Archive | War on Terror
We are all under surveillance: Re-group. Re-think.
After the Paris attacks politicians, police and the intelligence community are tumbling over each other eager to introduce even more mass surveillance.
This will direct resources away from regular police and intelligence work. It will not protect us, but could rather make us all less safe. But then again, mass surveillance isn’t really about terrorism. Obviously, it’s about control.
Terrorism (plus serious crime, drug trade, trafficking, child protection and the copyright legal framework) is being used as a pretext for doing what politicians cannot openly admit.
But facts are straight forward: We are all under surveillance.
The fight for people’s right to privacy must and will go on. But we also must recognize the fact that we are already living in a Big Brother society. It might be about time to re-group and re-think. Where do we take the fight for a free and open society from here?
There is the political road. Defending human and civil rights, you can punch over your weight. It all boils down to principles about democracy, rule of law and the relation between citizens and the government. In that context, most politicians cannot afford to appear as if they don’t care. Not in public.
And there is the technical road. Let’s start with something reasonable: Could anybody please make strong e-mail encryption really, really user-friendly? It shouldn’t be impossible. Or let’s take a wider approach: Can the entire internet protocol be replaced with something new and more privacy friendly?
The fight will go on. And you can be certain of one thing: Regardless of how much surveillance we have, the ruling political and bureaucratic classes will always find reasons to introduce more.
/ HAX
More surveillance is not the answer
Real vs. false safety
The Conversation: After Paris, it’s traditional detective work that will keep us safe, not mass surveillance »
Post Paris: EU to clamp down on Bitcoin, gold and pre-paid credit cards
Tomorrow, Friday, EU interior and justice ministers will meet in Brussels — for an emergency meeting after the Paris terror attacks.
According to Reuters, EU member states “plan a crackdown on virtual currencies and anonymous payments made online and via pre-paid cards in a bid to tackle terrorism financing”.
“They will urge the European Commission, the EU executive arm, to propose measures to “strengthen controls of non-banking payment methods such as electronic / anonymous payments and virtual currencies and transfers of gold, precious metals, by pre-paid cards,” draft conclusions of the meeting said.”
In other words, governments would like to take control of all forms of payments except cash. And with EU rules against money laundering access to cash also can be quite restricted.
It would be very interesting to know how the EU is supposed to “strengthen control” of Bitcoin — as the system is totally decentralized. I doubt that they can.
But they can make life more difficult for ordinary people if clamping down on e.g. pre-paid credit cards and online payment systems.
This EU meeting is being held in panic, with politicians desperate to look as if they are doing something of substance to combat terrorism. So, I guess, they really haven’t thought things trough. And they leave all the details to the European Commission to figure out.
This might result not in an EU directive, but an EU regulation. If that will be the case, measures can quickly be implemented without having to involve the people’s elected representatives in the European Parliament.
/ HAX
EU centre-right group using Paris tragedy to try to kill data protection directive
Since the Paris attacks politicians, police and intelligence agencies have pushed for more mass surveillance. And now, it seems they are also trying to undermine the new EU framework for data protection.
The EU data protection directive has been under massive fire from special interests and member states in the council. But the European Parliament has been firm in insisting on a clear and meaningful framework to protect citizens private data.
Now the centre-right group in the parliament, the EPP, is trying to suspend these negotiations.
“In the aftermath of the cruel attacks in Paris on Friday, Axel Voss MEP, in his capacity as EPP Group Shadow Rapporteur for the Data Protection Directive, has called for the immediate suspension of the Data Protection Directive trialogues and a review of the mandate to identify the impact of the draft text on law enforcement capacity to exchange information.” (…)
“According to Axel Voss, the text stipulates major bureaucratic burdens to law enforcement and security entities and would basically transform them into data protection officers when processing personal data for the purpose of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences and terrorist activities.”
What this is all about, is the EPP trying to use the tragedy in Paris to undermine the demands for authorities to use citizens personal data in a responsible way. But there should and must be rules for authorities as well.
Data protection is more important today than ever before. Especially when authorities are riding on a wave of fear, trying to advance their positions when it comes to surveillance and data mining.
Link: Data Protection Directive trialogue should be suspended »
/ HAX
Putin vs. Charlie Hebdo
Russian president Vladimir Putin lashing out against free speech is no news. But this time, he attacks freedom of the press in another country — France.
The background is that the French magazine Charlie Hebdo has published two cartoons relating to the Russian air disaster in the Sinai. One of the two cartoons is focusing on the quality of Russian low fair airlines – and the other making a connection between the disaster and the fact that Russia has now become involved in fighting ISIS, in Syria.
Especially the last one touches on a highly sensitive issue in Russia: The connection between “Putin’s war” in Syria and terrorist attacks against Russian civilians.
Every suggestion of such a connection is seen as undermining Vladimir Putin.
At Chalie Hebdo, they choose not to give in but to speak back. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Gerard Biard:
“Their argument about sacrilege is absurd. Are we supposed to no longer comment on the news in a different way, or to say nothing more than it’s sad? If so that becomes a problem for freedom of expression.”
