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Mass surveillance makes us less safe

By on November 14, 2015 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, Democracy, France, Human rights, Intelligence, Privacy, Rule of law, Uncategorized

BanksyParis

Our thoughts are with the victims of the terror attacks in Paris.

But we should not allow ourselves to react in a thoughtless way. Terrorists want to impose fear –leading us away from a free, open and democratic society.

France already has one of the most intrusive regimes of mass surveillance in the western world. Apparently, this did not stop the terrorists.

Actually, it might very well be that mass surveillance makes us all less safe. The number of “false positives” makes serious police work more difficult. Dependence on electronic surveillance systems also directs resources away from old fashion police activites, intelligence operations, informed analysis and “HUMINT” (Human Intelligence).

Naturally, there is a place for advanced forms of electronic surveillance. But it should be focused on individuals and groups who are suspected to prepare for criminal activities. And to identify such targets, HUMINT is essential.

Time and time again it has been revealed that terrorists have been on the security services radar before striking. But the what, where and when is normally never communicated in ways that can be intercepted by mass surveillance. Here you need targeted surveillance, old-fashioned spies and qualified intelligence analysis. This is hard work, it takes time, it is costly and it can be dangerous. But it is what is effective to keep us reasonably safe from terrorism. (If at all possible.)

And given that the whole point of fighting terrorism is to defend our free, open and democratic society — it would be counter-productive to treat all citizens as potential terrorists and criminals. The people is not the problem.

/ HAX

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Sanctuary for Snowden!

By on November 1, 2015 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, EU, Human rights, NSA & Snowden

There is a widespread misinterpretation of what the European Parliament had to say about the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden last week.

The EP did not grant Snowden asylum. It can’t. This is what was decided:

2. Calls on the EU Member States to drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistleblower and international human rights defender;

In the EU, only member states can grant him asylum or other forms of sanctuary. And they rather not.

So, it’s up to us.

If you live in an EU member state, you must try to influence your government to do the right thing.

You will have to start petitions, set up Facebook groups, hold rallies, write to politicians and increase the political pressure in your country. That’s the only way to move this matter forward.

Edward Snowden exposed global mass surveillance. He showed the world that politicians do not trust the people. He revealed that our political leaders and their functionaries do not care about human and civil rights.

Edward Snowden is a hero. And he should be treated as one.

But to make that happen, you must get involved.

/ HAX

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European Parliament supports Snowden and Badawi

By on October 29, 2015 in Civil liberties, Democracy, EU, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, NSA & Snowden

Thursday was in some aspects a good day in the European Parliament.

In a resolution on mass surveillance (I’ll get back to that one when we have the final, consolidated text) the EP voted on the Edward Snowden case. (Link»)

By 285 votes to 281, MEPs decided to call on EU member states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender”.

A very slim victory, but still a victory.

However, most EU member states refuse to give Snowden asylum or other forms of protection. It has been said that they cannot deviate from normal asylum routines (including that the asylum seeker would have to show up in an EU country to have his case examined). But one should keep in mind that most EU states have granted human rights activists and dissidents protection on purely political grounds outside the ordinary asylum process.

So, it’s purely about political will.

Today the EP also rewarded its human rights award — the Sakharov prize — to the Saudi liberal blogger Raif Badawi. (Link»)

Badawi has been put in prison for ten years and is also sentenced to 1,000 lashes for having “insulted” the Saudi political system and the religion.

“This man, who is an extremely good man, an exemplary man, has had imposed on him one of the most gruesome penalties,” Mr Schulz told a packed European Parliament assembly in Strasbourg, France.

“I call on the Saudi king to immediately free him. Relations depend on human rights being respected by our partners… they are not only not being respected but are being trodden underfoot.”

This is a strong political signal, even though it might not really interfere in any substantial way when it comes to relations between the EU and Saudi Arabia. (Unless the Saudis goes bananas, as they have done when being criticised about the Badawi case on earlier occasions.)

/ HAX

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Mass surveillance is a perversion of democracy

By on October 28, 2015 in Big Government, Civil liberties, Democracy, Human rights, Privacy

Mass surveillance raises not only questions about privacy, Big Brotherism in general and the surveillance state as such. It is also a matter of democracy.

