03.16.14

Watching Abuses of Power: Police, Secret Agencies, Militarism, Surveillance, and Censorship

Posted in News Roundup at 8:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Police

• Alleged victims’ fury at failure to ban undercover police seduction tactics

  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.

• Ex-cop who fatally shot moviegoer for texting turns out to also have been texting

Torture and Drones

• Former CIA official calls for release of report on CIA’s post-9/11 interrogations

• CIA has a lot of explaining to do

• Ruth Marcus: The CIA as its own worst enemy

  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.

• CIA Intimidation, Obstruction and Spying on US Congress: Obama’s “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

  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.

• Lawmaker ‘taken aback’ by CIA’s tough response to spying allegations

  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.

• Eugene Robinson: The CIA is out of line

• Unsettled legacy of torture looms over CIA-Congress feud

• Time for CIA’s Brennan to Go

  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 CIA’s Poisonous Tree

  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.”

• CIA spying on Congress: ‘Undercover’ officer duped JFK investigators in ’78

  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.

• The Senator vs. The C.I.A.

  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.

• CIA’s nemesis: Dianne Feinstein – renowned campaigner against gun ownership and for gay rights

• SEN. FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Obama White House Ordered CIA to Spy on Congress, an Impeachable Offense

• Is Obama A Phony On Torture?

• The Torture Cover-Up

  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

• Senate sets up departure of top CIA lawyer by lifting block on successor

  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.

• US responds to Guantánamo Bay and NSA criticisms made by UN committee

  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”.

• Human Rights Committee Reviews The Report Of The United States

• US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones

  Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guantánamo

• Report: UK Guilty Of Complicity In Israeli Field Testing Of Drones On Gaza Refugees (Video)

  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.

• Demilitarize McGill blockades site of campus drone research

  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.

• U.S. troops tread lightly in African training mission

  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.

• Washington’s Back-to-the-Future Military Policies in Africa: A New Model for Expeditionary Warfare

  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.

• Washington’s Back-to-the-Future

• Protesters rally against drones at Des Moines air base

  Protesters from across the country rallied in Des Moines on Saturday against the U.S. military’s drone warfare.

• Protestors Rally Against 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.

• Ohio high school uses drone simulations for course

  A southwestern Ohio high school is using a course involving drone simulations to spark students’ interest in technology careers.

• Op-ed: Utah legislators stood up for Fourth Amendment

  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.

• Obama: The Willing Executioner

  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.

• World Has No Idea How U.S. Decides on Wars

  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

• Why is the CIA Fighting Release of Documents Relating to 4 Planes that Went Missing in 1980?

  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.

• ‘US Troops Out Now’: Philippine Protesters Push Against Base Expansion

• Libya steps further into chaos

  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

• Gaza reporting: the importance of balance and timing

  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

• On the U.S. Government’s Hypocritical Demand That Russia Respect Sovereignty And International Law

• Villagers near Crimean border find themselves on tense new frontline

• Two die as Ukraine braces for Crimea breakaway vote

  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.

• Crimea goes to the polls for a referendum on breaking away from Ukraine to join Russia

• Talks On Crimea Fail as Referendum Vote Nears

  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.

• Order subversion: New Ukraine leader is an agent of NATO

  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 .

• War propaganda in the German media

  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 panel offers new NSA reform plan

  Top Democrat on House intelligence committee says details are still being worked on but proposal would end bulk collection

• Google encrypts search text in China

  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.

• Google starts encrypting search data to protect users from NSA snooping

  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.

• How to stop NSA spying through your webcam

  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.

• Facebook’s Zuckerberg buttonholes Obama, rages against NSA dragnet spying

  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.

• Editorial: NSA raises risks for social media

  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’s Wales: NSA’s Not Going to Win in Fight

  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.”

• NSA mimics criminals in bid to infect millions of computers, report says

• Friends in High Places Support NSA Call-Tracking Lawsuit

  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.

• Who is winning the ‘crypto-war’?

  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.

• NSA About Attorney-Client Privilege Concerns: We’ll Probably Grab Your Communications But We’ll Try Not To ‘Listen In’

  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.

• IBM denies sharing customers data with US government

  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.

• The Servile State

  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: ‘We should have ways of protecting people like Snowden’

  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.

• Should the NSA revelations win the Pulitzer Prize?

  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.

