Privacy and Human Rights Watch: Peeping Crown, Extradition, EU Resistance to Drones, and More
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-28 10:08:33 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-28 10:08:33 UTC
Summary: The latest (past 24 hours) stories about eroding human rights (exploiting transitions to digital), especially privacy rights
GCHQ
-
GCHQ documents say between 3-11 percent of Yahoo webcam chats contain ‘undesirable’ nudity.
-
The government is spying on Yahoo users via their webcams and X-box, according to a report based on leaked Eric Snowden documents. Both the American and British governments are now accused of spying on citizens in their own home, sans either a warrant or just cause.
-
● 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone
UK
-
Techdirt followed the the saga of the hacker Gary McKinnon, whom the US authorities wished to extradite from the UK to face charges of causing damage to military computers, for some years before the UK Home Secretary blocked his extradition, and the case against him in the UK was dropped. That was a great result for McKinnon after a 10-year fight to avoid extradition, but it meant that the key issues that his situation raised were never addressed.
Reform/Legal
-
“Once You Give Up Your Rights, You Can Never Get Them Back. Once You Turn On That Police State, You Can Never Turn It Off.”
Richard Clarke is one of the four White House panelists on NSA spying, and the former top counter-terror czar in the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Local Action
-
While the NSA datacenter and its activities are in the national spotlight, local authority remains divided on how to treat it.
Algorithms
-
Eavesdropping by algorithm is still eavesdropping, whether a human looks at your data or not. Real reform can’t abide by the spy dictionary anymore
Alexander
-
In one of his final Capitol Hill appearances, Gen. Keith Alexander, the National Security Agency's director, on Thursday called for a stronger strategy to deter cyberattacks, saying the line that would prompt a U.S. response against an adversary “does not yet exist.”
-
Alexander says NSA could accept a change where agency would only be allowed to collect phone data related to terrorism
'Metadata'
Amazon/CIA
-
When former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was conducting digital surveillance on a massive scale, many feared for the future of cloud computing. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated that Snowden’s revelations could cost U.S. cloud companies $22 billion to $35 billion in foreign business over the next three years, and countless pundits predicted that American businesses would flee the cloud as well. People would prefer to run software and store data on their own computers, the argument went, rather than host their operations atop outside services potentially compromised by the NSA.
Civil Rights
-
If President Barack Obama gets his way, five American citizens will have become victims of announced “targeted assassinations” by the military and CIA. Coupled with disturbing statements by United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, it is evident that the principle of the rule of law has lost force in the past few decades, especially after 9/11.
[...]
It was enshrined in the American, British and French Revolutions as sacred, and is an essential precept of liberalism.
-
*Eliminate the National Surveillance Agency, the NSA; completely stop the enormous spying on the American people. Take the other 12 U.S. intelligence agencies and combine their functions into one. We have the CIA and the FBI and Homeland Security to monitor imminent or longer term dangers to this country.
-
Think of us as having two presidents. One, a fellow named Barack Obama, cuts a distinctly Clark Kent-ish figure. In presiding over domestic policy, he is regularly thwarted in his desires by the Republicans in Congress and couldn’t until recently get his most basic choices for government positions or the judiciary through the Senate. For the most minimal look of effectiveness, he has to rely on relatively small gestures by executive order. In the recent history of the American presidency, he is a remarkably powerless figure presiding over what everyone who is a media anyone claims is a riven, paralyzed, even broken government structure, one in which the Republicans are intent on ensuring that a Democratic president can do nothing until they take the White House (which is almost guaranteed to be never). What this president wants, almost by definition, he can’t have. He is, as Guardian columnist Gary Younge wrote recently, a man who’s lost the plot line to his own story and has been relegated to the position of onlooker-in-chief.
-
There is one law for their terrorists and another for ours. "Theirs" kill a soldier in Woolwich and get slammed up for life. They get a verbal lynching from the red-tops, with Rot in Jail headlines and screams the rope would be too good for them, the filth and scum. "Our" terrorists get royal pardons and "letters of assurance", even if, as may be the case, they slaughter four soldiers and eight horses in cold blood in Hyde Park. That is how it must seem to many people.
-
The Untied States is the world's biggest violator of human rights of non-American persons and has been strongly condemned for conducting surveillance and prisoner torture around the globe, a report on US human rights said Friday.
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2013 was released by the Information Office of China's State Council, or the Cabinet, in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 issued by the US State Department on Thursday.
-
China has hit back at the US over the human rights debate alleging the “world judge of human rights” has serious question marks hanging over its own record.
[...]
Washington has long “made arbitrary attacks and irresponsible remarks” on the human rights situation in almost 200 countries and regions again in its just-released reports, the Chinese report says.
“However, the US carefully concealed and avoided mentioning its own human rights problems,” it adds.
Chinese ally Russia has also repeatedly said the United States has no right to claim a mantle of moral leadership. Moscow has criticized Washington sharply over human rights, pointing to secret CIA jails abroad and treatment of inmates at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba and elsewhere.
