Here is a sobering interview, made by Al Jazeera English with hacker Jason Moon.
Among other things he talks about the new imbalance between data mining and old fashion intelligence work–making us all less secure.
Archive | Democracy
Hacking politics
By HAX on January 27, 2015 in Big Government, Copyright, Data Protection, Democracy, EU, Hacktivism, Intellectual Property, Internet, Privacy, surveillance
A free and open internet, copyright reform, mass surveillance, data protection and civil rights are all issues where the rules are decided in politics. But politics is not always a fair and open democratic process. And change do not always has to be initiated from within the traditional political system.
Former Pirate Party member of the European Parliament (MEP) Amelia Andersdotter this weekend delivered a piece over at TorrentFreak: Pirate Party MEP Fails to Deliver True Copyright Reform »
Here she criticises newly elected German Pirate MEP Julia Reda for her report on EU copyright reform. Andersdotter writes “De facto, Julia Reda is more conservative than the European Commission, and this is a massive problem for representative democracy.”
In defence of Reda, one could say that she has written a report (not legislation) that the European Parliament might be able to accept. This report, written by some other MEP, probably would have been right out damaging. Reda has picked the fights she might be able to win.
But that still leave us with the problem that there might be no real copyright reform in the EU, if left to the EU institutions. Which brings me back to my thesis that you need external pressure in combination with inside political initiatives to change things. To get toothpaste out, you have to apply pressure to both sides of the tube.
I have worked with internet related issues inside the European Parliament. Before that I was an activist outside the EU institutions. Frankly I cannot say when I had the best possibility to influence, to change things. Inside you have resources, not available to activists. But outside you are a voice from reality, of the people–that most politicians will have difficulties to ignore. (Especially if you manage to involve the media.)
Inside the political system you have a choice between different strategies.
You can burry yourself in details. That ought to be a reasonable approach. But in reality you will find yourself in a never ending flood of paper. To do this you need vast resources when it comes to time, manpower and expertise.
The other inside strategy is simply being there. To offer others your perspective, to ask the hard questions, to lead media in the right direction, to be a visionary and a crusader with a cause. For small political organisations, with small resources–this might be the easier way to go.
One, two, twenty or no internet friendly MEP:s or MP:s–most of us will still be outside the parliamentary and political system. But we can make a difference. We are the ones who shape public opinion. We are civil society. We can make politicians jump. To do so, we just have to take action.
/ HAX
Links:
Pirate Party MEP Fails to Deliver True Copyright Reform »
Christian Engström: Political Activism (Pirate Visions) »
Barrett Brown sentenced today: 63 months in prison
After a month long delay, today U.S. journalist Barrett Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison. He should be released in the spring of 2017.
This is a disappointment as there where hopes that he would be released today, after time served.
Barret Brown is the journalist who used material obtained by the Anonymous network to start an investigative project about outsourcing of U.S. intelligence operations to private contractors: Project PM.
He was supposed to be sentenced back in December last year, but there was a delay until today. Here you can read the blog post I wrote about the case back then.
And here you can read the speech Brown gave in court today.
This is not the rule of law, Your Honor, it is the rule of Law Enforcement, and it is very dangerous.
This is a very disturbing affair–with far reaching implications for journalism and transparency. It is a part of a pattern where the U.S. Government is hunting down journalists, to prevent them from exposing the truth.
/ HAX
Update:
After receiving his sentence Barrett Brown released the following statement:
“Good news! — The U.S. government decided today that because I did such a good job investigating the cyber-industrial complex, they’re now going to send me to investigate the prison-industrial complex. For the next 35 months, I’ll be provided with free food, clothes, and housing as I seek to expose wrongdgoing by Bureau of Prisons officials and staff and otherwise report on news and culture in the world’s greatest prison system. I want to thank the Department of Justice for having put so much time and energy into advocating on my behalf; rather than holding a grudge against me for the two years of work I put into in bringing attention to a DOJ-linked campaign to harass and discredit journalists like Glenn Greenwald, the agency instead labored tirelessly to ensure that I received this very prestigious assignment. — Wish me luck!”
What Snowden exposed was already known. But nobody cared.
In the blog post below, you can see a video from the 31c3 conference with Caspar Bowden. In the second part of his speech, he describes how he warned about specific mass surveillance issues long before Edward Snowden came along.
The Snowden files do, in essence, confirm everything Bowden warned us about.
The thing is–at the time, nobody cared.
The European Commission and the European Parliament was informed. But people didn’t take in the information. The information lay open for the media. But no journalists bothered. Bowden explained his findings for various net activist and civil rights groups–but nothing happened.
