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Taking the fight against mass surveillance to the next level

By on December 8, 2014 in Big Brother, Democracy, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, surveillance

I just read Rick Falkvinges piece “You Can’t Have Consent Of The Governed Without Privacy” at Privacy Online News. He points at something very serious and all to obvious: blanket mass surveillance is incompatible with democracy.

Apart from some small semantics I couldn’t agree more. I guess you will as well.

Rick has published a lot of texts along these lines. I have too. And so have countless others. Still, the seriousness of the matter doesn’t seem to sink in with people. I guess it’s too abstract.

To some extent the same is true for the Snowden files. They are hard evidence, from inside the NSA. But still, most people seems to be unable to relate to this information.

To make people listen–and react–mass surveillance and it effects must feel real to the common man.

We need to be on the lookout for stories like this one: Looks like Chicago PD had a stingray out at the Eric Garner protest last night »

We need to find the people who have had their lives messed up by warrantless mass surveillance. They are out there and we must tell their story.

To do this we shouldn’t just look at the NSA, GCHQ and other organisations collecting information–but at their “customers”. Where do the information go? And how is it used?

In Sweden, we know that our local NSA/GCHQ partner FRA relays information not only to the military, some branches of the police and the counter espionage–but also to the government, to the political administration. But still we don’t know what kind of information or how it is being used.

We also know that the FRA has access to NSA “Spy Google” data base XKeyscore. And it is pretty obvious that it contains information about our own nationals and domestic Swedish matters. It’s at our governments fingertips. But then secrecy kicks in. We don’t know how XKeyscore is used. We don’t even know the legal basis–or where the legal mandate comes from.

This is the kind of things we must look into. Now, when we know that mass surveillance exists (told you so) we must start to find out how it is being used. That’s when it all gets really interesting. And ugly, for sure.

Mass surveillance is not “just” a fact. It is not “only” something to have theoretical discussions about. It has real implications.

/ HAX

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LEX Integrity

By on November 17, 2014 in Big Brother, Data Retention, Privacy

TorrentFreak reports on the Swedish ISP Bahnhof and the 5:th of July foundation fighting data retention in Sweden–with free VPN for customers. Link »

More information will follow here and elsewhere at the rollout, next Monday.

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Something might be rotten in the state of Denmark…

By on October 31, 2014 in Big Brother, Big Government, Democracy

This week Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, for hacking the Danish branch of (NSA connected) IT company CSC.

The court was not united in its ruling, there were actually no solid evidence and the circumstances were identical to a Swedish case in which GSW was acquitted in high court. Regardless what he might or might not have done, this process has been rather dubious.

GSW (a.k.a. Anakata) is an high profile target for authorities–founding the Pirate Bay, hosting Wikileaks and being a menace to the ruling political class in general.

I cannot free myself from the feeling that the Danish case was just another go at it, when the establishment couldn’t get him convicted in the Swedish case. And yes, they can do that: Under EU mutual recognition of legal systems and the European Arrest Warrant double jeopardy (and possibly also habeas corpus) is being eroded.

It seems that our leaders have got themselves yet another way to silence rebels.

Some links…
Pirate Bay founder guilty in historic hacker case »
Pirate Bay Founder Convicted on Hacking Charges »
Pirate Bay founder handed 3.5 year prison sentence »

/ HAX

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The Swedish data retention drama

By on October 27, 2014 in Big Brother, Data Retention, surveillance

Following the European Court of Justice (ECJ) verdict revoking the EU directive on data retention, the issue is developing into some sort of dark farce in Sweden.

While several other EU member states, the lawyers at the EU Council and the EU Data Protection Group have declared that this is the death of blanket data retention–the Swedish government (both the former center-right government and the new social democrat-green one) is keen to continue to store data about all citizen’s all phone calls, text messages, e-mails, net connections and mobile positions.

After the ECJ ruling the responsible Swedish government authority, Post- och Telestyrelsen (PTS) announced that it would not go after telecom companies and internet service providers who wished to end storing the data in question.

And no surprise, most of these companies did.

At the next step, the then Swedish Minister of Justice said that she believed Swedish data retention not to be in breach with European human rights–even though it is a rather direct implementation of the EU directive. This was soon echoed by the incoming social democratic government spokespersons.

So, the issue was sent to a (very small) commission headed by a former national police commissioner. To the surprise of nobody, he presented preliminary findings saying that all is fine with Swedish blanket data retention. (This despite the ECJ:s objections about the “blanket” part of it.)

Before you knew it, PTS changed its position. Totally. Now they declared that it would uphold the Swedish data retention laws and that operators and ISP:s must continue to store data on all citizen’s all telecommunications.

Some did. Others, like Tele 2 didn’t, but was ordered to and finally complied. And one, privacy orientated Bahnhof (Swedens first ISP) refused completely.

At this point Bahnhof and the 5:th of July Foundation took the whole thing to the European Commission, complaining that Sweden doesn’t follow the relevant ECJ ruling and the European Human Rights Charter (that is part of the EU treaties). But yet, there are no indications about what the Commission is going to do about it.

Bahnhof also requested access to the PTS first assessment of the issue, the one leading to no action being taken against those who don’t store this data. That request lead to PTS trying to re-classify the assessment in a way so that it will not be covered by Sweden’s generous freedom of information laws. (This was done in a rather dubious way.) That issue is now developing to a drama in it self.

And now, also Bahnhof has been ordered by PTS to resume data retention. With one difference from the order handed over to e.g. Tele 2: In the Bahnhof case the order is attached with a threat of a fine of some 550.000 euros (five million Swedish kronor).

I guess this is the way you get treated when you stand up against the government.

But Bahnhof is still defiant and its CEO Jon Karlung has promised to present a “plan B” to protect its customers privacy.

This story is to be continued.

/ HAX

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So, what is Truth?

By on October 22, 2014 in Big Brother, Censorship, Democracy, Internet

UK lawmakers prepare to increase the maximum penalty for “cyber bullying” from six months in prison to two years.

The BBC reports…

Under the act, which does not apply to Scotland, it is an offence to send another person a letter or electronic communication that contains an indecent or grossly offensive message, a threat or information which is false and known or believed by the sender to be false.

If so, shouldn’t we begin with deciding on what it is that can be considered as offensive? Or should we make that up as we go..?

And what is false information? What about satire, travesty and irony? What is true and what is false when it comes to political issues? Are there absolute truth in culture? And who is to decide?

Naturally, the proponents of these rules will point out that it’s just about cyber bullying, threats and harassment. But with the definition above–any government could use this law to curb free speech and to stifle opposition.

Don’t give the ruling political class such tools. Sooner or later they will be misused.

/ HAX

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Study: Mass surveillance makes us less safe

By on October 15, 2014 in Big Brother, Privacy, surveillance

Mass surveillance does not only violate peoples right to privacy. It is not very effective, when it comes to keeping us all safe.

And–old fashioned police work, that don’t infringe on privacy in the same way seems to be more usable and effective.

This is the conclusion from a European Union-funded multidisciplinary research study. »

That seems reasonable. And if this is the case, moving resources from traditional police and intelligence missions to computerized mass surveillance will make us all less safe.

As in so many other areas of society, the authorities in question (and their staff) attempt to avoid real, hard work. It is much more comfortable to sit behind a computer screen, speculating about sociograms and illusive patterns.

But this might not really be about national security and counter-terrorism. It may be about surveillance of the general population. In that case, mass surveillance makes more sense. And in that case it is much worse, from a civil rights point of view.

/ HAX

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