The Metadata 'Blackmail Machine' At The Heart Of Britain's Digital Policy Deficit

David Davis has a problem. The Tory heavyweight and 2005 leadership contender who was once the face of opposition to ID cards has now focused the full force of his influence on digital freedom, privacy and surveillance.

The thing is, everyone knew what an ID card was. But when it comes to digital freedom and surveillance, his problem is getting David Cameron, Theresa May, and the majority of parliament, to even comprehend what he is talking about.

Politicians, to put it bluntly, don’t understand the internet. And he is palpably correct. This has been a Parliament where the prime minister suggested he might ban Snapchat, where disastrous and ineffective ‘opt-in’ porn legislation was introduced, and where it emerged a Baroness who sits on the Lords technology committee thought Google Maps kept a camera trained on her home address.

“You have the Home Secretary actually saying things like telephone metadata is just the same as your phone bill,” Davis railed in his Portcullis House office. “I can’t imagine she’s telling fibs, so she plainly doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Davis, 66, blames the glaring lack of any discussion of digital issues at the election by politicians or the media on a “grotesque misunderstanding about it, mostly by people over 40… [they] don’t understand how intrusive the powers are. Most of my colleagues are ignorant of where this is, and where it’s going.”

One of the most famous examples Davis can give is the knee-jerk pledge by Cameron to ban all kinds of communication that the government cannot access, immediately drawing references to the photo sharing service Snapchat.

“The prime minister talked about ‘banning encryption’,” Davis said. “For everyone? For banks? Suddenly British banking would vanish. Encryption for online sales? All of your Amazon communication has to be encrypted, obviously.

“So say it’s OK for commerce. Then what about an Egyptian human rights activist - ban it for him? In which case lots of people will be executed in the Middle East, by their various states. OK, so ban it apart from for commerce and for the Middle East. It becomes just ridiculous.”

But Davis is worried that such slip-ups are telling, of the “reflex reactions of political elites - just ‘ban it!’

“It is the reaction of a stone age man to the combustion engine.”

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/04/10/david-davis-beyond-the-ba_n_7039246.html 

That was an excellent news article.  It was pretty obvious that Feinstein didn’t have a clue either by her silly comments when the Snowden revelations came out…..  Yet these people are in positions of power over the surveillance issue……God help us!!

French surveillance bill draws criticism from web firms and civil liberty groups

New legislation, designed to monitor would-be Islamist attackers, would allow spies to tap phones and emails without permission from judges

French spies could get more powers to bug and track would-be Islamist attackers inside the country and require internet companies to monitor suspicious behaviour under a bill to be debated in parliament on Monday.

Web hosting companies have raised concerns that the legislation could frighten away clients, while advocates for civil liberties say it lacks adequate privacy protections – concerns dismissed by the government.

More than three months after 17 people were killed in attacks by three gunmen in Paris, the government is pushing measures that would allow spy agencies to tap phones and emails without seeking permission from a judge.

Surveillance staff will also be able to bug suspects’ flats with microphones and cameras and add “keyloggers” to their computers to track every keystroke.

“The measures proposed are not aimed at installing generalised surveillance,” the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said in an interview with the newspaper Libération. “On the contrary it aims to target people who we need to monitor to protect the French people.”

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/13/french-surveillance-civil-liberty-criticisms

 

French PM forced to defend new spying laws

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has defended the much-criticised new laws that would allow spies to hoover masses of data from suspected jihadists. Critics say the proposals will lead to mass surveillance of the French public.

As he presented the bill to parliament on Monday, Valls insisted that the new powers were not a snap response to the Paris terror attacks in January.

He moved to reassure critics, who fear it will lead to mass data gathering of the kind carried out by the NSA and revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

“The means of surveillance to anticipate, detect and prevent threats will be strictly limited,” he said.

"Intelligence services are absolutely not allowed to monitor the lawful actions of a just cause. In any democracy, intelligence is in place strictly to protect citizens and their freedom."

