Current Affairs Surveillance in the US reaches new levels

[CrackpotForeigner]

Dilma Rousseff

[BOF]

Glenn Greenwald is hosting a reddit AMA at 6pm today to answer questions about the NSA. Should be very interesting.

[Davkaus]

Hopefully he's not involved in an unfortunately timed car accident before then.

[BOF]

U.S. government 'shut down' today so maybe they're not manning the remote controls.

[CrackpotForeigner]

A brilliant (long!) article here:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/edward-snowden-files-john-lanchester

 

"Google doesn't just know you're gay before you tell your mum, it knows you're gay before you do. And now GCHQ knows as well."

Edited October 4, 2013 by CrackpotForeigner

[CrackpotForeigner]

Another brilliant article here via the BBC, no less. Just in case anyone was thinking of leaving everything up to the professionals...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

 

I can't recommend it highly enough!

[BOF]

What the **** are they on about? They willingly hand over user info behind that user's back via their own software/resources and then they have the nerve to be 'outraged' when the NSA go behind their back? It rings more than a little hollow to me.

 

Google 'outraged' at alleged NSA spying

The US's National Security Agency has tapped directly into communications links used by Google and Yahoo to move huge amounts of email and other user information.

The revelations were made in a Washington Post report, based on secret NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The documents appear to show the agency has used weak restrictions on its overseas activities to exploit major US companies' data to a far greater extent than realised.

Previously reported programmes included those that allowed easy searches of Google, Yahoo and other internet giants' material based on court orders.

But since the interception in the newly disclosed effort, code-named MUSCULAR, occurs outside the US, there is no oversight by the secret intelligence court.

The newspaper said the operation gained access to a cable or switch that relayed the traffic through an unnamed telecommunications provider.

"We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fibre networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform," said Google chief legal officer David Drummond.

Google said it had not been aware of the programme, although it recently began speeding its efforts to encrypt internal traffic.

Like other companies, Google and Yahoo constantly send data over leased and shared or exclusive international fibre-optic communication lines as they synchronise information.

The newly disclosed programme, operated jointly with Britain’s GCHQ, amassed 181 million records in one recent 30-day span, according to one document reported by the Washington Post.

'Valid foreign intelligence targets only'

An NSA spokesperson said in a statement the suggestion that the agency relies on a presidential order on foreign intelligence gathering to skirt domestic restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws "is not true".

"The assertion that we collect vast quantities of US persons' data from this type of collection is also not true," the spokesperson said.

"NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we're focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only."

Asked at an event in Washington about the latest report, NSA Director General Keith Alexander said that he had not read it, but the agency did not have unfettered access to the US companies' servers.

"I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers," Mr Alexander said. "We go through a court order."

[BOF]

Another brilliant article here via the BBC, no less. Just in case anyone was thinking of leaving everything up to the professionals...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

 

I can't recommend it highly enough!

Jesus that's enormous said the actress to the bishop

[tonyh29]

[maqroll]

Blushes all around, then

 

 

The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain's GCHQeavesdropping agency.

The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. A loose but growing eavesdropping alliance has allowed intelligence agencies from one country to cultivate ties with corporations from another to facilitate the trawling of the web, according to GCHQ documents leaked by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies.

The German, French and Spanish governments have reacted angrily to reports based on National Security Agency (NSA) files leaked by Snowden since June, revealing the interception of communications by tens of millions of their citizens each month. US intelligence officials have insisted the mass monitoring was carried out by the security agencies in the countries involved and shared with the US.

The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, suggested to Congress on Tuesday that European governments' professed outrage at the reports was at least partly hypocritical. "Some of this reminds me of the classic movie Casablanca: 'My God, there's gambling going on here,' " he said.

Sweden, which passed a law in 2008 allowing its intelligence agency to monitor cross-border email and phone communications without a court order, has been relatively muted in its response.

The German government, however, has expressed disbelief and fury at the revelations from the Snowden documents, including the fact that the NSA monitored Angela Merkel's mobile phone calls.