• Edward Snowden looms over Pulitzer Prizes

  Next month, the trustees who oversee America’s most distinguished journalistic award could face their toughest decision in at least four decades.

• Snowden might receive Pulitzer Prize for NSA surveillance revelations

  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.”

• Pulitzer Prize board to clash over awarding Snowden reporters

• Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Has Become A Threat To, Rather Than A Champion For, The Internet

  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.

• Google cuts Drive storage rates, offers 1TB for mere $9.99; but not for Linux

• Niemoeller Redux

  First they came for the Muslims, but I was not a Muslim so did not speak up.

• Getty Images Allows Free Embedding, but at What Cost to Privacy?

  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.

• Don’t Put Your Trust in the Cloud

  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.

• WhatsApp Flaw Opens Database Doors to Hackers

  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.

• Openness and Privacy in Big Data

  Balancing openness and privacy is often a false division…

• Open Rights Group calls on UK government to end opposition to stronger European privacy rights

  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.

• European Commission Must Listen to Parliament’s Call to Act Against Surveillance Programmes

  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.

• Major Loopholes Remain in European Parliament’s Data Protection Regulation

  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 Blocks Access to Major Independent News Sites

  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.

• Britain is treating journalists as terrorists – believe me, I know

  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.

• R.I.P FREE SPEECH: Protesters can now be charged $750 or 2 years gaol for attending protests in Victoria

  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.

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

Hardware Freedom Day is Done

Posted in News Roundup at 4:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Hardware Freedom Day celebrated yesterday all around the world and the trend of open source 3D printing is worth noting

• Today is Hardware Freedom Day!

  For its second edition Hardware Freedom Day is happening with over 40 registered teams and one more sponsor in the name of LulzBot offering 8x3D printers for the event, product which has been RYF-certified by our partner the FSF. Canonical, Google and Linode are of course still part of our long term sponsors and we are trying to reward all our supporters as well. You can find more details on that by looking at the HFD website.

• Out in the Open: The Men Supercharging Neuroscience With Open Source Hardware

  The first Open Ephys projects include components for recording electrical signals in mice brains, and a software interface for collecting data. Unlike something along the lines of the open source brain scanning tool Open BCI, the Open Ephys tools are aimed at neuroscience researchers, not at engineers and game developers. Nonetheless, in building these contraptions, Siegle and Voigts have turned to many of the same tools used by other hardware hackers across the country, including the Arduino open source circuit board “We like Arduinos because lots of people know how to use them, and they’re easy to get your hands on,” Siegle says.

• OpenKnit: Open source 3D knitter lets you digitally fabricate your clothes (Video)

  Cheap, disposable fashion is not only an environmental problem, but is also about companies giving their workers unfair wages and unsafe working environments. Various solutions to this widespread problem include shopping at thrift stores, clothing swaps, buying local and handmade, but making your own clothes can also be a way to ensure that your clothes are ethically made — by you.

• Stratasys Q4 strong, aims to take MakerBot, 3D printing mainstream

• Bone replacements and heart monitors spur health revolution in open source 3D printing

  The evolution of 3D printing has moved quickly and it is now poised to alter every aspect of our lives and health. Thousands of Europeans are enjoying 3D-printed metal orthopaedic implants to support or replace missing bones and, in the US, thousands more have benefited from 3D printing used by dentists. Most people that need hearing aids have custom 3D-printed devices comfortably resting in their ears now.

• 3D Printing’s Next Revolution: Linux

  3D printers may be trendy, but they are hardly new. One of the earliest of all is the RepRap project, which began back in 2005. As its name implies – it’s short for “replicating rapid” prototyper – RepRap is designed to be able to produce copies of itself, or at least most of its parts. Not only that, it is completely open source, both in terms of its hardware (which uses Arduino kit) and software.

  Because of its open nature it has gone on to form the basis of many other 3D-printing systems, including those from MakerBot.

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

03.14.14

Privacy Watch: UN Voices Anger, Zuckerberg Phones Obama, Corporate Looting at Risk, Constitution Ignored

Posted in News Roundup at 4:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

NSA/GCHQ

• US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones

  Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guantánamo

• Zuckerberg calls Obama over NSA

  Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg has called president Barack Obama to express his frustration over what he says is long-lasting damage caused by the US government’s surveillance programmes.

