We begin today’s compendium of tales form the world of spooks and security with a video from RT America:
California to require warrants for drone surveillance
Program notes:
California lawmakers are considering legislation that would keep police agencies and other government entities from using drones to conduct warrantless surveillance in the Golden State. The bill would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to use drone surveillance, except in some emergency cases, and that those agencies notify the public when they intend to use drones. The data those drones collect would have to be destroyed within six months. RT’s Ameera David takes a look at the bill that would create some of the nation’s strictest standards on the use of drones in law enforcement.
And now, on with the latest blowback from those Edward Snowden NSA revelations, via The Guardian:
Obama admits intelligence chief fault over false Senate testimony
President continues to defend James Clapper in the face of calls for his resignation after ‘untruthful’ statement about bulk collection
President Barack Obama has said his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, ought to have been “more careful” in Senate testimony about surveillance that Clapper later acknowledged was untruthful following disclosures by Edward Snowden.
But Obama signaled continued confidence in Clapper in the face of calls for the director to resign from members of Congress who warn of the dangerous precedent set by allowing an intelligence chief to lie to legislative bodies tasked with overseeing the powerful spy agencies.
“Jim Clapper himself would acknowledge, and has acknowledged, that he should have been more careful about how he responded,” Obama told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that aired on Friday.
From the Secretary of State via TheLocal.de, a plea to “trust us”:
Kerry in Berlin: ‘US is committed to privacy’
US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged on Friday that relations with Germany had gone through a “rough period” of late over NSA snooping but he said the US was “committed to privacy”.
After talks in Berlin with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Kerry told reporters that the United States took Germany’s anger seriously, which was sparked by revelations that US intelligence monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
“I want to say to the German people that it’s no secret that we’ve been through a rough period,” Kerry said.
Asked whether the US administration would sign a no-spying agreement that Germany has demanded in the wake of the scandal, Kerry said only that Merkel and US President Barack Obama were in “consultations” on the issue.
Similar words and a response from China Daily:
Obama speech on NSA welcome, but effects remain to be seen: EU official
European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstroem on Friday welcomed a speech made by US President Barack Obama on curbing the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), saying what that meant in practice was yet to be seen.
Malmstroem told participants at the 50th Munich Security Conference that there was a need to see the limits of the NSA and safeguards put in place.
Obama announced in a recent speech a reform of the NSA and its surveillance operations, mentioning the possibility of abuse while insisting operatives should consistently follow protocols.
Malmstroem made the remarks in a panel discussion about cyber security, which was joined by the German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizieere, the US chairman of the house permanent select committee on intelligence Michael Rogers and others.
The ol’ “They’re just jealous ploy” from Deutsche Welle:
Hayden: Every agency wants to do what the NSA does
Michael Hayden, a former director of the NSA, CIA and US national intelligence, tells DW he sees German anger at US spying as genuine and says the NSA shouldn’t have got caught tapping Chancellor Merkel’s phone.
“Have you been surprised how many Germans take this as a very personal issue? Do they take it very personally because they like the United States but they’ve been really taken aback by the surveillance?
“They have – and as I said before, that’s genuine. Also genuine is my belief that all nations conduct espionage and occasionally espionage gets conducted with people you truly do consider friends. So it’s a bit difficult having that discussion.
“Chairman Mike Rogers from our Intelligence Committee was here yesterday and I think he put a good program on the table. He said, “Let’s stick with the facts. Let’s actually have an adult conversation about what it is our security services do and don’t do.” And, frankly, in order for that to be a good conversation, I think German citizens are going to have to have a better idea about what their security organizations do and don’t do. I would be willing to bet that now, based on all these press accounts, most Germans know more about the NSA than about the BND [Germany’s federal intelligence service].”
Techdirt covers another ploy:
Canadian Gov’t Responds To Spying Revelations By Saying It’s All A Lie And Calling Glenn Greenwald A ‘Porn Spy’
from the wtf? dept
We’ve seen various government officials act in all sorts of bizarre ways after revelations of illegal spying on their own people (and foreigners), but none may be quite as bizarre as the response from the Canadian government, following the release late last night from the CBC (with help from Glenn Greenwald) that they’re spying on public WiFi connections. That report had plenty of detail, including an internal presentation from the Canadian electronic spying agency, CSEC. In the Canadian Parliament today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra, decided to respond to all of this by by insisting it’s all a lie and then flat out insulting both the CBC and Glenn Greenwald.
