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Welcome to 1984: Big Brother Google now watching your every political move

September 11, 2017

Welcome to 1984: Big Brother Google now watching your every political move

Welcome to 1984: Big Brother Google now watching your every political move
© Hoxton / Paul Bradbury / Getty Images
Google has taken the unprecedented step of burying material, mostly from websites on the political right, that it has deemed to be inappropriate. The problem, however, is that the world’s largest search engine is a left-leaning company with an ax to grind.

Let’s face it, deep down in our heart of hearts we knew the honeymoon wouldn’t last forever. Our willingness to place eternal faith in an earth-straddling company that oversees the largest collection of information ever assembled was doomed to end in a bitter divorce from the start. After all, each corporation, just like humans, has their own political proclivities, and Google is certainly no exception. But we aren’t talking about your average car company here.

The first sign Google would eventually become more of a political liability than a public utility was revealed in 2005 when CEO Eric Schmidt (who is now executive chairman of Alphabet, Inc, Google’s parent company) sat down with interviewer Charlie Rose, who asked Schmidt to explain “where the future of search is going.”

Schmidt’s response should have triggered alarm bells across the free world.

“Well, when you use Google, do you get more than one answer,” Schmidt asked rhetorically, before answering deceptively. “Of course you do. Well, that’s a bug. We have more bugs per second in the world. We should be able to give you the right answer just once… and we should never be wrong.”

Really?

Think about that for a moment. Schmidt believes, counter-intuitively, that getting multiple possible choices for any one Google query is not the desirable prospect it should be (aren’t consumers always in search of more variety?), but rather a “bug” that should be duly squashed underfoot.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Telecoms Knew About Spying Loophole for Decades, Did Nothing

September 5, 2017

Telecoms Knew About Spying Loophole for Decades, Did Nothing

Issues with the SS7 network only really entered the public consciousness a few years ago. But the telecom community has known about the issues for a lot longer.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH ROGERS/THE DAILY BEAST

Spies and hackers are actively exploiting a backbone of how mobile phones communicate—and telecoms have known about it for 19 years.

By targeting a network and set of related protocol known as SS7, for-profit surveillance companies and financially motivated criminals can track phones across the planet, or intercept calls and text messages.

In recent years, security researchers and the media have highlighted these problems, with one news outlet even eavesdropping on the calls of Congressman Ted Lieu to demonstrate the vulnerabilities. Despite high-profile coverage, generally the problems in SS7 persist.

But at least some members of the telecom community have known about the serious security issues in SS7 for nearly two decades, according to a document reviewed by The Daily Beast. The news highlights the snail’s pace at which the industry has addressed glaring holes in the world’s mobile infrastructure, leaving U.S. citizens and others around the world open to spying.

“There is no adequate security in SS7. Mobile operators’ needs [sic] to protect themselves from attack by hackers and inadvertent action that could stop a network or networks operating correctly,” a recently unearthed, 1998 document from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) reads.

ETSI is a nonprofit organization that today has over 800 members from the telecom industry, including giants such as T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Orange. ETSI developed versions of SS7 for the European market, organization spokesperson Claire Boyer told The Daily Beast. The document itself is a report from a meeting of ETSI’s “Special Mobile Group.”

The 1998 document adds that “the problem with the current SS7 system is that messages can be altered and injected into the global SS7 networks in an un-controlled manner.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Quietly Nominates Mass Surveillance Advocate To “Protect” Your Privacy Rights

September 5, 2017

Trump Quietly Nominates Mass Surveillance Advocate To “Protect” Your Privacy Rights

Though outrage over mass surveillance swept the United States after Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, there is little discussion of these invasive practices just four years later.

This apathy comes despite former President Barack Obama’s move to expand to information sharing between agencies just days before Trump took office and after the Trump administration signaled its desire to continue widespread surveillance.

Amid this lack of attention toward the NSA, the president recently nominated a staunch advocate of mass surveillance to chair one of the few barriers standing between intrusive government spying and the American people’s privacy. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) was created in 2004 at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and was intended “to help the executive branch balance national security priorities with individual rights,” the Intercept reported earlier this year.

“PCLOB is supposed to have five members, no more than three of whom come from the same political party; to employ a full-time chairperson; to have regular access to the 17 intelligence agencies; and to publish unclassified versions of its evaluations of U.S. espionage powers.”