• NSA denies Facebook snooping as Zuckerberg lays into Obama

  Facebook’s CEO says he called President Obama to express his ‘frustration’ at repeated revelations of NSA snooping

• That NSA denial in full: As of right now, we’re not pretending to be Facebook or Twitter

  …how US spy hive the NSA today branded claims that it “has infected millions of computers around the world with malware,” and that it “is impersonating US social media or other websites” to eavesdrop on people.

• GCHQ helped NSA generate automated hacks

  Human oversight is being made redundant by an automated hacking system called TURBINE setup by the NSA — with help from GCHQ — which uses fake Facebook servers to infect users’ systems. Former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald has released detailed information on the network, which had already come to light last year, and the workings behind it on his site The Intercept.

• A Close Look at the NSA’s Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool

• NSA bulk spying may see termination of EU-US agreements – MEP resolution

  The EU threatens the abolition of its trade agreement with the US, and other deals, if blanket surveillance by the NSA on EU citizens doesn’t stop. MEPs announced a resolution that wraps up a six-month inquiry into America’s violation of data privacy.

Drones

• Your comments: How much have drone protesters’ trials cost taxpayers

  Prosecuting the drone protesters in the town of DeWitt has cost taxpayers $42,786 so far, and more trials are expected to take place in the near future.

  DeWitt officials said the upcoming trials of the activists charged in connection with drone protests at Hancock Air Base could double that cost, The recent trial of protesters resulted in 12 people being sent to jail. DeWitt Town Justice David Gideon found them guilty of disorderly conduct in connection with the October 2012 protest. They were given a 15-day sentence.

• Debate: Should The President Be Able To Order Citizens Killed Abroad?

• The US Drone War and Human Rights

• Dirty Wars is an unsettling look at covert wars waged by the U.S.; catch a free screening, Thursday night at McGill University

• Should This Drone Have Flown Over East Harlem Firefighters?

  Firefighters were still unloading debris from the scene of Wednesday’s explosion in East Harlem that killed seven people and injured dozens when a three-pound DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter drone began buzzing above the wreckage.

CIA

• The White House Is Firmly on the Side of the CIA in Its War with the Senate

  It seems that President Obama has chosen sides in the fight between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over a report describing the agency’s torture program under President George W. Bush. The executive branch is standing with the CIA, standing behind its director, and even reportedly withholding documents from the Senate investigation.

• The Outrageous and Criminal Cover-Up By Obama and the CIA

  Imagine you commit a heinous crime. Then imagine that, once facing charges in court, you’re allowed to withhold incriminating evidence brought forth by the prosecutors, keeping the jury in the dark about the details of your lawbreaking. Further, imagine you commit more crimes while on trial and imagine the judge enables and covers up these additional offenses.

• White House refuses to hand over top-secret documents to Senate committee

  The White House is refusing to hand over top-secret documents to a Senate investigation into CIA torture and rendition of terrorism suspects, claiming it needs to ensure that “executive branch confidentiality” is respected.

  In the latest development in the spiralling clash between Congress and the administration over oversight of the intelligence agencies, Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that certain material from the George W Bush presidency was being withheld for fear of weakening Oval Office privacy.

• Chances for prosecution unclear in CIA-Senate spat

  A fight between the Senate and the CIA over whether crimes were committed in the handling of sensitive classified material appears unlikely to be resolved in the courts, legal experts say.

• Our view: Cloaks, daggers and the CIA

  Congress needs to get to the bottom of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s astonishing allegations of a CIA attempt to intimidate congressional staffers investigating the spy agency’s past actions.

  Feinstein, a Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, can have no partisan motive in roiling these waters. And she has been a firm supporter of the agency, even defending the CIA’s controversial use of armed drones to kill terrorists overseas.

• American Proxy Wars in Africa

• Senate approves CIA counsel amid snooping fight

  The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the nomination of Caroline Krass to serve as the CIA’s top lawyer amid a snooping fight pitting the spy agency against Congress and ensnaring the CIA’s acting general counsel.

• Senate confirms Caroline Krass as CIA general counsel

• Ego trumps principle: Sen. Feinstein Finally Goes after the CIA, but not for Lying to and Spying on US

  Feinstein, after all, as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2009, has yet to see an NSA violation of the Constitution, an invasive spying program or a creative “re-interpretation” of the law that she hasn’t applauded as being lawful and “needed” to “keep people safe.”