Here’s the video via Maclean’s Magazine. Techdirt has the transcript. . .and more:
Paul Calandra calls Glenn Greenwald a porn spy
Program notes:
The Prime Minister’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra, rose in the House before Question Period to bemoan the CBC’s journalistic integrity. Last night, the public broadcaster revealed top-secret documents that alleged a Canadian spy agency used airport WiFi to track Canadian travellers’ wireless activity. Communications Security Establishment Canada isn’t supposed to monitor innocent Canadians.
Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist who lives in Brazil, collaborated with the CBC on its report. Greenwald retains copies of a trove of U.S. intelligence docs leaked by infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the journalist is working with the CBC—as a freelancer—to report stories relevant to a Canadian audience.
None of this impresses Calandra, who condemned the news report, questioned the CBC’s judgment, and mocked Greenwald’s past association with a porn company. He reacted in much the same way the first time the CBC published Greenwald’s work.
Calandra’s money line: “Why is furthering porn spy Glenn Greenwald’s agenda and lining his Brazilian bank account more important than maintaining the public broadcaster’s journalistic integrity?”
Hey, look at the bright side, CBC. He could have called you the state broadcaster.
SecurityWeek has saner umbrage:
Canada’s Eavesdropping Agency Blasts Tradecraft Leak
Canada’s ultra-secret eavesdropping agency on Friday blasted the disclosure of its tradecraft, after it was reported the agency had tracked airline passengers connected to Wi-Fi services at airports.
Communications Security Establishment Canada said: “The unauthorized disclosure of tradecraft puts our techniques at risk of being less effective when addressing threats to Canada and Canadians.”
On Thursday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said documents leaked by fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed that the CSEC could follow the movements of people who passed through airports and connected to Wi-Fi systems with mobile phones, tablets and laptops.
The documents showed the agency could track the travellers for a week or more as they and their wireless devices showed up in other Wi-Fi “hot spots” in cities across Canada and beyond.
While Deutsche Welle spurns:
Brazil continues to ignore Snowden asylum appeal
Over a million people have signed an online petition to grant asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in Brazil. However, experts doubt that the country will give in to this demand.
An online petition started in November on the websites of the civic activism Avaaz has attracted over 1 million signatures. The petition was initiated by David Miranda, partner of American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who conducted the first media interviews with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Miranda plans to present the petition to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff once it has attracted 1,250,000 supporters.
But it is not only the campaign’s signatories who believe Snowden would be in good hands if he received asylum in Brazil: Snowden himself has appealed for it. The request, however, has so far remained unanswered, according to Snowden’s official support website. In July 2013, Brazil’s foreign minister stated that Snowden would not be grated asylum in the country. Meanwhile, the Brazilian president has claimed that no official application has been submitted on Snowden’s behalf.
Rubbing the Belgians the wrong way, via De Standaard:
Belgian professor in cryptography hacked
A new Belgian episode in the NSA scandal: Belgian professor Jean-Jacques Quisquater, internationally renowned expert in data security was the victim of hacking. And, as was the case in the Belgacom hacking affair, there are indications the American secret service NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ might be involved.
There isn’t a card with an electronic chip available, or it has some sort of security technology that UCL professor Jean-Jacques Quisquater (67) was involved in developing. If you are able to withdraw money from a cashpoint safely, for example, that is to some extent due to Quisquater’s work on complicated mathematical algorithms. He was also involved in the development of the Proton payment system in Belgium. That very same Jean-Jacques Quisquater has now been the victim of a hacking attack, that has all the signs – as was the case in the Belgacom affair – of ‘state-sponsored espionage, De Standaard has discovered.
The authorities investigating the Belgacom hacking case confirm they have opened a case. Quisquater himself has lodged a formal complaint.
Earlier this week, whistle blower Edward Snowden gave an interview to German television channel ARD in which he claimed the NSA’s espionage activities are not only aimed at protecting US national security – in the so-called ‘war on terror’ – but also at companies and private individuals. The Quisquater case seems to indicate the Belgian justice department might be able to demonstrate Snowden’s claims are more than a mere figment of his imagination. As far as we are able to tell, this is the first instance in which a private person is seen as a victim in the NSA case.
