First off, if you’re seeking confirmation that the U.S. intelligence world has learned a little humility from the Snowden leaks and Wikileaks cable scandals, consider the official logo of the latest spy satellite launch by the super-secretive National Reconnaissance Office:
Here’s The Register’s take on the graphic garrulousness:
Creepy US spy agency flings WORLD SLURPING OCTOPUS into orbit
Proudly Orwellian spooks’ logo may summon Cthulhu, warn alarmed Twitter folk
Some spook agencies like to hide their more ominous workings from the innocent public, protecting Joe Bloggs from thinking too much about the power and influence that can come with snooping on the world. But the US National Reconnaissance Office take a different approach.
Whilst in the subject of secret flying things, Uncle Sam has a surprise in the skies. From Aviation Week:
EXCLUSIVE: Secret New UAS Shows Stealth, Efficiency Advances
A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
Moving on, a reminder from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
In Ronald Reagan era, Mandela was branded a terrorist
The outpouring of acclaim for Nelson Mandela from across the American ideological spectrum contrasts with the history of an earlier era, when many politicians and others derided the late South African anti-apartheid crusader as a communist and a terrorist.
Mandela’s death on Thursday at age 95 has rekindled those denunciations, mostly from the far right on social media. Ted Cruz, the tea party-backed Republican senator from Texas, found himself excoriated by loyalists after posting a statement on Facebook praising Mandela as “an inspiration to defenders of liberty.”
More from PRI:
Almost till his death, Mandela remained on the US terrorism watch list
Meanwhile, the Snowden leaks continue to detonate. From RT:
Sweden engaged in industrial espionage against Russia – report
Sweden’s intelligence agency has not only spied on Russian leadership, sharing intelligence with the NSA, but also apparently engaged in industrial espionage against business targets such as Russia’s energy companies, Sveriges Television reports.
According to a wire, obtained by Swedish TV program ‘Mission: Investigate’, Sweden’s National Defense Radio Establishment (FRA) shared intelligence on Russia with Washington.
But USA TODAY reminds us that we live in a bugger’s paradise:
Cellphone data spying: It’s not just the NSA
The National Security Agency isn’t the only government entity secretly collecting data from people’s cellphones. Local police are increasingly scooping it up, too.
From the Washington Post, enough to make you weep:
NSA morale down after Edward Snowden revelations, former U.S. officials say
Morale has taken a hit at the National Security Agency in the wake of controversy over the agency’s surveillance activities, according to former officials who say they are dismayed that President Obama has not visited the agency to show his support.
USA TODAY announces cosmetic therapy:
Obama to soon propose NSA surveillance changes
President Obama’s proposed changes to National Security Agency surveillance rules are likely to come this month.
While El País takes a stand for British colleagues:
‘The Guardian’ falls under the shadow of McCarthyism
The persecution of the UK newspaper over the NSA espionage case shows how the Cameron administration has moved away from moderation
South China Morning Post covers an embarrassment:
Adviser to US government on foreign investment quits over link to Huawei
Theodore Moran was consultant for Chinese firm while also advising Washington
A long-time adviser to the US Director of National Intelligence has resigned after the government learned he had worked since 2010 as a paid consultant for Huawei Technologies, the Chinese technology company the US has condemned as an espionage threat.
And MintPress News reveals yet another sign of Obama’s eagerness to subvert the Bill of Rights:
DOJ Argues Unlawfully Obtained Evidence Still Valid
When police take Fourth Amendment inquiries into their own hands, rather than seek a warrant, they act constitutionally reckless, the Supreme Court said.
Reasoning that because a local police department acted in “good faith,” the Justice Department is pushing to overturn a federal appeals court decision that would prohibit prosecutors from using evidence gathered without a warrant — a legal precedent of great concern to Fourth Amendment advocates and human rights groups alike.
And on the subject of security, threats abound. From Xinhua:
U.S. warns Afghanistan of civil war if no BSA deal: Afghan official
James Dobbins has warned that failure to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement would lead to a civil war. Dobbins stressed “zero option “, meaning if there is no BAS, there is no need for U.S. military presence.
The White House has urged Kabul to ink BSA by the end of 2013.
Xinhua again, with security concerns:
BRICS nations should strengthen security cooperation: Chinese state councilor
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi said on Friday that BRICS nations should strengthen cooperation and coordination to play their roles in safeguarding international and regional peace and stability.
The Guardian covers a bit of insecurity:
Julie Bishop plays down tensions after meeting China’s foreign minister
Bishop says little time was taken up discussing the air defence zone that has caused angry words between the two countries
Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, downplayed tensions over China’s controversial air defence zone, which has also troubled the United States, Japan and South Korea, after meeting her Chinese counterpart on Saturday.
And JapanToday conveys advice from Uncle:
U.S. urges China to set up hotline with Japan, S Korea
The United States urged China Friday to set up an emergency hotline with Japan and South Korea to avoid confusion in its newly-declared airspace.
From Al Jazeera America, another escalation:
Dueling airspace: South Korea expands air defense zone
Seoul counters China’s air defense identification zone by extending its own zone to further overlap with China’s
The Guardian covers another escalation:
China pulls out of UN process over territorial dispute with Philippines
Move underscores China’s tough geopolitical stance in region
Territorial claims continue to dominate visit by Joe Biden
And the Washington Post considers an impasse:
As Japan and China clash, their diplomats see little chance to talk it out
Vice President Biden urged Japan and China last week to set up “effective channels of communication” to avoid a dangerous escalation in their increasingly fraught dispute over maritime territory. But the estrangement between the Asian powers is so deep they are barely talking.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, both in office for roughly a year, have spoken just once — for a matter of minutes. The Japanese and Chinese foreign ministers haven’t held formal talks in 14 months. Contact between their coast guards and militaries is zero.
After the jump, war games launched as war fears fill media, Japanese outrage, Taiwanese drones, Molodovan hitmen, and more. . .
The China Post covers yet another increase in the heat:
Chinese ships enter disputed waters amid raised tensions
Three Chinese ships entered disputed waters off Tokyo-controlled islands in the East China Sea on Sunday, the Japanese coastguard said, the first such incident since Beijing announced an air defense zone in the area last month.
The vessels entered the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters at about 9:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) off one of the Senkaku islands, which China also claims and calls the Diaoyus, the Japan Coast Guard said. They left the area shortly after noon.
While the Japan Times ponders agitation:
Japan calls for global action against China’s new air zone
Japan’s defense minister called on the international community Sunday to oppose China’s recently declared maritime air defense zone over the East China Sea and possibly over the disputed South China Sea.
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera discussed Japan’s concern over China’s action separately with Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Australian Foreign Minister Julia Bishop. Onodera and Bishop separately visited central Tacloban city, which was ruined by Typhoon Haiyan last month.
From the Japan Times, the “W” word is raised:
Impending Japan-China war has the makings of a Clancy classic
On Nov. 23, China announced the creation of a newly expanded air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, overlapping a large expanse of territory also claimed by Japan. The move has produced a visceral reaction in the Japanese vernacular media, particularly the weekly tabloids. Five out of nine weekly magazines that went on sale last Monday and Tuesday contained scenarios that raised the possibility of a shooting war.
And Want China Times offers examples:
Japan explores 3 war scenorios with China amid ADIZ concerns
Japan has responded to China’s Nov. 23 announcement of its air defense indification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea by holding a television conference to discuss the possibility of dealing with China on three fronts — Taiwan, the Miyako waterway and the disputed Diaoyutai (Senkaku or Diaoyu) islands — within the next 10-15 years, according to the Toyko-based Sankei Shimbun.
Commanders from the Japan Air Self Defense (JASDF) Northern Air Defense Force, Central Air Defense Force, Southern Air Defense Force and Southwestern Composite Air Division were called up by the Air Defense Command HQ stationed at Yokota for the television conference on Dec. 5, the paper said.
Meanwhile, the Asahi Shimbun has the latest on a key feature of the increasingly bellicose emergent Japanese national security state:
China, South Korea fear secrets law could lead to Japanese military state
South Korea and China raised concerns that the Dec. 6 enactment of the state secrets protection law is putting Japan on the path of becoming a nation ready to go to war.
“Japan has entered a course to change into ‘an ordinary nation,’” said the South Korean Dong-A Ilbo newspaper in a Dec. 7 article. “That means it is seeking to create a nation that can go to war by moving away from its postwar structure that banned war or the possession of a military.”
More from the Mainichi:
Nobel laureates, scholars protest secrecy law
A group of 31 scholars in Japan including Nobel laureates issued a statement of protest on Saturday against a controversial law toughening penalties for leakers of state secrets that was enacted the day before.
In the statement, Nobel Prize winners Toshihide Maskawa and Hideki Shirakawa and their fellow scholars say the law “threatens the fundamental human rights and pacifist principles established in the Constitution” and poses “the largest ever danger to democracy in postwar Japan.”
The statement, endorsed by an additional 3,150 academics, also condemns the ruling bloc’s railroading of the bill through both houses of the Diet as “reminiscent of the prewar government that wrested away freedom of thought and freedom of the press in its push toward war.”
Still more from NHK WORLD:
Writers, lawyers, citizens oppose secrecy law
The Japan PEN Club said in a statement that the law facilitates self-centered use of power and cover-up of information by authorities and could destroy democracy.
The statement says club members are determined to protect freedom of speech and expression without succumbing to the law’s intimidation.
The Japan Magazine Publishers Association and the Japan Book Publishers Association issued a joint statement that calls the law extremely dangerous and that it could shake Japan’s foundation.
The statement says the associations resolutely protests the enactment, because the law could become a major obstacle to information-gathering and writing.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations also issued a statement of protest. The lawyers’ association’s president, Kenji Yamagishi, said the law violates the public’s right to know and would make popular sovereignty a mere facade.
And the Asahi Shimbun has numbers:
ASAHI POLL: 76% of voters say Diet debate on secrecy law ‘insufficient’
Seventy-six percent of respondents to an Asahi Shimbun survey said Diet debate on the state secrets protection law enacted late on Dec. 6 was insufficient, and 73 percent said they are worried about its arbitrary application.
The ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito railroaded the legislation through the Diet, despite criticism that it could undermine the public’s right to know.
According to the nationwide survey conducted Dec. 7, only 11 percent of respondents said Diet debate on the law was “sufficient,” while 76 percent said it was “not sufficient.”
The Asahi Shimbun again, on the outcome:
Ruling coalition acts alone as thousands protest state secrets law
Opposition party members left the Upper House in disgust and frustration. Huge crowds of protesters formed around the Diet building and in cities around Japan. Criticism dominated public hearings.
However, the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito–acting alone–still enacted the state secrets protection law on Dec. 6.
The two parties did not gain the support of any opposition party in the Upper House. But the coalition’s strength in the Diet was enough to pass the bill and shrug off major misgivings about the vague wording of the legislation and heated arguments about how it could severely restrict the public’s right to know.
The Mainichi frets:
Enactment of secrecy bill signals fears of surveillance society
In the wake of the Diet’s enactment of the controversial state secrets protection bill, the aptitude assessment system for those who handle special secrets is now to be embodied. This will affect the privacy not only of national civil servants, but also of private citizens.
Some 64,500 national government employees have been subject to such assessments over specially controlled secrets, which have been conducted by the government despite the absence of relevant laws or ordinances. The number of those who will be covered by the new system will spike dramatically since they include prefectural police personnel across the country, as well as civilians in the defense industry.
Furthermore, it is not clear how such investigation results, which tread largely upon individuals’ privacy, will be utilized within the government. If such enormous amounts of data fall into the hands of public security authorities, this country could be turned into a surveillance society.
And the Asahi Shimbun asserts:
Asahi Shimbun will continue to respond to the public’s right to know
The Asahi Shimbun focused on the dangers of the state secrets protection bill. Although the bill has now become law, we have no intention of stopping our efforts to point out its problems and show how it threatens the daily lives of the general public.
Every organization has information that it cannot make public. And Japan already had laws to protect such information. But the new law almost limitlessly widens the range of what can be considered confidential by allowing bureaucrats and politicians to designate state secrets to their liking.
Another problem with the law is that background checks and scrutiny of people who handle state secrets will extend to their family members. Moreover, there is no independent agency to oversee the designation of state secrets.
From the Jakarta Globe, another revelation, another blowback:
Indonesia ‘In No Rush’ to Restore Australia Ties Over Spying
The office of the Indonesian president suggested on Sunday that it was reluctant to immediately “normalize” the country’s strained bilateral relations with Australia after Prime Minister Tony Abbot said in a radio interview that the country would continue to gather intelligence on Indonesia.
And from Want China Times, droning on:
Taiwan developing weapons-capable drone
The Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology under the Ministry of Defense unveil a weapons-capable unmanned aerial vehicle (front) at the Taoyuan County Stadium in northern Taiwan, Dec. 6. (Photo/CNA)
Taiwan’s military is developing a weapons-capable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with some stealth capabilities at the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, an official at the institute told the Central News Agency Friday.
PCWorld gives us fun and games:
DARPA makes finding software vulnerabilities fun
The U.S. Department of Defense may have found a new way to scan millions of lines of software code for vulnerabilities, by turning the practice into a set of video games and puzzles and having volunteers do the work.
Having gamers identify potentially problematic chunks of code could help lower the work load of trained vulnerability analysts by “an order of magnitude or more,” said John Murray, a program director in SRI International’s computer science laboratory who helped create one of the games, called Xylem.
While the Moscow Times frustrates:
Website Offering Hitman Services Blocked in Russia
A Moldovan-based website has ran afoul of the Russian Criminal Code prohibiting crimes against a person and fraud and has been blocked by regulators.
Regulators have blocked a website offering the services of hitmen following a complaint to the Interior Ministry by the head of the Federation Council’s Committee on Information Policy.
Senator Ruslan Gattarov in September informed the ministry that zakazat-killera.com (“Hire a Killer”) advertised services ranging from “physical elimination” to intimidation by taking targets for a “chat” in the woods. The website contained detailed descriptions of the various ways potential victims could be harmed, including binding, kidnapping and beatings, Gattarov said Friday, Interfax reported.