The Guardian: Russia condemns Charlie Hebdo for Sinai plane crash cartoons »
/ HAX
Mass surveillance creates a suspicious society
Society is getting more and more complex. The number of rules and laws is enormous, beyond the point where you reasonably can be expected have a grasp of what you may and may not do. And far from all rules are reasonable or intuitive. There are laws based on very subjective moral grounds, laws that creates crimes without victims and laws that are there for no apparent reason at all.
Most likely most of us are unknowingly breaking some laws every day. (And some knowingly.)
And where you have rules, you always have smug and self-righteous people acting as some sort of sentinels — telling others how to behave and ratting on people.
This happens in all sorts of groups and societies. But it has been especially noticeable in authoritarian societies. Ratting on others is perceived to prove to people in power that you are on their side — and it shifts focus away from looking closer at you and your behaviour. Sadly, this is a rather rational behaviour under certain circumstances.
So, what happens when you add mass surveillance to the equation? Everyone has something to hide. And when the authorities are able to scrutinise the lives, communications and actions of everybody — there are even stronger incentives for people to sell out others (by the same reasons as mentioned above).
Mass surveillance creates a suspicious society, where you cannot trust other people.
It’s easy for governments to exploit the publics fear of terrorism and crime — and rather difficult to get people to understand the dangers of a society where trust between people is being eroded.
/ HAX
The secret police state: More lies ahead…
So, the German Intelligence Service (BND) lied to Parliament and the democratic oversight body about its cooperation with the NSA. And the NSA has lied to the US Congress about mass surveillance. In Sweden the surveillance institution, the FRA, has lied to Parliament about (possibly illegal) IT-attacks carried out together with the British GCHQ and the NSA. And in the European Parliament hearings on mass surveillance several prominent European surveillance and intelligence bodies declined participating…
Can we trust the Intelligence Community? Seriously. It ought be under some sort of democratic control or oversight.
There is a view that our elected representatives are powerless against the intelligence organisations — simply because the latter knows too much about the former. If that is to be true, we have some serious problems. In that case democracy has been overridden.
But it doesn’t have to be that bad. It could be a matter of sheer political incompetence. (The politicians do not know what questions to ask, as they do not know what they do not know. And there is a thin line between telling lies and not telling the whole truth.)
It can also be the case that some things, politicians do not want to know.
OK, the intelligence community is supposed to keep us all safe, right? And politicians are not known for keeping that kind of secrets. Maybe it’s better not to let the peoples elected representatives in on everything? Who knows, they might be spies? Or some sort of collaborators? Or they might just fuck things up. (Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.)
Well… No.
In a democracy the power emanate from the people. The intelligence bodies are branches of government, who should defend the democratic system and carry out the tasks presented to them by our democratically elected representatives. Frankly, it’s up to the people. If we elect unreliable, psychotic maniacs — that is what our different branches of government have to work with. Sorry to say. But to countermand general elections would be nothing less than a coup d’état.
However, I’m not sure that is how the intelligence community perceive things.
This is a complete mess, isn’t it? A minefield.
My personal favourite theory is that most western intelligence organisations feel that they have more in common with each other than with their respective governments (and parliaments). Many screw-ups could be explained by this theory. And it’s not that far fetched. They know things. (At least they think they do.) They share sensitive information. They do things together. And sometimes shit happens. (To get a grip of this theory, I would recommend you to turn to John le Carrés all too realistic novel A most wanted man. And it’s very possible that reality outmatches fiction.)
So? I guess we need our intelligence services. Even if they sometimes get out of control and do stupid, silly or outright dangerous stuff. The only way I can think of to handle this is to elect better politicians. That, however, is not as easy as it sounds.
Until then: More lies ahead…
/ HAX
Is the NSA to shut down bulk surveillance programs? Maybe not.
The NSA bulk surveillance program is hanging by a thread — as the controversial Patriot Act expires and as US Senate did not manage to adopt a replacement bill (the USA Freedom Act) before its week-long recess.
The Associated Press reports…
“In a chaotic scene during the wee hours of Saturday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill known as the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA’s bulk collection but preserved its ability to search the records held by the phone companies on a case-by-case basis. The bill was backed by President Barack Obama, House Republicans and the nation’s top law enforcement and intelligence officials.”
There will be an emergency session scheduled for Sunday, May 31st.
This is a cliff hanger. But even if the replacement bill will be adopted, bulk mass surveillance will not end. It will only change form.
The USA Freedom Act obliges telecoms meta data to be kept by the phone companies. This is the same model as in the EU Data Retention Directive. Even though this directive has been invalidated by the European Court of Justice for breaching human rights, it is already implemented in most EU member states.
In many EU countries authorities use data retention on a massive scale and in a rather indiscriminate way. There are even attempts to give the police direct online access to meta data held by the telecoms, in some countries.
So even if the Freedom Act might be adopted it will not be the end of bulk collection of telecoms data in the US. It will not be as bad as the Patriot Act, but still it will be pretty bad.
However, it will be interesting to see what happens if the Freedom Act is not adopted before the Patriot Act expires. In that case the NSA might have to shut down parts of their operation. At least for some time. (For all the public is allowed to know…)
• NSA is getting ready to shut down bulk surveillance programs in response to failed Senate vote »
• NSA winds down once-secret phone-records collection program »
/ HAX