And dis-Dane from Dagbladet Information:
For the NSA, espionage was a means to strengthen the US position in climate negotiations
At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, the world’s nations were supposed to reach an agreement that would protect future generations against catastrophic climate change. But not everyone was playing by the rules. A leaked document now reveals that the US employed the NSA, its signals intelligence agency, to intercept information about other countries’ views on the climate negotiations before and during the summit. According to observers, the spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations.
From BBC News, a story about a proposal with a peculiar motivation [see last line]:
David Cameron wants fresh push on communications data
David Cameron wants a fresh push after the next election to “modernise” laws to allow monitoring of people’s online activity, after admitting there was little chance of progress before then.
The prime minister told a parliamentary committee that gathering communications data was “politically contentious” but vital to keep citizens safe.
He said TV crime dramas illustrated the value of monitoring mobile data.
After the jump, the latest Asian zone, drone, historical revisionism. Militarism, and secrecy crises. Plus Gitmo secrecy and a Canadian IP lawsuit, Fourth Estate under siege in UK and Russia, an Athenian terror scare, nuclear cheaters, drone warnings, email hacks, and more. . .
Our first Asian headline, a case of not-so-benign neglect from the Asahi Shimbun:
NHK belatedly reports chairman’s remarks; Momii apologizes in Diet
The words from the new chairman of Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) sparked outrage in Japan and overseas. Media organizations questioned whether the public broadcaster could be politically neutral under such a leader while politicians demanded his resignation.
But viewers who depend entirely on NHK for their news had to wait days to learn about the controversy.
It took NHK three days to first report on the situation, and that came only after the broadcaster had shown a live Diet plenary session of lawmakers criticizing NHK Chairman Katsuto Momii on Jan. 28.
More Chinese blowback from the Asahi Shimbun:
China accuses Abe of knowing little about history, lacking empathy
Blaming Japan’s educational system, a senior Chinese official has criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for having extremely limited knowledge about history and also for having little empathy for war victims.
“I think (there is) probably a failure in history education in Japan,” Fu Ying said at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 1. “(Abe) was born after the war. He has so little knowledge and so cold feelings for the victims of the war.”
Fu, chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee of China’s National People’s Congress, was responding to a question from the floor about Japan playing a leadership role in Asia under the Abe administration.
“The most important thing for us is (Japan’s) history denial and the denial of the crime of World War II,” she said. “It is hard for (Japan) to become a constructive member of Asian partnership until Japanese leaders can face honestly what happened during World War II.”
TheLocal.fr takes it to Europe:
Japan upset by ‘comfort women’ at French show
Japan has expressed its “regret” at a South Korean exhibit at an international comic book festival in France featuring “comfort women” forced into wartime sex slavery in Japanese military brothels.
Japan’s ambassador to France, Yoichi Suzuki, said he “deeply regrets that this exhibition is taking place”, saying it promoted “a mistaken point of view that further complicates relations between South Korea and Japan”.
Up to 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forced into brothels catering to the Japanese military in territories occupied by Japan during World War II, according to many mainstream historians.
Franck Bondoux, director of the Angouleme International Comics Festival in western France, told AFP that Japan had not asked for the expo to be cancelled.
And People’s Daily casts a jaded eye at another skeleton in Tokyo’s closet:
Truth will out for Japan’s Unit 731
Chinese researchers will dig deep this year as they endeavor to expose the atrocities of Japan’s notorious Unit 731 during WWII, Chinese scholar told Xinhua on Friday.
Next year is the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender.
Researchers at the center are busy translating copies of declassified U.S. archives. They are studying the oral testimony of 168 Chinese, forced into slavery at Unit 731. The center will leave no stone unturned, said Yang Yanjun, head of the International Research Center for Unit 731 Issues in Harbin. Only a comprehensive analysis of archives, both at home and abroad, will reveal the facts about Unit 731.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin in 1935: the nerve center of Japan’s biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
More than 10,000 people were killed at Unit 731. Civilians and prisoners of war from China, the former Soviet Union, the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia all perished at the hands of Japan’s scientists.
Mapping the crisis with JapanToday:
Virginia becomes hotbed of diplomacy over Sea of Japan name
Of all the issues that a new governor of a U.S. state has to confront, one line in school textbooks would hardly appear to be the stuff of international showdowns.
But Virginia’s capital Richmond has turned into an unusual hotbed of diplomacy, with the ambassadors of Japan and South Korea both visiting in recent days to press in opposite directions on a proposed change in how textbooks describe the sea between the two U.S. allies.
The move is the latest bid by Korean American activists to address historical grievances with Japan—that rouse deep passions in South Korea—at the local level in the United States.
The Japan Times rattles a saber:
Chinese military could target Okinawa during South China Sea conflicts: U.S. official
Okinawa Prefecture and the U.S. territory of Guam could become targets of the Chinese military in the event of contingencies in Taiwan or the South China Sea, a senior U.S. Air Force official said.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the Second Artillery Corps would be tasked with strikes against American forces and facilities if China decided that U.S. intervention in such conflicts would have an overwhelming impact, the official, part of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, said.
“Chinese analysts note the importance of military on Okinawa and Guam, and these assets and their supporting infrastructure are likely high priority targets of the PLAAF and Second Artillery” Corps, the official noted.
The official made the comments Thursday in written testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which advises the U.S. Congress.
SINA English crosses the line:
3 Chinese ships patrol waters near Diaoyu Islands
Three Chinese coast guard vessels sailed in territorial waters around the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea on Sunday, the Japan Coast Guard said.
It is the first time since Jan. 27 that Chinese government ships have been spotted in the waters around the islands.
SINA English evicts:
Foreign military planes expelled from China airspace
China Saturday said it expelled foreign military planes from its airspace, the first such incident after Beijing declared an air defence zone over islands disputed with Japan in the East China Sea.
“An unidentified military plane was spotted on Friday morning, disrupting the peace and celebratory atmosphere. Airmen from East Sea Fleet were deployed immediately to expel the planes,” state-run CCTV quoted The People’s Liberation Army Daily as saying.
The report did not identify the country to which the military planes belonged or the exact location where the incident occurred.
The Asahi Shimbun confesses:
Abe: It was ‘mistake’ to deny secret nuke pact with U.S.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government should never have denied its secret agreement with Washington that allowed U.S. warships to bring nuclear weapons into Japan.
“I think it was a mistake to keep (the arrangement) from the public,” Abe told a Lower House Budget Committee meeting Jan. 31. “I want to show how the government thinks about this issue.”
Abe was responding to former Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, who said, “Successive prime ministers cannot make an excuse if they are criticized for having lied to the public.”
The Los Angeles Times delineates:
Japan-China tension has U.S. walking a fine line
Washington wants good relations with Japan and China, as well as South Korea. But war wounds keep animosity burning among the three.
Nearly 70 years after the end of the Second World War, relations between Japan and China (and, to a lesser extent, South Korea) remain deeply colored by wartime wounds. Though the countries have strong economic ties, the urge to periodically pick at historical scabs seems irresistible — and even useful in the short term.
Analysts say the tension could stifle dialogue and cooperation on contemporary issues, such as disputed islands and the denuclearization of North Korea. Some even worry that it could inadvertently lead to conflict.
The strain has put the United States, which has a military alliance with Japan and South Korea but also wants cooperative ties with China, in a particularly awkward position.
“In both countries, there’s an underlying story about World War II that creates foreign policy difficulties,” said Boston College political science professor Robert Ross.
The Mainichi postures:
U.S. could change military posture if China expands air defense zone
The United States has asked China not to set another air defense identification zone in Asia, warning the move could lead the U.S. military to change its posture in the region, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.
“We oppose China’s establishment of an ADIZ in other areas, including the South China Sea” where China is involved in territorial rows with Southeast Asian countries, Evan Medeiros, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, said in an interview with Kyodo News.
“We have been very clear with the Chinese that we would see that (setting of another ADIZ) as a provocative and destabilizing development that would result in changes in our presence and military posture in the region,” Medeiros said.
Jiji Press expands the arsenal:
Japan to Introduce Amphibious Assault Ship
Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force plans to introduce an amphibious assault ship in an effort to enhance the defense of remote islands in the East China Sea and step up preparations for massive disasters, according to informed sources.