And I must admit that prior to the Snowden revelations, I my self had no idea that this information existed–even though I used to work in the European Parliament. I’m very interested in these issues, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
This points to an information and communication problem. Most of what’s going on is out there. You just have to know what to look for. And whom to listen to.
An important component in internet and civil rights activism is to simply take what’s already out there and make it understandable, to serve it up in digestible pieces. And to listen to the real experts, to find the golden nuggets in their extensive research material.
To hack politics to win, you must know. And you must be right. That is within reach–because politicians and bureaucrats often doesn’t care enough to do their homework.
/ HAX
Appelbaum & Poitras at 31c3
Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras at the 31c3 conference in Hamburg: Reconstructing narratives – transparency in the service of justice.
NSA and the God effect
In a way, it’s strange that governments are so secretive about mass surveillance.
For thousands of years religion has been used to control peoples behaviour. The notion of an omnipresent, all-seeing, all-knowing entity has been used to make people follow different sets of rules.
He knows if you have been bad. So you better behave.
The same can be said about blanket mass surveillance. If you break the rules, government might know–and go after you. So you better co-operate, participate and obey.
Obviously, this has a downside. It will kill a free and open conversation, it will dampen opposition, it will discourage protests and it will deter free and investigative journalism. It will lead to self-censorship and it will foster a nation of spineless serfs.
So… governments ought to love that the cat is out of the bag.
/ HAX
16 December: Sentencing in the Barrett Brown Case
By HAX on December 16, 2014 in Barret Brown, Big Brother, Big Business, Big Government, Democracy, Hacktivism, US, Wikileaks
Today–Tuesday December 16–a Dallas federal court will deliver its sentence in the Barrett Brown case. It all started with copy-pasting a link.
Writer, journalist and hacktivist Barrett Brown was the leading force in Project PM–a journalistic project scrutinizing private intelligence and security firms running outsourced contracts for the US Government.
The material came from a data dump retrieved by hackers said to belong to the Anonymous network. Even though Brown did not take part in this operation himself, he had access to the site where the information was stored.
His problems started when he copy-pasted a link to this site to Project PM. As the data dump contained all sorts of information (e.g. credit card information) it was possible for the authorities to go after him. From the Free Barret Brown website…
“Having previously been raided by the FBI on March 6, 2012 and not arrested or charged, on September 12, 2012 Barrett Brown was again raided and this time arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation while he was online participating in a Tinychat session. He was subsequently denied bail and detained without charge and adequate medical treatment for over two weeks while in the custody of US Marshals. In the first week of October 2012, he was finally indicted on three counts, related to alleged activities or postings on popular websites such as Twitter and YouTube.”
“On December 4, 2012 Barrett was indicted by a federal grand jury on twelve additional counts related to data from the Stratfor breach. Despite his lack of direct involvement in the operation and stated opposition to it, he faces these charges simply for allegedly pasting a hyperlink online. On January 23rd, 2013 he was indicted a third time on two more counts, relating to the March 2012 FBI raid(s) on his apartment and his mother’s house.”
After that, everything was blown out of proportion. The Daily Beast reports…
“The government’s actions in this case have been extreme. Prosecutors in the Northern District of Texas have written that Brown, along with the activist group Anonymous, sought to overthrow the U.S. government. They tried to seize funds that were raised for his legal defense. They obtained a gag order against the defendant and his lawyers restricting what they could say about the case for several months. They sought to identify contributors to a website where Brown and others dissected leaks and researched shady links between intelligence contractors and governments. Perhaps most egregious of all, they pursued a case against Brown’s mother, who was forced to plead guilty to a misdemeanor related to a separate FBI raid on her home, resulting in six months probation and a $1,000 fine.”
This far into the case, Brown faced a life time prison sentence and accepted a plea agreement.
Dallas Morning News describes what happened next…
“But the U.S. attorney’s office asked Lindsay to drop those charges in March. The charges, which were dismissed, accused Brown of trafficking in stolen data and aggravated identity theft.”
“The most serious charge remaining against Brown was the one involving threats to the FBI agents. Brown made some of the expletive-laced threats in a YouTube video he posted in which he said he would shoot any federal agents who came for him. Brown also said in a video that he would ruin one FBI agent’s life and look into his kids.”
Today we will know the outcome of this affair. Prosecutors seek a 8.5 year prison sentence. And the defence is going for time served.
Governments (not only the US Government) outsourcing intelligence and security operations to private companies is a problem–as it withdraws information about what is going on from democratic oversight.
The Barrett Brown case also is a matter of freedom of the press.
In the wake of the Snowden files exposing NSA mass surveillance, one should be extra vigilant. From the Project PM we already have had a glimpse of what is going on. For instance private US intelligence contractors have been involved in secret operations to discredit and damage Wikileaks and its editor in chief Julian Assange.
