Encrypted communications will be backdoored or banned in the UK if the Conservatives win the next election, Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged.
The UK government has always had the power, “in extremis,” to read Brits’ personal post and eavesdrop on electronic chatter, he repeatedly insisted on Monday in a speech to the party faithful in Nottingham.
Category: Spying
The Corrupt Philanderer Who Built the CIA’s Black Sites
Bureaucrats love secrets. If they are given unchecked power to create secrets, they will find the temptation to use this power irresistible. They will use it to cover justified cases, for example, to preserve diplomatic and military secrets that are important for national security, or to protect the privacy of individual citizens (the information contained on tax returns, for instance). But at the same time bureaucrats use secrecy to obscure from public sight anything that might embarrass them or reduce their political power and influence, for instance, innocent mistakes, evidence of incompetence, evidence that the policies they have made or implemented do not work or have unforeseen negative consequences, corruption, or even evidence of criminal conspiracies and dealings.
Democratic deliberation rests on the premise that ideas, once exposed to the public—unfolded, challenged, tested, and disputed—will stand or fall on their own merit. The bureaucratic drive for secrecy rests, in many cases, on a need to keep information out of the hands of individuals who could use it to harm the bureaucracy. The bureaucrat will invariably say that an enemy could use the information to harm the country, but more often than not the real concern originates with the bureaucrat personally or the office where he or she works.
The bureaucrat may fear that the exposure of a mistake will damage his chances for promotion or undermine the prestige and influence of the bureaucratic institution where he works, making it vulnerable to bureaucratic rivals. To the extent this is the case, secrecy produces a government that is more poorly informed, dull-witted, and more corrupt than would be the case if the power of classifying secrets were stripped away. This is because information stamped “secret” cannot be tested and challenged in the forum of democratic debate; it goes unquestioned and tends to be accepted as truth. If the secret is nonsense, it will likely be revealed as such once exposed.
Dianne Feinstein, Strong Advocate of Leak Prosecutions, Demands Immunity For David Petraeus
If it wasn’t already clear that the US government was unhappy with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden—and the feds want him extradited, President Obama denounced him—it is now. Today, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and her House counterpart, Mike Rogers (R-MI), both emphasized there would be no mercy coming from Washington.
“He was trusted; he stripped our system; he had an opportunity—if what he was, was a whistle-blower—to pick up the phone and call the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and say I have some information,” Feinstein told CBS’ Face The Nation. “But that didn’t happen. He’s done this enormous disservice to our country, and I think the answer is no clemency.”
The lust for “justice” changes somewhat when it’s one of “their own” that is under scrutiny:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) urged the Department of Justice not to bring criminal charges against former CIA Director David Petraeus over his handling of classified information.
“This man has suffered enough in my view,” Feinstein said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, explaining why she doesn’t think Attorney General Eric Holder should seek an indictment.
Petraeus “made a mistake,” added the senator, who is vice chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “But … it’s done, it’s over. He’s retired. He’s lost his job. How much does the government want?”
FBI Says It Has A Warrant Requirement For Stingray Use; Has Exception Broad Enough To Ensure It Never Needs A Warrant
[W]e understand that the FBI’s new policy requires FBI agents to obtain a search warrant whenever a cell-site simulator is used as part of a FBI investigation or operation, unless one of several exceptions apply, including (among others): (1) cases that pose an imminent danger to public safety, (2) cases that involve a fugitive, or (3) cases in which the technology is used in public places or other locations at which the FBI deems there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Which is pretty much everywhere…
Was the U.S. Involved in Bringing Down Australia’s Government?
This is an old story, from back in 1984, about how the US may have been involved in overthrowing the government of Australia
When The FISA Court Rejects A Surveillance Request, The FBI Just Issues A National Security Letter Instead
“We considered the Section 215 request for [REDACTED] discussed earlier in this report at pages 33 to 34 to be a noteworthy item. In this case, the FISA Court had twice declined to approve a Section 215 application based on First Amendment Concerns. However, the FBI subsequently issued NSLs for information [REDACTED] even though the statute authorizing the NSLs contained the same First Amendment restriction as Section 215 and the ECs authorizing the NSLs relied on the same facts contained in the Section 215 applicants…”
In other words, the FBI had a neat way to get around a rare FISA Court rejection: just issue an NSL and ignore the First Amendment concerns.
Irony 101: Study Ethics with Legal Ace Who Sanctioned NSA Wiretapping, CIA Torture
Waterboarding: Yes or no? It’s OK to selectively violate the Geneva Convention, right? Spying on Americans is illegal, but aren’t rules made to be broken?
The world is a confusing place and it’s hard for young people to answer complicated questions like these on their own. Fortunately, students at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, have Professor Robert Deitz to help them navigate the contemporary moral morass. “All of us are familiar with basic ethical notions,” he writes in the syllabus for his Spring 2015 course, Ethical Challenges in Public Policy. “We learn from childhood the idea that some conduct is right and other conduct is not right.”
How’d Deitz get so smart about ethics? He’s magna cum laude from Harvard (like President Obama) and then spent eights years as General Counsel at the National Security Agency, serving as the official Yes Man for General Michael Hayden, and after that three years as his Senior Councillor at the Central Intelligence Agency until 2009. At the former post Deitz rubber-stamped NSA surveillance. At the latter, he sought to derail an independent investigation by then-CIA Inspector General John Helgerson into the agency’s torture and rendition of terrorism suspects.
After retiring from public service Deitz joined GMU as Distinguished Visiting Professor & CIA Officer-in-Residence, and he’s now on the regular faculty. In his course syllabus Deitz (also author of “Congratulations — You Just Got Hired: Don’t Screw It Up”) promises that “ethical matters of current interest will be discussed in class.”
Iowa Dept. Of Transportation Announces Plan To Give Police Officers, Security Personnel Full Access To Your Smartphone
People of Iowa can soon use a mobile app instead of a physical drivers license. Sounds great, right?
Nowhere in the course of the Des Moines Register article are any concerns expressed about potential abuse by law enforcement. Perhaps that’s due to the sole source being Paul Trombino of the Dept. of Transportation — a government agency that, like many others, likely views law enforcement officers as “good guys” and defers to their judgment.
But what happens where you’re pulled over? The first thing an officer does is ask for license and registration and then takes both items back to his/her vehicle. How many people feel comfortable with allowing an officer to take and maintain control of their cellphone for an indefinite period of time?
Sure, we have a Supreme Court decision that states warrants must be obtained before cellphones can be searched, but how much of a deterrent is that? Let’s say the officer thinks you might be some sort of drug runner. Well, now he has both your cellphone and “exigent circumstances.” Even if the eventual search turns up nothing, he’s still had a chance to look through your cellphone and, quite possibly, your vehicle, all without a warrant. Iowa’s law enforcement officers already take advantage of the state’s asset forfeiture laws. There’s no reason to believe they won’t take advantage of additional opportunities to root around in the contents of someone’s cellphone. All it takes is a routine traffic stop.
The Sound of Torture
Have you heard the screams of a prisoner who is being tortured in America’s war on terror? I can’t forget them.
They pierced the walls of a detention center I visited in Samarra during an offensive by American and Iraqi forces in 2005. In a small room, I was interviewing a frightened detainee whose head was bandaged from an injury he unconvincingly attributed to a car accident during his capture. Bloodstains dripped down the side of a desk, and there was an American military adviser with us, as well as a portly officer of Iraq’s special police commandos.
Suddenly there was a chilling scream.
The Inside Story of How British Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco
When the incoming emails stopped arriving, it seemed innocuous at first. But it would eventually become clear that this was no routine technical problem. Inside a row of gray office buildings in Brussels, a major hacking attack was in progress. And the perpetrators were British government spies.
It was in the summer of 2012 that the anomalies were initially detected by employees at Belgium’s largest telecommunications provider, Belgacom. But it wasn’t until a year later, in June 2013, that the company’s security experts were able to figure out what was going on. The computer systems of Belgacom had been infected with a highly sophisticated malware, and it was disguising itself as legitimate Microsoft software while quietly stealing data.
Last year, documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters was behind the attack, codenamed Operation Socialist. And in November, The Intercept revealed that the malware found on Belgacom’s systems was one of the most advanced spy tools ever identified by security researchers, who named it “Regin.”
The full story about GCHQ’s infiltration of Belgacom, however, has never been told. Key details about the attack have remained shrouded in mystery—and the scope of the attack unclear.
Now, in partnership with Dutch and Belgian newspapers NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard, The Intercept has pieced together the first full reconstruction of events that took place before, during, and after the secret GCHQ hacking operation.