After the Guardian revealed the existence of GCHQ's Tempora programme, in which the electronic intelligence agency tapped directly into the transatlantic fibre optic cables to carry out bulk surveillance, the German justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said it sounded "like a Hollywood nightmare", and warned the UK government that free and democratic societies could not flourish when states shielded their actions in "a veil of secrecy".

'Huge potential'

However, in a country-by-country survey of its European partners, GCHQ officials expressed admiration for the technical capabilities of German intelligence to do the same thing. The survey in 2008, when Tempora was being tested, said the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), had "huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the internet – they are already seeing some bearers running at 40Gbps and 100Gbps".

Bearers is the GCHQ term for the fibre optic cables, and gigabits per second (Gbps) measures the speed at which data runs through them. Four years after that report, GCHQ was still only able to monitor 10 Gbps cables, but looked forward to tap new 100 Gbps bearers eventually. Hence the admiration for the BND.

The document also makes clear that British intelligence agencies were helping their German counterparts change or bypass laws that restricted their ability to use their advanced surveillance technology. "We have been assisting the BND (along with SIS [secret Intelligence Service] and Security Service) in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany," it says.

The country-by-country survey, which in places reads somewhat like a school report, also hands out high marks to the GCHQ's French partner, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE). But in this case it is suggested that the DGSE's comparative advantage is its relationship with an unnamed telecommunications company, a relationship GCHQ hoped to leverage for its own operations.

"DGSE are a highly motivated, technically competent partner, who have shown great willingness to engage on IP [internet protocol] issues, and to work with GCHQ on a "cooperate and share" basis."

Noting that the Cheltenham-based electronic intelligence agency had trained DGSE technicians on "multi-disciplinary internet operations", the document says: "We have made contact with the DGSE's main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena."

GCHQ went on to host a major conference with its French partner on joint internet-monitoring initiatives in March 2009 and four months later reported on shared efforts on what had become by then GCHQ's biggest challenge – continuing to carry out bulk surveillance, despite the spread of commercial online encryption, by breaking that encryption.

"Very friendly crypt meeting with DGSE in July," British officials reported. The French were "clearly very keen to provide presentations on their work which included cipher detection in high-speed bearers. [GCHQ's] challenge is to ensure that we have enough UK capability to support a longer term crypt relationship."

Fresh opportunities

In the case of the Spanish intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the key to mass internet surveillance, at least back in 2008, was the Spaniards' ties to a British telecommunications company (again unnamed. Corporate relations are among the most strictly guarded secrets in the intelligence community). That was giving them "fresh opportunities and uncovering some surprising results.

"GCHQ has not yet engaged with CNI formally on IP exploitation, but the CNI have been making great strides through their relationship with a UK commercial partner. GCHQ and the commercial partner have been able to coordinate their approach. The commercial partner has provided the CNI some equipment whilst keeping us informed, enabling us to invite the CNI across for IP-focused discussions this autumn," the report said. It concluded that GCHQ "have found a very capable counterpart in CNI, particularly in the field of Covert Internet Ops".

GCHQ was clearly delighted in 2008 when the Swedish parliament passed a bitterly contested law allowing the country's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to conduct Tempora-like operations on fibre optic cables. The British agency also claimed some credit for the success.

"FRA have obtained a … probe to use as a test-bed and we expect them to make rapid progress in IP exploitation following the law change," the country assessment said. "GCHQ has already provided a lot of advice and guidance on these issues and we are standing by to assist the FRA further once they have developed a plan for taking the work forwards."

The following year, GCHQ held a conference with its Swedish counterpart "for discussions on the implications of the new legislation being rolled out" and hailed as "a success in Sweden" the news that FRA "have finally found a pragmatic solution to enable release of intelligence to SAEPO [the internal Swedish security service.]"

GCHQ also maintains strong relations with the two main Dutch intelligence agencies, the external MIVD and the internal security service, the AIVD.

"Both agencies are small, by UK standards, but are technically competent and highly motivated," British officials reported. Once again, GCHQ was on hand in 2008 for help in dealing with legal constraints. "The AIVD have just completed a review of how they intend to tackle the challenges posed by the internet – GCHQ has provided input and advice to this report," the country assessment said.

"The Dutch have some legislative issues that they need to work through before their legal environment would allow them to operate in the way that GCHQ does. We are providing legal advice on how we have tackled some of these issues to Dutch lawyers."

European allies

In the score-card of European allies, it appears to be the Italians who come off the worse. GCHQ expresses frustration with the internal friction between Italian agencies and the legal limits on their activities.

"GCHQ has had some CT [counter-terrorism] and internet-focused discussions with both the foreign intelligence agency (AISE) and the security service (AISI), but has found the Italian intelligence community to be fractured and unable/unwilling to cooperate with one another," the report said.

A follow-up bulletin six months later noted that GCHQ was "awaiting a response from AISI on a recent proposal for cooperation – the Italians had seemed keen, but legal obstacles may have been hindering their ability to commit."

It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe's intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain's location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe's spies.

Edited November 1, 2013 by maqroll

[leviramsey]

Myself, I can't get worked up over wiretapping Merkel or any other head of state/government. It's infinitely preferable to spying on private citizens, and I'd argue it's to be expected from the existence of the nation-state.

Edited November 1, 2013 by leviramsey

[Davkaus]

What the **** are they on about? They willingly hand over user info behind that user's back via their own software/resources and then they have the nerve to be 'outraged' when the NSA go behind their back? It rings more than a little hollow to me.

 

Google 'outraged' at alleged NSA spying

 

The US's National Security Agency has tapped directly into communications links used by Google and Yahoo to move huge amounts of email and other user information.

The revelations were made in a Washington Post report, based on secret NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The documents appear to show the agency has used weak restrictions on its overseas activities to exploit major US companies' data to a far greater extent than realised.

Previously reported programmes included those that allowed easy searches of Google, Yahoo and other internet giants' material based on court orders.

But since the interception in the newly disclosed effort, code-named MUSCULAR, occurs outside the US, there is no oversight by the secret intelligence court.

The newspaper said the operation gained access to a cable or switch that relayed the traffic through an unnamed telecommunications provider.

"We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fibre networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform," said Google chief legal officer David Drummond.

Google said it had not been aware of the programme, although it recently began speeding its efforts to encrypt internal traffic.

Like other companies, Google and Yahoo constantly send data over leased and shared or exclusive international fibre-optic communication lines as they synchronise information.

The newly disclosed programme, operated jointly with Britain’s GCHQ, amassed 181 million records in one recent 30-day span, according to one document reported by the Washington Post.

'Valid foreign intelligence targets only'

An NSA spokesperson said in a statement the suggestion that the agency relies on a presidential order on foreign intelligence gathering to skirt domestic restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws "is not true".

"The assertion that we collect vast quantities of US persons' data from this type of collection is also not true," the spokesperson said.

"NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we're focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only."

Asked at an event in Washington about the latest report, NSA Director General Keith Alexander said that he had not read it, but the agency did not have unfettered access to the US companies' servers.

"I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers," Mr Alexander said. "We go through a court order."

 

 

 

When their government forces them in to silence with gagging orders, I think it's a harsh comparison to make. I'm sure they're pissed that they have to give away their user's data when they're served national security letters from the secret courts (even if they don't care about their users' privacy, providing this data doesn't benefit them, and has potential PR implications, I'm sure they'd rather not do it), but they're not allowed to say a damn thing about it. When the spy agencies don't even bother with that and just intercept traffic without so much as a quasi-legal order to provide the data, Google is at least able to express outrage.

 

Maybe they should have spoken out, but their choice is go along with it, or speak out and be chucked in prison.

 

The US/UK government is the enemy here, not the companies who were coerced in to cooperating.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Davkaus

[Awol]

 

The US/UK government is the enemy here, not the companies who were coerced in to cooperating.

 

I take it you didn't read the article Maqroll posted above? Perhaps you'd like to add the French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Swedish Governments to your list of "enemies".

[leviramsey]

From sp!ked

 

And so, thanks to the unhealthily leaky Edward Snowden, currently holed up somewhere in Russia, the relentless dripping of US National Security Agency (NSA) documents and data into the public sphere continues. Indeed, Snowden, who was an NSA contractor when he absconded with thousands of files earlier this year, is probably best thought of now as a tap, rather than a leak, to be turned on by the Guardian or Der Spiegel or Le Monde, or whatever liberal broadsheet he has deigned to contact, as and when editors feel the need.

The sheer volume of once-confidential NSA info now washing around news outlets would be impressive if its impact wasn’t so deadening. We now know of ‘Prism’, the name given to the data-requesting relationship the NSA has with nine internet companies, including Facebook and Google; we now know that the UK’s very own spies-r-us down at the UK Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) have been busy infiltrating the fibre-optic pipes of the internet itself, and sharing their meta-data findings with the NSA; we now know that the NSA has been spying on EU offices in the US and Europe; we now know that the NSA has been monitoring the calls of millions of citizens from countries outside the US; and, of course, thanks to reports over the past week, we now know that the NSA has been bugging German chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

And yet is all this that revelatory? Is the knowledge that the US’s chief spy agency is spending its multi-billion-dollar budget spying on people that jaw-to-the-floor surprising? What on earth did the Guardian or Der Spiegel think spies did with their time? Fornicate and knock back unstirred martinis?

But while Chancellor Merkel has made a point of publicly acting the wronged victim and has talked about the need to ‘build trust anew’, and pundits have waxed disingenuously about American iniquity, there have been others willing to be a little more sober about the US’s spy games. As former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner put it: ‘Let’s be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don’t have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous.’ That’s not a condemnation, that’s a melancholy ‘if only’. In the words of the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus: ‘Almost all governments conduct surveillance or espionage operations against other countries whose activities matter to them. Some are friends; some are enemies; some may just be in interesting locations or have ties to other countries that are of interest.’

Which raises a question: if it’s not Snowden’s increasingly tedious leaks themselves which are generating the media attention and hype, then what is? And here we approach the nub of the matter. The appeal of the leaks in certain quarters, the appeal of a story involving the US spying on Merkel for instance, lies less in what it ‘reveals’ than in the prejudices it confirms. That is, for those of a leftish-liberal hue, for those inclined to believe that America, conceived as a nest of capitalist and corporate power, is at the root of the world’s problems, is the power behind myriad thrones, the Snowden Files are further proof of what they already know – that the American state is malevolent, that it really is out to, if not get us, then watch us.

Indeed, like Wikileaks before him, Snowden has not let daylight in upon American power; he has merely added to the fug of conspiracy-laden cynicism that hangs heavy over contemporary politics. Playing upon the fantasies of the alienated, Snowden’s leakage suggests that there is some sort of totalitarian, Stasi-style intent behind the NSA’s intelligence operations. As one commentator in the Observer sees it, the NSA is set on ‘gaining greater control over society’. He continues in this vein: ‘This means we are building a vast apparatus that may some day facilitate an oppressive regime.’ A cyberactivist echoes this Nineteen Eighty Four-as-documentary sentiment: ‘The greatest threat to people on the internet in some ways is The Man. But it’s not just one Man, but many states all collaborating together against individuals.’

The glacial slippage of Snowden’s NSA haul into the public arena is not, then, simply ‘unveiling a vast, intensely secret programme of digital surveillance by the US and UK governments on their own people, and citizens of many other countries’, as the UK Green Party’s Natalie Bennett puts it; it is massaging the conspiratorial prejudices of those who really do believe the US is an ‘Orwellian Big Brother state’. It doesn’t explain why state intrusion into the most intimate folds of civil society has been increasing over the past couple of decades, indeed why so many of us have actively invited the state into our lives; it merely encourages spectators to believe the American state, driven by the interests of Big Corporations, is wilfully against us.Yet, interpreted differently, indeed interpreted at all, Snowden’s leaks can actually tell us something.

For instance, the indiscriminate amassing of metadata (the form not the content of messages) involving millions upon millions of people in Europe and the US does tell us something about the war on terror: it tells us how it plays out in practice.

The war on terror was always informed by an exaggerated risk-consciousness, an idea that there was an ever-proliferating set of threats out there in the world which needed to be identified and managed. In the words of the then US secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, these threats, these as yet unidentified sources of existential anxiety, were ‘unknown unknowns’. It is possible then to see the NSA’s seemingly infernal determination to accumulate ever larger masses of data (whether telephonic or electronic) not as a totalitarian dream, but as a direct product of the equally infernal war on terror. Gathering the metadata of millions of Spanish phone calls ought to be understood as an attempt to know the unknown, to search out and eliminate the as-yet unidentified terrorist threat. The fact that this is impossible, the fact that there can always be a threat yet to be known, provides the NSA with its infernal dynamic. It’s crazy, and it’s an affront to anyone who believes in the ideal of liberty, but it’s not a conspiracy.

Moreover, it’s because of the NSA’s drive to accrue more and more data, more and more knowledge of the unknown, that it not only needs more and more state funding, but more and more staff, too. This is why the NSA was drafting in short-term contractors with ever more tenuous loyalty to the US state - people like Edward Snowden. The NSA’s data-obsessed, fear-driven dynamic sowed the seeds of its current problems.

Finally, the leaks and, more importantly, the response to the leaks, also tell us something about the weakness of the US state, not its strength. This isn’t just illustrated by the blundering incompetence of an increasingly unmanageable NSA, nor by America’s expansive and dastardly intelligence agencies’ inability to put a stop to this death by a thousand leaks - as one commentator notes, ‘everyone knows’ where the leaking journalists are. No, the NSA scandal also illustrates the crisis of the American state’s political and moral authority, too.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the absence of anyone in senior political office, including US president Barack Obama, willing or able to defend the actions of US intelligence agencies. So when the NSA’s director James Clapper attempted to do just that in relation to tapping Merkel’s phone, stating ‘Leadership intentions is kind of a basic tenet of what we collect and analyse’, he was not greeted with support but with incredulity. ‘If anyone was expecting apologies or embarrassment from the leaders of America’s intelligence community, they were in for a disappointment’, writes one gob-smacked observer.

It seems that, apart from a few Republican stalwarts, America’s political and media class just doesn’t have a sufficient sense of mission to justify the US state’s own actions. It’s as if the ends, including the increasingly contorted war on terror, are not capable of supporting the hacking and monitoring means. Even the usually hawkish chair of the US Senate’s intelligence committee Dianne Feinstein has now come out against the NSA.

So while the NSA leaks might not tell us what so many commentators think they tell us, they do leave us with something: they provide a snapshot of the conspiratorial worldview in which cynicism and naivety go hand in hand; and they present us with an America that is no longer the superpower its critics want us to think it is.

If you supported the global war on terror, you don't really get to be opposed to what the NSA/GCHQ/et al are doing: you asked for it.

If you supported the hoovering up of all this information: you don't get to be indignant at leaders of other countries being tapped

Edited November 2, 2013 by leviramsey

[snowychap]

If you supported the global war on terror, you don't really get to be opposed to what the NSA/GCHQ/et al are doing: you asked for it.

If you supported the hoovering up of all this information: you don't get to be indignant at leaders of other countries being tapped

And what happens if you didn't?

Or what happens if someone didn't quite realize all of the consequences of what they were told they wanted, do they not get the opportunity to change their decision? Are they stuck with the world that has evolved?

It's fair enough if the point that you or the guy above makes is actually 'if you are still supporting the global war on terror' or 'if you still support and take part in the hoovering up of all this information'.

Also, the article seems to be written from the rather narrow viewpoint (admittedly reinforced by some of the commentary and the public indignation of non US political leadership) that the story is only about massaging the conspiratorial prejudices of those who really do believe the US is an ‘Orwellian Big Brother state’ - something he concludes after quoting a UK politician talking about the work of the US and UK governments.

There's much more (or should be much more) to this story than the likes of the above article, for instance that all governments are at it (or want to be at it); that the likes of Merkel didn't appear to give a monkey's when it was her nation's citizens on the wrong end of this spying/data collection but when it's her or her political elite then it becomes a problem; that it's not just governments and states but private companies who are involved; that people perhaps ought to think a little bit more about the nature of their own data, who has it, to whom they give it, for what purpose they need/require/purchase it and so on.

Other than that, coming from the 'pen' of Mr O'Neill it isn't at all surprising that he has taken the opportunity of this article to slip in sneering comments about 'liberal broadsheets' and 'those of a leftish-liberal hue'.

It's a sad irony that these clichéd deprecations appear in an article bemoaning one of the focuses of the article as 'increasingly tedious'.

Edited November 2, 2013 by snowychap

[maqroll]

UK: Greenwald's Partner a Terrorist?

 

 

The detention of the partner of a former Guardian journalist has triggered fresh concerns after it emerged that a key reason cited by police for holding him under terrorism powers was the belief that he was promoting a "political or ideological cause".

The revelation has alarmed leading human rights groups and a Tory MP, who said the justification appeared to be without foundation and threatened to have damaging consequences for investigative journalism.

David Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who – often in collaboration with the Guardian – has broken many stories about the extent and scope of spying by the US National Security Agency. Miranda was stopped at Heathrow airport in August and held by the Metropolitan police for nine hours while on his way home to Brazil.

Miranda, it has been claimed, was carrying some 58,000 encrypted UK intelligence documents. He had spent a week in Berlin visiting a journalist, Laura Poitras, who has worked with Greenwald on many of his stories, which have been based on information leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Now documents referred to in court last week before a judicial review of Miranda's detention shine new light on the Metropolitan police's explanation for invoking terrorism powers – a decision critics have called draconian.

It became apparent during the court hearing that there were several drafts of the Port Circular Notice – the document used to request Miranda's detention under schedule 7 to the 2000 Terrorism Act – before the final version was submitted.

The draft that was finally used states: "Intelligence indicates that Miranda is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security. We therefore wish to establish the nature of Miranda's activity, assess the risk that Miranda poses to national security and mitigate as appropriate."

The notice then went on to explain why police officers believed that the terrorism act was appropriate.

"We assess that Miranda is knowingly carrying material, the release of which would endanger people's lives. Additionally the disclosure or threat of disclosure is designed to influence a government, and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism and as such we request that the subject is examined under schedule 7."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the police assessment represented a "chilling" threat to democracy. "More and more we are shocked but not surprised," she said. "Breathtakingly broad anti-terror powers passed under the last government continue to be abused under the coalition that once trumpeted civil liberties.

"The express admission that politics motivated the detention of David Miranda should shame police and legislators alike. It's not just the schedule 7 detention power that needs urgent overhaul, but a definition of terrorism that should chill the blood of any democrat."

Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship, which campaigns for free speech, said that the police's justification for Miranda's detention was "very dangerous" for investigative journalism. "The whole point of such journalism is to find stuff the government doesn't want raised," he said. "The message this gives off is 'don't find this sort of stuff, or you will be treated as a terrorist'."

Greenwald was equally scathing, tweeting: "UK govt beats its mighty chest, now explicitly equates journalism with 'terrorism' and 'espionage'."

The home secretary, Theresa May, has criticised the Guardian's decision to publish the Snowden leaks. May has said she agrees with the assessment of Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, that the newspaper had damaged Britain's national security. But Conservative MP Dominic Raab said: "The assertion that national security has been undermined has been bandied around wildly and not explained in any cogent way."

And he questioned the police's handling of the Miranda affair. "If he was behaving in such a nefarious way why wasn't he arrested, charged and bailed?" Raab said. "If he was guilty of putting national security at risk, then why did they let him go?"

Gwendolen Morgan of Bindmans, Miranda's solicitors, said this week's judicial review will focus on whether the use of schedule 7 was disproportionate and whether it was incompatible with the inalienable right to freedom of expression.