Drones
-
Mr. Shami, a militant who American officials say is living in the barren mountains of northwestern Pakistan, is at the center of a debate inside the government over whether President Obama should once again take the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of an American citizen overseas.
-
European Union Members of Parliament condemned the use of drones in targeted killings in a vote of 534 to 49. The vote proposing a ban referred to the drone strikes as “unlawful.”
-
Activists of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, led by cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan, had blocked the route from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar for the past three months in a protest over U.S. drone strikes.
-
Increased European research on unmanned aircraft is making the European Parliament nervous.
Military
-
Proposed cuts to defence spending would shrink US army to smallest size in 74 years
-
An influential U.S. senator says the Obama administration's response to the Benghazi attack was so fraught with inaccuracies and misleading testimony in the weeks preceding the 2012 presidential election that it warrants a new and thorough investigation by a joint Senate committee.
-
The very first act of the western-backed insurrectionists which represent a small percentage of the population and have managed to overthrow the government was to attempt rob Russian speakers in Ukraine of their language.
-
Hunt will be giving advice to startups in his new role at the San Francisco-based investment firm as they seek out profitable deals from the federal government. He told VentureBeat in an interview, "I'm taking my understanding of the intelligence space and scouting out the opportunities."
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Dr. Richard Stallman in Ada Lovelace Lecture Series 20 Hours From Now in Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology (Rotkreuz)
- Well-connected and affluent corporations want everything to be controlled by them, ranging from culture to words and news
-
- Gemini Links 05/03/2026: Industrial Panettone, Cancel, and LLMs
- Links for the day
- It's Not "AI", IBM is Collapsing Due to Financial Difficulties, "All Small Country Offices Will Close"
- IBM is in trouble. Insiders know it.
- "AI Companies" Running Out of Money, GAFAM Layoffs Are Signs of Weakness, Not "AI Efficiency" or Novelty
- In the past, this term ("AI") had another meaning and connotation
- Libel/Defamation Law Does Not Exist to Cover up Crimes
- The projection tactics are nothing new
- Myanmar/Burma: Growing Acceptance of GNU/Linux, Big Losses for Windows
- GNU/Linux has come close to 5% there
- Without IBM, Microsoft Would Not Have Taken Off. Both Companies Need to be 'Taken Down'.
- Maybe it's time to boycott IBM as well
- 'Former' Red Hat Staff Upset That Techrights Covers IBM Accounting Problems
- Are we touching a sensitive subject at IBM?
- Ubuntu is Controlled by a Youngster From the British Army (Background in Mass Surveillance), So One Can Expect Ubuntu to Not Respect Privacy
- "Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel"
- IBM Hates Computer Freedom. This Means Red Hat Too is an Enemy of Software Freedom.
- A summary of Fedora's position when it comes to "attestation"
- IBM Union Says Many IBM Layoffs in Europe, With Netherlands and Belgium Confirmed, Allegedly Italy Soon (200 Layoffs)
- IBM's demise will harm Red Hat and already harms Red Hat, according to whistleblowers
- Microsoft and Microsoft's 'Open' 'AI' Seeking Bailout From the Pentagon Means Brand Erosion
- Microsoft and its offshoots growing more and more dependent on military ("defence"; "Department of War") budget
- Another EPO Strike a Fortnight From Now, Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Shares 127-Page Document Explaining How Policies Impact EPO Staff
- The Office is circling down the drain
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 3 Out of 200: A More In-Depth Breakdown
- presents the narrative in a less chronological and more logically coherent fashion
- 2026 Seems Like (Potentially) the Last Year of Slop Drowning News Sites
- Sites that do so perish [...] It's getting hard to find slop in news sites which cover "Linux" because many gave up
- Links 05/03/2026: New LexisNexis Data Breach Confirmed, "Goldman Sachs Head During Financial Crisis Says He “Smells” a Similar Crash Coming"
- Links for the day
- "Silent Layoffs" or "Forever Layoffs" at IBM and Red Hat (After Bluewashing)
- Like every day (all day long) we can see people who leave IBM and say something that's based on a 'script'
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Others Promoting String of RMS Talks, Starting Tomorrow in Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology
- Well done, FSF!
- Links 05/03/2026: A Bet Against Substack, American Government Openly Hostile Towards Environment
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/03/2026: Greed and Sentiments Shifting Against Slop
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, March 04, 2026
- FSF Promoting Richard M. Stallman (RMS) Talk in Switzerland in Just Over a Day From Now
- RMS may have more talks on the way
- Why Slop Will Flop - Part IV - We've Seen the End of It
- Some years ago they insisted blockchains would revolutionise everything
- Android is Proprietary 'Linux' and It Becomes More Malicious Over Time, Google Only Delayed What It Planned All Along
- Google is a proprietary software giant, GSoC is only a distraction and confusion
- Links 04/03/2026: Scam Altman Causes Chatbot Sub Numbers to Plunge, "Stocks Drop as Inflation Risk Emerges"
- Links for the day
- Why Slop Will Flop - Part III - Our Relationship With Slop (and Yours)
- I never - except inadvertently - "used" an LLM-based chatbot
- Why Slop Will Flop - Part II - Devil in the Details
- News sites or social control media sites which tolerate slop are digging their own grave
- Simpler Means Faster
- Do you know your bottlenecks?
