Watching Abuses of Power: Police, Secret Agencies, Militarism, Surveillance, and Censorship
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-16 13:02:13 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-16 13:13:34 UTC
Police
Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term sexual relationships with undercover policemen have attacked the government's failure to ban such behaviour in a newly published code of conduct.
Torture and Drones
Watching Sen. Dianne Feinstein tear into the Central Intelligence Agency on the Senate floor the other day brought to mind a 1970s-era television commercial about a margarine supposedly indistinguishable from butter.
“Chiffon’s so delicious, it fooled even you, Mother Nature,” says the narrator.
The portrait that emerges is of an intelligence agency that operates outside of all legal constraints, rejects any genuine congressional oversight, and functions as a law unto itself.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) spying charges are "very serious" and warned that Brennan's aggressive reaction risks undermining the relationship between Congress and the CIA.
More than five years into his presidency, Barack Obama has yet to undertake a major reform of U.S. intelligence, even letting CIA Director John Brennan, who was implicated in Bush-Cheney abuses, block reports on those offenses. That must change, says ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman.
The old Washington adage that the cover-up is worse than the crime may not apply when it comes to the revelations this week that the Central Intelligence Agency interfered with a Senate torture investigation. It’s not that the cover-up isn’t serious. It is extremely serious—as Senator Dianne Feinstein said, the CIA may have violated the separation of powers, the Fourth Amendment, and a prohibition on spying inside the United States. It’s just that in this case, the underlying crimes are still worse: the dispute arises because the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Feinstein chairs, has written an as-yet-secret 6,300 page report on the CIA’s use of torture and disappearance—among the gravest crimes the world recognizes—against al-Qaeda suspects in the “war on terror.”
The scandal started quietly last week when Sen. Mark Udall wrote a letter to President Obama, alleging that the CIA had taken "unprecedented action" against investigators who wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee's still-classified report on the U.S. torture program.
Feinstein called them the Panetta Review, in reference to the former C.I.A. director Leon Panetta, who left the agency in 2011. The documents were prepared by C.I.A. officers, and although their contents are secret, their subject matter is clear and vitally important: the true history of the brutal interrogation of about a hundred Al Qaeda leaders and suspects at offshore C.I.A. “black sites” between roughly 2002 and 2006, on orders of the Bush Administration. The interrogations included the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as waterboarding, which constituted torture in the judgment of the Red Cross and many other authorities. Feinstein suggested that the Panetta Review may illuminate still disputed issues; namely, whether the program produced significant intelligence, whether the C.I.A. lied to Congress about it, and how cruel and degrading the black sites really were.
It emerges from the USA that 9,000 documents proving direct involvement of the White House in cases of brutal torture are being withheld from the Senate Committee by the Obama administration
Confirmation of Caroline Krass had been put on hold by Senate to gain leverage against CIA in procuring post-9/11 documents
[...]
Krass had already cleared the Senate committee, but Udall put her on hold to gain leverage for the committee in its struggle for access to CIA documents relevant to its extensive study of the agency’s post-9/11 interrogation, rendition and detention program, which involved torture.
[...]
Eatinger, a longtime agency lawyer with counter-terrorism experience, was cited on Monday by the panel’s chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein of California, in her seminal speech lashing out at the CIA. Without naming him, Feinstein indicated he was instrumental in the agency’s now-abandoned torture practices, and had been cited over 1,600 times in the classified Senate torture investigation.
The US has put up its defence at the United Nations in Geneva over charges that it is guilty of widespread human rights violations, claiming that the military commissions at Guantanámo Bay meet – and exceed – fair trial standards and that agencies engaging in mass surveillance are subject to “rigorous oversight”.
Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guantánamo
One report says the UK is guilty of ‘complicity in Israeli crimes against’ Palestinians after field-testing a drone on refugees in Gaza. Another report calls for independent investigations into attacks that kill civilians.