However, as of March of this year, the board was down to just one part-time member, and this lack of personnel rendered it largely impotent.

“But with just one part-time board member left, after another member’s term ended last week, the agency has very few formal powers to police the so-called ‘deep state’ until President Trump nominates a new board,” the Intercept reported pursuant to emails they obtained regarding the remaining single member.

Though the board had been deteriorating before Trump became president, it may now be further undermined as a result of his recent appointment.

On August 25, the president announced his nomination of Adam I. Klein to chair the PCLOB. According to the White House release discussing this nomination:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the CIA made Google

August 29, 2017

How the CIA made Google

Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—

part 1

THIS IS PART ONE. READ PART TWO HERE.

This exclusive is being released for free in the public interest, and was enabled by crowdfunding. I’d like to thank my amazing community of patrons for their support, which gave me the opportunity to work on this in-depth investigation. Please support independent, investigative journalism for the global commons.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, western governments are moving fast to legitimize expanded powers of mass surveillance and controls on the internet, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

US and European politicians have called to protect NSA-style snooping, and to advance the capacity to intrude on internet privacy by outlawing encryption. One idea is to establish a telecoms partnership that would unilaterally delete content deemed to “fuel hatred and violence” in situations considered “appropriate.” Heated discussions are going on at government and parliamentary level to explore cracking down on lawyer-clientconfidentiality.

What any of this would have done to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attacks remains a mystery, especially given that we already know the terrorists were on the radar of French intelligence for up to a decade.

There is little new in this story. The 9/11 atrocity was the first of many terrorist attacks, each succeeded by the dramatic extension of draconian state powers at the expense of civil liberties, backed up with the projection of military force in regions identified as hotspots harbouring terrorists. Yet there is little indication that this tried and tested formula has done anything to reduce the danger. If anything, we appear to be locked into a deepening cycle of violence with no clear end in sight.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wikileaks Blows the Doors off of Silicon Valley

March 9, 2017

Wikileaks Blows the Doors off of Silicon Valley 

Wikileaks

Wikileaks has published Vault 7 which contained thousands of documents. Wikileaks now says the CIA has hacked into Apple and Android smartphones, Windows computers and Samsung smart TVs. Looking over all the documents, they seem to now describe how the CIA can spy by exploiting security flaws to access text and voice messages EVEN before they’re encrypted. The question is really when will this stop? There are some who say they have nothing to hide. Everyone does because tax evasion is a CRIMINAL ACT. That means not paying taxes on anything or overstating deductions is at least justification for a warrant if they really played by the rules. But there are no rules. There is no supervision. They simply want to be able to check on anyone, anywhere, at anytime, just to see if there is something interesting.

New Study Shows Mass Surveillance Breeds Meekness, Fear and Self-Censorship

April 28, 2016

A newly published study from Oxford’s Jon Penney provides empirical evidence for a key argument long made by privacy advocates: that the mere existence of a surveillance state breeds fear and conformity and stifles free expression. Reporting on the study, the Washington Post this morning described this phenomenon: “If we think that authorities are watching our online actions, we might stop visiting certain websites or not say certain things just to avoid seeming suspicious.”

The new study documents how, in the wake of the 2013 Snowden revelations (of which 87% of Americans were aware), there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al-Qaeda,’ “car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.’” People were afraid to read articles about those topics because of fear that doing so would bring them under a cloud of suspicion. The dangers of that dynamic were expressed well by Penney: “If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.”

As the Post explains, several other studies have also demonstrated how mass surveillance crushes free expression and free thought. A 2015 study examined Google search data and demonstrated that, post-Snowden, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the US government” and that these “results suggest that there is a chilling effect on search behavior from government surveillance on the Internet.”

The fear that causes self-censorship is well beyond the realm of theory. Ample evidence demonstrates that it’s real – and rational. A study from PEN America writers found that 1 in 6 writers had curbed their content out of fear of surveillance and showed that writers are “not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

One Nation Under Surveillance – U.S. Government Pushed Tech Companies to Hand Over Source Code

March 18, 2016

One Nation Under Surveillance – U.S. Government Pushed Tech Companies to Hand Over Source Code

Screen Shot 2016-03-17 at 12.07.32 PM

Our founding fathers studied power structures over the millennia and knew exactly what they were doing when solidifying the Bill of Rights into the U.S. Constitution. All it took was a couple hundred years, an extraordinarily ignorant and apathetic American public, and a major terror attack to roll back this multi-generational gift.