Read more @ http://www.thelocal.fr/20150413/french-mps-mull-new-spy-laws-in-wake-of-attacks

 

Is France's new surveillance bill a French Patriot Act?

Read more @ http://www.france24.com/en/20150413-focus-france-surveillance-bill-data-monitoring-intelligence-counter-terrorism/

 

French MPs mull new spy laws in wake of attacks

Read more @ http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2015/04/13/french-mps-mull-new-spy-laws-in-wake-of-attacks

 

NSA’s Grand Plan to Snowden-Proof Its Data Using the Cloud

Almost two years ago, the National Security Agency forever lost its “No Such Agency” nickname at the hands of one of its contractors -- a once-trusted insider by the name of Edward Snowden.

Snowden’s stream of leaked NSA secrets about classified surveillance programs shined the public spotlight on the clandestine government organization. Though the stream has now dissipated to a trickle, the impact to the intelligence community continues.

To privacy activists, Snowden’s leaks were a godsend. They forced a national discussion on government surveillance and even coaxing the likes of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to admit the intelligence community needs to be more transparent.

Yet, the leaks have “had a material impact” on NSA’s ability to generate intelligence around the world, NSA Director Michael Rogers said back in February.

Within NSA’s Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, no one wants to face another Snowden. With NSA’s widespread adoption of cloud computing, the spy agency may not have to.

Could the Cloud Have Stopped Snowden?

NSA bet big on cloud computing as the solution to its data problem several years ago.

Following expanded legal authorities enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, NSA and the other 16 agencies within the intelligence community began to collect a gargantuan amount of intelligence data: Internet traffic and emails that traverse fiber optic cables; telephone call metadata; and satellite reconnaissance.

Read more @ http://www.nextgov.com/cloud-computing/2015/04/how-nsa-using-cloud-snowden-proof-its-data/109903/

 

Everything We Know About the Stingray, the Cops' Favorite Cell Phone Tracking Tool

While Edward Snowden gives interviews to John Oliver and the NSA continues to gobble up our data, local police departments are quietly spying on people without public oversight, often thanks to a little device known as a Stingray.

The use of these surveillance tools is apparently widespread, but it's only recently that the general public is becoming aware of it. Last month, a judge that the Erie County, New York, Sheriff's Department had to release unredacted documents about its Stingray use. Last Tuesday, after receiving those documents, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) reported that the department used Stingrays some 47 times, and seemingly on just one of those occasions got a court order for the subsequent surveillance.

On Friday, the Guardian published the results of the paper's own Stingray investigation. Thanks to some unredacted documents from the Hillsborough County, Florida, Sheriff's Department, the paper concluded that the FBI is directly involved in preventing police departments from sharing any information about their Stingray use and orders them to tell the Feds when requests for information on them are made so that they have time to "prevent disclosure." Worse still, Stingrays are not to be discussed by Florida law enforcement in warrants, testimony, or anywhere in court ever—even at the cost of dropping a case against a defendant.

These revelations are just the latest pieces of concrete proof that spying is being conducted by police departments around the country—and that the federal government has a firm hand in keeping evidence of it far away from the public eye.

Stingrays work by tricking cell phones into contacting them as if they were cell towers. This makes it easy for law enforcement to snag metadata, such as numbers dialed and how long conversations were, as well as the location of the phone itself. Stingrays do this indiscriminately to phones in an area, such as an apartment block. They also disrupt phone service for large numbers of people. US Marshals have even taken Stingrays (or devices that achieve a similar effect) to the air, which involves still more indiscriminate data being sucked up. (The CIA played a role in setting that one up.) Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) call Stingray-style searches general warrants for the digital age, meaning they are at their core unconstitutional.

Read more @ http://www.vice.com/read/everything-we-know-about-the-stingray-cops-favorite-cell-phone-tracking-tool-413

 

The NSA wants tech companies to give it 'front door' access to encrypted data

NSA director suggested tech companies could provide an encryption key in pieces

The National Security Agency is embroiled in a battle with tech companies over access to encrypted data that would allow it to spy (more easily) on millions of Americans and international citizens. Last month, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple urged the Obama administration to put an end to the NSA's bulk collection of metadata. The NSA, on the other hand, continues to parade the idea that the government needs access to encrypted data on smartphones and other devices to track and prevent criminal activity. Now, NSA director Michael S. Rogers says he might have a solution.