The Defense Ministry will make a decision by the end of March 2019 on what kinds of functions and equipment an amphibious assault ship in the country should have. It will then fix specific plans for the ship’s introduction, the sources said.
The move comes after a five-year defense buildup program, adopted by the government in December, proposed considering introducing a multifunction vessel to deploy troops quickly for remote island defense.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore grumbles:
China accuses Japan of stoking tensions with air defence rumours
China has accused Japan of heightening regional tensions with “rumours” that Beijing planned to declare a new air defence zone over the South China Sea.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said right-wing forces in Japan had repeatedly made such allegations with the intention of shifting international attention from the “plot” to change Japan’s pacifist constitution, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
“We sternly warned these forces not to mislead public opinions with rumours and play up tensions for their own selfish benefit,” he said in a press release on Saturday quoted by Xinhua.
Japan’s Asahi Shimbun daily reported on Friday that Chinese air force officials have drafted proposals for a new air defence identification zone (ADIZ) that could place the Paracel Islands — claimed by both China and Vietnam — at its core.
Jiji Press spots another difference:
Japan, Russia Remain Apart on Territory
Senior Japanese and Russian diplomats on Friday remained apart on the ownership of four northwestern Pacific islands at the center of a territorial dispute between the two countries.
Of their nine-hour talks in Tokyo, a five-hour afternoon session was dominated by the territorial issue, according to officials.
But Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama and his Russian counterpart, Igor Morgulov, seem to have only exchanged their countries’ basic views.
And from China Daily, the latest state secrecy law:
Li signs regulation on state secrecy law
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has signed an enforcement regulation on the state secrecy law in an effort to boost government transparency.
Organs and units have been told not to label items that should be made public as “state secrets”, and they should not publicize those related to state secrets, the regulation said.
The regulation defines secrecy levels and authority limits, and clarifies time limits for differing levels of confidentiality and conditions for declassification.
Another secret from McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Obama administration won’t divulge cost of Guantanamo camp, asks court to dismiss FOIA lawsuit
The Obama administration is refusing to divulge how much it spent to build the secret prison facility at Guantanamo where the accused 9/11 co-conspirators are held and has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by a Miami Herald reporter demanding documents that would reveal the number.
In a filing Friday, the Justice Department said that the Pentagon had found just one document that would provide information relevant to a 2009 Freedom of Information Act request reporter Carol Rosenberg filed seeking that cost figure. That document was exempt from disclosure, the filing said, because it contained details of internal deliberations and the names of many officials who were entitled to privacy.
The Justice Department also made a separate secret filing with the court that provided more details on why the document should remain secret. That filing was not shared with Rosenberg’s attorneys, and its contents are unknown.
The Independent takes action in the same venue:
Metal band Skinny Puppy send US government invoice after finding out their music was ‘used as torture device in Guantanamo Bay’
The US Army’s use of Metallica’s oeuvre as a tool in its interrogations in Iraq is well documented, but it opted for something a little more esoteric in Guantanamo Bay, according to one Canadian industrial metal band.
“We heard through a reliable grapevine that our music was being used in Guantanamo Bay prison camps to musically stun or torture people,” founder cEvin Key told the Phoenix New Times. “We heard that our music was used on at least four occasions.”
While Metallica politely asked the US military to stop using their music for the sleep deprivation of detainees, Skinny Puppy took it one step further.
“So we thought it would be a good idea to make an invoice to the US government for musical services,” Key added. “Thus the concept of the [band’s new] record title, Weapons.”
A Fourth Estate attack from Boing Boing:
UK Parliament considers allowing secret courts to issue orders to seize reporters’ notebooks
The Deregulation Bill is coming before the UK House of Commons on Monday, and among its many “red-tape-cutting” provisions is one that would allow the courts to grant the police secret hearings in which they could secure orders to seize reporters’ notebooks, hard-drives and other confidential material. No one representing the reporters would be allowed to see the evidence in these “closed material procedures.”
How the hell did this happen? Sadly, it was absolutely predictable.