Proponents of mass surveillance often argue that there is a collective interest that eclipse private individuals right to privacy (which, by the way, is a fundamental human right).

They argue that mass surveillance is necessary to guarantee all citizens security. They say that we must balance the need for security against our fundamental rights. (But the very reason some rights are considered to be fundamental is that they should never be limited or violated, no matter what.) And the nomenklatura suggests that all that they do is done for your benefit and security.

But as we have learned, care for private citizens are not the real concern for NSA, GCHQ & Co. The purpose of mass surveillance is to protect the state — politicians, bureaucrats, special interests and the system. Everything else is just window dressing.

One should recognize that society is not our political leaders and their functionaries. Society is a large number of private individuals, who are unique and free citizens. Not a faceless mass of subordinates.

Mass surveillance is an indication that the ruling classes considers themselves — not the people — to be the core of democracy. That is a perversion of the word democracy. True public interest must focus on respecting all citizens and their fundamental rights.

In a democratic society, you only apply surveillance against people who are suspected for serious crime — not the general public. In a decent society, you trust people until there is substantial reason to do otherwise.

Simply, you cannot defend a free and open democratic society by violating the people’s fundamental civil and human rights.

/ HAX

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The rise of soft authoritarianism

By on October 5, 2015 in Big Brother, China, Civil liberties, Democracy, Human rights, surveillance, UK

The mere knowledge of mass surveillance will have a chilling effect on free speech, opposition and an open society. Even if no politician or bureaucrat will say it out loud — this might be a very calculated side effect of modern Big Brotherism.

In UK schools an add-on to its existing Education Pro digital classroom management tool will be used to monitor schoolchildren, bringing the teachers attention to use of “radicalisation keywords”.

“The keywords list, which was developed in collaboration with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organisation that is closely aligned with the government, consists of more than 1,000 trigger terms including “apostate”, “jihadi” and “Islamism”, and accompanying definitions.”

This might flag any pupil working with fully legitime school work as a potential terrorist. The list also includes terms used in a “far right” context and names of groups and individuals defined as “terrorists or extremists”. And, of course, no one will know what words and terms will be on the list in the future. That will be up to tomorrows politicians and bureaucrats to decide. We can only hope that they are fair and decent people. All of them.

“Teachers can also save screenshots or video of a student’s screen which, Impero suggests, could provide “key evidence” to be shared with Channel, the government’s counter-radicalisation programme for young people. The software also features a “confide” function, allowing students to report concerns about classmates anonymously.”

So, British schoolchildren will have to think carefully about what they write in the future. They also must be aware of the fact that other students might act as informants. It is not difficult to see how this will create a climate of fear and uneasiness. (And new forms of bullying.)

Read more: UK: Keyword warning software in schools raises red flag »

And the Chinese have taken soft authoritarianism and informant culture one step further: There your credit score is now affected by your political activities and opinions — and those of your friends. This will apply to everything from your online shopping to your possibility to get a visa for travelling abroad.

This is nightmarish. If you stand up for your ideas, opinions and human rights in China, you will not only put yourself in harms way — but also your friends and your relatives.

This might be a much more effective way to stifle dissent than using classic tools of oppression.

Read more: In China, Your Credit Score Is Now Affected By Your Political Opinions – And Your Friends’ Political Opinions »

The modern orwellian society seems to be turning out to be more orwellian than George Orwell could ever have imagined.

/ HAX

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UN proposes web policing and licensing for social networks

By on September 26, 2015 in Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Facebook, Freedom of Speech, Global Politics, Human rights, Internet, surveillance, UN

The United Nations Broadband Commission for Digital Development just made some controversial and disputable recommendations. They want social networks and platforms to police the Internet and to be “proactive” against harassment and violence against women and girls. Only web platforms doing so should be licensed.

Washington Post reports…

“The respect for and security of girls and women must at all times be front and center,” the report reads, not only for those “producing and providing the content,” but also everyone with any role in shaping the “technical backbone and enabling environment of our digital society.”