On a tragic side note–renowned US national security journalist Michael Hastings was about to dig deeper into the Project PM material (and the Barrett Brown case)–when he reportedly found himself being investigated by the FBI. Unfortunately Hastings died when his car exploded in a single car crash in Los Angeles, in the early morning hours of June 18, 2013.
This really is an intriguing and disturbing affair.
Free Barrett Brown | Project PM | Barrett Brown on Wikipedia
/ HAX
(proud contributor to the Barret Brown defense fund)
Some additional links:
Peter Ludlow: Barrett Brown case smacks of oppression »
Sentencing Looms for Barrett Brown, Advocate for “Anonymous” »
Why everyone should care about journalist Barrett Brown’s sentencing today »
Journalist Barrett Brown Faces Sentencing on Tuesday After Two Years Behind Bars »
Update: Barrett Brown sentencing delayed until January 22, 2015 »
Update 2: The Intercept–The Latest Twist in the Bizarre Prosecution of Barrett Brown »
Mass surveillance, power and control
There seems to be an irreversible flow of power–from the people to the government.
It happens all over the world, on all levels. In the EU there is also a flow of power from member states to Bussels. And power moves from democratic institutions to non-elected officials and bureaucrats.
Whilst this is a general problem–blanket mass surveillance makes it even more severe. It accentuates and accelerates the ongoing power shift.
Politics is the business of power. In principle, no one in a leading political position would be there unless he or she is willing to fight and outmaneuver others. Politicians are appointed by a method of selection by domination that rewards characteristics that are disagreeable, objectionable and dangerous. The same goes for career bureaucrats and most high functionaries.
Giving such people a tool like mass surveillance is unwise. They will use it for their own purposes. Because they can.
This is not about fighting terrorism or criminals. It’s all about power. And it works in two different ways.
The first is because information is power: Controlling and tapping into the flow of information is a source of power in it self.
The second is control: Mass surveillance is there to make sure that people obey. To identify and to stifle dissent. To protect the people in power from the general public. In the name of some supposed “national interest”.
This is not how things are supposed to be in a democracy.
/ HAX
Taking the fight against mass surveillance to the next level
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
A never ending struggle
By HAX on December 4, 2014 in Big Government, Data Protection, Democracy, EU, Hacktivism, Internet, Privacy, surveillance, Sweden
For some days I have been a complete political news junkie–as the latest Swedish government just went down in flames. Looking forward, naturally I have some general preferences about who should rule my country. (Even if a lame duck administration as the present one isn’t all that bad. Hopefully it will not be able to do a lot of stupid stuff.)
But when it comes to some of my favourite issues, I’m frustrated.
We have the centre-right parties (in power until September 2014)–being really bad on surveillance, ignorant at best when it comes to data protection and in the grip of the copyright industry.
Then we have the socdem-greens (that, in practice, fell from power yesterday). The Social Democrats are just as bad as the centre-right people in these matters. And the Greens are selling out on the same issues, just for the grandeur of being in government. (Come on, give the Ring back to the nice Mr. Frodo.)
The third group (causing most of the stir) are some nationalist, xenophobic and semi-populists. Again, they are just as bad. (I guess that they haven’t realised that they are a given target for government surveillance.) And in general they are occupied with nostalgia rather than issues concerning the future.
Finally we have the Pirate Party, not even in the Swedish parliament with only 0.43 per cent of the votes in the latest elections. (So I guess the general population doesn’t bother about these issues either…)
Still, the surveillance issues are important–and rather pressing. What the government does in the EU is important as we are in the process of hammering-out new European data protection rules. And an European copyright reform.
In the bigger picture a free and open Internet is essential for democracy, culture, business, science and education. Yet, in Sweden 99,57 per cent of the votes are casted on political parties more or less uninterested, ignorant or plain evil when it comes to Internet and surveillance matters.
And it seems that Sweden isn’t unique. The picture is the same in most countries.
In dark moments I think this might be just as well. There are no guarantees that politicians will do the right thing, even if they are interested. So it might be better to trust spontaneous order, peoples creativity, the market and net freedom activists to be one step ahead and to raise objections if politicians go wrong.
The problem is, politicians go wrong about the Internet, surveillance, data protection, copyright and civil liberties all the time. The fact that they are uninterested or ignorant doesn’t stop them. In most cases they just rubber stamp papers that government officials hand them, anyway. Politics is in the equation, like it or not.
So we need to apply a constant external pressure on politics. To show the way, to campaign and to hit politicians and government officials hard when they do something stupid or dangerous.
It’s a never ending struggle.
/ HAX