For many years, I and countless others have been screaming from the rooftops that a society should never trade civil liberties for security. Life on earth has always been dangerous for us humans, and what has historically separated free and noble civilizations from stunted tyrannies is a willingness to acknowledge such a precarious existence while at the same time demanding and defending one’s dignity and liberty. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the American public has demonstrated no such strength of character or historical maturity, thus allowing a corrupt, deceptive and lawless government to run roughshod over freedom with very little resistance.

– From the post: War on Terror Turns Inward – NSA Surveillance Will Be Used Against American Citizens

Freedom? Liberty? Don’t be ridiculous.

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated readers on the shady, shameless surveillance practices of the U.S. government. As usual, it’s worse than we thought.

ZDNet reports:

NEW YORK — The US government has made numerous attempts to obtain source code from tech companies in an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations.

The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. We’re not naming the person as they relayed information that is likely classified.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says

March 17, 2016

Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says

Thanks largely to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, most Americans now realize that the intelligence community monitors and archives all sorts of online behaviors of both foreign nationals and US citizens.

But did you know that the very fact that you know this could have subliminally stopped you from speaking out online on issues you care about?

Now research suggests that widespread awareness of such mass surveillance could undermine democracy by making citizens fearful of voicing dissenting opinions in public.

A paper published last week in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), found that “the government’s online surveillance programs may threaten the disclosure of minority views and contribute to the reinforcement of majority opinion.”

“What this research shows is that in the presence of surveillance, our country’s most vulnerable voices are unwilling to express their beliefs online.”

The NSA’s “ability to surreptitiously monitor the online activities of US citizens may make online opinion climates especially chilly” and “can contribute to the silencing of minority views that provide the bedrock of democratic discourse,” the researcher found.

The paper is based on responses to an online questionnaire from a random sample of 255 people, selected to mimic basic demographic distributions across the US population.

Participants were asked to answer questions relating to media use, political attitudes, and personality traits. Different subsets of the sample were exposed to different messaging on US government surveillance to test their responses to the same fictional Facebook post about the US decision to continue airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mass surveillance programs futile in fighting terror – Snowden

March 15, 2016

Mass surveillance programs futile in fighting terror – Snowden

Edward Snowden © AutoTracking / YouTube
Edward Snowden © AutoTracking / YouTube
Bulk data gathering programs used by US intelligence have no effect in combating terrorism and have failed to prevent any attacks in their 10 years of operation, whistleblower and former NSA contactor Edward Snowden, claims in a recent interview.

“In the wake of the revelations of mass surveillance the [US] president [Barack Obama] appointed two independent commissions to review the efficiency of these [surveillance] programs, what they really did and what effect they had in combating terrorism. [The commissions comprised] the highest priests of these programs, they found these programs had never stopped a single terrorist attack and never made a concrete difference in a terrorist investigation,” Snowden told Spanish TV channel .

The whistleblower went on saying, that “they [the NSA, CIA] violated the constitution and the rights of 330 million Americans for 10 years. We have to ask ourselves: was it ever worth it?”He also stated that despite being justified by preventing terrorist attacks, surveillance programs are more often used for completely different purposes.

“It was diplomatic manipulation, economic spying and social control. It was about power, and there is no doubt that mass surveillance increases the power of the government.”

Read more

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden © Vincent Kessler

‘That’s horse sh*t!’: FBI can already unlock iPhone without Apple’s help – Snowden 

Snowden stressed that bulk data collection is “more aggressive and invasive today than it was before. Law enforcement and intelligence structures do not any longer bother to pick up a suspect and hack his cell phone, they cut in into all lines and communications […] at the heart of the society.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New transatlantic data transfer deal sealed with ‘written assurances’ of US spying limitations

February 3, 2016

New transatlantic data transfer deal sealed with ‘written assurances’ of US spying limitations

© Sigtryggur Ari
© Sigtryggur Ari / Reuters
The US and the EU have agreed on new rules for sharing personal data across the Atlantic that will allegedly better protect Europeans’ privacy from US intelligence agencies after the previous Safe Harbour mechanism was deemed inadequate.
TrendsNSA leaks

“We have agreed with our US partners a new framework that will ensure the right checks and balances for our citizens,” said digital commissioner Andrus Ansip at a press conference in Strasbourg. The vital deal, called the ‘Privacy Shield’ was reached months after the so-called Safe Harbour agreement was annulled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in October last year.

The new “Privacy Shield”, the EU Commission believes, abides by the ECJ requirements to ensure stronger obligations that American companies, such as Facebook and Google, protect the personal data of Europeans. The new framework is expected to be in place in three months.

“The US side has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of Europeans,” said Ansip, claiming that the US intelligence activities underwent “substantial internal reviews.” Furthermore, the American side has provided written assurances ruling out indiscriminate mass surveillance of personal data.

“We have for the first time received detailed written assurances from the United States on the safeguards and limitations applicable to US surveillance programs,” noted Ansip.

According to justice commissioner Vera Jourova, written assurances would include guarantees from the office of the director of national intelligence in the White House.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Paul Ryan Sneaks Massive Surveillance Bill Into $1.1 Trillion Must Pass Spending Legislation

December 18, 2015

Paul Ryan Sneaks Massive Surveillance Bill Into $1.1 Trillion Must Pass Spending Legislation

Screen Shot 2015-12-10 at 1.01.52 PM

On Friday, Congress will vote on a mutated version of security threat sharing legislation that had previously passed through the House and Senate. These earlier versions would have permitted private companies to share with the federal government categories of data related to computer security threat signatures. Companies that did so would also receive legal immunity from liability under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and other privacy laws. Today’s language, renamed the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 (Division N of the omnibus budget bill) mostly assembles the worst parts of the earlier bills to threaten privacy even further.

We have about two days to figure out what this so-called Cybersecurity Act (OmniCISA) means for consumer privacy in the US. That unfortunate timing is thanks to Speaker Paul Ryan’s decision to include language announced at 2am this morning as part of a must-pass spending bill scheduled for a vote Friday.

– From Jennifer Granick’s article: OmniCISA Pits DHS Against the FCC and FTC on User Privacy

I know it’s hard to believe, but yes, Paul Ryan is indeed far worse than John Boehner. The fact that Republican members of Congress chose to make him Speaker of the House tells you all you need to know about the true nature of the GOP and who they really work for (it’s not you). After all, Paul Ryan’s public record speaks for itself. He voted for the banker bailouts as well as the Iraq War. He’s a very well behaved little status quo puppet.

Moving along, what Mr. Ryan just did to intentionally target the 4th Amendment rights of American citizens could be described as treasonous. A move which exemplifies the complete and total disrespect he harbors toward the people he claims to represent. For a bit of context, let’s turn to a post published here last week which unfortunately failed to get much traction titled, Paul Ryan is Aggressively Lobbying to Pass “Frankenstein” CISA Spy Bill Through Congress. In it, we warned:

Stingrays: A Secret Catalogue of Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone

December 18, 2015

Stingrays: A Secret Catalogue of Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone

THE INTERCEPT HAS OBTAINED a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. The document, thick with previously undisclosed information, also offers rare insight into the spying capabilities of federal law enforcement and local police inside the United States.

The catalogue includes details on the Stingray, a well-known brand of surveillance gear, as well as Boeing “dirt boxes” and dozens of more obscure devices that can be mounted on vehicles, drones, and piloted aircraft. Some are designed to be used at static locations, while others can be discreetly carried by an individual. They have names like Cyberhawk, Yellowstone, Blackfin, Maximus, Cyclone, and Spartacus. Within the catalogue, the NSA is listed as the vendor of one device, while another was developed for use by the CIA, and another was developed for a special forces requirement. Nearly a third of the entries focus on equipment that seems to have never been described in public before.

The Intercept obtained the catalogue from a source within the intelligence community concerned about the militarization of domestic law enforcement. (The original is here.)

A few of the devices can house a “target list” of as many as 10,000 unique phone identifiers. Most can be used to geolocate people, but the documents indicate that some have more advanced capabilities, like eavesdropping on calls and spying on SMS messages. Two systems, apparently designed for use on captured phones, are touted as having the ability to extract media files, address books, and notes, and one can retrieve deleted text messages.

Above all, the catalogue represents a trove of details on surveillance devices developed for military and intelligence purposes but increasingly used by law enforcement agencies to spy on people and convict them of crimes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Fourth Turning–Social & Cultural Distress Dividing the Nation

November 28, 2015

FOURTH TURNING – SOCIAL & CULTURAL DISTRESS DIVIDING THE NATION

I wrote the first three parts of this article back in September and planned to finish it in early October, but life intervened and truthfully I don’t think I was ready to confront how bad things will likely get as this Fourth Turning moves into the violent, chaotic war stage just over the horizon. The developments in the Middle East, Europe, U.S., China and across the globe in the last months have confirmed my belief war drums are beating louder, global war beckons, and much bloodshed will be the result. Fourth Turnings proceed at their own pace within the 20 to 25 year crisis framework, but there is one guarantee – they never de-intensify as they progress. Just as Winter gets colder, stormier and more bitter as you proceed from December through February, Fourth Turnings get nastier, grimmer, more perilous, with our way of life hanging in the balance.

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I will assess the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation, Part 5 the technological, ecological, political, military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in Part 6 our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.

The road ahead will be distressful for everyone living in the U.S., as we experience the horrors of war, economic collapse, civil chaos, political upheaval, and the tearing of society’s social fabric. The pain and suffering being experienced across the globe today will not bypass the people of the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

So Who’s Really Sponsoring ISIS? Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Other U.S. “Allies”

November 23, 2015

So Who’s Really Sponsoring ISIS? Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Other U.S. “Allies”

Screen Shot 2015-11-22 at 9.54.56 AM

Mass surveillance at home and endless military projection abroad are the twin sides of the same coin of national security, which must simply be maximized as much as possible. 

Conspicuously missing from President Hollande’s decisive declaration of war however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship.

A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’”

ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored — indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition. Which then begs the question as to why Hollande and other Western leaders expressing their determination to “destroy” ISIS using all means necessary, would prefer to avoid the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS’ emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region.

There are many explanations, but one perhaps stands out: the West’s abject dependence on terror-toting Muslim regimes, largely to maintain access to Middle East, Mediterranean and Central Asian oil and gas resources.

– From the excellent Nafeez Ahmed article: NATO is Harbouring the Islamic State

With the way the French government’s cracking down on the civil liberties of its own citizens, you’d think the general public was supporting and funding ISIS as opposed to the French government allies who actually are.

As an example, we learn the following from ArsTechica:

In the wake of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, France is bringing in new legislation extending the country’s temporary state of emergency to three months. The new laws also grant the authorities new powers to carry out searches of seized devices and to block websites.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

After Paris, there will be no stopping the surveillance state now

November 19, 2015

After Paris, there will be no stopping the surveillance state now

Public surveillance increasing at an ‘accelerating rate,’ researchers say, with Europe leading the way

CCTV footage of three British girls catching a flight to Turkey in February to join ISIS dominated the news media for days and likely contributed to the public thirst for answers.

CCTV footage of three British girls catching a flight to Turkey in February to join ISIS dominated the news media for days and likely contributed to the public thirst for answers. (Metropolitan Police/Associated Press)

An old acquaintance who spent years in Canada’s secret world, where he developed a you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it smile, regularly sends me taunting emails and links.

The general theme is that thanks to all the whinging in the mainstream media about civil liberties, and the cavilling by politicians who disagreed with Stephen Harper about the imminent danger posed by Islamic terrorism to Canadians everywhere, our security agencies are unnecessarily hobbled.

After the mass murders in Paris this week, he passed on an article by the conservative writer Mark Steyn, who wrote that instead of meeting about climate change, “a problem that doesn’t exist,” Western leaders should be doing something about the millions of Muslims who now live in Europe, most of whom “at a certain level either wish or are indifferent to the death of the societies in which they live — modern, pluralist, Western societies.”

My friend the ex-spy — who, like a number of security professionals I’ve met over the years, holds an advanced degree — clearly believes the only sensible remedy is increased powers for state security organs.

And that anyone who refuses to accept that premise, or who wants to debate root causes, is quite simply advocating self-destruction.

John Brennan, the CIA director, used the Paris massacre to make essentially the same point this week, denouncing “a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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