How that would actually work, we don’t know; the report is light on concrete, actionable policy. But it repeatedly suggests both that social networks need to opt-in to stronger anti-harassment regimes and that governments need to enforce them proactively.

At one point toward the end of the paper, the U.N. panel concludes that “political and governmental bodies need to use their licensing prerogative” to better protect human and women’s rights, only granting licenses to “those Telecoms and search engines” that “supervise content and its dissemination.”

This is bad, in so many ways.

It is a well-established principle that internet service providers and social networks are not responsible for what their users do. (Mere conduit.) Now, the UN Broadband Commission wants to throw that principle out the window. Meaning that concerned parties will have to monitor everything every user do — to be able to police the net in line with the commissions recommendations.

Then there is the idea of licensing social networks. This is a terrible idea, unacceptable in a democratic society. Period.

And knowing the modus operandi of the UN — you cannot rule out that this report is being encouraged by UN member states with a general interest in limiting a free and open internet.

One might also question the principle that “the respect for and security of girls and women must at all times be front and center”. First of all, everyone deserves respect and security. Second, it is very dangerous to give different groups different rights, advantages or treatment. Everyone should have the same rights and be treated the same way by government.

A final reason to keep this door closed is that “respect” and “harassment” are relative terms. This is often in the eye of the beholder. There is a tendency in some circles to label all dissent as harassment. And then we have the “trigger warning” discussion, with countless examples of claims of annoyance and inconvenience used to limit freedom of speech.

Regardless of whether you think those are worthwhile ends, the implications are huge: It’s an attempt to transform the Web from a libertarian free-for-all to some kind of enforced social commons.

This UN report is ill thought out and dangerous for democracy.

/ HAX

Washington Post: The United Nations has a radical, dangerous vision for the future of the Web »

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EU: Parliament just came out in favour of Snowden, open-source, encryption, digital freedom and anonymity

By on September 8, 2015 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, Cryptography, Data Retention, EU, Free Software, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, Rule of law, surveillance

Today, the European Parliament adopted a resolution called “Human rights and technology in third countries” (2014/2232(INI)).

This is just a resolution, not legislation, but very interesting nevertheless. The European Parliament…

3. Believes that the active complicity of certain EU Member States in the NSA’s mass surveillance of citizens and spying on political leaders, as revealed by Edward Snowden, has caused serious damage to the credibility of the EU’s human rights policy and has undermined global trust in the benefits of ICTs;

Shame on the Brits, French, Germans and Swedes. (And several others.)

6. Calls for the active development and dissemination of technologies that help protect human rights and facilitate people´s digital rights and freedoms as well as their security, and that promote best practices and appropriate legislative frameworks, while guaranteeing the security and integrity of personal data; urges, in particular, the EU and its Member States to promote the global use and development of open standards, and of free and open-source software and cryptographic technologies;

Nice. This is one we should remind the European Parliament about over and over again–when it tries to make decisions going in the other direction.

9. Urges the EU itself, and in particular the EEAS, to use encryption in its communications with human rights defenders, to avoid putting defenders at risk and to protect its own communications with outsiders from surveillance;

Welcome to the real world.

10. Calls on the EU to adopt free and open-source software, and to encourage other actors to do so, as such software provides for better security and for greater respect for human rights;

This is not the first time the EP makes such a statement. But real progress seems to be very slow.

14. Draws attention to the plight of whistleblowers and their supporters, including journalists, following their revelations of abusive surveillance practices in third countries; believes that such individuals should be considered human rights defenders and that, as such, they deserve the EU’s protection, as required under the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders; reiterates its call on the Commission and the Member States to examine thoroughly the possibility of granting whistleblowers international protection from prosecution;

65. Calls for the scope for international protection of whistleblowers to be extended, and encourages the Member States to table laws to protect whistleblowers;

Very nice. But still, no EU member state is prepared to grant Edward Snowden refuge or asylum.

19. Calls for the inclusion of clauses in all agreements with third countries that refer explicitly to the need to promote, guarantee and respect digital freedoms, net neutrality, uncensored and unrestricted access to the internet, privacy rights and the protection of data;

So, if the EU-US Trade Agreement (TTIP) will include copyright enforcement threatening digital freedom and privacy–the EP will vote no?