When Parliament passed a law permitting secret trials where people who were adverse to the government in court proceedings would not be allowed to see the government’s evidence, nor have their lawyers review it, those of us who sounded the alarm were accused of hysterics. The Libdem leadership whipped their MPs on the issue, ordering them to vote for it. Many of us in the Libdem party left over the issue, and the party grandees patronised us on the way out, saying that we didn’t understand that the Libdems had put in place “crucial changes,” and that somehow, there were changes that could paper over the naked fact of a law permitting secret trials in Britain.
The Project On Government Oversight charts a win:
Anti-Transparency Provisions Removed From Farm Bill
In a victory for communities across the country, the current version of the farm bill, which the House of Representatives passed Wednesday, lacks earlier provisions that would have kept the public in the dark about certain farming operations.
According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the $956 billion farm bill is costly and problematic. “The retrograde farm bill is so wasteful that ‘reform’ was stripped from the title of the bill,” Ryan Alexander, Taxpayers president, said in a statement. Still, transparency advocates can appreciate that dangerous secrecy provisions were removed.
Two provisions in an earlier version of the nearly 1,000-page bill would have limited the information the government could release about farming operations. One provision would have limited disclosure by the EPA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), making it difficult to find out about potential pollution. The other would have broadly limited public disclosure, preventing critical information-sharing between local, state, and federal governments and complicating the permitting and taxing. Individuals have privacy protections under the law, but the unnecessary and dangerous provisions would have kept secret information about large-scale corporate farms and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.
From Kathimerini English, Grecoinsecurity:
Anti-terrorist sqaud finds car laden with arms, explosives in southern Athens
Authorities appeared to have discovered a significant clue on Saturday in their attempt to track down domestic terrorists when a car laden with firearms and explosives was searched in a southern Athens neighborhood.
Anti-terrorist squad officers had the silver Opel found in Palaio Faliro under surveillance for around two weeks following a tip-off. They had been waiting to see whether someone would come to collect the stolen vehicle but decided on Saturday that it would be too risky, given its contents, to leave it there any longer.
Four rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and a launcher were found during the search, which was carried out by specially trained officers and sniffer dogs. Officers also discovered four hand grenades, three AK-47 assault rifles, seven cartridges for the Kalashnikovs, a box of bullets, gloves and hoods.
From The Guardian, still more insecurity:
US air force officials say ‘culture of fear’ led to nuclear-force cheating scandal
Investigation into widespread cheating on proficiency exams led to suspension of 92 launch officers at Montana air force base
air force US air force secretary Deborah Lee James said that at a Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, roughly half of the 183 missile launch officers have been implicated in a cheating scandal. Photograph: Scott M. Ash/AP
A worrisome culture of fear that made launch officers believe they had to get perfect test scores to be promoted fueled a widening cheating scandal within the military’s nuclear missile corps, according to air force officials.
Half of the 183 launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in the cheating investigation and suspended, signaling deeper morale and personnel problems in a force critical to America’s nuclear security.
Air force secretary Deborah Lee James said the scandal hasn’t affected the safety or reliability of the military’s nuclear mission. Speaking to Pentagon reporters Thursday, James and lieutenant general Stephen Wilson, who heads the global strike command, said that so far it appears the cheating was confined to the Montana base, even while a climate of frustration, low morale and other failures permeates the nuclear force, which numbers about 550.
From Military Times, more imperial overstretch ahead:
Exclusive: General says more Marines could be based throughout Africa
Marine units that specialize in crisis response could be based in Africa in coming years as military leaders work with host nations that have shown interest in the U.S. posturing troops in their countries, according to a top general in the region.
Lt. Gen. Steven Hummer, deputy to the commander for military operations in U.S. Africa Command, said these units would likely be similar to the Special-Purpose Marine-Air Ground Task Force Crisis Response based at Morón Air Base in Spain, which stood up in 2013.
“There’s quite a reach from Morón to get to [certain African countries], depending on the operational aircraft,” Hummer told Marine Corps Times. “As we look at the future of the environment around the world, and the fiscal challenges impeding the number of ships we would like to have, there’s a balancing act we have to achieve between MAGTFs aboard ships and MAGTFs ashore, where they can respond to indications and warnings.”
