Secretive Spy Court Approved Nearly 2,000 Surveillance Requests in 2012
A secretive federal court last year approved all of the 1,856 requests to search or electronically surveil people within the United States “for foreign intelligence purposes,” the Justice Department reported this week.
The report, released Tuesday to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, provides a brief glimpse into the caseload of what is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. None of its decisions are public.
The 2012 figures represent a 5 percent bump from the prior year, when no requests were denied either.
» via Wired
Report: CIA Wanted To Hack Drug Cartels | Fast Company | Business Innovation
Just wrote for @fastcompany.
Bizarre Biometrics Fraud: Brazilian Doctor Tricks Fingerprint Scanner With a Bagful of Fake Fingers
The BBC is one of several outlets carrying the bizarre story of a Brazilian doctor arrested for allegedly defrauding her employer, a hospital in the town of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, near São Paulo. At the time of her arrest, she was equipped with a total of sixteen fingers—ten of which God gave her, and six of which were crafted of silicone and given to her by coworkers. At least three of the extra fingers bore the prints of fellow doctors at the hospital.
The doctor, Thaune Nunes Ferreira, 29, claims through her attorney that she was forced to use the silicone fingers to clock in to the hospital’s time card system in order to cover for absentee colleagues. “She says she was innocent because it is a condition they imposed on her to keep her job,” the attorney notes.
(via Brazilian docs fool biometric scanners with bag full of fake fingers | Ars Technica)
Infowars: Police targeted Armed Forces in Port Said
Jano Charbel
egyptindependent.com
March 5, 2013In its most recent wave of violence, the Suez Canal city of Port Said has been gripped by its second day of bloody clashes, as onlookers and participants continue to search for the instigators.
As of Monday, the most recent round of clashes has left 500 injured and at least 5 dead — including two civilian protesters and three conscripts from the Central Security Forces.
Fingers were pointed and accusations flew on Monday as street battles raged and fires partially engulfed the Port Said Security Directorate and governorate headquarters, while three of the army’s armored personnel carriers were attacked and then abandoned.
On Sunday evening, the Defense Ministry denied media reports claiming that clashes had taken place between its forces and the police in Port Said. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry claimed Monday evening that unidentified provocateurs are attacking both the police and Armed Forces in order to sow discord amongst Egypt’s security forces.
Read more
The Red (computer) Scare: Is the Chinese military behind hundreds of hacking instances since 2006? One U.S. computer security firm believes so, fanning concerns that U.S. digital infrastructure, both private and governmental, isn’t up to snuff. From reporter Michael Muskall’s look at Mandiant’s findings:
The hacking activity was likely part of the mandate of the Unit 61398 of China’s People’s Liberation Army, identified in the report as “one of the most persistent of China’s cyber threat actors.” The unit is based in the Pudong New Area, outside of Shanghai from where the computer attacks originate.
Read the report for yourself here, and see if you agree that the recent hacking spree, which has targeted companies from Facebook and Apple to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, is being dictated by the Chinese government.
Photo: Keith Bedford / Bloomberg
News to Me: 'US A Police State, Obama Consciously Allows Torture' – CIA Veteran John Kiriakou
Ten years ago, the idea of the US government spying on its citizens, intercepting their emails or killing them with drones was unthinkable. But now it’s business as usual, says John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent and torture whistleblower.
Kiriakou is now awaiting a summons to start a prison sentence. One of the first to confirm the existence of Washington’s waterboarding program, he was sentenced last week to two-and-a-half years in jail for revealing the name of an undercover agent. But even if he had another chance, he would have done the same thing again, Kiriakou told RT.
RT: The judge, and your critics all seem to believe you got off lightly. Would you say you got off lightly?
JK: No, I would not say I got off lightly for a couple of very specific reasons. First of all, my case was not about leaking, my case was about torture. When I blew the whistle on torture in December 2007 the justice department here in the US began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together a charge and force me into taking a plea agreement. And I’ll add another thing too, when I took the plea in October of last year, the judge said that she thought the plea was fair and appropriate. But once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last Friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years.
RT: And why did you, a decorated CIA officer, take such a strong stance against an agency policy? Did you not consider that there might be some come-back?
JK: I did. I took a strong stance and a very public one and that’s what got me into trouble. But honestly the only thing I would do differently is I would have hired an attorney before blowing the whistle. Otherwise I believe firmly even to this day I did the right thing.
Demonstrator Maboud Ebrahimzadeh is held down during a simulation of waterboarding outside the Justice Department in Washington (Reuters / Jim Young)RT: You have called it ironic that the first person to be convicted with regards to the torture program is the man who shed light on it. Do you believe the others, who put the program together, will ever face justice?
JK: I don’t actually. I think that president Obama just like president Bush has made a conscious decision to allow the torturers, to allow the people who conceived of the tortures and implemented the policy, to allow the people who destroyed the evidence of the torture and the attorneys who used specious legal analysis to approve of the torture to walk free. And I think that once this decision has been made – that’s the end of it and nobody will be prosecuted, except me.
