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Taking the fight against mass surveillance to the next level

By on December 8, 2014 in Big Brother, Democracy, NSA & Snowden, Privacy, surveillance

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

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A never ending struggle

By 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

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The new dissidents

By on December 1, 2014 in Democracy, Hacktivism, NSA & Snowden, US

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is stuck in Russia, only being able to reach out to the world by video link. The same goes for Wikileaks Julian Assange, in limbo at Ecuadors embassy in London. Journalist and web activist Barret Brown spends his time in custody, waiting to be sentenced after looking too close into outsourcing of US national security matters.

This is in a way better for the US government than just throwing people in jail.

If you compare this to the case of whistleblower Chelsea Manning–her 35 year prison sentence for exposing the truth is clearly a stain on US reputation.

It’s more convenient for government to corner trouble makers elsewhere in the world or to constrain their actions with seemingly endless legal proceedings. It might not silence them–but it will hamper their work seriously. And you can (normally) do this without enraging human rights activists, hacktivists, the media and the general public too much.

It all bears a chilling resemblance to the way the Soviets treated many of their dissidents during the Cold War.

/ HAX

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Sanctuary for Snowden

By on November 30, 2014 in NSA & Snowden, Sweden

In Sweden tomorrow Monday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will receive yet another award: The Right Livelihood Prize (a.k.a. the alternative Nobel Prize).

The outgoing (center–right) government bluntly stopped the prize ceremony from being held at the Swedish Foreign Office.

And when a Swedish green member of parliament today suggested asylum for Snowden the new (socdem–green) government went notably blank.

Considering the close ties between Swedish FRA and its US counterpart NSA, Sweden might not be the best option for Snowden anyhow. But it is interesting what a hot potato the Snowden affair is, regardless the political colour of government.

When it comes to the wider question of the future for Edward Snowden–it’s a disgrace that no western country is willing to provide a safe haven.

The reason Snowden is stuck in Russia is because the US has revoked his passport and all European liberal democracies have closed the door in his face. It’s not a free choice–but because of us and our elected political leaders.

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One day, Bitcoins might save the world

By on November 24, 2014 in Uncategorized

Bitcoins, Blockchains and crypto currencies still are something new for most people. Bitcoins might be quicker and cheaper to use than banks and credit cards. But it will take some time before they are used in Mr Smiths everyday life.

Still, Mr Smith will be very lucky to have the Bitcoin option–some day.

The US Dollar might be strengthening for the moment. But the underlying problems with the US economy are still there. It’s not in balance. And the system as such is not a sound free, self-regulating market.

In Europe, with its common currency, it’s even worse. The ECB is kicking the can down the road, trying to stay clear from new difficulties. But the system–binding the value of money in disconnected economies to each other–is doomed. This will cause new crises until the day EU manage to centralise all economic power to Brussels and Frankfurt. And then, that centralisation will kill off the economy.

The Russian Rubel is weakening. And it’s very difficult to predict where the Chinese economy is going.

Gold might be an alternative. But it has to be traded, stored and eventually turned into some fiat currency anyhow.

Then we have Bitcoin: A virtual currency with a relatively controlled expansion of its volume. Without government interference. And, in many ways, more secure than state fiat money.

It doesn’t have to be a doomsday scenario. It doesn’t have to be the obliteration of the dollar or the euro. And it’s not even about the future.

If people in Cyprus would have had their savings in Bitcoins–instead of euros in the bank–it wouldn’t have been possible for the government to partly confiscate them the last time the euro crisis hit the country. If nothing else, people should learn from this that their money are not safe in the bank and that their fiat money is not protected by the state.

When the next crisis hits a currency (and it will happen, over and over again)–Bitcoin might be the only reasonably safe and useful alternative. It might be the only feasible option for most people. It might be what saves us when politicians, bureaucrats and banksters fucks it all up, again.

/ HAX

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