- Gemini Links 04/03/2026: About a Missing Symbol and "Good Manners"
- Links for the day
- The Register MS Takes Money From Chinese Surveillance Threat to Promote a Ponzi Scheme
- "Sponsored by Huawei."
- Nicaragua's GNU/Linux Usage Measured at Over 8% by statCounter
- Nicaragua is a poor country, but it also has rich culture
- Why Slop Will Flop - Part I - Slop Fatigue Prevalent
- See, sooner or later people (audiences of colleagues) find out and as soon as they find out you are slopping, they will lose interest
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 2 Out of 200: Detailed Timeline From 2012 (Attack on Reporters That Question Restricted Boot) to 2024 (Lawsuit Against Reporter and His Wife in Another Continent)
- we reproduce a document produced 2 years ago to give people more context and more facts
- Links 04/03/2026: "The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling" and a call to "Nationalize Amazon"
- Links for the day
- Coming Soon: Evidence of Abuse in Our IRC Network
- IRC's freedom can sometimes be its 'weakness' if not properly guarded
- High GNU/Linux Adoption in Brunei Darussalam
- It's worth noting (or at least noticing) that Microsoft loses ground in some of the countries where the government contracts paid the most
- Media Blackout Reducing or Preventing Press Coverage of Microsoft Layoffs in 2026
- Worse yet, there will be gaslighting and deceit
- GNU/Linux in Laptops/Desktops Still Matters, It's Likely the Only Way to Achieve Software Freedom
- Software Freedom requires all sorts of things at the "OS level"
- Gemini Links 04/03/2026: The Garnet Star, The Hunt, The SYN Attacks
- Links for the day
- The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Discussion Illuminates How Much Worse Things Have Gotten ("on Strike and Participated in the 'Meeting'")
- a videoconference - not a physical meeting - discussed EPO policies
- Free Software Foundation Supports Its Founder, Advertises His Talks in Switzerland
- When you suppress voices, assuming the reasons for suppression are bunk, it is always bound to backfire very badly
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, March 03, 2026
- Over 1,500 EPO Workers Went on Strike Last Week
- a new publication which celebrates some accomplishments of industrial actions and calls for further actions
- Madame Streisand Wanted to Censor The Web, Instead She 'Created' a New Term, "Streisand Effect"
- It is basically an own goal
- Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Failed to Detect Fraud in Law Firms... Until It Was Too Late
- Earlier today we contacted some more politicians about this and received mail from them as well
- Our EPO and IBM Coverage Bears Fruit
- In case insiders want to get in touch with us, please ensure or at least try doing so securely
- Defending Women Isn't a Crime, Everybody Can Agree on That
- Their culture is unlike ours
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VI - Influx of Spaniards and Portuguese Workers (+77%) at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Led by the 'Alicante Mafia'
- There is now data supporting this assertion, new and complete data in fact
- Links 03/03/2026: "Scam Altman in Damage Control" and Oil Traffic Disrupted
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 03/03/2026: Phones, LLMs, and Changes on the Web
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Confirms Talk in Bern Next Week
- Dr. Stallman has just formally confirmed his third talk this month in Switzerland
- Nobody is Safe at IBM (or Red Hat)
- There is no job security at IBM
- GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Guam
- there are many computers in that island
- Bad faith: Hugo Roy knew FSFE impersonating FSF before French tribunal, colleagues deceived
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 1 Out of 200: Claim No. KB-2024-001270 in a Nutshell
- abuse of process by a law firm working for an American who was arrested for strangling women and another American whose own spouse calls a "rapist"
- When EPO Team Managers (TMs) Are Harassing People Who Strictly Apply the European Patent Convention (EPC) in Patent Examination
- There are two strikes planned for this month
- Confirmed: Using Slop Gets You Fired
- Let the story of Benj Edwards be a cautionary tale
- Links 03/03/2026: "No one wants to read your AI slop" and "chatbots in the kill chain"
- Links for the day
- EPO and "Equivalent to More Than 100 Days of Strike"
- The industrial actions continue and already have a positive effect
- Streisand Effect, the Microsoft Way
- Microsoft has once again proven the Streisand Effect
- Keeping Track of IBM Layoffs in March 2026
- IBM depends on bribery
- GNU/Linux Measured at 7% in Yemen
- Windows is too hostile and dangerous
- Links 03/03/2026: Security Breaches, Iceland Wants EU Membership, and "Wall Street–Backed Lawmakers Want to Help Banks Gouge You"
- Links for the day
- Queensland Health Payroll System: IBM billion-dollar-blowout inquiry
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, March 02, 2026
- Gemini Links 03/03/2026: GrapheneOS and Keyboard Shortcuts
- Links for the day