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

03.13.14

Links 13/3/2014: Games

Posted in News Roundup at 6:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

Links 13/3/2014: Applications

Posted in News Roundup at 6:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

Links 13/3/2014: Instructionals

Posted in News Roundup at 6:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

Samsung Galaxy Back Door, NSA Malware, Congressional Backlash, More Drone Strikes, and Ukraine Intervention

Posted in News Roundup at 6:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Android

• Replicant developers find and close Samsung Galaxy back-door

  While working on Replicant, a fully free/libre version of Android, we discovered that the proprietary program running on the applications processor in charge of handling the communication protocol with the modem actually implements a back-door that lets the modem perform remote file I/O operations on the file system.

• Replicant Developers Find Backdoor In Android Samsung Galaxy Devices

Privacy

• Think Deleted Text Messages Are Gone Forever? Think Again

  Last month, National Football League special investigator Ted Wells delivered a shocking report about Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito’s bullying tactics aimed at teammate Jonathan Martin. At the heart of the report: More than 1,000 text messages, many of them outrageously explicit, that Incognito and Martin swapped between October 2012 and November 2013.

NSA’s Latest Scandal

• Lawmakers fail to ask NSA chief about agency’s malware plans

• The NSA reportedly poses as Facebook to spread malware

• Documents Say NSA Pretends to Be Facebook in Surveillance

• How the NSA plans to automatically infect “millions” of computers with spyware

• NSA’s TURBINE robot pumps ‘malware into MILLIONS of PCs’

  The latest batch of top-secret intelligence documents from the hoard collected by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the massive increase in the agency’s use of its Tailored Access Operations (TAO) hacking unit – including a system dubbed TURBINE that can spam out millions of pieces of sophisticated malware at a time.

• NSA posed as Facebook in effort to infect ‘millions’ of computers with malware as part of its ‘Owning the Net’ program, stolen documents reveal

• NSA ‘hijacked’ criminal botnets to install spyware

  While U.S. law enforcement agencies have long tried to stamp out networks of compromised computers used by cyber criminals, the National Security Agency has been hijacking the so-called botnets as a resource for spying.

  The NSA has “co-opted” more than 140,000 computers since August 2007 for the purpose of injecting them with spying software, according to a slide leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept news website on Wednesday.

US Congress

• Leading House Lawmaker Wants NSA Phone-Data Collection to End

• Ruppersberger calls for an end to NSA’s phone data collection

• Key lawmaker favors ending NSA data sweeps

  The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday that he favors ending the National Security Agency’s widespread collection of U.S. citizens’ phone data, making him the first of the four leaders of the congressional intelligence panels to do so.

European Parliament

• Europarl Suspends U.S. Trade Talks, Data Sharing Over Mass Surveillance

• European Parliament wants an end to NSA PRISM data haul

  THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT is miffed about data snarfing by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and has threatened the country with an end to the Safe Harbor agreement.

• MEPs want co-operation with the US to be suspended

  The European Parliament voted yesterday (12 March) to adopt a resolution condemning spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on EU citizens.

• MEPs call for immediate halt to NSA surveillance

  The European Parliament’s consent to the EU-US trade deal “could be endangered” if blanket mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) does not stop, MEPs have warned.

• European Parliament wants an end to NSA PRISM data

Google

• Google, China, The Nsa And The Fourth Turning

• Do No Evil Google – Censor & Snitch for the State

Drones

• 8 Questions the World Faces as Lethal Drones Proliferate

  His report on targeted killing, discussed on Tuesday, is partly an effort to spur the United States and other countries to bring drone killing under the auspices of international law. The report sets forth key questions raised by targeted and semi-targeted killing, and encourages the international community to grapple with them.

• U.N. Report on Drone Strikes Calls for Clearer Global Norms and More Accountability

• What Obama Doesn’t Get About Gitmo

  We cannot “kill” terrorism with a drone.

• The CIA Is Not a Fourth Branch of Government

  John F. Kennedy once said he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.” He reached that conclusion after CIA officials, including Director Allen Dulles, had misled him on many of the planning details of the disastrous April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

  With the revelations that the CIA has been aggressively obstructing the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee, even to the point of spying on Senate staff conducting a long overdo review of its “detention and interrogation” program, we see the CIA has not changed its ways.

  The Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, called the committee’s current battle with the CIA “a defining moment for the oversight role of our intelligence committee . . . and whether we can be thwarted by those we oversee.”