RT: When you initially came out against torture, you said it was impractical and inefficient. Did you consider it immoral initially?
JK: I said in 2002 that it was immoral. When I returned from Pakistan to CIA headquarters early in the summer 2002, I was asked by a senior officer in the CIA’s counter-terrorist center if I wanted to be trained in the use of torture techniques, and I told him that I had a moral problem with these techniques. I believed that they were wrong and I didn’t want to have anything to do with the torture program.
RT: It’s no secret that Obama’s administration has been especially harsh on whistleblowers. But can the US afford leniency, in these security-sensitive times?
JK: I think this is exactly what the problem is. In this post 9/11 atmosphere that we find ourselves in we have been losing our civil liberties incrementally over the last decade to the point where we don’t even realize how much of a police state the United States has become.
Ten years ago the thought of the National Security Agency spying on American citizens and intercepting their emails would have been anathema to Americans and now it’s just a part of normal business.
The idea that our government would be using drone aircraft to assassinate American citizens who have never seen the inside of a courtroom, who have never been charged with a crime and have not had due process which is their constitutional right would have been unthinkable. And it is something now that happens every year, every so often, every few weeks, every few months and there is no public outrage. I think this is a very dangerous development.
Protestors perform a simulation of the waterboarding torture technique on a man dressed as a prisoner during a protest, marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, in front of the White House in Washington (Reuters / Jim Young)
RT: Obama’s tough stance, and harsh punishments for whistleblowers, has sent a message. Is he winning his fight against those who speak out?JK: I don’t think he is winning this fight against whistleblowers, at least not over the long term, and I’ll tell you why.
President Obama has now charged seven people with violations of the Espionage Act. All previous presidents in American history combined only charged three people with violating the Espionage Act. And the Espionage Act is a WWI-era act that was meant to deter German saboteurs during that First World War. And now it is being used to silence critics of the government.
But so far all seven of these cases that have made their way into a courtroom have either collapsed of have been dismissed, including mine. All of the three espionage charges against me were dropped.
So, I think frankly the Obama administration is cheapening the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act should be used to prosecute spies and traitors, not to prosecute whistleblowers or people who are exercising their first amendment right to free speech.
RT: Do we still need whistleblowers? Are we going to see more of them coming out?
JK: I think we will see more whistleblowers and I think we need whistleblowers now more than ever before. Whether it’s in national security or whether it is in the banking industry, the American people have a right to know when there is evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. If the Justice Department is not going to prosecute these cases, at the very least the American people need to know.
News to Me: State Department Spent 4.5 Million For Embassy Art, Had NO Money For Benghazi Security
Posted By: RumorMail [Send E-Mail]
Date: Monday, 4-Feb-2013 15:50:06Here is an other idea, we can sell our politicians to any of our friends over the world! A little tit for tat. They’ve sold us out so we might as well re-coup our losses. Of course it will be at bargain basement prices!
RM
———-Remember Benghazi only happened because the State Department had no money for security. And the military had no money for planes. And Obama had no money for his campaign and had to rush to Vegas to fundraise with Beyonce.
Things that the State Department did have money for? Mosque renovations, promoting environmental awareness in Baghdad, and 4.5 million for Art in Embassies.
The New York Times reported in 2009 that Art in Embassies spends about $4.5 million a year for permanent art acquisitions; chief curator Virginia Shore said at the time that artists and dealers support the program via favorable pricing; for the embassy in Beijing, an outlay of $800,000 yielded works with an appraised value of $30 million.
So… maybe we can sell some of that as a profit and pay for bodyguards. Or we could just hand out medals to the artists in exchange for favorable pricing. Yes, let’s do that.
On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will give the U.S. State Department Medal of Arts to five artists who have shown “an enduring commitment” to the effort: Jeff Koons, Cai Guo-Qiang, Shahazia Sikander, Kiki Smith and Carrie Mae Weems.
It’s the first time the award has been given – and its future will likely depend on whether Clinton’s successors want to make it a tradition.
Let’s make it a tradition. Even if we have to strip security from all our embassies in war zones. This stuff, unlike human life, is really important.
There is of course a certain irony in that Clinton ordered the arrest and imprisonment of the Mohammed filmmaker, but is now honoring “controversial” artists who may offend Christianity, but don’t offend Islam.
——
Kiki Smith, one of the artists honored by Secretary of State Clinton, offended Catholics with pieces such as, “Virgin Mary,” a female figure stripped of her skin, with her tissues and muscles exposed. Another exhibit features Mary Magdalene growing fur on her body.
If Kiki Smith had depicted Mohammed that way, she would be in hiding and maybe in prison, depending on how many embassies Muslims burned afterward. But since she depicted a religion that Obama and his cronies hate, she’s getting her art placed in embassies and getting a medal instead. That is how things work in repressive regimes.
And just as a reminder that this isn’t art, it’s regime propaganda, here’s one of the “paintings” from the Art in Embassies exhibit in Stockholm. “Paul Rusconi, Barack Obama, 2008.” Sold for $20,000. You can see it up above. The new symbol of America. But I offer my own “artistic” take on Rusconi’s piece. One that might be better representative of what America under Obama truly stands for.
The Chief: “Obviously something happened there — something that is totally out of his character.”
Stunning. Not a single disciplinary action against him. This is what you get taxpayers. This is what you get when you have the state’s monopoly on force, protection, and security. He will still have his job.
The TSA forced a woman to drink her own breast milk to prove it wasn't explosive.
This story is from 2002, but it’s so incredibly absurd that I can’t not share it.
Even more absurd: While reading this, I definitely had a passing thought that if they would just bring this level of ridiculousness back, we’d be able to take our water bottles through security after taking a few swigs.
(via thefreelioness)
Top-secret janitor. Pollster to the spies. Classified comic book artist. Any organization sufficiently large is bound to have the odd job opening within it. But few organizations are as freakin’ colossal as the U.S. military intelligence industrial complex, with an estimated 4.9 million Americans holding security clearances today. Which means there are thousands of unconventional positions to fill at any given moment.
Here are some of the wilder military and intelligence “help wanted” ads we found online. Some classifieds are for truly wacky jobs. Others are for slightly more standard positions — but presented in an odd way.
How Joe Biden Accidentally Helped Us All E-Mail in Private
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Phil Zimmermann was a Colorado peacenik with a half-written program that he swore would one day let people exchange messages without Big Brother peering inside. The problem was, with a freelance job and two kids, Zimmermann could never quite find the time to finish the damn code — until Joe Biden came along.
Then-Senator Biden inserted a few words into an anti-terrorism bill that might make it easier for Big Brother — or, at least, Uncle Sam — to do exactly the kind of snooping Zimmermann wanted to stop. Zimmermann had a reason to finish the program. He worked day and night for months on the thing. All his half-formed plans to build a business around the software, he put aside. “When the Biden bill hit,” Zimmermann recalls, “we knew we had to change the facts on the ground.” He felt he had to get people communicating secretly, before Congress did something to make secret communications exceedingly difficult.
Finally, in June of the 1991, Zimmermann introduced a program called Pretty Good Privacy, which really did allow ordinarily folks to make their e-mail all-but-unreadable to outsiders. Zimmermann made PGP available for free, and it spread like a bad weed, eventually enabling millions to communicate in private.
» via Wired
List of words government monitors online revealed (or what words I will start using in every blog post)
- Department of Homeland Security forced to release list following freedom of information request
- Agency insists it only looks for evidence of genuine threats to the U.S. and not for signs of general dissent
The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.
The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as ‘attack’, ‘Al Qaeda’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘dirty bomb’ alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like ‘pork’, ‘cloud’, ‘team’ and ‘Mexico’.
Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats.
The words are included in the department’s 2011 ‘Analyst’s Desktop Binder’ used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify ‘media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities’.
Department chiefs were forced to release the manual following a House hearing over documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit which revealed how analysts monitor social networks and media organisations for comments that ‘reflect adversely’ on the government.
However they insisted the practice was aimed not at policing the internet for disparaging remarks about the government and signs of general dissent, but to provide awareness of any potential threats.
As well as terrorism, analysts are instructed to search for evidence of unfolding natural disasters, public health threats and serious crimes such as mall/school shootings, major drug busts, illegal immigrant busts.
The list has been posted online by the Electronic Privacy Information Center - a privacy watchdog group who filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act before suing to obtain the release of the documents.
In a letter to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence, the centre described the choice of words as ‘broad, vague and ambiguous’.
They point out that it includes ‘vast amounts of First Amendment protected speech that is entirely unrelated to the Department of Homeland Security mission to protect the public against terrorism and disasters.’
A senior Homeland Security official told the Huffington Post that the manual ‘is a starting point, not the endgame’ in maintaining situational awareness of natural and man-made threats and denied that the government was monitoring signs of dissent.
However the agency admitted that the language used was vague and in need of updating.
Spokesman Matthew Chandler told website: ‘To ensure clarity, as part of … routine compliance review, DHS will review the language contained in all materials to clearly and accurately convey the parameters and intention of the program.’
Here is the list of words:
(via beatyourselfup)
Three Reasons Sweatshops Are Good for the Poor (by LearnLiberty)
Sweatshops should all be shut down because of the terrible working conditions and unfair treatment of workers, right? But what about the people who choose to work in these conditions? If we look at sweatshops from the perspective of the world’s poor, we may find that we should not be trying to close their doors after all. Professor Matt Zwolinski explains three reasons sweatshops may actually be worth keeping: sweatshop jobs may be better than the alternatives, closing sweatshops just reduces job options for the poor, and it is better to do something to end global poverty than to do nothing. From the perspective of the world’s poor, which looks better: an American company that outsources to sweatshops and provides jobs in developing countries, or an American company that hires only U.S. workers?
Check out the New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/world/africa/27safrica.html?_r=3&scp=1&…
Check out Matt Zwolinski’s blog here:
