More Links: Human Rights, Intervention, Surveillance, Wikileaks
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-25 19:47:50 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-25 19:47:50 UTC
Human Rights
Mariam Kirollos, a women's rights activist, said on Twitter that the dean should be "interrogated and expelled" and that "investigations into the incident should start immediately".
Intervention
-
Raúl Capote is a Cuban. But not just any Cuban. In his youth, he was caught up by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They offered him an infinite amount of money to conspire in Cuba. But then something unexpected for the US happened. Capote, in reality, was working for Cuban national security. From then on, he served as a double agent.
Something else must be added instantly. It is no good thinking that the vote was somehow forced by the barrels of Russian rifles. The imagery is familiar, time-tested Cold War stuff with obvious truth in a lot of cases. And scarcely would Putin be above intimidation. But it does not hold up this time, if only because there was no need of intimidation.
The plain reality is that Putin knew well how the referendum would turn out and played the card with confidence. Washington and the European capitals knew, too, and this is why they were so unseemly and shamelessly hypocritical in their desperation to cover the world’s ears as Crimeans spoke.
This raises the legality question. There is blur, certainly, but the legal grounding is clear: International law carefully avoids prohibiting unilateral declarations of independence. In any case, to stand on the law, especially Ukraine’s since the coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month, is a weak case in the face of Crimeans’ expression of their will.
There was a splendid image published in Wednesday’s New York Times. Take a look. You have a lady in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, on her way to something, probably work. Well-dressed, properly groomed, she navigates the sidewalk indifferently between a soldier and a tank.
CIA
The hotel bar TVs were all flashing clips of Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein denouncing the CIA for spying on her staff, when I met an agency operative for drinks last week. He flashed a wan smile, gestured at the TV and volunteered that he'd narrowly escaped being assigned to interrogate Al-Qaida suspects at a secret site years ago.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is poised to send a long-awaited report on the CIA’s interrogation practices to President Barack Obama’s desk for his approval — or redaction.
Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says she has the votes on the narrowly divided panel to publicly reveal the executive summary and key conclusions of a 6,300-page report on Bush-era interrogation tactics, a move sure to fuel the Senate’s intense dispute with the CIA over how the panel pieced together the study. That vote is likely to happen sometime this week.
The President of the United States has one overriding obligation: to uphold the Constitution and to enforce the laws of the land. That is the oath he swears on Inauguration Day. Failure to meet fully that obligation breaks the contract between him and the citizenry from whom he derives his authority and on whose behalf he acts. The consequence is to jeopardize the well-being of the Republic.
The City of Sunrise, Florida, tried to take a page from the CIA’s anti-transparency playbook last week when it responded to an ACLU public records request about its use of powerful cell phone location tracking gear by refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any relevant documents. And the state police are trying to get in on the act as well. We have written about the federal government’s abuse of this tactic—called a “Glomar” response—before, but local law enforcement’s adoption of the ploy reaches a new level of absurdity. In this case, the response is not only a violation of Florida law, but is also fatally undermined by records the Sunrise Police Department has already posted online.
This topic is the center of a serious debate between the president of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein and the CIA, especially about spionage on the employers of the panel and about if they acceded to non-authorized information.
Last week, Senator Ron Wyden spoke to an audience of about 700 in downtown Portland on the current state of our national surveilliance and national security system.
Over the weekend, I finally found the time to listen to it -- and man, you should listen to his speech. It is both a high-level overview of everything that's going on, as well as a specific rundown of Wyden's concerns about the challenges posed to our civil liberties.
- See more at: http://www.blueoregon.com/2014/03/wyden-cia-fisa-electronic-surveillance/#sthash.vtncHcUG.dpuf
In a remarkable about-face, the Central Intelligence Agency recently came under attack from one of the Senate’s staunchest defenders of national surveillance in the name of national security. On the Senate floor, Dianne Feinstein dramatically made public her accusation that the CIA spied on her committee’s staff in Congress’ lengthy investigation of U.S. interrogation methods.
Among the reporter-columnists whose bylines I never miss, Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage of The New York Times is at the top of the list. He is penetratingly factual and stays on stories that are often surprising.
At the bottom of page 12 of the March 14 Times — in what should have been on the front page, garnering Savage another Pulitzer — was this: “U.S., Rebuffing U.N., Maintains Stance That Rights Treaty Does Not Apply Abroad.”
This treaty, signed by our Senate in 1992, is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which, Savage notes, “bans arbitrary killings, torture, unfair trials and imprisonments without judicial review” (The New York Times, March 14).
This treaty jumped into the news, thanks to Savage, because, as he states in his opening paragraph: “The Obama administration declared ... that a global Bill of Rights-style treaty imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad.”
Wikileaks
Cables posted on the whistleblowing website show a US ambassador telling Hillary Clinton Wales is 'not necessarily interested in producing energy/electricity for the rest of the UK'
The Army private who was tried and convicted as Bradley Edward Manning for leaking U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks is petitioning a Kansas court for a name change, to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.
Privacy
When former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed the U.S. government’s near-limitless ability to hoard and monitor private communications, it created shockwaves of indignation and forever changed the way we all conduct our digital business.
Since May 2013, consecutive revelations have increasingly exposed the extent and severity of the extralegal surveillance activities conducted by French authorities. It is time for the French government to break its deafening silence on this issue and allow for an open and democratic debate on the extent of its surveillance practices. This is all the more important following the "Loi de programmation militaire" and these recent revelations regarding the cooperation of network operator Orange with French intelligence services. France must make it a priority to revise its current legislation in order to respect international law on privacy.
An Oxford debate in late February posed the question: Is Edward Snowden a hero? In an impassioned defense of a patriotism that courageously stands against the abuse of state power, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges said yes, and by a vote of the those present, won the contest.
Glenn Greenwald wrote on Tuesday that President Obama's new proposals to overhaul the NSA's bulk collection of phone data are a vindication of Edward Snowden and the journalists who have been reporting on the revelations contained in the documents he provided.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
- The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
- "Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
- Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
-
- Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
- Links for the day
- They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
- They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
- Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
- Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
- 12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
- We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
- "Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
- Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
- Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
- Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
- This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
- XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
- It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
- Progress on Techrights Site Search
- Fun times
- IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
- Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
- Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
- Links for the day
- Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
- Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
- Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
- just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
- all about what Google does
- Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
- This recording is over 2 hours old
- Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
- Links for the day
- The African Lion and the American Cowards
- Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
- Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
- Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
- Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
- there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
- Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
- We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
- Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
- Links for the day
- Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
- What a disgrace
- A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
- "The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
- Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
- We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
- Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
- Happy hacking
- "No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
- "No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
- Every Morning
- Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
- Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
- very intellectually-dishonest human being
- A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
- Perl also runs the sister site
- The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
- What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
- analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
- Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
- People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
- “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
- Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
- We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
- Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
- That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
- An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
- Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
- When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
- What has Microsoft Canonical become?
- More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
- It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
- Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
- Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
- Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
- What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
- Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
- Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
- Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
- We never used "the cloud"
- Amazon Web Shenanigans
- An ongoing, experimental endeavour
- Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
- Links for the day
- They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
- we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
- Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
- Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
- Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
- Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
- Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
- Everything here will persist as normal
- Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
- Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
- The "Infinite Bread"
- The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
- Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
- If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
- In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
- The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
- Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
- Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
- Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
- Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
- Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
- 4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
- Liberation From 'The Feed'
- They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
- Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
- We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles