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Edward Snowden on unchecked government

By on May 16, 2016 in Big Government, Civil liberties, Democracy, Snowden

A lot of people laud me as the sole actor, like I’m this amazing figure who did this. I personally see myself as having a quite minor role. I was the mechanism of revelation for a very narrow topic of governments. It’s not really about surveillance, it’s about what the public understands—how much control the public has over the programs and policies of its governments. If we don’t know what our government really does, if we don’t know the powers that authorities are claiming for themselves, or arrogating to themselves, in secret, we can’t really be said to be holding the leash of government at all.

CJR – Snowden interview: Why the media isn’t doing its job »

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The Closing of the Net

By on May 13, 2016 in Big Data, Big Entertainment, Big Government, Copyright, Data Retention, Hacktivism, Intellectual Property, Internet, Privacy

Monica Hortens new book The Closing of the Net is now available.

In a mail to colleagues, fans and friends she writes…

I am delighted to announce that my new book “The Closing of the Net” has been released.

“The Closing of the Net” discusses how political decisions are influencing the future direction of Internet communication. As the interests of powerful businesses are manipulating governments and policymakers, and become more embedded in the online world, so these corporations seek greater exemption from liability. The book confronts the deepening cooperation between large companies and the state. Political manoeuvrings, it argues, suggest that the original vision of a free and democratic Internet is rapidly being eclipsed by a closed, market-led, heavily monitored online ecosystem. “The Closing of the Net” tackles the controversies surrounding individual rights today, addressing policy agendas such as net neutrality, copyright and privacy. It includes research that I have not previously published on topics including Megaupload, the EU Data Retention Directive, UK copyright lawsuits, and more.

“The Closing of the Net” is published by Polity Press http://tinyurl.com/zhqz5j6 and is available from Amazon http://amzn.to/1S6zxJ7 It has been described as “thriller-esque”! I do hope you enjoy it.

Monica Horten gave us a lot of important input about the Telecoms Package and other net oriented dossiers when I worked with the Pirate Party in the European Parliament.

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What to learn from the Abdesalam fiasco

By on April 30, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Government, Civil liberties, Data Retention, Intelligence, Privacy, Rule of law, surveillance, War on Terror

Surveillance should only be directed against people who are suspected of (or to commit) serious crimes.

Mass surveillance – of everyone – only creates a bigger haystack, more false positives, and hamper police and intelligence authorities in their efforts to identify real threats.

Take the Abdesalam brothers in the Paris attacks as an example…

Both were known to Belgian authorities; both were suspected to prepare “an irreversible act”. For years.

This is a case of sloppiness, lacking resources and being Belgian.

Belgium might be a dysfunctional mess, but the problem is the same in other countries. The more mass surveillance data, the more police officers gazing at computer screens – the less security and safety.

Authorities all over would need to get serious, pretty quickly. There is no room for public sector inefficiency when it comes to fighting terrorism. There is no room for incompetence and idleness.

And there are no (valid and publicly acceptable) reasons to replace human intelligence with mass surveillance of the entire population.

The Americans might do it. The Russians and Chinese also do it, for sure. But that is no reason that Europe should. This is exactly what makes our liberal democracy so special. In Europe, we trust ordinary and law-abiding people enough to keep out of their private lives.

The Paris attacks were very real, sad and terrifying. The Abdesalm brothers are very real terrorists. This reality underlines that we need other methods to protect us from danger rather than mass surveillance and data retention. We need wise and competent people, knowing what they are doing. If there are any.

/ HAX

• Link: Belgian police knew since 2014 that Abdeslam brothers planned ‘irreversible act’ »

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A European FBI? Really?

By on March 27, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Government, Civil liberties, Democracy, EU, FBI, Intelligence, Rule of law, Snowden

Somewhere on the Internet, someone wrote “The purpose of terrorism is to provoke the target government into curtailing civil liberties, so more people become radicalized.”

Close enough. Google “the purpose of terrorism”. The Internets is full of thought-provoking discussion about what the fuck is going on. Or at least, opinions about it.

Terrorism is a wide specter, in many ways. Now, we are waiting to find out how governments are going to react to the Brussels attacks. They will. They have to. That is what politicians do. But… how should they react?

It happens to be that national governments are catastrophically bad at sharing information with each other. At least, when it comes to information that might be a bit sensitive. They simply cannot let everyone else in on everything. They will not do that.

And the EU can do nothing. (I’m not saying that the EU should, absolutely not – but it is noteworthy that it can not. National security is strictly national competence. That’s the rule.)

So there is this bold idea floating around: A European FBI.

In other words, a federal and centralized European police. All information would belong to an EU institution in some Belgian suburb. It would have its nose in everything. Like they say in American crimis… “Oh, shit. The Feds are here.”

Newer the less, it would be a radical way to get all of the European police in line, I guess. And think about all the money they can save by having a common European police uniform.

On the one hand, it is obvious that someone must make national government’s security agencies share relevant information — about common enemies, at least.

On the other hand, who should handle this? Not the Commission itself, I hope. So, give it to Europol, they will say. And right there we also need to give Europol full operative authority in all EU member states.

Europol is the European Union’s law enforcement agency whose main goal is to help achieve a safer Europe for the benefit of all EU citizens. We do this by assisting the European Union’s Member States in their fight against serious international crime and terrorism.
— Europols boilerplate

Europol is largely a post-macho bureaucracy, with some support for member states in need to coordinate specific work and operations. But it’s not very operative in itself. (Europol didn’t even bother to look into the possibility that the NSA hacked the SWIFT bank transaction system, mentioned in the Snowden files. Not even after being asked about it by media and in the European Parliament.)

Should we put these people in charge of running European police? I’m not even sure that Europol would like to. They lack the ambition.

Maybe something… new! And there you have it: Europolice. The only police you will ever need.

Then anything can happen. There will be disasters like a centralized procurement process for toilet paper to all European police stations. There will be a federal authority running its own investigations parallel to local law enforcement. And federal crimes must be handled in a unified way across all of the EU — how do you make that happen?

There will have to be field offices in cities all over the continent, with a partly international crew.

Europolice: Keeper of all information. Online with all national records. Connected to the mass surveillance network. Bureaucracy with operative authority. A single point for failure. Under at best vague democratic oversight.

Are you really sure about doing this?

/ HAX

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Time for activists and Silicon Valley to join forces against government

By on February 22, 2016 in Apple, Big Brother, Big Entertainment, Big Government, Civil liberties, Cryptography, Data Protection, Hacktivism, Human rights, IT security, Privacy, Snowden

The infotech war has begun, for real.

First we had the fight over illegal file sharing, creating a divide between Big Entertainment backed up by Big Government and a large portion of the general public. (Young people in particular.) Parallel we have had the fights between Big Telecom and activists campaigning for a free and open internet. And the struggle between Big Intelligence and civil rights / privacy advocates.

Then came Edward Snowden, providing actual proof of what our governments are up to. This created an even bigger splash, still causing ripples.

And with the San Bernardino iPhone backdoor/unlock case between the FBI and Apple the tech sector will have to choose between loyalty to its’ customers or abiding by overreaching anti-terrorism and anti-privacy legislation. That ought to be easy enough. The money is with staying loyal to customers and their right to privacy. But it’s not. Not even Silicon Valley might be able to stand up against the state monopoly on violence.

The stakes are sky high. The San Bernardino case is not just about that single case or even just about privacy. It’s about secure encryption – imperative for safe communications, online banking, medical records, confidential information, trade secrets and public affairs. Apple cannot back down on this one.

This might be what finally will unite all sorts of activists and the Valley. I rather hope so. Alone, it’s very difficult to stand up against the government (and related special interests). But if the Internet generation, net activists, civil rights defenders and tech companies stand together — we might stand a chance.

Unjust laws will stay unjust if no one stands up and fight them. Civil rights will be eroded if no one stands up to defend them. There are no limits to what governments will try to justify under the pretext of security — that, by the way, is an illusion.

The government will always try to “balance fundamental rights and security”, time and time again until there are no fundamental rights left.

Now is the time for activists (who know how to actually change politics) to team up with Silicon Valley (where the money needed to make campaigning effective is).

We can win this one — and at the same time establish a red line that governments will have to recognize.

But it will be dirty. It’s all about power and control.

/ HAX

Related: Apple’s FBI battle is just the beginning of a reality check for the tech sector »

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The War on Cash

By on February 6, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Government, Economics, EU, Privacy, War on Cash

Holger Steltzner in Frankfurter Allgemeine...

Beim Feldzug gegen das Bargeld geht es um mehr als das Bezahlen. Ginge es nur darum, könnte man die Leute einfach selbst entscheiden lassen, wie sie künftig zahlen wollen. Es geht um das Ende von Privatheit und selbstbestimmter Entscheidung, um Lenkung von Verhalten und um den Zugriff auf das Vermögen. Der Bevormundung des Bürgers wäre in einer solchen Welt keine Grenze gesetzt, Geld wäre kein privates Eigentum mehr. Der Übergewichtige könnte mit seiner Karte auf einmal die Kalorienbombe nicht mehr zahlen, der Alkoholiker sich die Weinflasche nicht mehr besorgen, und am „Veggie Day“ dürfte man mit seinem Smartphone kein Fleisch mehr kaufen. Der Zugriff des Fiskus auf das Konto des Bürgers wäre selbstverständlich. Und in totalitären Staaten gäbe es kein Entrinnen vor Überwachung und Unterdrückung. (…)

Andere Motive sind für den Krieg gegen Cash wichtiger, aber über sie wird weniger geredet. Hier kommen die Notenbanken ins Spiel, auch die Europäische Zentralbank, deren Präsident Draghi schon laut darüber nachdenkt, wie er am besten die Abschaffung der 500-Euro-Note kommuniziert, die der EZB-Rat noch gar nicht beschlossen hat. Ohne Bargeld wären die Bürger den Negativzinsen der Zentralbanken ausgeliefert. Davon träumen auch viele Finanzminister und keynesianische Ökonomen.

Bargeld ist Freiheit » | Google Translate »

Update: Translation to Swedish in the comments, thanks to Christian Engström.

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Citizens or serfs?

By on January 2, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Government, Civil liberties, decentralization, Democracy, Rule of law, Transparency

One way of looking at society is that it consists of free individuals – citizens – joined in a community. And in a democracy, the people elect a group of peers to manage a limited amount of things that are better handled together. But people are, in general, responsible for their own lives. This is a firm and sound bottom to top approach.

Then we have the opposite, the top to bottom point of view. Here politicians and bureaucrats are the nuclei of society. It is what they want that is important and they claim to have some sort of right to decide over other people. This ruling class can enforce its will with the help of its armed wing, the police. In this society, the people is totally subordinate to the state and its needs (and whims). This type of society is predisposed for central planning and control. And it is less resilient, as it will have many potential single points of failure.

Today’s modern western societies mainly fall into the latter category. We, the people are not free citizens — but serfs.

The concept of mass surveillance makes perfect “sense” from this perspective. You will have to control the people, supervising that it is doing what it has been told to do. And those in power often find it useful if the people fear the state, at least to some degree.

Meanwhile, governments are becoming less transparent. Ever more deals are struck behind closed doors. Democracy has become an empty excuse for rubber-stamping laws and rules that mainly benefit the system, those in power and their special interest friends.

Recently, the US took the top bottom approach to new extremes. The tax authorities, the IRS, now has the power to revoke people’s passports. If you owe taxes to the government, you can be prevented from leaving the country. What is this, if not serfdom?

The question is what to do about this development towards an ever more totalitarian society. Why are there no steadfast and reliable political forces trying to lead society right again? (Yes, I know. Libertarian political leadership is in so many ways a contradiction in terms. But what is the alternative?)

/ HAX

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The normalisation of mass surveillance

By on December 28, 2015 in Big Brother, Big Government, BND, Civil liberties, Data Retention, Democracy, EU, Germany, Human rights, Intelligence, NSA, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, surveillance, Sweden, Uncategorized, US

Once upon a time, there were rumors about a global surveillance network — Echelon. When the European Parliament decided to look into the matter, it turned out it did indeed exist. For years to follow there were rumors about US intelligence organisation NSA and its new capabilities to “collect it all”. And a few years ago, the Snowden documents exposed exactly that.

Then followed a state of resignation.

In 2013/14, it was brought to light that the NSA might have compromised the international clearing system for bank transfers, European run SWIFT. It’s a bit odd, as the US can have as much information about European bank transfers as they want, in accordance with the EU-US TFTP agreement. Newer the less, there were strong indications of something going on. This time the European police agency, Europol, didn’t even bother to look into the matter. In a European Parliament hearing Europol director Bob Wainwright explicitly said so. (The hearing is quite surreal. It’s all on video here. »)

In Germany, politicians softened their tone against the US/NSA when threatened with limited access to US intelligence. It also turned out that under the level of political polemic, the BND had been working very closely with the NSA all the time. And in Sweden, according to the Snowden files, SIGINT organisation FRA has access to NSA superdatabase XKeyscore. Swedish politicians (including the Greens, who are now in government) will not even comment on the legality of this.

The European Court of Justice has invalidated the EU data retention directive, finding it in breach of fundamental human rights. Never the less most EU member states are upholding (and in some cases implementing) data retention, leading national constitutional courts to object. But data retention fits well with US surveillance systems, so it seems to be less important if it is legal or not.

I could go on, but I better get to my point.

Politicians and intelligence bureaucrats are sending some pretty clear signals these days. They do not care about what is legal or not legal. They do not care if being exposed. They do not even comment on issues that ought to be fundamental in a democracy. The message is: This is the way it is. Live with it.

If there was ever need for a broad political movement against mass surveillance, it is now.

/ HAX

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