On the heels of the disclosure of access to information (ATI) requests that revealed that researchers at the Aerospace Mechatronics Laboratory at McGill have received over $500,000 in contracts from the Defence Research and Development Canada centre in Suffield since 2004, Demilitarize McGill took action the morning of March 14 to blockade the Laboratory.
The U.S. fast-tracked the sale of 12 Reaper drones to France last year, the first two of which started operating in Niger in January alongside U.S. drones that are already in operation.
Under the moniker Juniper Micron, the U.S. military supported France’s effort, airlifting its soldiers and materiel into Mali, flying refueling missions in support of its airpower, and providing “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” (ISR) through drone operations out of Base Aerienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of neighboring Niger. The U.S. Army Africa AFISMA document also makes reference to the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team with communications support. Despite repeated pledges that it would put no boots on the ground in troubled Mali, in the spring of 2013, the Pentagon sent a small contingent to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako and others to support French and MINUSMA troops.
Protesters from across the country rallied in Des Moines on Saturday against the U.S. military’s drone warfare.
Earlier this week, it was announced the Air National Guard Base would turn into a drone command center. The announcement has been getting people riled up.
"The drone situation has gotten completely out of hand and there are too many thousands of innocent people getting killed by them," said Gilbert Landolt, President of the Des Moines Chapter of Veterans for Peace.
A southwestern Ohio high school is using a course involving drone simulations to spark students' interest in technology careers.
Senate Bill 167 requires law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before using drones. Like HB 128, it requires the deletion of data that does not pertain to a suspect. Importantly, given the emergence and adoption of this potentially invasive technology, this bill requires police agencies to report drone use to lawmakers, and the public at large, so we can all understand their prevalence and practical application.
According to a newly-released Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Barack Obama’s job-approval ratings have dipped to a new low of 41 percent with a full 54 percent of respondents saying they “disapproved” of the job he’s doing. Obama’s handling of the economy, health care and foreign policy were particular areas of concern for most respondents. On health care, Obama is seen as having strengthened the for-profit insurance industry with little benefit for ordinary working people. The survey also showed “the lowest-ever approval” for the president’s handling of foreign policy. And, on the economy, the results were even more shocking; a full 57% of the people polled “believe the U.S. is still in a recession” while “65 percent think the country is on the wrong track”. Widespread disappointment in Obama’s performance has weakened his support among blacks, Hispanics and women, traditionally, the most loyal groups in the Party’s base.
People from Yemen and Pakistan and elsewhere have told me, and have testified in the U.S. Congress, that they have a hard time convincing their neighbors that everyone in the United States doesn’t hate them. There are buzzing killer robots flying over their houses night and day and every now and then blowing a bunch of people up with a missile with very little rhyme or reason that anyone nearby can decipher. They don’t know where to go or not go, what to do or not do, to be safe or keep their children safe. Their children have instinctively taken to crouching and covering their heads just like U.S. children in the 1950s were taught to do as supposed protection from Soviet nuclear weapons.
Militarism
A federal judge has told the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other federal offices to continue looking for records pertaining to the disappearance of four transport planes in 1980.
The case was brought before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly by plaintiff Stephen Whitaker, who has attempted to obtain information about four DC-3 aircraft, one of which was flown by his father, Harold William Whitaker.
Stephen Whitaker filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the CIA, as well as the Department of Defense and the State Department, to learn if they possessed records that might explain what happened to the DC-3s.
The burning of the General National Congress Sunday — though not the first attack on the body — could portend the complete collapse of Libya’s beleaguered political process, writes Kamel Abdallah
The New Zealand Herald (14 March) published two stories of violence over Gaza with the headlines 'Israeli warplanes strike back in Gaza' and 'Rockets strike Israel, jeopardising truce talk'. Those headlines and the general tone of reporting gave the impression that the Israeli military action was simply a response to unprovoked Palestinian aggression. The actual record of the balance and timing of violence over the Gaza Strip reveals a different reality.
