We begin today’s tales of [in]security with a particularly ominous headline from io9:
So now Homeland Security can detain suspected movie pirates?
This story is all kinds of weird. A guy wearing Google Glass in an Ohio movie theater was detained for hours by agents from . . . the Department of Homeland Security. What? Was this guy a terrorist with awful taste in consumer electronics? Nope. He was suspected of piracy.
OK, OK I get that wearing Google Glass is horribly obnoxious and probably not a good idea in a movie theater, where patrons are often told to put away their smart phones. But seriously? Unleashing DHS on somebody who wore Glass to a Jack Ryan movie? This is like some kind of parody of the surveillance state, where the government is the pawn of Hollywood, and citizens who post spoilers online are put on watch lists.
The Guardian keeps the lid on:
US withholding Fisa court orders on NSA bulk collection of Americans’ data
Justice Department refuses to turn over ‘certain other’ documents in ACLU lawsuit meant to shed light on surveillance practices
The Justice Department is withholding documents related to the bulk collection of Americans’ data from a transparency lawsuit launched by the American Civil Liberties Union.
US attorney Preet Bharara of the southern district of New York informed the ACLU in a Friday letter that the government would not turn over “certain other” records from a secret surveillance court, which are being “withheld in full” from a Freedom of Information Act suit the civil liberties group filed to shed light on bulk surveillance activities performed under the Patriot Act.
New Europe covers continental anxiety:
Parliament’s NSA scandal rapporteur says more effort needed to restore
MEPs called on US authorities to put an end to current discrimination whereby European citizens have lower levels of privacy rights than US citizens, including less privacy protection in US courts, and urged for the disclosure of more information on the proposed changes to the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance practices.
US President Barack Obama has announced potential reforms to the US legal framework, following the continuing disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In particular, the reforms foresee limiting the NSA programme that collects domestic phone records and halting eavesdropping on foreign leaders and governments that are friends or allies of the US. However, the European Parliament said more concrete actions are needed in order to restore the confidence of EU citizens.
Claude Moraes (S&D, UK), rapporteur for the European Parliament inquiry into the mass surveillance of EU citizens, said that Obama’s speech was ‘a substantial step forward in addressing the serious concerns from EU Member States in relation to NSA activities on mass surveillance and spying.’ However, he pointed out that there is a need for additional privacy protection and the US needs more effort to restore confidence.
Spiegel goes all law and order:
Probing America: Top German Prosecutor Considers NSA Investigation
The official line at the Public Prosecutor’s Office is that it remains unclear what will become of the allegations against the NSA. The office is treating the surveillance as two separate instances. One is the allegation that the NSA spied on the data of Germans millions of times. The other is the allegation that it eavesdropped on the chancellor’s mobile phone. Thus far, the Prosecutor’s Office has told parliament that there isn’t yet enough evidence to pursue a formal investigation.
It’s a position that Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of parliament with the Green Party who gained global headlines by visiting Edward Snowden in Moscow in late 2012, considers absurd. “They’re just looking for reasons to shirk responsibility because the issue is too controversial for them,” he says. Gregor Gysi, the head of the parliamentary group of the far-left Left Party, rails against what he describes as government “yes-men” when it comes to America. “The fact that the German government and the Federal Prosecutor isn’t acting shows that their fear of the US government is greater than their respect for our legal system.”
Techdirt goes ironic:
Dianne Feinstein: NSA Would Never Abuse Its Powers Because It’s ‘Professional’
from the your-logical-fallacy-is…66t4r dept
Senator Dianne Feinstein, as we’ve noted, seems to have this weird blindness to even the very idea that the NSA might abuse its powers, despite a long history of it doing exactly that. The history of the US intelligence community is littered like a junk yard with examples of massive abuses of power by intelligence folks. And yet, Feinstein seems shocked at the idea that anyone questions the NSA’s ability to abuse the system. Why? Because the NSA is “professional.” Appearing on Meet the Press this weekend, Feinstein just kept repeating how “professional” the NSA is as if that was some sort of talisman that wards off any potential of abuse.