• US drone kills three Al Qaeda suspects in Yemen

  Sana’a, March 13: A US drone strike killed three suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen’s Al Jawf province on Wednesday, Yemeni officials said.

• Fear is fear, no matter where you are from

  Earlier this month, I spoke at a panel in Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. During the talk, I showed a photo of a young Yemeni boy in the province of Mareb (which was hit by five drone strikes this month), demonstrating how he ducked in his school as soon as he heard the sound of a plane. He was not sure whether it was a drone or a fighter jet, but he has become used to ducking this way ever since his village was hit and his friend hit with a shrapnel.

• How can secret drones campaign really make us safer?

• How can secret drones really make us safer?

Ukraine

• Between the Lines

  International law is suddenly very popular in Washington. President Obama responded to Russian military intervention in the Crimea by accusing Russia of a “breach of international law.” Secretary of State John Kerry followed up by declaring that Russia is “in direct, overt violation of international law.”

• McCain to lead delegation to Ukraine

  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and a group of senators are slated to travel to Ukraine on Thursday to show support for the new interim government there.

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

03.12.14

Today’s General News: Extraordinary Power and Extraordinary Surveillance

Posted in News Roundup at 5:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Aggression

• Did the CIA Chief Just Dare Obama to Fire Him?

  The normally cool and calm director of the CIA, John Brennan, may have flinched Tuesday. After a scathing speech from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the committee that oversees his agency, Brennan largely defended the CIA from charges that it illegally spied on Senate staffers poring through documents related to the agency’s black site program.

• CIA hacked Senate PCs to delete torture reports. And Senator Feinstein is outraged

• Israel says it regrets killing of Palestinian judge from Jordan

  Israel uses drones to gather intelligence on militant activity in Gaza, a territory governed by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas and where other armed groups also operate.

Drones

• North Africa: Maghreb Jihadists Killed in Mali Airstrike

  France recently acquired the two American-made drones. They are based in Niamey, Niger.

• The bleak comedy of Barack Obama: Mallick

  When politicians perform, as Obama did with comedian Zach Galifianakis this week, the joke’s on us.

  [...]

  Jeremy Scahill has reported that Obama holds what are known as “Terror Tuesdays,” in which he says yes or no to “nominated” targets on a drone kill list. Few Americans know that because they didn’t buy Scahill’s book, Dirty Wars, or see his subsequent documentary. But many Americans will indeed see Obama sitting down with a comic actor and joking with him about drone killing, not comprehending Obama’s sheer gall.

• National Security: Going “Up” or “Down?”

  Of course, both of these documents pre-date the latest explosion of new knowledge about aggressive NSA spying. They don’t reflect new information about the NSA’s forthcoming code-breaking supercomputer that can breach every “secure” https ever created.(2) The two documents I’ve cited above also preceded the current level of critique, both at home and abroad, of U.S. war-proxy drone attacks. New information is now available about not-so-reliable, way too general, and far too remote NSA drone targeting info that does kill the innocent. (3)

• Students asked to help build drone sculpture

  Construction will begin March 16 on a life-size replica of a military drone, an art project on campus that aims to display lives lost in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles.

Privacy

• Snowden told me the NSA set fire to the web. Silicon Valley needs to put it out

  How to move beyond our SXSW talk: revenge of the nerds, one everyday security tool at a time

• NSA nominee backs protection for companies in any cyber law

  President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command said on Tuesday liability protection for corporations that share information with intelligence agencies is crucial in any new U.S. cybersecurity legislation.

• Next NSA Chief Urges Transparency … Then Says Nothing

• NSA director nominee defends bulk data collection

  Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, nominated by President Barack Obama to head the agency at the center of a public firestorm over surveillance, told lawmakers the NSA needs to be able to access the vast amounts of metadata to thwart terror attacks.

• BitTorrent Is Tapping into NSA Fears to Shake Its Criminal Image

• Who Wants To Unplug The NSA? Not Arizona’s State Agencies

  Arizona is one of thirteen states where legislators have proposed a bill that would prohibit states from providing assistance to a federal agency, like the NSA, that collects electronic data or metadata without a warrant. Originally drafted by nonpartisan legal activists, the bill, which is often referred to as the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, has proven popular across the political spectrum thanks to growing unease about the government’s ability to track virtually everything a person does online.