This month, before the actions reported in those stories, there were no Palestinian missile attacks on Israel for the first four days, whereas Israel attacked Gaza on each of the first three. These attacks included Israeli drone strikes that killed two Palestinians in Beit Hanun and wounded twochildren – one of them critically. In those first three days, Israeli artillery fired upon North Beit Lahiya, Abasan al-Kabira and Khuza’a.
Ukraine
One pro-Russia protester and a passerby were killed when Ukrainian nationalists opened fire on a group of men trying to storm their headquarters in the city late on Friday, police sources said.
The United States and Russia failed Friday to resolve a Cold-War-style standoff sparked by Moscow’s military intervention in Crimea, as the clock ticks down to the region’s vote on splitting from Ukraine.
Next partner on Jazenjuks site is none other than the Chatham House - better known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs ( RIIA ), the British counterpart of the American imperialists Network Council on Foreign Relations . Get paid the projects of the Chatham House , among others, Rockefeller , Bill Gates, NATO, the EU and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation . A beautiful Sauhaufen , one is tempted to say. All militarists , imperialists and rebels .
It was Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who coined the phrase: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Goebbels’ words came to mind when reading the German newspapers on Monday.
[...]
The claim that Russia or Putin himself are the aggressors in Ukraine turns reality on its head. The reality is that the United States and Germany have deliberately fomented the crisis in Ukraine to provoke a confrontation with Russia. They have overthrown the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych with the aid of fascist gangs and brought to power a right-wing nationalist regime that is completely subordinate to the dictates of Washington and NATO.
Privacy
Top Democrat on House intelligence committee says details are still being worked on but proposal would end bulk collection
Google has started to encrypt searches made by people in China.
The move is widely seen as a way for users of the search engine to avoid official scrutiny of where they go online, reports the Washington Post.
INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE GIANT Google has started encrypting its search data to protect users from surveillance by state intelligence outfits like the US National Security Agency (NSA) as well as hackers.
You already know that laptops, desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones are all at risk of being hacked. But did you know that intruders might use the built-in camera to take surreptitious pictures and videos of you and your surroundings or hijack your microphone to eavesdrop on conversations?
The latest story from the Edward Snowden leaks yesterday drives home that the NSA and its spy partners possess specialised tools for doing exactly that. According to The Intercept, the NSA uses a plug-in called GUMFISH to take over cameras on infected machines and snap photos.
Mark Zuckerberg is furious with US President Barack Obama, who - metaphorically, at least - clasped his hands over his ears and repeatedly said to himself "I can't hear you" when the Facebook boss tried to grumble about spies spying on people.
Indeed, at an appearance at the recent South by Southwest festival, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt likened NSA’s surveillance programs to hacking by the Chinese government.
Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales discusses NSA surveillance and internet transparency. He speaks with Francine Lacqua and Guy Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.”
One week after the ACLU filed the first appellate brief challenging the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, we’re getting a little help from our friends. Yesterday, seven prominent and diverse organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of our challenge, which is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Ladar Levison sits exhausted, slumped on a sofa with his dog Princess on his lap. He is surrounded by boxes after he moved into a new house in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, the previous day.
A couple of weeks back we covered the American Bar Association asking for assurance from the NSA that attorney-client communications, even those involving foreign clients, would remain out of the agency's reach. This was prompted by a leak that showed the NSA had given an Australian intelligence agency the go-ahead to intercept communications between a US law firm and its Indonesian clients.
International Business Machines Corp has not relinquished its customers' data to the U.S. government and would challenge any orders to do so, the company said in a blog post on Friday.
BBC News about the call of Tim Berners Lee for a Bill of Rights to protect internet freedom, and astonishingly they managed not to mention NSA, GHCQ or government surveillance at any point.
Tim Berners-Lee thinks the internet deserves its own bill of rights. Twenty-five years after writing a draft proposal about what would later become the world wide web – and one day after describing his proposal of an internet ‘Magna Carta’ to the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss – Berners-Lee took his idea to an interested audience: the denizens of Reddit’s Ask Me Anything section.