And the McClatchy Washington Bureau divides:
Lawmakers divided over what Obama’s NSA speech means for agency
Lawmakers on Sunday’s political talk shows continued to be divided over President Barack Obama’s proposed changes to the National Security Agency’s massive data dragnets, suggesting the debate over the programs is far from over.
Heavy-hitters from both political parties and both sides of the debate clashed over what the proposed changes could mean for the nation’s intelligence gathering, and discordant statements showed that even the agency’s chief congressional overseers don’t agree on what Friday’s speech actually meant.
Despite hope from NSA defenders that the President’s address would head off some of the more stringent legislative proposals on the Hill, lawmakers were clear that the speech didn’t placate congressional critics.
From Homeland Security News Wire, Orwellian as well:
Judge denies defense request to see whether NSA surveillance led to terrorism charges
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman on Friday ruled that lawyers for Adel Daoud, a 20-year old resident of Hillside, a suburb west of Chicago, who was charged with plotting to set off a powerful bomb outside a crowded Chicago bar, will not be allowed to examine whether the investigators who initiated the sting operation which led to Doud’s arrest relied on information gleaned from NSA surveillance programs.
Attorneys for Daoud had asked Judge Coleman to instruct prosecutors to disclose “any and all” surveillance information used in Daoud’s case, including information disclosed to a U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence.
In a brief ruling posted late Friday, Coleman denied the motion, writing that the defense had “failed to provide any basis for issuing such an order.” Prosecutors would not confirm whether the FBI had initiated its operation against Doud as a result of a tip from the NSA, but they did say that even if such surveillance did exist, they have no plans of using it at trial and the defense was not entitled to it.
EUobserver measures red ink:
Snowden scandal to cost US cloud companies billions
The US cloud industry faces up to €25.8 billion in lost revenues following revelations about US-led snooping on EU citizens.
“The surveillance revelations will cost the US cloud computing industry USD 22 to 35 billion in lost revenues over the next three year,” said EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding on Sunday (19 January) at the Digital Life Design Conference in Munich.
Reding drew her estimates from a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank based in Washington.
The Guardian pleads ignorance:
Google’s Eric Schmidt denies knowledge of NSA data tapping of firm
Executive chairman says search company has ‘complained at great length’ to the US government over intrusion
Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has insisted he had no knowledge of the US National Security Agency’s tapping of the company’s data, despite having a sufficiently high security clearance to have been told.
He said that he and other members of the search company were outraged by the tapping carried out by the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ – first revealed in the Guardian in June – and that they had “complained at great length” to the US government over the intrusion. Google had since begun encrypting internal traffic to prevent further spying, he said.
Speaking in a private session at the Guardian, Schmidt, 58, said: “I have the necessary clearances to have been told, as do other executives in the company, but none of us were briefed.
Setting the pace with RT:
NSA sets global trend for invasive state snooping – HRW
The United States’ dragnet surveillance programs have set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other states to bolster their own snooping capabilities and engage in censorship under the guise of security, Human Rights Watch warned in its annual report.
“The importance of privacy, a right we often take for granted, was thrown into sharp relief in 2013 by the steady stream of revelations from United States government files released by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden,” the New York-based group wrote in its 24th annual review of human rights practices around the globe.
“These revelations, supported by highly classified documents, showed the US, the UK, and other governments engaged in global indiscriminate data interception, largely unchecked by any meaningful legal constraint or oversight, without regard for the rights of millions of people who were not suspected of wrongdoing,” the report said.
Out for blood, via Techdirt:
Rep. Mike Rogers Keeps Insisting Snowden Is A Russian Spy, Even As NSA/FBI Officials Say No Such Evidence
from the do-you-trust-mike-rogers? dept
Rep. Mike Rogers sure loves the NSA and really, really hates Ed Snowden. It’s at the point where Rogers appears to not care at all about the truth, repeating multiple blatant falsehoods in TV interviews when it comes to Snowden. This past weekend, he went on TV to repeat an old favorite, claiming (without any proof, but just blind speculation) that he thinks that Snowden was a Russian spy all along. On Meet the Press, David Gregory asked Rogers about Snowden’s comments in his interview with Bart Gellman, in which Snowden pointed to Rogers’ (and Senator Dianne Feinstein’s) failure to uphold their role as overseers of the NSA as for why he had to leak the documents he gave to reporters. Rogers disagrees and hints that Snowden “had some help.”
The New Yorker rebuts:
Snowden Calls Russian-Spy Story “Absurd”
Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower, strongly denies allegations made by members of Congress that he was acting as a spy, perhaps for a foreign power, when he took hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents. Speaking from Moscow, where he is a fugitive from American justice, Snowden told The New Yorker, “This ‘Russian spy’ push is absurd.”
On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Mike Rogers, a Republican congressman from Michigan who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, described Snowden as a “thief, who we believe had some help.” The show’s host, David Gregory, interjected, “You think the Russians helped Ed Snowden?” Rogers replied that he believed it was neither “coincidence” nor “a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the F.S.B.”
Snowden, in a rare interview that he conducted by encrypted means from Moscow, denied the allegations outright, stressing that he “clearly and unambiguously acted alone, with no assistance from anyone, much less a government.” He added, “It won’t stick…. Because it’s clearly false, and the American people are smarter than politicians think they are.”
RT seeks protection:
Snowden to ask Russian police for protection after US threats – lawyer
NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, will ask Russian law enforcers to protect him, his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, has said. The former NSA contractor is concerned about his safety after seeing death threats coming from the US.
Snowden, who is currently living in Moscow under Russia’s temporary asylum, has been following the threats against him in various American media.
“We are concerned with the situation around Edward. We see the statements made by some US officials containing potential and implicit threats and openly calling for causing him bodily harm,” Kucherena said.
From the Associated Press, another reason why Snowden has grounds for his fears:
Snowden trial could be awkward for US
Putting former NSA contractor Edward Snowden on trial for leaking U.S. surveillance information could be an awkward public spectacle for the Obama administration.
More classified material could be at risk and jurors might see him as a whistle-blower exposing government overreach.
Snowden surely would try to turn the tables on the government, arguing that its right to keep information secret does not outweigh his constitutional right to speak out.
“He would no doubt bring First Amendment defenses to what he did, emphasizing the public interest in his disclosures and the democratic values that he served,” said David Pozen, a Columbia Law School professor and a former legal adviser at the State Department. “There’s been no case quite like it.”
The Associated Press cocks a snook:
NSA leaker Snowden nominated for university post
The University of Glasgow says Edward Snowden is among those running for the position of rector, the students’ representative to university management.
The former National Security Agency contractor leaked documents disclosing details of U.S. spies’ surveillance of the Internet and telephone communications. Variously hailed as a hero and condemned as a traitor, he has been granted asylum in Russia.
Glasgow students say they contacted Snowden through his lawyers and he agreed to run. Ph.D. student Chris Cassells said they wanted to support Snowden and send a message opposing “the intrusive practices of state security.”
Orwellian texting from GlobalPost:
Big Brother strikes again: Ukraine protesters get creepy text message
In another sign that the machines are taking over, Ukrainians near the site of protester clashes with police received a creepy text message from the government.
Paging George Orwell.
In a scene reminiscent of the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Ukrainians standing near the site of protester clashes with police in Kyiv received a creepy text message from the government early Tuesday.
“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance,” it read.
The Guardian redefines:
Are you opposed to fracking? Then you might just be a terrorist
From North America to Europe, the ‘national security’ apparatus is being bought off by Big Oil to rout peaceful activism
Over the last year, a mass of shocking evidence has emerged on the close ties between Western government spy agencies and giant energy companies, and their mutual interests in criminalising anti-fracking activists.
Activists tarred with the same brush
In late 2013, official documents obtained under freedom of information showed that Canada’s domestic spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), had ramped up its surveillance of activists opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline project on ‘national security’ grounds. The CSIS also routinely passed information about such groups to the project’s corporate architect, Calgary-based energy company, Enbridge.
And a companion headline from The Guardian:
Police accused of brutality as fracking protester is left ‘battered and bruised’
Sean O’Donnell claims he sustained multiple injuries after being shoved to the ground by police at Barton Moss protest camp
A protester at an anti-fracking demonstration in Greater Manchester claims he was left “battered and bruised” after being assaulted by police officers.
Sean O’Donnell, who is known as Kris, shot a video of himself being apparently shoved to the ground by police at the Barton Moss protest camp in Irlam, Salford.
Moscow anxieties from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Security experts: Olympics-related terrorist threat ‘is very real’
Analysts who are following security relations with Russia ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi said Tuesday that terrorism has potential to interrupt the games, even if an attack never happens at the games themselves.
“The terrorist threat is very real,” said Andrew C. Kuchins, director and senior fellow for the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Sochi is the holy grail, I would think, for terrorists.”
The Guardian takes precautions:
Privacy tools used by 28% of the online world, research finds
Concern about privacy, and frustration over censorship and content blocking is driving millions to use anonymity tools
The gathering crisis of trust around consumer web services and the fallout from Edward Snowden’s revelations is fuelling a significant uptake in anonymity tools, new research shows, as internet users battle censorship and assert their right to privacy online.
Globally, 56% of those surveyed by GlobalWebIndex reported that they felt the internet is eroding their personal privacy, with an estimated 415 million people or 28% of the online population using tools to disguise their identity or location.
After the jump, the latest in Asian zonal crises, militarization, and political bluster, plus black ops, massive hacks, black op blowback, NATO boondoglery, and censorship. . .
Our first and most symbolic Asian headline confirms a Japanese sea change via Want China Times:
Japan’s ruling party scraps ‘no war’ pledge in annual policy doc
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has decided to scrap the country’s long-term “no war” pledge in his party’s annual working policy document.
On Jan. 19, at the 81st annual convention of Japan’s ruling Liberation Democratic Party in Tokyo, the “never wage war” pledge was removed from the party’s policy paper for 2014, according to reports from Chinese state media.
Another controversial amendment from last year’s policy is the inclusion of the party’s intention to “bolster veneration for the war dead” — a reference to continued visits by Japanese leaders to shrines commemorating the country’s war dead, including war criminals. Last December, a visit by Abe to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where the honor roll includes 14 Class-A convicted Word War II criminals, drew widespread condemnation, especially from China and South Korea. Interestingly, during the visit Abe was quoted as affirming Japan’s “determination before the souls of the war dead to firmly uphold the pledge never to wage a war again.”
The Asahi Shimbun excludes:
Chinese ambassador: Abe’s Yasukuni visit ‘closed the door’ on dialogue
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to war-related Yasukuni Shrine dealt a “fatal blow” to Japan-China relations, the Chinese ambassador to Japan said.
Ambassador Cheng Yonghua, in a Jan. 20 speech at Sophia University in Tokyo, said prospects for a Japan-China summit are now bleak.
“Abe often said ‘the doors are always open for discussions between Japan and China,’ but he made the visit to the shrine at a time when both nations were working toward improving the strained bilateral relations,” Cheng said. “Abe’s visit means that he has closed the door for dialogue with his own hands.”
The Associated Press steams out:
China begins naval drills in South China Sea
Chinese naval vessels including an island landing ship are staging drills in the South China Sea, where China and several other nations are locked in territorial disputes.
The official Xinhua News Agency said two destroyers and China’s largest amphibious landing craft departed the naval base on the southern island province of Hainan on Monday. The ships also boast three helicopters and a company of marines.
Xinhua quoted Commander Jiang Weilie as saying the drills would focus on integrated combat missions involving ships, submarines and aircraft, suggesting other units may also be involved.
And South China Morning Post ups the ante:
Chinese patrol ship to be based at disputed islands in South China Sea
It will sail in areas of South China Sea where the Philippines and Vietnam make claims
China is to base a 5,000-tonne marine patrol ship at disputed islands in the South China Sea, a government newspaper said yesterday, a move that is likely to fuel territorial disputes with its Asian neighbours.
The China Ocean News, which is published by the State Oceanic Administration, said the vessel would be based at the small town of Sansha on one of the Paracel Islands and that a regular patrol system would be set up from the base gradually.
Sansha was established two years ago to administer areas of the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines.
BBC News adds symbolic fuel to the fire:
Japan protest over Korean assassin Ahn Jung-geun memorial in China
Japan has criticised a memorial built in China to commemorate a Korean independence activist who assassinated a prominent Japanese statesman in 1909.
Ahn Jung-geun shot dead Hirobumi Ito, four-time prime minister of Japan and the first resident governor of then Japanese-run Korea.
A Japanese government spokesman branded him a “terrorist” after the Chinese-Korean memorial hall opened in China’s Harbin city, where Ito was shot.
He is celebrated as a hero in Korea.
And the Japan Daily Press adds more:
South Korean ruling party says Japan is ‘terrorist state’ due to memorial spat
We’re getting a crick in our necks from watching this ongoing “tennis match” between Japan and South Korea as the exchange of heated words continue, this time due to the erection of a memorial to a Korean independence hero. The leader of South Korea‘s ruling Saenuri Party called Japan a “terrorist state” in response to their criticism of the memorial which was put up at a railway station in China.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga previously called the Korean hero Ahn Jung-Geun a “terrorist” for assassinating Japan’s first Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito at the train station in Harbin, northeastern China in 1909. Saenuri leader Kwang Woo Yea responded by saying that if Ahn was a terrorist, then Japan can be labeled a terrorist state because of its “merciless” invasion of its neighboring countries at the height of its militaristic power before and during World War II.
Jiji Press counts the total:
ASDF Scrambles against Chinese Aircraft Surge in April-Dec. 2013
Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force scrambled aircraft against Chinese planes threatening to enter Japanese airspace a record 287 times in April-December last year, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The figure is up significantly from the previous record of 160 for the same period in 2012. The ministry began releasing the scramble data in fiscal 2001.
In the nine months, ASDF scrambled a total of 563 times, up by 214 from the previous year, with China topping the list of countries on the receiving end, followed by Russia 246 times, up from 180, and North Korea nine times, up from zero.
And the Global Times floats the boat:
China to develop first 10,000-ton surveillance ship
The China Ship-building Industry Corporation has confirmed it has accepted a contract to develop and build the world’s first 10,000-ton class marine surveillance ship.
The contract is valued at 280 million yuan, or over $46 million, and includes the construction of another 4,000-ton surveillance ship. Tests for the ship’s marine clutch have so far been successful.
If the rest of the massive vessel is fully completed, China will overtake Japan as owner of world’s biggest surveillance ship.
JapanToday opts for Uncle Sam:
Gov’t says it will go ahead with U.S. base plan despite Nago election result
Gov’t says it will go ahead with U.S. base plan despite Nago election result People shout slogans during a rally denouncing the relocation of a US military base in front of the Okinawa prefectural office in Naha. AFP
The Japanese government said Monday it was sticking with plans to relocate a controversial U.S. Marine air base in Okinawa, despite the election of a local politician strongly opposed to the move.
Incumbent Susumu Inamine was reelected mayor on Sunday in Nago on the east coast of Okinawa, where the Futenma base is to be moved. His victory marked a fresh setback for long-stalled efforts by Tokyo and Washington to relocate the base, more than 17 years after the move was first agreed.
And Want China Times adds to the arsenal:
PLA’s hypersonic vehicle could be used against US: expert
The new hypersonic glide vehicle of the People’s Liberation Army — dubbed the WU-14 — is designed to strike large military targets including US aircraft carriers around the globe, according to the state-run China Central Television (CCTV), citing Chinese military expert Chen Hu.
Officials from the Pentagon stated that China had tested an ultra-high speed missile vehicle designed with cutting edge military technology in an unknown region of the country on Jan. 9. Following the report, the Chinese defense ministry officially confirmed its test of the WU-14 on Jan. 15.
Frontera NorteSur takes us closer to home:
Mexico: The Politics of a State Meltdown
As a massive federal police and military deployment gains momentum in the Mexican state of Michoacan, polemics and debate shroud the first major such operation undertaken by the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
At stake in the campaign is not only the reassertion of state power, but also the strategic control of the Pacific coastal port of Lazaro Cardenas, one of the key portals of the Asia/NAFTA economy, as well as the productive mountains and farmlands whose products and people travel a network of highways leading across Mexico and into the United States.
With upwards of 10,000 federal forces now deployed, along with perhaps equal numbers of gunmen from the Knights Templar syndicate and opposing, civilian self-defense groups, Michoacan is the scene of a “low-intensity war” that will soon witness drones, massive telecommunications intercepts and commando operations, predicted Gerardo Rodriguez Sanchez Lara, director of the private Mexican Human Security firm.
On Mexican television, commentators openly compare Michoacan with Syria, Colombia and the balkanized states of the former Yugoslavia.
And Spiegel mulls a NATO folly:
Risk for Rasmussen: New NATO Headquarters in Financial Trouble
Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a man who attaches a lot of importance to his public image. The Danish secretary general of NATO likes to be filmed while out jogging with his bodyguards in the morning, and he’s always bronzed and impeccably dressed.
His term ends in the summer and he is reported to have already compiled a list of achievements in the “Rasmussen era” for presentation to the NATO summit in September. The message will be that Rasmussen has prepared the Western defense alliance for the challenges of the future with a structural reform and a new strategic concept.
Rasmussen wants this modernization to be symbolized by the move into a new headquarters — away from the aging, Cold War-era concrete complex and into a gigantic palace of steel and glass on the other side of the street in the Brussels suburb of Evere.
But Rasmussen has a problem: The construction project has run into serious financial difficulties, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL. The consortium of firms building it is at risk of insolvency. Rasmussen is aware of the problem but hasn’t seen fit yet to inform the public about it, meaning the taxpayers of the 28 NATO member states. At a meeting of NATO’s Deputies Committee on December 19, Rasmussen’s staff asked that the issue be dealt with “confidentially.”
Sky News ensnares blowback:
Drax Convictions Quashed Over Undercover Cop
The Appeal Court blames the prosecution for failing to tell the defence that an undercover officer took protesters to the site.
The convictions of 29 environmental campaigners involved in a protest at a power station have been quashed because of the failure of the prosecution to disclose the involvement of an undercover police officer.
The protesters were convicted of obstructing engines or carriages on railways – an offence under the Malicious Damage Act 1861 – and sentenced at Leeds Crown Court in 2009 and 2010 after stopping a freight train heading to the Drax power station.
The plant in North Yorkshire is Europe’s largest coal-fired power station.
BBC News hacks away:
Credit card details on 20 million South Koreans stolen
Credit card details from almost half of all South Koreans have been stolen and sold to marketing firms.
The data was stolen by a computer contractor working for a company called the Korea Credit Bureau that produces credit scores.
The names, social security numbers and credit card details of 20 million South Koreans were copied by the IT worker.
As does Deutsche Welle:
Millions of email accounts, passwords stolen by hackers
Around 16 million e-mail addresses and passwords have been hacked, according to German authorities. More than half of the hacked accounts ended in “.de,” the Internet country code for Germany.
Researchers and prosecutors stumbled upon the hacked accounts while conducting research on a botnet, a network of computers infected with malware.
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security has created a website to help people find out whether or not their e-mail was among those hacked. The site temporarily crashed on Tuesday due to heavy traffic. Users who submit their email address to the website will be sent an message if their account has been compromised.
And for our final item, censorship from South China Morning Post:
Beijing tightens censorship of books by Hong Kong and Taiwan authors
Tougher rules for all HK and Taiwan authors to weed out ‘vulgar’ and ‘harmful’ content
Beijing has tightened controls on book publishers and ordered publications by authors from Hong Kong and Taiwan to go through a stricter approval process.
The directive was sent to all chief editors of major Chinese publishers in early December and came with immediate effect.