"We will argue that draconian counter-terrorism powers were used in our client's case for an improper purpose," Morgan said. "Not to determine whether our client could in any sense be considered a 'terrorist', but rather to retrieve potentially embarrassing journalistic material in his possession."

The impact of Snowden's leaks on national security is expected to be addressed this week when parliament's intelligence and security committee will question the heads of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ in public for the first time.

Edited November 4, 2013 by maqroll

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Nothing will be done about any of this.

[maqroll]

Western hypocrisy on "Human Rights" is atrocious. We have zero moral authority on the subject, and now have very little leverage on it when dealing with China, Russia, etc. 

[maqroll]

Gasp!

 

 

After spending weeks lambasting the United States for its reported surveillance operations, Brazil on Monday acknowledged that it too spied on diplomats from countries around the world—including those from the U.S.

The Brazilian Intelligence Agency monitored commercial property leased by the U.S. in the capital city of Brasilia, according to The New York Times.Additionally, agency personnel followed Iranian and Russian diplomats by foot and by car, photographing their activities. Brazil defended its spying practices as a protection of "national interests."

The scope of the surveillance outlined in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo does, however, pale in comparison with the reported operations of the National Security Agency.

The relationship between the U.S. and Brazil has been strained in the last couple of months after reports came out that the NSA spied on Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff and her aides. Rouseff even canceled a state diner to the U.S. in September over the revelations, and has since expressed public outrage at the U.S. and its allies for its spying practices.

 

In fact, many of the nations that have criticized the U.S. for its surveillance activities have spying programs of their own, and have spied on allies—the U.S. included.

Monday's report only confirms what U.S. officials have said for weeks: Even as many of these countries loudly criticize American surveillance, it's common practice in those countries to spy on allies.

Edited November 5, 2013 by maqroll

[islingtonclaret]

What the **** are they on about? They willingly hand over user info behind that user's back via their own software/resources and then they have the nerve to be 'outraged' when the NSA go behind their back? It rings more than a little hollow to me.

 

Google 'outraged' at alleged NSA spying

 

The US's National Security Agency has tapped directly into communications links used by Google and Yahoo to move huge amounts of email and other user information.

The revelations were made in a Washington Post report, based on secret NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The documents appear to show the agency has used weak restrictions on its overseas activities to exploit major US companies' data to a far greater extent than realised.

Previously reported programmes included those that allowed easy searches of Google, Yahoo and other internet giants' material based on court orders.

But since the interception in the newly disclosed effort, code-named MUSCULAR, occurs outside the US, there is no oversight by the secret intelligence court.

The newspaper said the operation gained access to a cable or switch that relayed the traffic through an unnamed telecommunications provider.

"We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fibre networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform," said Google chief legal officer David Drummond.

Google said it had not been aware of the programme, although it recently began speeding its efforts to encrypt internal traffic.

Like other companies, Google and Yahoo constantly send data over leased and shared or exclusive international fibre-optic communication lines as they synchronise information.

The newly disclosed programme, operated jointly with Britain’s GCHQ, amassed 181 million records in one recent 30-day span, according to one document reported by the Washington Post.

'Valid foreign intelligence targets only'

An NSA spokesperson said in a statement the suggestion that the agency relies on a presidential order on foreign intelligence gathering to skirt domestic restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws "is not true".

"The assertion that we collect vast quantities of US persons' data from this type of collection is also not true," the spokesperson said.

"NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we're focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only."

Asked at an event in Washington about the latest report, NSA Director General Keith Alexander said that he had not read it, but the agency did not have unfettered access to the US companies' servers.

"I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers," Mr Alexander said. "We go through a court order."

 

 

I can't quite understand these PR strategies that some of the big boys come up with. I mean, are Google seriously thinking that they can pass comment on snooping from the NSA when the word "GOOGLE" is now synonymous around the world with the widespread data harvesting and failure to comply with data protection acts?

 

They're just incredible. The worst corporate case of pot meet kettle for a least.....ok about a year max but you know.