest the suspects, and open a criminal prosecution investigation. The FSD never provides operational details about its ongoing operations to outsiders.

After this cycle, policy-makers share their feedback in meetings with the FSD Cabinet and set new intelligence objectives.

Many Roads lead to Oversight

There are differing ways in which democracies can maintain oversight on their intelligence services. Some methods are more strict, others are less so, and most countries therefore use multiple forms of oversight.

Inspector-General: Some countries, like France, have appointed a special Inspector-General for the intelligence service. His role is to be a neutral figure who stands in between the political leadership (such as a Minister) and the directors of the service. His primary role is to shield the service from political influence and abuse. He represents the staff, and is allowed to advise politicians and policy-makers.

Parliamentary/Legislative oversight: Virtually all democratic countries have a form of parliamentary or legislative oversight on the intelligence services. At the same time, the tension between secrecy and transparency is the greatest here. Lawmakers do not have security clearances, may simply quit their jobs, lack knowledge and understanding of intelligence work, or may accidentally leak classified information. In history there are many cases of legislators working for foreign intelligence services. In order to counter that risk, most countries have formed special ''intelligence committees'' or commision's, composed of a select group of expert legislators who have sworn secrecy and convene in secret behind closed doors. Within these select, secretive parliamentary gatherings, intelligence chiefs can update the legislators on important developments and answer some of their questions. The Catch 22 is that these legislators become part of the secret, theyre not allowed to share anything they hear with the public.

Independent Oversight Bodies: In order to broaden the oversight beyond a select few legislators with limited knowledge, some countries have established additional independent oversight bodies. These include countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden and Denmark. These usually consist of a council of appointed experts who frequently meet with the intelligence chiefs behind closed doors. The oversight body is composed of permanent experts, that are allowed to inspect any and every closed case. It looks as to whether the law was properly applied, proceedures were properly followed etc etc. It has the ability to speak to intelligence officers as well. It can also investigate complaints from civilians. Its findings and recommendations are published in reports. They are not allowed to publish classified information, which they can only use in classified reports for limited eyes. General criticisms or recommendations can be published however, and could be used for public discussion.

Legal Oversight: This is a tradition more often seen in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the UK, but also in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and Italy. Legal oversight remains difficult and weak in most countries however for a specific reason. The task of intelligence services is to conduct investigations into potential or suspected threats against national security. What exactly constitutes a threat and what ''national security'' exactly means, are ultimately political questions - not legal. Especially because the responsible political executive's head will be on the block if things do go wrong, it is generally his sole responsibility for determining what is or isn't a threat against national security. On top of that, in most countries intelligence services are reluctant to share the operational details of highly vulnerable and extremely costly operations with court justices who haven't had a security clearance. Often legal courts may apply oversight after complaints have been made about the conduct of an intelligence service. In some countries, legal courts have to provide a legal warrant for the use of intelligence collection methods, but this usually still happens without sharing any classified information with the court. In the Netherlands, the legal court can be asked to give a verdict on the conduct of the intelligence service, as happened when a newspaper filed a lawsuit against the Dutch security service for eavesdropping journalists.

Ombudsman: In Europe, many countries have a so-called ''Ombudsman'', which is an independent instutition that exists to deal with complaints by citizens about their treatment by the government. Such an institution may highlight abuses or problems, but has no access to any classified information.

The question remains, how do we want to arrange oversight in Nyland?

The forum was updated to the latest version of myBB because Blac said something scary to me. But also because the old version didn't want to run translate smoothly to php 7, which I just discovered we need or some or other I don't actually I just do things stop asking questions, they hurt me inside and I don't like being hurt inside so why are you being so mean to me I'm just doing my best. ;(

I'm out of time for the day, but I should be able to get Focus 2 running again tomorrow, along with the majority of our scripts. Revolutions will be fixed the day after. SMTRP Tools will be restored over the weekend. Maybe. I don't know. I'm actually shit at PHP and I don't know how the switch to PHP7 will affect them.

I had to force all users onto Focus to avoid any issues from some themes lacking details that let users log in, but Revolution is right there.

The wiki will be hopefully be restored sometime next week.

1594 Nyland Federal Elections
For Half the Legislature
15 Vintyr 1594

Quote:This is a thread for the 1594 elections in Nyland. Half the legislature's seats are up for grabs. Actual in-context, rp voting takes place in Vintyr in 1594, but this is a make-up to get some more "accurate" numbers for the upcoming 1596 elections. This election will close at the end of the day, 28 Oct

1593-1594 Nyland Federal Assembly



CDA 103 | UP 87 | NL 78 | NKR 67 | PCP 64 | MCN 58 | NPA 33 | NCP 21 | MIP 14 | LCN 7 | NMP 3

1596 Nyland Federal Elections
For President and Half the Legislature
15 Vintyr 1596

Quote:This is a thread for the 1596 elections in Nyland. The Presidency is contested, and half the legislature's seats are up for grabs. Voting for this election will begin after a quick bout of catch-up elections are done for 1594, so stay tuned.

1593-1594 Nyland Federal Assembly



CDA 103 | UP 87 | NL 78 | NKR 67 | PCP 64 | MCN 58 | NPA 33 | NCP 21 | MIP 14 | LCN 7 | NMP 3