One of the biggest stories in journalism last year had to do with the revelations from Edward Snowden about the extent of the National Security Administration’s surveillance program, which includes harvesting data from the cell phones and internet usage of non-accused American citizens as well as foreigners and their leaders.
Next month, the trustees who oversee America’s most distinguished journalistic award could face their toughest decision in at least four decades.
The issue is very complicated. Honoring the NSA reporting in the coveted category of Public Service would be perceived as a political act, with the Pulitzer committee invoking its prestige on behalf of one side in a bitter national argument. In effect, it would be a rebuttal to prominent establishment voices in both parties who say that Snowden’s revelations, and the decision by journalists to publish them, were the exact opposite of a public service. The Justice Department is charging Snowden with three felonies. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has called him “a traitor.”
Better late than never: it appears that Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off about the NSA surveillance efforts. This comes in the wake of the recent reports that the NSA sought to build a malware empire by setting up a bogus Facebook server to intercept traffic and fool users. While there have been indications that Facebook hasn't been happy about all of this, Zuckerberg has taken to his Facebook page to really dig in, noting that he'd even called President Obama to express his thoughts on the matter.
First they came for the Muslims, but I was not a Muslim so did not speak up.
Getty Images—among the world's largest providers of stock and editorial photos—has announced a major change to the way it is offering its pictures for sites to use. Beginning this week, in addition to the traditional licensing options, people can embed images in their sites at no cost and with no watermarks, so long as they use the provided embed code and iframe.
In August 2011, the federal government announced plans to consolidate more than 100 different email systems used by over 300,000 employees into a single, outsourced email system. While the email transition is currently underway -- Bell won the nearly $400 million contract last year -- the decision quietly sparked a trade fight with the United States that placed the spotlight on the risks associated with hosting computer data outside the country.
It's not clear what value hackers might find in perusing the chats of WhatsApp users, but that's small comfort to those who'd rather not expose their private conversations. An Android developer presented a proof of concept showing how the deed could be done, but there's no reason to believe that any thieves have penetrated the WhatsApp vault. It could mean a snag in Facebook's acquisition deal.
Balancing openness and privacy is often a false division...
Digital campaigners, the Open Rights Group, welcome today’s vote in the European Parliament to approve a Regulation on data protection. The Regulation will strengthen European citizens’ rights over their data.
Today, the European Parliament passed an important resolution condemning the US and EU surveillance programmes. La Quadrature du Net welcomes this non-binding resolution as it calls for the suspension of both the “Safe Harbor” agreement and of the illegal mass surveillance programmes and reaffirms the importance of the protection of citizens' fundamental right to privacy. Ahead of European elections, citizens should now act to ensure that privacy will be a major concern of the next legislative period so that this call is listened to by the European Commission.
Today the European Parliament adopted Jan Philipp Albrecht's report on the General Data Protection Regulation at first reading. MEPs finally succeeded in resisting pressure by lobbyists, rejecting most of their harmful proposals. Although important improvements were adopted, the dangerous concepts of “legitimate interest” and “pseudonomyous data” remain and could make the final text ineffective in protecting citizens.
Censorship
Russia's government has escalated its use of its Internet censorship law to target news sites, bloggers, and politicians under the slimmest excuse of preventing unauthorized protests and enforcing house arrest regulations. Today, the country's ISPs have received orders to block a list of major news sites and system administrators have been instructed to take the servers providing the content offline.
Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the UK. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write. For instance, if I were to say that I hoped my work at WikiLeaks would change government behaviour, this journalistic work could be considered a crime under the UK Terrorism Act of 2000.
The act gives a definition of terrorism as an act or threat "designed to influence the government", that "is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause" and that would pose a "serious risk" to the health or safety of a section of the public. UK government officials have continually asserted that this risk is present with the disclosure of any "classified" document.
From September onwards the police in Victoria will have the power to ‘move on’ groups of people at their will, including those involved in peaceful protests and pickets. Those who refuse to comply with these orders can be issued with fines of $750, exclusion orders, and gaol terms of up to 2 years.
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