• Forget NSA, India’s Centre for Development of Telematics is one of top 3 worst online spies

  Three of the government bodies designated by Reporters Without Borders as ‘Enemies of the Internet’ are located in democracies that have traditionally claimed to respect fundamental freedoms, a report by the Reporters Without Borders said.

• NSA nominee: Snowden not necessarily a traitor

  Vice Admiral Michael Rogers told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that Snowden caused significant damage by releasing information about the NSA’s surveillance programs, but when asked by Sen. Joe Machin, a West Virginia Democrat, whether he viewed Snowden as a traitor, Rogers said, “I don’t know that I would use the word ‘traitor.’ But I certainly do not consider him to be a hero.”

• CIA steals the limelight from the NSA – and finds itself in full-blown crisis

• Snowden accuses Senate intelligence chair of hypocrisy over CIA disclosures

• The CIA: the double life of Dianne Feinstein

  The exasperation with the Democratic senator from California is that she hasn’t also directed her outrage at the NSA

• Senator Feinstein Takes CIA Spying Accusation to Senate Floor

• What’s Feinstein So Upset About? CIA Just Spied On Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Metadata’

  Earlier today, we wrote about Senator Dianne Feinstein’s justified anger over the CIA “spying” on the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers as they went about putting together a massive (and apparently incredibly damning) report condemning the CIA’s torture program. Having now watched the whole video of her speech, as well as read the transcript, there’s a lot more here to discuss. You can watch the speech yourself if you’d like, or read the full transcript, which we’ve embedded below…

• Computer Network Exploitation vs. Computer Network Attack

  Back when we first started getting reports of the Chinese breaking into U.S. computer networks for espionage purposes, we described it in some very strong language. We called the Chinese actions cyber-attacks. We sometimes even invoked the word cyberwar, and declared that a cyber-attack was an act of war.

  When Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA has been doing exactly the same thing as the Chinese to computer networks around the world, we used much more moderate language to describe U.S. actions: words like espionage, or intelligence gathering, or spying. We stressed that it’s a peacetime activity, and that everyone does it.

Ukraine

• ​World Bank to lend Ukraine $3bn

  The World Bank is ready to grant almost bankrupt Ukraine a loan of up to $3 billion this year to support reforms and infrastructure projects.

  The Washington-based organization already has several projects in Ukraine aimed at reducing poverty.

• Ukraine: How to Hide a Nazi Army

  Still, the impression the Daily Beast would like to get across to readers is that the concept of Neo-Nazis leading the so-called “revolution” in Kiev, is absurd. In fact, the truth that Kiev’s Independence Square was full of Nazis, was right under the nose of the entire world – with a handful of Western journalists even admitting as much.

Venezuela

• What is Going on in Venezuela?

  The majority of the media in today’s Venezuela are private. Many of the private TV stations were actively involved in 2002 coup attempt. Today, the majority of Venezuelans still watch TV stations owned by private corporations. The majority of these stations and most of the main newspapers, although a little bit more diverse politically than in 2002, are anti-government and anti-Chavista. They have not been taken off the air, prevented from printing and the social media has not been shut down. Social media like Facebook and Twitter have been particularly active and inaccurate in portraying Venezuela as a repressive police state with total suppression of the media.

  The mainstream U.S. media (e.g., CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, NBC, etc.) have a very strong anti-Chávez bias and a continued hostility to the building of 21st century socialism in Venezuela. For example, pictures that supposedly showed violent police brutality and repression in Venezuela were actually old photos from police repression in Bulgaria, Egypt and Chile. The New York Times, while generally hostile to the Venezuelan revolution with very biased reporting, has been slightly more balanced recently, even admitting that in the poorer areas of Caracas, there are no signs of protest,

Lockerbie

• Lockerbie

  The UK authorities have known for over 20 years that Megrahi was innocent. The key witness, a Maltese shopkeeper named Tony Gauci, was paid a total of US $7 million for his evidence by the CIA, and was able to adopt a life of luxury that continues to this day. The initial $2 million payment has become public knowledge but that was only the first instalment. This was not an over-eagerness to convict the man the CIA believed responsible; this was a deliberate perversion of justice to move the spotlight from Iran and Syria to clear the way diplomatically for war in Iraq.

Police

• How An Undercover Cop Infiltrated A California High School And Targeted A Loner With Autism

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend