Huge collection today, with lots of major developments. [We’ve been slow in posting because we’re a bit under the weather.]
From BBC News:
US privacy watchdog advises NSA spying is illegal
The bulk collection of phone call data by US intelligence agencies is illegal and has had only “minimal” benefits in preventing terrorism, an independent US privacy watchdog has ruled.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board advised by a 3-2 majority that the programme should end.
In a major speech last week, President Barack Obama said he was ordering curbs on the use of such mass data. But he said the US must continue collecting data to prevent attacks.
The report from the PCLOB is the latest of several reviews of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass surveillance programme, the details of which caused widespread anger after they were leaked by Edward Snowden.
From the Los Angeles Times, the status quo:
NSA data gathering appears likely to continue for time being
But critics get a boost when a federal watchdog panel pronounces the National Security Agency’s practice an invasion of privacy that is of limited value.
The daily transfer of Americans’ telephone toll records to a government database is likely to continue at least for the next 18 months despite the president’s speech last Friday and a growing debate over the legality and effectiveness of the once-secret operation.
Critics got a boost Thursday when a federal privacy watchdog panel pronounced the NSA archiving of telephone metadata — numbers, times and lengths of calls, but not their content — an invasion of privacy that’s of “limited value” in counter-terrorism cases.
But the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board split, 3 to 2, on whether the program is illegal and should be shut down, a divide that reflects larger disagreements in Congress and the public. It helps explain why Obama gave mixed messages about what he called “the program that has generated the most controversy these past few months.”
An example from Wired:
Judge Enforces Spy Orders Despite Ruling Them Unconstitutional
A federal judge in California who ruled last year that the government’s use of ultra-secret National Security Letters is unconstitutional has defied her own ruling by enforcing other NSLs in the wake of that judgment, according to newly unsealed documents.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled last March that the letters — a kind of self-issued FBI subpoena that comes with a gag order on the recipient — are an unconstitutional impingement of free speech, and ordered the government to stop using them.
She also ordered the government to cease enforcing the gag provision in other cases in which an NSL had already been issued. She stayed her order, however, for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which it did.
From The Hill, nostalgia:
Snowden expresses desire to ‘come home’ as US hints at talks
National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden on Thursday said he would be willing to return to the United States if he were able to mount a legal defense as a whistleblower.
“Returning to the US, I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it’s unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws, which through a failure in law did not cover national security contractors like myself,” Snowden wrote during an online chat.
The remark came the same day that Attorney General Eric Holder said the administration would be willing to “engage in conversations” with Snowden if he accepted responsibility for his actions.
More from The Guardian:
US hints at Edward Snowden plea bargain to allow return from Russia
Attorney general prepared to ‘engage in conversation’ with NSA whistleblower but says full clemency is ‘going too far’
The attorney general, Eric Holder, has indicated that the US could allow the national security whistleblower Edward Snowden to return from Russia under negotiated terms, saying he was prepared to “engage in conversation” with him.
Holder said in an MSNBC interview that full clemency would be “going too far”, but his comments suggest that US authorities are prepared to discuss a possible plea bargain with Snowden, who is living in exile in Russia.
Xinhua qualifies:
Snowden sees “no chance” to get fair trial in U.S.
Edward Snowden, a former U.S. defense contractor who revealed the U.S. secret surveillance programs, wrote on Thursday in an online chat that it is “not possible” for him to return to the United States under current whistleblower protection laws and he sees “no chance” to have a fair trial in his home country.
“Returning to the US, I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it’s unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws, which, through a failure in law, did not cover national security contractors like myself,” Snowden said, according to answers posted on the website of advocacy group “Free Snowden”.
“This is especially frustrating, because it means there’s no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury,” Snowden answered.
Perspective from the Register:
Snowden speaks: NSA spies create ‘databases of ruin’ on innocent folks
‘Not all spying is bad’ but bulk collection has to go, says whistleblower in web chat
Ex-NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden used his first public Q&A to call for the US to lead a global initiative to ban mass surveillance of populations. He also wants governments to ensure that intelligence agencies can protect national security while not invading everyday privacy.
“Not all spying is bad. The biggest problem we face right now is the new technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance, where governments are seizing billions and billions and billions of innocents’ communication every single day,” he said.
“This is done not because it’s necessary – after all, these programs are unprecedented in US history, and were begun in response to a threat that kills fewer Americans every year than bathtub falls and police officers – but because new technologies make it easy and cheap.”
More from USA TODAY:
Snowden calls for global limits on spying
Ex-NSA contractor in Russia holds his first online chat since the surveillance story broke in June.
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, entertaining questions in an online chat Thursday from Moscow, called for global limits on surveillance but said, “Not all spying is bad.”
He also said he never stole colleagues’ logons or duped them to gain access to secret files detailing mass-surveillance programs.
“I never stole any passwords, nor did I trick an army of co-workers,” he wrote during the live chat at the Free Snowden website, disputing a Reuters report in November as “simply wrong.”
Musings from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Days later, Obama’s spy speech has people scratching their heads
President Barack Obama’s response to the international uproar over the nation’s surveillance programs is leaving Americans with more questions than answers.
Where will millions of phone records be stored? What protections will foreigners have? Which secret documents will be declassified?
In what was designed to be his defining speech on the issue last Friday, Obama announced few specifics.
“For every answer he gave, there are several new questions about how he plans to implement these changes,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. “Ultimately, the full effect of these reforms remains to be seen.”
A corporate plea from CNNMoney:
Marissa Mayer calls for more NSA transparency
Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer is calling on the United States to be more transparent about its data collection practices, as other top tech CEOs urge the international community to establish privacy guidelines.
Mayer said that revelations about government snooping have hurt her company, and that Yahoo now wants “to be able to rebuild trust with our users.”
The Yahoo CEO was speaking as part of a technology panel with other tech executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
NSA fan support from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Australian FM lashes Snowden ‘treachery’ on US visit
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop lashed out on Wednesday at Edward Snowden, accusing the US intelligence leaker of “unprecedented treachery” after he unveiled Canberra’s efforts to spy on Indonesia.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop lashed out on Wednesday at Edward Snowden, accusing the US intelligence leaker of “unprecedented treachery” after he unveiled Canberra’s efforts to spy on Indonesia.
Bishop praised cooperation with Washington and reserved harsh words for Snowden, whose revelations led Indonesia to halt work with Australia to stem people smuggling, a key priority for new conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Shortly before a meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, Bishop said Snowden “continues to shamefully betray his nation while skulking in Russia. “This represents unprecedented treachery; he is no hero,” she added, in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Delivery fail from the Daily Dot:
Washington state considers bill to cut off its NSA facility
In what would likely be the boldest step a state has yet taken against the National Security Agency for its recently-revealed spying, the state of Washington is considering cutting off supplies.
That means no water and no electricity to any NSA facility in the state that tracks Americans’ phone records, in bulk, without a warrant.
Several other states, including California, Indiana, and Oklahoma, have proposed similar legislation. But Washington’s unique among them in that it actually contains an NSA facility to ban: the Yakima Training Center, an Army training facility known to house NSA operations. The NSA declined to comment on current operations in Yakima, though it did announce in 2013 that it would be closing its facility there at an unspecified date.
The Verge offshores:
Microsoft offers overseas data storage in response to NSA concerns
Today, Microsoft announced an unpredecented response to concerns of NSA data access, offering customers in foreign countries the option of having their data stored outside US borders. According to a Financial Times report, the company decided to launch the program after discovering the NSA was using their networks to surveil citizens of Brazil and the European Union. So far, Microsoft is the only major company offering explicitly non-US data storage, despite evidence that the agency has broken into the private networks of both Google and Yahoo.
While there’s no guarantee the NSA won’t be able to reach servers outside US borders, the move would offer an additional layer of protection, as local law enforcement is likely to respond more aggressively to agents of a foreign country. It also continues recent moves to shift web traffic away from the US in response to the NSA scandal, in Brazil and elsewhere. If privacy-conscious users want to shift away from the American parts of web, this latest offer ensures they’ll be able to do so without shifting away from American companies like Microsoft.
The Guardian probes:
Independent commission to investigate future of internet after NSA revelations
Two-year inquiry headed by Swedish foreign minister, set up by Chatham House and CIGI thinktanks, is announced at Davos
A major independent commission headed by the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, was launched on Wednesday to investigate the future of the internet in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations.
The two-year inquiry, announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, will be wide-ranging but focus primarily on state censorship of the internet as well as the issues of privacy and surveillance raised by the Snowden leaks about America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ spy agencies.
The investigation, which will be conducted by a 25-member panel of politicians, academics, former intelligence officials and others from around the world, is an acknowledgement of the concerns about freedom raised by the debate.
North of the border snoopery from the Globe and Mail:
Telecom firms being asked what data they are giving to police, intelligence agencies
Prominent privacy and digital-security researchers are mounting a campaign to learn more about the customer information that Canadian telecommunications companies are handing over to police and intelligence agencies.
The researchers – led by Chris Parsons, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab – have written an open letter to Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw and a dozen other companies, pushing for details about the kinds of requests that government officials are making – and how much the telcos are obliging them.
“Canadians have had only vague understandings of how, why, and how often Canadian telecommunications providers have disclosed information to government agencies,” Mr. Parsons wrote in an explanatory article on the Citizen Lab website.
“Given the importance of such systems to Canadians’ lives, and the government’s repeated allegations that more access is needed to ensure the safety of Canadians, more data is needed for scholars, civil rights organizations, and the public.”
And more blowback across the pond, from The Guardian:
Justify GCHQ mass surveillance, European court tells ministers
Judges order government to provide submission about whether spying activities violated European convention on human rights
The case was brought in the wake of the Guardian’s revelations about the data-trawling techniques at GCHQ. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Ministers have been ordered to justify GCHQ’s mass surveillance programmes by judges at the European court of human rights who have fast-tracked a case brought by privacy and human rights campaigners.
The court in Strasbourg has told the government to provide submissions by the beginning of May about whether GCHQ’s spying activities could be a violation of the right to privacy under article 8 of the European convention. Marking the case a priority, campaigners are hopeful the court will bring a ruling before the end of the year.
An incomplete from the Washington Post:
Justice Department says USIS submitted 665,000 incomplete background checks
Lawmakers said Thursday that new details emerging from the Justice Department’s civil case against a leading company that conducts security background checks for the federal government may speed legislation designed to clean up the once-burgeoning contracting business.
This week, the Justice Department filed a new complaint in a whistleblowers’ lawsuit it joined in October against USIS, a company that conducts background checks for nearly half of potential U.S. government hires.
The filing accuses the Falls Church, Va., firm of taking shortcuts in about 40 percent of the cases it handled — at least 665,000 in total — and, in the process, qualifying for nearly $12 million in performance bonuses from the federal government. Yet USIS officials told the government that all the necessary reviews had been done.
Consequences from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Feds seeks billions from Snowden security background check firm
The federal government is seeking billions of dollars in penalties and damages from the company that did the background security check on NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
The Justice Department says in a new court filing that U.S. Investigations Services Inc., the largest of the several firms that the government contracts with to investigate current and prospective federal employees, lied about 665,000 checks it conducted between 2008 and 2012.
USIS devised an elaborate scheme in which it told the government it had completed probes of people whose backgrounds it had not, in fact, thoroughly vetted, according to a 25-page document filed Wednesday in an Alabama court as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit against the Falls Church, Va.-based firm.
And the business beat goes on, via the Christian Science Monitor:
Booz Allen, Snowden’s old firm, looking to help US government with ‘insider threats’
Are defense and intelligence contractors the best choice to manage a threat they’ve contributed to?
More corporate blowback from The Guardian:
Mobile phone networks challenge government over text message trawling
EE, O2, Vodafone and Three demand answers on how spies can allegedly get around UK laws using NSA’s Dishfire program
All four British mobile phone networks are to ask the government to explain how spy agencies have been able to tap into a secret US database to trawl through the text messages of UK citizens without their knowledge.
In the first sign of a push back by the British telecoms industry against the mass surveillance of their customers, as exposed by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, BT’s chief executive also waded into the debate, describing the laws on data collection as not fit for purpose.
Three, which has nearly 8 million customers, on Wednesday joined Vodafone, O2 and EE in demanding answers from the government on how spies are apparently able to get around UK laws by using the Dishfire database operated by the NSA, which has collected almost 200m text messages a day from across the globe.
From Britain’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills via the London Telegraph, the ominous nanny state:
Army of door-knocking neighbours should be paid to keep ‘bad parents’ in line, says Ofsted chief
‘Good citizens’ should be given financial incentives to knock on their neighbours’ doors in the morning to make sure they are getting their children to school, says Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw
Teachers and social workers have a responsibility to tell some people they are “bad parents”, the chief inspector of schools and social care has insisted.
Sir Michael Wilshaw called for an army of “good citizens” to be given financial incentives to wake problem families up in the morning and make sure the children are fed and sent to school.
RT clears the streets:
UK police apply pressure on government for water cannons
Police chief constables in the UK are pressing the home secretary, Theresa May, to sanction the controversial deployment of water cannons across England and Wales in anticipation of ongoing protests against austerity in the country.
The Association of Chief Police Officers has stated that it will be necessary to use the harsh measures in order to control demonstrations which could be sparked by “ongoing and potential future austerity measures.”
In a document prepared on January 8 and newly released, when the plans first came to light, the ACPO recognized that “high-profile public disorder in recent years has led to a revision of the national public order framework.”
They added that “as part of this review, the need for water cannon to be available to support public order and public safety operations in England and Wales has been revisited.”
Francocybernoia from TheLocal.fr:
France to shell out €1.5b on cyber defences
France is to take action after being targeted by hundreds of cyber attacks against its Defense Ministry last year. This week a government minister revealed Paris will soon launch a €1.5 billion project to bolster its defences against a “cyber war”.
France will soon launch a €1.5-billion ($2 billion) plan to defend itself against “cyber war” as a strategic priority, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Tuesday.
The project, to be launched “in a few weeks”, will be written into the French military budget over the next five years, Le Drian told a cyber-security forum in the northern city of Lille.
That old-fashioned espionage from BBC News:
Iran-American Mozaffar Khazaee indicted for F-35 document theft
An Iranian-American engineer accused of attempting to ship stolen documentation on a high-tech military plane to Iran has been indicted, US authorities say.
A grand jury in the US state of Connecticut charged Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, with two counts of transporting stolen goods. He was arrested on 9 January for trying to smuggle thousands of pages of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter documents.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
After the jump, the lastest Asian crises, zonal and military, plus escalating corporate hacks, eavesdropping browsers, money launderers, and singular failures. . .
On to Asia the the ever-escalating game of zones, first with the Yomiuri Shimbun:
Japan envoy to Germany rebuts China’s criticism
Japan’s ambassador to Germany rebutted Chinese criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to controversial Yasukuni Shrine in his contribution to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Tuesday.
Japan has never raised questions about the international order after World War II, Takeshi Nakane said.
The comments came after his Chinese counterpart, Shi Mingde, described the shrine visit as a challenge to the postwar order in an article in the Jan. 14 edition of the German newspaper.
Cozying up with NHK WORLD:
US to ask Japan to improve ties with China, S.Korea
US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is expected to urge Japanese officials to improve ties with China and South Korea.
Burns will be making a 2-day trip to Japan from Thursday following a visit to South Korea and China earlier this week.
He is scheduled to meet Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and to discuss the relocation of the US Marines Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.
Easing up with the Japan Daily Press:
Sources say Chinese government has ‘no clash’ policy with Japan
China’s top leaders have allegedly put out official word last year that any military clash with Japan and the United States over the sovereignty dispute they have over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea is to be prevented, this revealed by sources close to them on Saturday. The sources – who spoke on condition of anonymity – also claim that the basic principle of the order as endorsed late last year by the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee still holds true up to the present, even as relations between Tokyo and Beijing remain strained over the islands and with historical issues.
The sources further revealed that the seven-member standing committee, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, reached a consensus that China has “no intention of fighting with Japan and Japan does not have the courage to fight with China.” This consensus was reached after a rare meeting in late October in Beijing with Chinese ambassadors posted to around 30 neighboring countries, one of the sources revealed.
History employed from South China Morning Post:
Japan PM Abe compares China-Japan rivalry to pre-war UK-Germany ties
Relations between China and Japan are like the rivalry between Britain and Germany before outbreak of conflict in 1914, prime minister says
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe compared current tensions between China and Japan to rivalry between Britain and Germany on the eve of the first world war, but his top spokesman yesterday denied the leader meant war between Asia’s two big powers was possible.
Sino-Japanese ties, long plagued by what Beijing sees as Japan’s failure to atone for its occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 1940s, have worsened due to a territorial row, Tokyo’s mistrust of Beijing’s military build-up and Abe’s visit last month to a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan’s wartime past.
Abe, speaking to international journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said on Wednesday that China and Japan were in a “similar situation” to that of Britain and Germany before the first world war.
More historical politics from the Japan Times:
China envoy: Tojo ‘Hitler of Asia’
Chinese Ambassador to Israel Gao Yanping, in an article contributed to the Jerusalem Post, has criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Yasukuni Shrine, saying the Tokyo shrine honors the “Hitler of Asia.”
During World War II, Nazi Germany committed the Holocaust and killed over 6 million Jews in Europe, Gao said. But she added, “Germans faced up to history squarely, and made sincere apologies to the Jewish people and Israel.”
On the other hand, Japanese prime ministers and other members of the Cabinet visit Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals, including “Hideki Tojo, the ‘Hitler of Asia,’ the Japanese prime minister who started the Pacific War during World War II,” Gao said in the article, published in Tuesday’s edition of the English daily.
Nikkei Asian Review backpedals:
Japan tries to clear air on Abe’s 1914 comparison
Japan’s government sought to clarify comments by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that, to some Western media, drew disturbing parallels between the current Sino-Japanese tensions and relations between Britain and Germany on the eve of World War I.
The Financial Times reported that Abe said on Wednesday that Japan and China are in a “similar situation” to the two European powers in the lead-up to the Great War.
“The prime minister meant to say that something like WWI must never be allowed to happen,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, told a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.
Want China Times beefs up:
China in talks for more Russian arms as tensions with Japan rise
In the midst of heightening tensions with Japan over the disputed Diaoyutai islands (called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China), China is still negotiating with Russia to import more advanced weapon systems with which to equip its air force and navy, writes Vasiliy Kashin from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in an article for the Moscow-based Military-Industrial Courier.
Although the Russian defense industry no longer relies completely on Beijing to survive like it did during the early 1990s, Kashin said that China is still the second largest market for Russian-built weapons systems after India. In 2011, Russia sold weapon systems worth of US$1.9 billion to China. Rosoboronexport, the state intermediary agency for Russia’s exports and imports of defense-related and products, stated that this increased to more than US$2.1 billion in the year 2012.
Of the US$17.6 billion worth of contracts signed by Rosoboronexport, 12% of them are from China. Since 2012, Beijing has signed new contracts worth US$1.3 billion with Russia. Among them, US$600 million is for 52 Mil Mi-171E helicopters, along with another US$700 million for 140 Saturn AL-31F engines to equip China’s fourth-generation fighters such as the Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30, and the Shenyang J-11B/BS, J-15 and J-16.
Obaman security ploys from South China Morning Post:
US to host Africa summit amid concern over China’s influence
US President Barack Obama will invite 47 leaders to a landmark US-Africa summit in August, countering Chinese inroads on the continent with offers of wider US trade, development and security ties.
Obama will send out invitations to all African nations that are currently in good standing with the United States or are not suspended from the African Union – meaning there will be no place for states like Egypt or Zimbabwe. Obama will hold the talks on August 5 and 6, seeking to cement progress from his trip to Africa last year.
A White House statement said the trip would “advance the administration’s focus on trade and investment in Africa, and highlight America’s commitment to Africa’s security, its democratic development, and its people”.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore exhorts:
Japan tells world to stand up to China or face consequences
Japan on Wednesday told the world it must stand up to an increasingly assertive China or risk a regional conflict with catastrophic economic consequences.
In a landmark speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued what amounted to an appeal for international support in a potentially explosive dispute with its superpower neighbour over islands in the East China Sea.
“We must restrain military expansion in Asia… which otherwise could go unchecked,” Abe told the annual meeting of global business and political leaders, which Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due to attend on Friday.
“If peace and stability were shaken in Asia, the knock-on effect for the entire world would be enormous,” Abe added.
Want China Times invokes a specter:
Third Sino-Japanese war would devastate both nations: Vogel
Renowned sinologist Ezra Vogel of Harvard University said at a seminar held recently in Beijing that Tokyo should face up to its conduct during World War II as it would take a long time for China and Japan to resume normalized relations again if tensions between the two nations were to escalate into a third war between the two countries, reports our sister paper Want Daily.
The author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China stated that the two nations formerly shared a close and friendly relationship when Deng was still alive. The economic support provided by Japan through its Official Development Assistance program helped Deng greatly in carrying out his reform policy from the late 1970s onwards. Senior Japanese officials also made frequent visits to China to apologize for atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
Another plea from Bloomberg:
Japan’s Abe Calls for Curbs on Asia Military Spending
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said increased military spending in Asia threatens the region’s economic growth and called on countries to curb defense outlays at a time of heightened tension between his country and China.
“The dividend of growth in Asia must not be wasted on military expansion,” Abe said in a keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We must use it to invest in innovation and human capital, which will further boost growth in the region.”
China is flexing its military muscle in Asia as it asserts claims to disputed territories and resources, while Abe has been trying to loosen restrictions on Japan’s Self-Defense Forces imposed by the country’s pacifist constitution. China expanded military spending 10.7 percent to 740.6 billion yuan ($122 billion) in 2013 and Abe plans a second consecutive rise in Japan’s defense budget.
The Asahi Shimbun ups another ante:
Foreign minister under fire in Nagasaki for comment on nuclear weapons
Atomic bomb survivors here blasted Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida for his remark that seemed to condone the use of nuclear weapons in certain situations.
“Some nuclear powers have broadly defined the potential use of their nuclear arms,” Kishida said during a lecture session at Nagasaki University on Jan. 20. “But I believe they must declare that their use should at least be limited to extreme circumstances defined by the right to individual and collective self-defense.”
The foreign minister was presenting “pragmatic steps” toward nuclear disarmament before an audience of about 180 who had applied for seats.
When one hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivor, in the audience asked if the foreign minister approved of a nuclear war, Kishida replied: “I was just citing an example as part of discussions in the process of making what forward steps we can take at present. By no means am I saying that Japan will endorse the use of nuclear weapons.”
The Japan Times goes historical:
Edo Period maps support Takeshima as Japan’s territory: Suga
The Takeshima islets inherent territory of Japan historically and under international law, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday after Shimane Prefecture confirmed that five maps from the late Edo Period describe the territory as Japan’s.
“There are many materials supporting Japan’s sovereignty over the islands, and the maps back the country’s claims over them,” Suga told a news conference.
The Sea of Japan islands are effectively controlled by South Korea, which calls them Dokdo.
South China Morning Post fires one off:
China’s nuclear missile drill seen as warning to US not to meddle in region
Military mouthpiece releases photos of drills involving ICBM able to reach American West Coast after Pentagon upgrades forces in Japan
The People’s Liberation Army has for the first time released photos of its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in action – a move seen as a response to US military moves in the region.
The 17 photos published on the PLA Daily’s website on Tuesday provided the first glimpse of a live drill involving the Dongfeng-31 since its delivery to the Second Artillery Corps in 2006.
Another kind of threat from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
New cyber threat known as “Tweet Storm” emerges: IDA
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority recently noticed a call for a “Tweet Storm” to target the government’s Twitter accounts. It added that tweet storms do not affect the government infrastructure network
This threat is carried out on social media platform Twitter and is caused when Twitter users send out the same tweet at the same time.
It is mostly used to promote a cause. Recent examples include hacktivists tweeting about Guantanamo Bay in May last year and the political situation in Bahrain.
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) recently noticed a call for a “Tweet Storm” to target the Singapore government’s Twitter accounts.
PCWorld lends an ear:
Chrome exploit can secretly listen to oblivious users
Google has been pushing hard to incorporate speech recognition features into Web apps. But a Chrome exploit that can secretly transcribe your conversations unless you’re paying attention probably wasn’t what the company had in mind.
Whenever a website wants to access your microphone, Chrome requires permission. A dialog appears at the top of the browser window, and after you give your OK, an icon appears in the tab area, letting you know the microphone is in use. Close the tab or visit another site, and microphone access is supposed to get cut off.
But as Web developer Tal Ater discovered, malicious sites can use pop-under windows to keep listening even after the user has gone to another site or closed the main browser window. Unlike a regular browser tab, pop-under windows don’t show the recording status icon, and can continue to listen in for as long as the pop-under window stays open. The exploit can also stay dormant until the user utters certain key phrases.
Reuters anticipates:
Exclusive: FBI warns retailers to expect more credit card breaches
The FBI has warned U.S. retailers to prepare for more cyber attacks after discovering about 20 hacking cases in the past year that involved the same kind of malicious software used against Target Corp in the holiday shopping season.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation distributed a confidential, three-page report to retail companies last week describing the risks posed by “memory-parsing” malware that infects point-of-sale (POS) systems, which include cash registers and credit-card swiping machines found in store checkout aisles.
“We believe POS malware crime will continue to grow over the near term, despite law enforcement and security firms’ actions to mitigate it,” said the FBI report, seen by Reuters.
Network World gigs Google:
Consumer Watchdog files Google+ complaint with FTC
A planned merger of Google+ and Gmail contact lists will allow unsolicited email, the group says
Google, through its plan to link Gmail addresses to its Google+ social network, is violating a privacy agreement the company made with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a longtime critic of the company’s privacy practices said in a complaint to the agency.
Google+ also has a “flagrant and fundamental privacy design flaw” because it allows any user to add other users to his circles without their permission, frequent Google critic Consumer Watchdog said in the complaint.
“A user can be forced to be publicly associated with someone with whom they do not wish to be associated,” wrote John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director. “People must have the right to choose with whom they are associated. Operating a social network as Google is doing in a blatant attempt to build traffic and the user base is an unfair business practice.”
Homeland Security News Wire exposes:
Aussie police uncovers vast money laundering operation used by terrorists, criminals
Terror groups are known to rely on money laundering operations to finance their activities. A recent operation by an Australian government taskforce has revealed the scope of money laundering operations within the country’s borders. The investigation, which has uncovered forty money laundering operations in Australia, has so far seized $26 million in cash, seized $30 million worth in houses and other assets, and has intercepted drug shipments worth at least $530 million.
Terror groups are known to rely on money laundering operations to finance their activities. A recent operation by an Australian government taskforce has revealed the scope of money laundering operations within the country’s borders.
Project Eligo, Australia’s biggest money-laundering probe, has identified hundreds of Australians who helped launder drug money, funds from human trafficking, and other crimes to finance terror groups around the world.
Al Jazeera covers up:
Pig photos censored in Malaysia
Printing company blacks out photos of pigs in International New York Times because “this is a Muslim country”.
The company that prints copies of the International New York Times sold in Muslim-dominated Malaysia has blacked out the faces of pigs in two photos in the newspaper, sparking a wave of online ridicule.
KHL Printing on Wednesday superimposed black boxes on the pigs’ faces in accordance with government guidelines, said a company employee who declined to be named. “This is a Muslim country, so we covered the pigs’ eyes,” he told the AFP news agency. “We usually do that for the International New York Times – also for pictures of cigarettes, weapons, guns and nude pictures.”
The Guardian censors:
China blocks foreign news sites that revealed elite’s offshore holdings
Guardian among sites blocked over reports
China Digital Times publishes details of directive
Chinese President Xi Jinping The Chinese government has recently concentrated on improving the image of President Xi Jinping. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images
The blocking of foreign news sites that revealed details of offshore holdings by the relatives of senior leaders has continued in China as reports emerged of a propaganda directive ordering websites and services to target users posting on the subject.
Details of the order were published by China Digital Times, a website that monitors censorship instructions.
The New York Times goes nuclear:
Reports of Cheating Prompt Review of U.S. Nuclear Launch Crews
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday ordered an independent review of the military’s nuclear force and summoned top officials to the Pentagon to discuss personnel issues after reports of cheating and low morale among Air Force nuclear launch officers.
Mr. Hagel will convene a meeting in the next two weeks of officials responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons, and wants military leaders to examine the culture among nuclear officers, Pentagon officials said.
“To the degree there are systemic problems in the training and professional standards of the nuclear career field, the secretary wants them solved,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department spokesman, said at a news conference. “And to the degree leaders have failed in their duties, he wants them held to account.”
Our final item, via the New York Times, raises myriad questions;
Pentagon Study Finds Agencies Ill Equipped to Detect Foreign Nuclear Efforts
A three-year study by the Pentagon has concluded that American intelligence agencies are “not yet organized or fully equipped” to detect when foreign powers are developing nuclear weapons or ramping up their existing arsenals, and calls for using some of the same techniques that the National Security Agency has developed against terrorists.
The study, a 100-page report by the Defense Science Board, contends that the detection abilities needed in cases like Iran — including finding “undeclared facilities and/or covert operations” — are “either inadequate, or more often, do not exist.”
