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Mar 25 16 2:06 PM
“Snowden has done a service”: Former Bush official Lawrence Wilkerson applauds the whistleblower
Wilkerson says Snowden did not threaten U.S. security, and, in a perfect world, the whistleblower would be rewarded “I try to stay up with Snowden,” said Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson. “God, has he revealed a lot,” he laughed. A retired Army colonel who served as the chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in President George W. Bush’s administration, Wilkerson has established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy. He sat down with Salon for an extended interview, discussing a huge range of issues from the war in Syria to climate change, from ISIS to whistle-blower Edward Snowden, of whom Wilkerson spoke quite highly. “I think Snowden has done a service,” Wilkerson explained. “I wouldn’t have had the courage, and maybe not even the intellectual capacity, to do it the way he did it.” Snowden’s reputation in mainstream U.S. politics, to put it lightly, is a negative one. In the summer of 2013, the 29-year-old techno wiz and private contractor for the NSA worked with journalists to expose the global surveillance program run by the U.S. government. His revelations informed the public not only that the NSA was sucking up information on millions of average Americans’ private communications; they also proved that the U.S. government was likely violating international law by spying on dozens of other countries, and even listening to the phone calls of allied heads of state such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who subsequently compared the NSA to the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police. Breaking with establishment political figures, Col. Wilkerson commended Snowden for his work and the way in which he carried it out. “There’s a logic to what he has done that is impressive,” Wilkerson told Salon. “He really has refrained from anything that was truly dangerous, with regard to our security — regardless of what people say.” “He has been circumspect about what he’s released, how he’s released it, who he’s released it to,” he continued. Snowden worked with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, and published the revelations in renowned international newspapers, including the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Der Spiegel. “It’s clear to me from listening to his personal statements — I think those are important — that he did have a genuinely altruistic motive for doing it,” Wilkerson explained. “Snowden seems to me to be pure as a driven snow,” he laughed. “You can be dangerous if you’re that way, but you can also be helpful. And I think he’s been more helpful than dangerous.”
Wilkerson says Snowden did not threaten U.S. security, and, in a perfect world, the whistleblower would be rewarded
“I try to stay up with Snowden,” said Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson. “God, has he revealed a lot,” he laughed.
A retired Army colonel who served as the chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in President George W. Bush’s administration, Wilkerson has established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy.
He sat down with Salon for an extended interview, discussing a huge range of issues from the war in Syria to climate change, from ISIS to whistle-blower Edward Snowden, of whom Wilkerson spoke quite highly.
“I think Snowden has done a service,” Wilkerson explained. “I wouldn’t have had the courage, and maybe not even the intellectual capacity, to do it the way he did it.”
Snowden’s reputation in mainstream U.S. politics, to put it lightly, is a negative one. In the summer of 2013, the 29-year-old techno wiz and private contractor for the NSA worked with journalists to expose the global surveillance program run by the U.S. government.
His revelations informed the public not only that the NSA was sucking up information on millions of average Americans’ private communications; they also proved that the U.S. government was likely violating international law by spying on dozens of other countries, and even listening to the phone calls of allied heads of state such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who subsequently compared the NSA to the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police.
Breaking with establishment political figures, Col. Wilkerson commended Snowden for his work and the way in which he carried it out.
“There’s a logic to what he has done that is impressive,” Wilkerson told Salon. “He really has refrained from anything that was truly dangerous, with regard to our security — regardless of what people say.”
“He has been circumspect about what he’s released, how he’s released it, who he’s released it to,” he continued.
Snowden worked with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, and published the revelations in renowned international newspapers, including the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Der Spiegel.
“It’s clear to me from listening to his personal statements — I think those are important — that he did have a genuinely altruistic motive for doing it,” Wilkerson explained.
“Snowden seems to me to be pure as a driven snow,” he laughed. “You can be dangerous if you’re that way, but you can also be helpful. And I think he’s been more helpful than dangerous.”
Read more @ http://www.salon.com/2016/03/24/snowden_has_done_a_service_former_bush_official_lawrence_wilkerson_applauds_the_whistleblower/
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior U.S. and German officials agreed this week to deepen their collaboration on a range of cyber issues, including working to promote norms for responsible state behavior in cyberspace and expanding training in developing countries. The two governments underscored their shared strategic goals in a joint statement issued Thursday after a two-day annual bilateral meeting on cyber issues. Christopher Painter, cyber coordinator for the U.S. State Department, said the two countries already worked together closely in many areas, including law enforcement, human rights and other areas, but the fourth annual talks were focused on a broader, "whole-of-government" approach. "Having this annual discussion ... brings all the agencies together and it's a good way to take stock and make sure we're going in the right direction and thinking about how we can collaborate even further," he told Reuters in an interview.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior U.S. and German officials agreed this week to deepen their collaboration on a range of cyber issues, including working to promote norms for responsible state behavior in cyberspace and expanding training in developing countries.
The two governments underscored their shared strategic goals in a joint statement issued Thursday after a two-day annual bilateral meeting on cyber issues.
Christopher Painter, cyber coordinator for the U.S. State Department, said the two countries already worked together closely in many areas, including law enforcement, human rights and other areas, but the fourth annual talks were focused on a broader, "whole-of-government" approach.
"Having this annual discussion ... brings all the agencies together and it's a good way to take stock and make sure we're going in the right direction and thinking about how we can collaborate even further," he told Reuters in an interview.
Read more @ https://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/31185470/u-s-germany-eye-ways-to-deepen-cyber-collaboration/
The National Security Agency’s data harvesting program, PRISM, has been the subject of much speculation and controversy since its existence was revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. PRISM is widely regarded as “the NSA spying on everyone’s Internet activity” by the public, which is left to guess at the true extent of the program from a few scraps of hard data, since so much of it remains classified. Recent stories have suggested the scope of NSA surveillance was considerably more narrow than critics feared, but now a ruling from a federal judge suggests that surveillance remains more broad than privacy activists might have hoped. In essence, the case is about a man arrested on terrorism charges who got caught because the NSA intercepted emails he sent to someone else they had under surveillance. Vocativ describes the defendant as Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen living in Brooklyn, who was arrested in 2011 and pled guilty to “trying to travel to Pakistan to join a militant jihadi group, as well as to wiring it money.”
PRISM is widely regarded as “the NSA spying on everyone’s Internet activity” by the public, which is left to guess at the true extent of the program from a few scraps of hard data, since so much of it remains classified. Recent stories have suggested the scope of NSA surveillance was considerably more narrow than critics feared, but now a ruling from a federal judge suggests that surveillance remains more broad than privacy activists might have hoped.
In essence, the case is about a man arrested on terrorism charges who got caught because the NSA intercepted emails he sent to someone else they had under surveillance.
Vocativ describes the defendant as Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen living in Brooklyn, who was arrested in 2011 and pled guilty to “trying to travel to Pakistan to join a militant jihadi group, as well as to wiring it money.”
Read more @ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/12/federal-judge-inadvertently-confirms-existence-of-nsa-spying-program/
Chinese chip-making ambitions are getting a $24 billion boost, as a new project breaks ground BEIJING—China is putting $24 billion toward building a world-class semiconductor industry, exploiting a partnership with a U.S. company for the production of memory chips used in a wide array of electronic devices. On Monday, XMC, a contract chip maker owned by the Chinese government, will break ground in the city of Wuhan for the first Chinese-owned plant dedicated to producing the most widely used memory chips, an XMC spokesman said. XMC last year partnered with U.S. flash-memory maker Spansion Inc. to co-develop next-generation chip technologies. Spansion later joined with Cypress Semiconductor Corp. as part of an all-stock merger valued at $5 billion. Chinese companies currently account for minimal production of memory chips, which are used to store data in electronic gadgets. Semiconductors in general have become a major target for Chinese policy makers as they promote a shift from low-end manufacturing to more-advanced sectors Beijing, which has established a national fund to support the semiconductor sector, also has pushed technological self-sufficiency following Edward Snowden’s revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency exploited backdoors in some U.S. technology products to spy on foreign governments. Memory chips are not a primary target for hackers, but theoretically could be hacked, according to cybersecurity experts.
BEIJING—China is putting $24 billion toward building a world-class semiconductor industry, exploiting a partnership with a U.S. company for the production of memory chips used in a wide array of electronic devices.
On Monday, XMC, a contract chip maker owned by the Chinese government, will break ground in the city of Wuhan for the first Chinese-owned plant dedicated to producing the most widely used memory chips, an XMC spokesman said.
XMC last year partnered with U.S. flash-memory maker Spansion Inc. to co-develop next-generation chip technologies. Spansion later joined with Cypress Semiconductor Corp. as part of an all-stock merger valued at $5 billion.
Chinese companies currently account for minimal production of memory chips, which are used to store data in electronic gadgets. Semiconductors in general have become a major target for Chinese policy makers as they promote a shift from low-end manufacturing to more-advanced sectors
Beijing, which has established a national fund to support the semiconductor sector, also has pushed technological self-sufficiency following Edward Snowden’s revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency exploited backdoors in some U.S. technology products to spy on foreign governments. Memory chips are not a primary target for hackers, but theoretically could be hacked, according to cybersecurity experts.
Read more @ http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-moves-to-contend-in-chip-making-1458851538
Edward Snowden: ‘We Must Seize The Means Of Communication’ To Protect Basic Freedoms
Renowned NSA whistleblower calls for ‘radical’ popular action to take control of information technologies. A gathering of journalists, hackers and whistleblowers in Berlin this weekend heard former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, issue a call for citizens to find ways to take direct control over the information technologies we use everyday. The Logan Symposium, organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) based in Goldsmiths University, London, also heard from Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, and NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and William Binney. The two-day conference was supported by a wide range of press freedom organisations, independent journalism outfits, and mainstream media — including the German newsmagazine Der Speigel.
Renowned NSA whistleblower calls for ‘radical’ popular action to take control of information technologies.
A gathering of journalists, hackers and whistleblowers in Berlin this weekend heard former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Edward Snowden, issue a call for citizens to find ways to take direct control over the information technologies we use everyday.
The Logan Symposium, organized by the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) based in Goldsmiths University, London, also heard from Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, and NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and William Binney.
The two-day conference was supported by a wide range of press freedom organisations, independent journalism outfits, and mainstream media — including the German newsmagazine Der Speigel.
Read more @ http://www.mintpressnews.com/edward-snowden-must-seize-means-communication-protect-basic-freedoms/214728/
Nearly three years after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave journalists his trove of documents on the intelligence community’s broad and powerful surveillance regime, the public is still missing some crucial, basic facts about how the operations work. Surveillance researchers and privacy advocates published a report on Wednesday outlining what we do know, thanks to the period of discovery post-Snowden — and the overwhelming amount of things we don’t. The NSA’s domestic surveillance was understandably the initial focus of public debate. But that debate never really moved on to examine the NSA’s vastly bigger foreign operations. “There has been relatively little public or congressional debate within the United States about the NSA’s overseas surveillance operations,” write Faiza Patel and Elizabeth Goitein, co-directors of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, and Amos Toh, legal adviser for David Kaye, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Nearly three years after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave journalists his trove of documents on the intelligence community’s broad and powerful surveillance regime, the public is still missing some crucial, basic facts about how the operations work.
Surveillance researchers and privacy advocates published a report on Wednesday outlining what we do know, thanks to the period of discovery post-Snowden — and the overwhelming amount of things we don’t.
The NSA’s domestic surveillance was understandably the initial focus of public debate. But that debate never really moved on to examine the NSA’s vastly bigger foreign operations.
“There has been relatively little public or congressional debate within the United States about the NSA’s overseas surveillance operations,” write Faiza Patel and Elizabeth Goitein, co-directors of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, and Amos Toh, legal adviser for David Kaye, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Read more @ https://theintercept.com/2016/03/17/five-big-unanswered-questions-about-the-u-s-s-worldwide-spying/
The public relations and legal battle between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple over the company’s use of encryption has put the focus on executive branch surveillance in a way not seen since Edward Snowden’s revelations almost three years ago. However, as the historical record demonstrates, the FBI’s domestic spying on the American public dates almost from the Bureau’s creation in July 1908. In the years that followed the FBI’s birth, other federal agencies–some civilian, some military–initiated their own warrantless domestic surveillance operations. Throughout this period, Congress was more frequently aiding and abetting this surveillance and repression, rather than preventing it or reining it in. As the showdown between Apple and the FBI illustrates, what has changed is the technology used to accomplish the surveillance–technology that now gives federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies the ability to surreptitiously access the computers, smartphones, and even home appliances of tens of millions of Americans. Today, the Cato Institute is launching a timeline that chronicles the history and implications of these developments: American Big Brother: A Century of Political Surveillance and Repression. Too often, federal domestic surveillance of citizens was a prelude to government actions aimed at subverting civil society organizations opposed to American involvement in foreign wars, aiding conscientious objectors, advancing civil rights and political autonomy for people of color, the creation of labor unions, and even surveillance of candidates running for or holding office–including members of Congress and presidential contenders.
The public relations and legal battle between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple over the company’s use of encryption has put the focus on executive branch surveillance in a way not seen since Edward Snowden’s revelations almost three years ago. However, as the historical record demonstrates, the FBI’s domestic spying on the American public dates almost from the Bureau’s creation in July 1908. In the years that followed the FBI’s birth, other federal agencies–some civilian, some military–initiated their own warrantless domestic surveillance operations. Throughout this period, Congress was more frequently aiding and abetting this surveillance and repression, rather than preventing it or reining it in.
As the showdown between Apple and the FBI illustrates, what has changed is the technology used to accomplish the surveillance–technology that now gives federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies the ability to surreptitiously access the computers, smartphones, and even home appliances of tens of millions of Americans.
Today, the Cato Institute is launching a timeline that chronicles the history and implications of these developments: American Big Brother: A Century of Political Surveillance and Repression.
Too often, federal domestic surveillance of citizens was a prelude to government actions aimed at subverting civil society organizations opposed to American involvement in foreign wars, aiding conscientious objectors, advancing civil rights and political autonomy for people of color, the creation of labor unions, and even surveillance of candidates running for or holding office–including members of Congress and presidential contenders.
Read more @ http://www.cato.org/blog/introducing-american-big-brother-century-political-surveillance-repression
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic and a Republican congressmen have asked the National Security Agency to halt a reported plan to share more raw intelligence data with other federal agencies, warning the policy shift would be “unconstitutional and dangerous,” according to a letter seen by Reuters. U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Blake Farenthold, who sit on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter dated March 21 to NSA Director Michael Rogers that the proposal would violate Fourth Amendment privacy protections because the collected data would not require a warrant before being searched for domestic law enforcement purposes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic and a Republican congressmen have asked the National Security Agency to halt a reported plan to share more raw intelligence data with other federal agencies, warning the policy shift would be “unconstitutional and dangerous,” according to a letter seen by Reuters.
U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Blake Farenthold, who sit on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter dated March 21 to NSA Director Michael Rogers that the proposal would violate Fourth Amendment privacy protections because the collected data would not require a warrant before being searched for domestic law enforcement purposes.
Read more @ http://www.businessinsider.com/r-lawmakers-say-nsa-plan-to-expand-sharing-data-unconstitutional-2016-3?IR=T
Stand with Apple, Stand Up for Civil Rights
The Apple case is a matter of deep personal concern to me—given the surveillance of civil rights organizations. The terrorists win when we allow fear to chip away at the U.S. Constitution, our national soul, our freedom, our way of life. That is why the government, courts, private companies and individual citizens must defend and uphold—however unpopular—our First Amendment rights, our right to privacy and basic freedoms. That is why I stand with Apple in its encryption battle with the FBI. I mourn the loss of 14 lives snatched away by terrorists in San Bernardino last December. Like every American, I am steadfast in supporting legitimate law enforcement measures to root out terrorism and protect our national security. But if the government prevails against Apple, it is my belief that it will accelerate—and make easier—government efforts to “hack” into the legitimate activities of human rights organizations and activists, as happened time and time again during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The recent revelation of the government’s use of drones to conduct domestic spying shows how vulnerable everyday Americans are to invasive surveillance.
The Apple case is a matter of deep personal concern to me—given the surveillance of civil rights organizations.
The terrorists win when we allow fear to chip away at the U.S. Constitution, our national soul, our freedom, our way of life. That is why the government, courts, private companies and individual citizens must defend and uphold—however unpopular—our First Amendment rights, our right to privacy and basic freedoms. That is why I stand with Apple in its encryption battle with the FBI.
I mourn the loss of 14 lives snatched away by terrorists in San Bernardino last December. Like every American, I am steadfast in supporting legitimate law enforcement measures to root out terrorism and protect our national security.
But if the government prevails against Apple, it is my belief that it will accelerate—and make easier—government efforts to “hack” into the legitimate activities of human rights organizations and activists, as happened time and time again during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The recent revelation of the government’s use of drones to conduct domestic spying shows how vulnerable everyday Americans are to invasive surveillance.
Read more @ https://lasentinel.net/stand-with-apple-stand-up-for-civil-rights.html
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin Although the FBI cancelled its courtroom showdown with Apple after finding an outside backdoor into the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone, the debate over how far the government can worm its gloved hand into your phone isn’t over. Should this new method fail, the FBI will still take Apple to court. Even if it works, this is not the end of the encryption debate. The FBI and DOJ are still likely to pressure tech companies to hand over source code and keys to unlock encrypted products in a number of other criminal cases.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Although the FBI cancelled its courtroom showdown with Apple after finding an outside backdoor into the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone, the debate over how far the government can worm its gloved hand into your phone isn’t over.
Should this new method fail, the FBI will still take Apple to court. Even if it works, this is not the end of the encryption debate. The FBI and DOJ are still likely to pressure tech companies to hand over source code and keys to unlock encrypted products in a number of other criminal cases.
Read more @ http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/apple-vs-fbi-op-ed/
When Apple recently refused to comply with a federal court order issued by the FBI to help it break into an iPhone 5c, belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino incident, a US House Judiciary Committee hearing was held. If a ruling is made in favour of the FBI, Apple will have to weaken the encryption of its iPhone operating system, allowing the FBI to gain access to data on any iPhone. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook described this as the “software equivalent of cancer.” Detrimental to future security Apple’s argument is that if it is forced to write such software, it would open the floodgates to constantly writing spy tools for law enforcement. Cook gave the example of being forced to write and install a program on a suspect’s phone that would help police turn on the iPhone’s video camera. It would also seriously undermine Apple’s business, which has been partly built on the security of its proprietary software.
When Apple recently refused to comply with a federal court order issued by the FBI to help it break into an iPhone 5c, belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino incident, a US House Judiciary Committee hearing was held.
If a ruling is made in favour of the FBI, Apple will have to weaken the encryption of its iPhone operating system, allowing the FBI to gain access to data on any iPhone. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook described this as the “software equivalent of cancer.”
Apple’s argument is that if it is forced to write such software, it would open the floodgates to constantly writing spy tools for law enforcement. Cook gave the example of being forced to write and install a program on a suspect’s phone that would help police turn on the iPhone’s video camera. It would also seriously undermine Apple’s business, which has been partly built on the security of its proprietary software.
Read more @ http://www.itproportal.com/2016/03/24/a-matter-of-privacy/
To mark World Day Against Cyber Censorship, Edward Snowden talks to us about how governments are watching everything we do online, and why we must bring mass surveillance back under control. Today, the government is granting itself the power to police every citizen’s private life. Every man, woman, child, boy, girl. It doesn’t matter who you are, how innocent or not innocent you are, they are watching everything you’re doing. They’re intercepting it, analyzing it and storing it for increasing periods of time. The fact that we’ve got agencies like the GCHQ looking through webcams into people’s bedrooms, into the four walls of their homes, is terrifying. The NSA is collecting billions of phone location records a day, so they know where you got on the bus, where you went to work, where you slept and what other cell phones slept with you. We have to ask: 'Do we want to live in a society where we live totally naked in front of government, and they are totally opaque to us?'
To mark World Day Against Cyber Censorship, Edward Snowden talks to us about how governments are watching everything we do online, and why we must bring mass surveillance back under control.
Today, the government is granting itself the power to police every citizen’s private life.
Every man, woman, child, boy, girl. It doesn’t matter who you are, how innocent or not innocent you are, they are watching everything you’re doing. They’re intercepting it, analyzing it and storing it for increasing periods of time.
The fact that we’ve got agencies like the GCHQ looking through webcams into people’s bedrooms, into the four walls of their homes, is terrifying.
The NSA is collecting billions of phone location records a day, so they know where you got on the bus, where you went to work, where you slept and what other cell phones slept with you. We have to ask: 'Do we want to live in a society where we live totally naked in front of government, and they are totally opaque to us?'
Read more @ https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/ether/edward-snowden-privacy-powerless-surveillance-censorship
When the New York Times revealed on Saturday that the Paris attackers used and trashed multiple “burner” phones to hide their plotting from authorities, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and The Wire’s creator, David Simon, started debating the value of communications surveillance over Twitter. The Paris attacks, the subject of intense speculation since last year, have reignited the debate over whether Snowden’s revelations helped the enemy avoid the NSA’s all-seeing eye. The Times article also repeats the assertion — with no credible evidence — that those involved in the attack used encryption, which scrambles communications in transit, to help hide their activities from authorities. Snowden, the former NSA contractor turned whistleblower, pitted his views on the failures of NSA spying to hunt down terrorists against what Simon, a journalist and author, described as the potential advantage of proactive collection to detect burner phones used by less sophisticated criminals. The Wire, Simon’s hit show about Baltimore crime, involves drug kingpins using burner phones to evade detection. Snowden joked on Twitter that the show’s example “is helping the terrorists” — something he is typically blamed for, without evidence, since he revealed NSA spying methods in 2013.
When the New York Times revealed on Saturday that the Paris attackers used and trashed multiple “burner” phones to hide their plotting from authorities, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and The Wire’s creator, David Simon, started debating the value of communications surveillance over Twitter.
The Paris attacks, the subject of intense speculation since last year, have reignited the debate over whether Snowden’s revelations helped the enemy avoid the NSA’s all-seeing eye. The Times article also repeats the assertion — with no credible evidence — that those involved in the attack used encryption, which scrambles communications in transit, to help hide their activities from authorities.
Snowden, the former NSA contractor turned whistleblower, pitted his views on the failures of NSA spying to hunt down terrorists against what Simon, a journalist and author, described as the potential advantage of proactive collection to detect burner phones used by less sophisticated criminals.
The Wire, Simon’s hit show about Baltimore crime, involves drug kingpins using burner phones to evade detection. Snowden joked on Twitter that the show’s example “is helping the terrorists” — something he is typically blamed for, without evidence, since he revealed NSA spying methods in 2013.
Read more @ https://theintercept.com/2016/03/21/ed-snowden-and-the-wires-david-simon-talk-surveillance-and-its-limits-on-twitter/?comments=1
European ministers are expected on Thursday to push telecommunications and digital service providers to work more closely with government authorities to track down terror suspects as part of a post-Brussels attack crackdown. At a hastily arranged meeting, EU ministers responsible for security issues will call for a European legislative blueprint to be drawn up by June to enable governments to obtain easier access to such “digital evidence”, according to a draft statement seen by the Financial Times.
European ministers are expected on Thursday to push telecommunications and digital service providers to work more closely with government authorities to track down terror suspects as part of a post-Brussels attack crackdown.
At a hastily arranged meeting, EU ministers responsible for security issues will call for a European legislative blueprint to be drawn up by June to enable governments to obtain easier access to such “digital evidence”, according to a draft statement seen by the Financial Times.
Read more @ http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/eab11fb8-f11c-11e5-aff5-19b4e253664a.html
Do you remember one of the Snowden revelations was that the NSA was spying on this oil company and also Rousseff.
Neoliberal parties, the corporate media, a conservative judiciary, oil lobbyists, the white elite and right-wing groups, with generous help from outside, have ganged up to derail the country’s government. And it’s all being made to look like a popular uprising against a corrupt regime Sao Paulo: In November 2009, The Economist put Brazil on its cover. Brazil Takes Off, read the headline, emblazoned on a photo of Rio’s iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer rising above blue waters like an inter-stellar rocket. Predicting that “Brazil is likely to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, overtaking Britain and France,” the magazine said that South America’s largest economy should “pick up more speed over the next few years as big new deep-sea oilfields come on stream, and as Asian countries still hunger for food and minerals from Brazil’s vast and bountiful land.” In 2009, even as the world was reeling from a catastrophic financial crisis, The Economist saw Brazil as the great hope of global capitalism. Back then, the British magazine was not the only one in love with Brazil. Under Lula da Silva’s leadership, the country was witnessing unprecedented prosperity and social change. Lula’s personal rise from shoe-shine boy and motor mechanic to the presidency of the biggest Latin American country was the stuff of legends. He was the subject of several books and a Brazilian box-office hit. At the G-20 summit in London in April 2009, US president Barrack Obama called him the “most popular politician on earth.” And with two of the biggest sporting spectacles – the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016) – scheduled to happen in the country, Brazil, perennially branded the “country of the future,” finally appeared to be arriving on the global stage. Seven years later, Brazil is looking like a completely different country. Lula, who retired in 2010 with an 80% approval rating, was detained this month for questioning in a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal that has seen some of his Workers Party (PT) comrades go to jail. His successor, President Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment in the Congress. The country’s economy shrank by 3.5% last year, and this year won’t be any better. Inflation is in double digits and hundreds of thousands are facing unemployment. Millions of people have taken to the streets – both in support of and opposition to the government. No one cares two hoots about the Rio Olympics, which are less than five months away. And the corporate media – global and local – has already written off Lula, Rousseff and Brazil. The Brazil story began to lose some of its shine in 2013, especially in the eyes of international business media. In September 2013, The Economist put Brazil on its cover once again. The report was scathing and blasted Rousseff, who had been running the country for three years by then and was facing an election the next year, for doing “too little to reform its government in the boom years.” It took Brazil to task for “too many taxes,” “too much public expenditure” and paying pensions that were too “generous.” That had not been a good year for Brazil. The economy was faltering and hundreds of thousands of people had come out on the streets just ahead of the FIFA Confederations Cup to protest against corruption and demand better public services. The economy appeared to have stalled entirely. So what went wrong between 2009 and 2013? How did Rousseff, declared the most powerful woman in the world in 2010 by Forbes, suddenly become weak and incompetent? How did the Brazil story turn from one of hope to that of despair in such a short time? The answer is simple – oil, and the money, power and politics it generates. Same old, same oil In 2007, Brazil discovered an oil field with huge reserves in a pre-salt zone below the ocean surface. Within a year, the country had uncovered oil and natural gas reserves exceeding 50 billion barrels – the largest in South America. Brazil was now the new darling of the world’s oil merchants, and Wall Street. State-owned Petrobras had enjoyed a monopoly over oil exploration in Brazil since its creation in 1953, but the sector had been opened up to Royal Dutch Shell in 1997. With the oil finds of 2007-08, global giants like Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil were eyeing Brazil in the hopes of lucrative contracts. But no deals could be struck. In 2007, Lula partially restored Petrobras’s monopoly over Brazilian oil. Laws made under the guidance of Rousseff, who was Lula’s chief of staff, gave the company sole operating rights, with all its earnings going to government’s social programmes on education and health. Petrobras also began partnering with state-owned oil firms from other countries, mainly China. (ONGC and Bharat Petroleum too are partners of Petrobras and have offices in Rio, the headquarters of the Brazilian company). The US State Department and Energy Information Agency (EIA) soon began lobbying Brazilian officials on behalf of American companies. In secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010, it was revealed how the Americans were worried about the presence of state-owned Chinese companies in Brazil, with one cable detailing how the US was trying to get the country’s laws changed to its advantage.
Sao Paulo: In November 2009, The Economist put Brazil on its cover. Brazil Takes Off, read the headline, emblazoned on a photo of Rio’s iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer rising above blue waters like an inter-stellar rocket. Predicting that “Brazil is likely to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, overtaking Britain and France,” the magazine said that South America’s largest economy should “pick up more speed over the next few years as big new deep-sea oilfields come on stream, and as Asian countries still hunger for food and minerals from Brazil’s vast and bountiful land.”
In 2009, even as the world was reeling from a catastrophic financial crisis, The Economist saw Brazil as the great hope of global capitalism.
Back then, the British magazine was not the only one in love with Brazil. Under Lula da Silva’s leadership, the country was witnessing unprecedented prosperity and social change. Lula’s personal rise from shoe-shine boy and motor mechanic to the presidency of the biggest Latin American country was the stuff of legends. He was the subject of several books and a Brazilian box-office hit. At the G-20 summit in London in April 2009, US president Barrack Obama called him the “most popular politician on earth.” And with two of the biggest sporting spectacles – the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016) – scheduled to happen in the country, Brazil, perennially branded the “country of the future,” finally appeared to be arriving on the global stage.
Seven years later, Brazil is looking like a completely different country. Lula, who retired in 2010 with an 80% approval rating, was detained this month for questioning in a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal that has seen some of his Workers Party (PT) comrades go to jail. His successor, President Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment in the Congress. The country’s economy shrank by 3.5% last year, and this year won’t be any better. Inflation is in double digits and hundreds of thousands are facing unemployment. Millions of people have taken to the streets – both in support of and opposition to the government. No one cares two hoots about the Rio Olympics, which are less than five months away. And the corporate media – global and local – has already written off Lula, Rousseff and Brazil.
The Brazil story began to lose some of its shine in 2013, especially in the eyes of international business media. In September 2013, The Economist put Brazil on its cover once again. The report was scathing and blasted Rousseff, who had been running the country for three years by then and was facing an election the next year, for doing “too little to reform its government in the boom years.” It took Brazil to task for “too many taxes,” “too much public expenditure” and paying pensions that were too “generous.”
That had not been a good year for Brazil. The economy was faltering and hundreds of thousands of people had come out on the streets just ahead of the FIFA Confederations Cup to protest against corruption and demand better public services. The economy appeared to have stalled entirely.
So what went wrong between 2009 and 2013? How did Rousseff, declared the most powerful woman in the world in 2010 by Forbes, suddenly become weak and incompetent? How did the Brazil story turn from one of hope to that of despair in such a short time?
The answer is simple – oil, and the money, power and politics it generates.
Same old, same oil
In 2007, Brazil discovered an oil field with huge reserves in a pre-salt zone below the ocean surface. Within a year, the country had uncovered oil and natural gas reserves exceeding 50 billion barrels – the largest in South America. Brazil was now the new darling of the world’s oil merchants, and Wall Street.
State-owned Petrobras had enjoyed a monopoly over oil exploration in Brazil since its creation in 1953, but the sector had been opened up to Royal Dutch Shell in 1997. With the oil finds of 2007-08, global giants like Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil were eyeing Brazil in the hopes of lucrative contracts. But no deals could be struck.
In 2007, Lula partially restored Petrobras’s monopoly over Brazilian oil. Laws made under the guidance of Rousseff, who was Lula’s chief of staff, gave the company sole operating rights, with all its earnings going to government’s social programmes on education and health. Petrobras also began partnering with state-owned oil firms from other countries, mainly China. (ONGC and Bharat Petroleum too are partners of Petrobras and have offices in Rio, the headquarters of the Brazilian company).
The US State Department and Energy Information Agency (EIA) soon began lobbying Brazilian officials on behalf of American companies. In secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010, it was revealed how the Americans were worried about the presence of state-owned Chinese companies in Brazil, with one cable detailing how the US was trying to get the country’s laws changed to its advantage.
Read more @ http://thewire.in/2016/03/25/a-coup-is-in-the-air-the-plot-to-unsettle-rousseff-lula-and-brazil-25893/
On June 6, 2013, a story broke which would go on to change the world. It concerned thousands of classified memos, emails and other data taken by a contractor from the United States government’s National Security Agency (NSA). The leak was huge in scope and described covert operations against other nations. The documents also laid bare a massive data collection programme on US citizens (and everyone else.) That contractor was Edward Snowden and the shockwaves from his disclosure are still being felt today. Little was known about the NSA, even by those within the US government; the intelligence community used to joke that its initials stood for ‘No Such Agency’. It’s difficult to call the public’s reaction disproportionate. The agency’s practice, through a programme named PRISM, of storing data on every telephone call made and email sent through US servers, including those by innocent US citizens, was shocking and illegal. Underpinning this public outcry, however, was a profound global unease. People vaguely understood that they needed to be protected from online threats and they had a rough idea that this was the stated remit of the NSA. However, even today, few really have a grasp of what cybersecurity involves; what an attack might look like, or what the government could do to stop it. In Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War Fred Kaplan sets out to shed some much-needed light on the realm of cyberwarfare and the shadowy history of the agency which was to make it its speciality. The book traces the NSA back to its inception in the early 1950s, and meticulously charts the struggles, conflicts, setbacks and presidential panics which helped it become the technical behemoth exposed to the world in 2013. We learn the threats and opportunities of cyber war are nothing new. The use of intercepted intelligence was a key tactic for Roman infantrymen, who captured enemy messengers in order to learn and counter the movements of their enemies. In the Second World War, British codebreakers led by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park helped to turn the tide by decrypting messages sent by the Germans and Japanese. Used correctly, this approach can leave the enemy command unable to trust the information they’re receiving from the field, distorting their view of a battle. Kaplan tracks the development of these tactics through various US conflicts, tracing the NSA’s growing capabilities from Moscow to the Middle East.
On June 6, 2013, a story broke which would go on to change the world. It concerned thousands of classified memos, emails and other data taken by a contractor from the United States government’s National Security Agency (NSA).
The leak was huge in scope and described covert operations against other nations. The documents also laid bare a massive data collection programme on US citizens (and everyone else.) That contractor was Edward Snowden and the shockwaves from his disclosure are still being felt today.
Little was known about the NSA, even by those within the US government; the intelligence community used to joke that its initials stood for ‘No Such Agency’.
It’s difficult to call the public’s reaction disproportionate. The agency’s practice, through a programme named PRISM, of storing data on every telephone call made and email sent through US servers, including those by innocent US citizens, was shocking and illegal. Underpinning this public outcry, however, was a profound global unease. People vaguely understood that they needed to be protected from online threats and they had a rough idea that this was the stated remit of the NSA. However, even today, few really have a grasp of what cybersecurity involves; what an attack might look like, or what the government could do to stop it.
In Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War Fred Kaplan sets out to shed some much-needed light on the realm of cyberwarfare and the shadowy history of the agency which was to make it its speciality. The book traces the NSA back to its inception in the early 1950s, and meticulously charts the struggles, conflicts, setbacks and presidential panics which helped it become the technical behemoth exposed to the world in 2013.
We learn the threats and opportunities of cyber war are nothing new. The use of intercepted intelligence was a key tactic for Roman infantrymen, who captured enemy messengers in order to learn and counter the movements of their enemies. In the Second World War, British codebreakers led by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park helped to turn the tide by decrypting messages sent by the Germans and Japanese.
Used correctly, this approach can leave the enemy command unable to trust the information they’re receiving from the field, distorting their view of a battle. Kaplan tracks the development of these tactics through various US conflicts, tracing the NSA’s growing capabilities from Moscow to the Middle East.
Read more @ http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/20160323/550/book-review-fred-kaplans-dark-territory--how-baywatch-bikinis-became-a-us-weapon
Belgian government says the legislation won’t overstep privacy boundaries. Even before this week’s terrorist attacks, Belgium planned to beef up its data retention laws and give intelligence agencies and prosecutors broader powers. “[The terror attacks] could very well speed up the talks,” said Belgian MP Peter Dedecker, member of the Flemish-nationalist N-VA. The day before Salah Abdeslam, a suspect in November’s Paris terror attacks, capture last Friday, Belgium’s Minister of Justice Koen Geens announced the Council of Ministers wanted to pass two key laws before the summer. One would help streamline rules for authorities’ online activities and hacking rights. The second would allow intelligence agencies greater freedoms to hack extremist groups online and eavesdrop on cross-border communications. “Governments can gather data but we have to do it under clear, defined conditions: who has access, who can analyze the data, who can share it,” said Bart Tommelein, state secretary for privacy in Belgium. The two laws are now being reviewed by the Council of State — which does legal checks on government proposals — and will likely be discussed in parliament in the next two months, if not sooner.
Belgian government says the legislation won’t overstep privacy boundaries.
Even before this week’s terrorist attacks, Belgium planned to beef up its data retention laws and give intelligence agencies and prosecutors broader powers.
“[The terror attacks] could very well speed up the talks,” said Belgian MP Peter Dedecker, member of the Flemish-nationalist N-VA.
The day before Salah Abdeslam, a suspect in November’s Paris terror attacks, capture last Friday, Belgium’s Minister of Justice Koen Geens announced the Council of Ministers wanted to pass two key laws before the summer.
One would help streamline rules for authorities’ online activities and hacking rights.
The second would allow intelligence agencies greater freedoms to hack extremist groups online and eavesdrop on cross-border communications.
“Governments can gather data but we have to do it under clear, defined conditions: who has access, who can analyze the data, who can share it,” said Bart Tommelein, state secretary for privacy in Belgium.
The two laws are now being reviewed by the Council of State — which does legal checks on government proposals — and will likely be discussed in parliament in the next two months, if not sooner.
Read more @ http://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-could-speed-revamp-of-belgian-cybersecurity-laws/
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
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