We must be sure to make a note of that one. And the next…

20. Urges the EU to counter the criminalisation of human rights defenders’ use of encryption, censorship-bypassing and privacy tools, by refusing to limit the use of encryption within the EU, and to challenge third-country governments that level such charges against human rights defenders;

21. Urges the EU to counter the criminalisation of the use of encryption, anti-censorship and privacy tools by refusing to limit the use of encryption within the EU, and by challenging third-country governments that criminalise such tools;

61. Calls for each individual to be entitled to encryption, and for the conditions needed to allow encryption to be created; takes the view that controls should be a matter for the end user, who will need the skills required to carry out such controls properly;

62. Calls for the introduction of ‘end to end’ encryption standards as a matter of course for all communication services, so as to make it more difficult for governments, intelligence agencies and surveillance bodies to read content;

As far as I can understand, the European Parliament just came out strongly against a ban on encryption.

27. Considers mass surveillance that is not justified by a heightened risk of terrorist attacks and threats to be in violation of the principles of necessity and proportionality, and, therefore, a violation of human rights;

63. Emphasises the special responsibility of government intelligence services to build trust, and calls for an end to mass surveillance; considers that the monitoring of European citizens through domestic and foreign intelligence services must be addressed and stopped;

So, what’s about EU member states continuing data retention?

40. Calls for the development of policies to regulate the sales of zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities to avoid their being used for cyber-attacks, or for unauthorised access to devices leading to human rights violations, without such regulations having a meaningful impact on academic and otherwise bona fide security research;

In your face, NSA…

45. Condemns the weakening and undermining of encryption protocols and products, particularly by intelligence services seeking to intercept encrypted communications;

…and the GCHQ.

46. Warns against the privatisation of law enforcement through internet companies and ISPs;

This ought to be seen as a clear warning not to go down that road in the TTIP.

49. Calls explicitly for the promotion of tools enabling the anonymous and/or pseudonymous use of the internet, and challenges the one-sided view that such tools serve only to allow criminal activities, and not to empower human rights activists beyond and within the EU;

Actually, I’m overwhelmed. But then again, this is not legislation.

However all of the above can be very useful as a reminder when the EU Commission and Council tries to get the Parliament to do the opposite. Or when the Parliament suddenly goes bananas on its own. (It frequently does. It surely will happen again very soon.)

The text as PDF »

/ HAX

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Meanwhile, in France

By on September 5, 2015 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, France

La Quadrature du Net reports:

“Paris, 3rd September 2015 — Today, the non-profit ISPs FDN and the FDN Federation as well as La Quadrature du Net announced the introduction of two legal challenges before the French Council of State against the Internet surveillance activities of French foreign intelligence services (DGSE). As the French government plans the introduction of a new bill on international surveillance, these challenges underline the need for a thorough oversight of surveillance measures.”

Three French NGOs Challenge French International Surveillance »

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EU & mass surveillance: Business as usual

By on July 15, 2015 in Civil liberties, Data Protection, EU, Intelligence, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, Rule of law, US

I took some time looking trough some of my Youtube-clips on the European Parliaments hearings om mass surveillance during the last legislature (2009-14).

It’s amazing. Everything was laid out in front of the MEP:s. But all the EP could come up with was some half-lame resolution (an opinion, not legislation). And thats it. The new parliament (2014-19) has so far done nothing to follow up on this.

You really should look trough this hearing, with the late Caspar Bowden. He served the MEP:s everything on a silver plate. (If you don’t have the time, give it at least ten minutes.)

Youtube »

Did they read the paper? Nah. Did they act on the information? Not really. Did they care? I don’t think so.

Today it’s business as usual. Nothing of substance has been done when it comes to the EU acting on US mass surveillance. The British and the French (and many others) have — if anything — learned from NSA, now collecting everything. NSA partners (such as the Swedish FRA) carries on as usual. And the European Commission has failed to act on the few recommendations the EP actually gave.

Somehow, I get the impression that our political leaders don’t care. Or don’t want to know. Or maybe… they are not on our side.

We really should elect better politicians.

/ HAX

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