During a recent speech at Princeton University, Rogers suggested tech companies could create a master multi-part encryption key capable of unlocking any device, The Washington Post reports. That way, if the key were broken into pieces, no single person would have the ability to use it.

"I don’t want a back door," Rogers said. "I want a front door. And I want the front door to have multiple locks. Big locks."

The suggestion comes as Congress considers a new framework for handling encrypted data. Government and law enforcement officials say total encryption could stand in the way of national security operations, while leaders in the tech industry and advocacy groups say the government shouldn't have complete, unobstructed access to citizens' private communications.

During this year's South by Southwest festival, Edward Snowden held a secret meeting in which he said tech companies needed to take a stronger position against NSA surveillance. He said companies should adopt more secure technology that could block surveillance altogether, and championed end-to-end encryption, which would mean no one except the sender and recipient would have access to private communications.

A master encryption key still creates vulnerabilities

Read more @ http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/12/8392769/nsa-front-door-access-encryption-key

What will the TPP mean for Australia?

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: In Australia, no-one outside the Government has seen the text of what's being negotiated for the TPP.

But Trade Minister Andrew Robb says over the past four years, there've been more than 1,000 briefings with stakeholders and the public will have months to look at the detail of the deal before it's ratified by the Parliament.

Our political correspondent Tom Iggulden has the story.

TOM IGGULDEN, REPORTER: Free trade's been a winner for the Government so far, three deals signed with major trade partners in its first year in office.

Now the TPP looms as an even bigger trophy in the Coalition's free trade cabinet.

Exporters support the deal, saying it'd seal new trading partnerships and build on existing ones.

ANDREW HUDSON, EXPORT COUNCIL OF AUST.: Ultimately, Australia is a fairly mature market when it comes to services, when it comes to goods in terms of local consumption and production. So we really need to look outside of that - outside of our borders to increase that trade.

TOM IGGULDEN: But outside of business circles, support for the deal dissipates.

GED KEARNEY, ACTU: There are community groups, there are church groups, there are a very wide range of people who have very serious concerns about the TPP.

TOM IGGULDEN: Those concerns escalated with the most recent WikiLeaks revelation of the confidential text of a controversial chapter of the draft deal. It includes what's called an investor-state dispute resolution clause, giving multinational corporations a way to get compensation for government decisions that affect their bottom lines.

KYLA TIENHAARA, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNI.: We can see that Australia is still holding out on not agreeing to have ISDS apply to Australia, but there's a little - now there's a little footnote there that basically shows that the Government is willing to negotiate on that point.

ANDREW HUDSON: Yes, we probably will have one. I don't perceive it as being as difficult - or the Export Council sees it as a reality.

TOM IGGULDEN: The revelation confirmed the worst-held fears of those who oppose the deal. Investor clauses, it's argued, give the biggest companies on the planet the power to trump governments' ability to pass law and courts' ability to enforce them.

Read more @ http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4208670.htm

 

Rights group sues U.S. DEA over bulk collection of phone records

(Reuters) - Opening another front in the legal challenges to U.S. government surveillance, a human rights group has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration for collecting bulk records of Americans' telephone calls to some foreign countries.

Lawyers for Human Rights Watch filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit asks a judge to declare unlawful the DEA program, which ended in September 2013 after about 15 years, and to bar the DEA from collecting call records in bulk again.

U.S. spying programs have come under court scrutiny since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of them in 2013.

