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The Goovernment

By on March 14, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Data, Civil liberties, Data Protection, Democracy, Google, NSA, Privacy, surveillance, Transparency

You know the saying that Google will know if you are gay before you do?

Almost the same, but a little different, can be said about the government.

The government knows who you have been talking to on the phone and who your friends are – and who their friends are. The government knows where you have been and who else might have been in the same place at the same time. The government knows when you connected to the internet, who you sent an email and the people that have emailed you. Data is stored about your every text message, and in some countries that go for the content of the messages as well.

In the UK Big Brother will even keep an eye on your web searches, if the government gets it its way.

The government knows who your friends are and what people you are trying to avoid. It can tell who you do business with and what people you sleep with. It can figure out your hobbies and your whereabouts. And it can flag you if a friend of your friend is someone the people in power do not approve of.

With Google – at least, it’s about selling you stuff, to expose you to “relevant” ads and to make a buck. (But World Domination, really?)

But with the Goovernment – it’s all about control. And power. Over you. For real.

Put one on top of the other, and it gets even more scary. (The government doesn’t need Google to cooperate in this. Much of the data is out on the market.)

All of this while government doings are getting more opaque, more secretive and more dubious.

This is not the way to do things in an open, democratic society.

/ HAX

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An EU-US Privacy Shield?

By on February 2, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Business, Data Protection, EU, Facebook, NSA, Privacy, surveillance, US

Last October the EU-US “Safe Harbour” agreement was canceled by the European Court of Justice. This agreement was created to ensure that European personal data was to be treated with care when handled by US companies. But the ECJ found that the agreement did not meet the requirements of the Data Protection Directive, because of NSA access.

ArsTechnica then reported…

“The most significant repercussion of this ruling is that American companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, may not be allowed to send user data from Europe back to the US.”

Link: Europe’s highest court strikes down Safe Harbour data sharing between EU and US »

Today the media has reported that a new agreement has been reached: The EU-US Privacy Shield.

Such an agreement has been a top political priority for the EU as well as the US — as the respective administrations have not wanted data protection to get in the way of business as usual.

But is there a real agreement? Not really. All there is, is a “framework agreement”, basically saying that the EU and the US agree to agree at some point.

Today ArsTechnica writes…

“What that means in practice is that the Commission has negotiated some breathing space to strike a deal with the US.”

“The US has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of European citizens,” EU Commissioner Andrus Ansip has declared. No further details on this, though…

Link: Last gasp Safe Harbour “political deal” struck between Europe and US »

Apparently the EU and the US have no such thing as an actual deal to show. But there is a lot of hot air coming out of Brussels and Washington.

Earlier today, before the news about an “framework agreement” from Brussels, ArsTechnica had an interview with Max Schrems, the Austrian law student who took this case to court to begin with.

“On the subject of any potential new agreement, he argues it would be no better, and that a sector-specific approach to EU-US data transfers would be preferable. “If this case goes back to the ECJ [European Court of Justice]—which it very likely will do, if there is a new safe harbour that does not meet the test of the court—then it will fail again, and nobody wants that,” he says.”

Link: Why Safe Harbor 2.0 will lose again »

Apart from the EU and the US having agreed to agree — everyone seems to be just as much in the dark as before. (There is also the hidden agenda of mass surveillance and intelligence cooperation that led to the end of “safe harbour” in the first place, to be taken into consideration.)

I suppose the new agreement, when it is finalized, will end up in the European Parliament for final approval. Then, if not before, we should know. And it is encouraging that the Parliament has been very vigilant concerning EU-US data protection issues in the past.

/ HAX

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Mass surveillance drives writers to self-censorship

By on January 21, 2016 in Big Brother, Freedom of Speech, NSA, self-censorship, surveillance

Writers are important. Facts or fiction — they are supposed to give us new insights, push boundaries and question those in power.

So it’s quite alarming that one in six US writers has “avoided writing or speaking on a topic they thought would subject them to surveillance”. Another one in six has seriously considered doing so.

(This is from a report, post-Snowden from Pen America. Via Robin Doherty.)

Literature defines our society. And now mass surveillance is defining literature.

We will never know what books, pieces and reviews that never got written because of Big Brotherism. Or what speeches that never were given. But we do know that this will make humanity and society intellectually poorer.

And it’s not just here and now. Culture is a process where you often build on earlier works and insights. Self-censorship will multiply its effects over time.

Mass surveillance has an undeniable chilling effect on a free and open society.

/ 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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The NSA, on your side? Nah.

By on October 22, 2015 in Cryptography, NSA

Once again, an NSA wiretapping capability has been discovered – or made credible, in any case – that highlights the completely incompatible two faces of the U.S. National Security Agency. It turns out that the NSA has (likely) been able to wiretap a lot of encrypted traffic on the net, because of bad cryptographic implementations combined with hundreds-of-millions-dollars-worth of cracking precalculations from the NSA. Once again, this shows that the NSA cannot protect citizens from the government and protect the government from citizens at the same time.

Rick Falkvinge: Once Again, All Together Now: You Can’t Have An Agency Responsible For Citizen Security And For Government Security At The Same Time »

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