Read more @ http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/08/usa-dea-lawsuit-idUSL2N0X51K320150408

 

US Tracked Billions of Calls Long Before 9/11

Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA and its surveillance tactics may have riled people up, but the agency apparently took its cue from two other government departments: the DEA and the DoJ. For almost 10 years before 9/11 took place, the agencies secretly kept records of billions of international phone calls placed by Americans, a USA Today investigation has uncovered. Current and ex-officials involved in the clandestine program spoke to the newspaper (mostly anonymously) and say that when the surveillance was in full swing, it was collecting data for calls to more than 100 countries (one official placed the number at 116, out of 195 countries the US recognizes worldwide as independent states). The purpose of the data collection, per USA Today: to flesh out US distribution networks for international drug cartels.

Read more @ http://www.kabc.com/news/us-tracked-billions-of-calls-long-before-911/

 

As Hillary Announces For President, Four Questions She Should Answer

After months of scrutiny and anticipation, Hillary Clinton will formally announce that she is seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency on Sunday before heading on the campaign trail to meet with voters.

The former Secretary of State has already and will continue to walk a fine line between criticizing actions of the Obama administration and paving her own path forward when it comes to issues of foreign policy. So far, Clinton has remained relatively quiet on issues from government surveillance to drones to trade agreements. But now that her campaign is formally launching, here are four issues Clinton will have to address:

Surveillance

When Edward Snowden first revealed massive domestic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies, Clinton largely kept quiet even as other presidential hopefuls weighed in. She has been critical of National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, suggesting he did not need to flee the country if he wanted to be a whistleblower.

But she has also said she would support reforms to ensure that surveillance doesn’t go too far and that the National Security Agency should be “more transparent” about its practices. She has also called for a “full, comprehensive discussion” about the NSA’s spying program. “That’s the discussion that has to happen in a calm atmosphere without people defending everything we’ve done and people absolutely opposing everything we’ve done,” she said in a 2013 appearance. “And we’re not having that conversation yet.”

The NSA’s current controversial phone metadata surveillance program expires in June. The reauthorization of the program or similar surveillance measures is already a hot topic among the Republicans vying for their party’s nomination.

Now that she is launching her campaign, Clinton could be the one to launch that conversation and establish a solid position on surveillance. If she defends the NSA’s practices, she may alienate progressives, younger voters, and those who have been pushing for more government accountability when it comes to warrantless searches. According to a recent poll, a majority of Americans oppose the government’s collection of phone and internet data under anti-terrorism programs.

Read more @ http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/04/10/3644602/hillary-clinton-foreign-policy/

 

Federal data protection needed in US but don’t expect it any time soon

Companies have valuable information on citizens that government is happy to access

The Patriot Act, the US legislation brought in as an emergency measure after the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, expires in June and many are concerned about what might come next.

The Act has been seen as the legal foundation on which mass-scale, secretive surveillance was undertaken by the National Security Agency. These are the programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, such as Prism (which involved data-gathering requests to numerous, compliant technology companies) and the wholesale slurping of telecoms call data from users of Verizon’s service in the US.

The disclosure of such snooping might have Congress in the mood to limit such powers. This is particularly likely as there is scant evidence that spying on whole populations is a productive tool in the war on terrorism – security agencies failed to convince congressional committees at hearings.

Data retention

Alternatively, it might persuade Congress that what the US really needs is a federal data retention law, mandating that companies hang on to metadata – information about, but not the content of, a call, email, text or other communication – for a set period of time.

Although a 2009 attempt to pass data retention legislation in the US failed, privacy activists and technology companies are concerned about the possibility that it will be reintroduced as the Patriot Act is reconsidered. Campaigning has begun to keep data retention off the US law books.

Mozilla, the community of developers behind web browser Firefox, is among the first to take a firm public stance. It published a policy statement on its blog last week in which it argued for four key points: no more bulk data collection, greater transparency in how surveillance agencies operate, no data retention and no new surveillance powers.

It’s a well-formulated statement, but like so many of these types of things, it falls apart on one significant point. Mozilla argues against data-retention laws that would require companies “to hold user data longer than necessary for business purposes” and says that “storing data for longer than it’s useful for any purpose should be avoided”.

Read more @ http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/federal-data-protection-needed-in-us-but-don-t-expect-it-any-time-soon-1.2168897


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~