Arms in the news from Deutsche Welle:
Global arms trade shrinks in 2012, US and European companies dominate
An annual report by Sweden’s SIPRI research institute has identified a slight year-on-year reduction in global arms sales for 2012. The report ranks the 100 most successful companies selling military equipment.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its SIPRI Top 100 league table on Friday. Overall, revenue for the world’s 100 top arms dealers dropped by 4.2 percent in 2012 compared to the previous year.
SIPRI’s top 100 companies generated $395 billion (around 290 billion euros) through the sale of weapons and military equipment. That figure is roughly equivalent to the 2012 gross domestic product of countries like Austria, South Africa or Venezuela.
SIPRI cautioned that the reduction in overall sales, following a similar dip in 2011, could be misleading: the institute does not include the booming Chinese arms industry on its list, saying it does not have sufficiently reliable data to do so.
Nine of the top 13 companies on SIPRI’s list hailed from the United States, with Lockheed Martin and aerospace giant Boeing first and second. US firms also accounted for 58 percent of all sales by the top 100 companies. Britain’s BAE Systems was the highest-placed European firm in third. Airbus maker EADS was seventh overall, with Italy’s Finmeccanica (ninth) and France’s Thales (11th) also challenging the major US producers.
Droning on with NHK WORLD:
Onodera to ask US for safe drone flights in Japan
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera says the government will ask the United States to ensure the safety of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to be deployed to a US air base in northeastern Japan.
He was speaking to reporters in Hachinohe City in Aomori Prefecture on Saturday.
Japan and the United States have agreed to deploy 2 Global Hawk aircraft in Japan for the first time. They will be deployed at the US Misawa Air Base from May to October.
Onodera said he expects the deployment will help increase surveillance capability amid the increasingly tense security environment.
Drone denial from Al Jazeera America:
FAA shuts down beer delivery drones
Lakemaid Beer, which calls itself the “fisherman’s lager,” sought to use drones to deliver cold ones to ice fishers in Minnesota, until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stepped in. The Wisconsin brewery had a tentative plan to begin beer delivery via drone to the thousands of ice fishing shacks dotting Minnesota’s lakes. Lakemaid’s YouTube video advertising the program, however, caught the FAA’s attention and the company was informed that it would be violating several regulations.
Censorship of another sort from TheLocal.ch:
US Coursera bans impact Swiss universities
Internet courses offered by Swiss universities through the Coursera online learning platform that were supposed to be accessible anywhere in the world have been blocked in four countries by American government sanctions.
The University of Geneva, Lausanne’s Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and University of Zurich are among the dozens of universities offering the free courses through Coursera, launched in California a couple of years ago.
But this week Coursera indicated that its hundreds of courses would be unavailable to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.
The platform posted an update on Thursday, saying that it had received notice from the US State Department that it could provide services in support of non-governmental organization activities in Syria.
“Providing access to education for everyone has always been at the core of Coursera’s mission, and it is with deep regret that we have had to make a change to our accessibility in some countries,” the online platform said.
A hack attack from the CBC:
Yahoo says email accounts hacked, passwords stolen
Internet company has not said how many email accounts were breached
Usernames and passwords of some of Yahoo’s email customers have been stolen and used to gather personal information about people those Yahoo mail users have recently corresponded with, the company said Thursday.
Yahoo didn’t say how many accounts have been affected. Yahoo is the second-largest email service worldwide, after Google’s Gmail, according to the research firm comScore. There are 273 million Yahoo mail accounts worldwide, including 81 million in the United States.
It’s the latest in a string of security breaches that have allowed hackers to nab personal information using software that analysts say is ever more sophisticated. Up to 70 million customers of Target stores had their personal information and credit and debit card numbers compromised late last year, and Neiman Marcus was the victim of a similar breach in December.
And for our final item, another Fourth Estate disaster from The Guardian:
Russian editor fined for breaking ‘gay propaganda’ law
A Russian court has fined a newspaper editor for publishing an interview with a gay school teacher who was quoted as saying “homosexuality is normal.”
Alexander Suturin, editor of the Molodoi Dalnevostochnik, a weekly published in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk near the border with China, was ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 rubles (£870) for violating a law that bans “gay propaganda” among minors.
Suturin, who is to appeal against the ruling, published an interview with a geography teacher, Alexander Yermoshkin, after he had been fired because of his sexual orientation.
After launching an investigation, an official of the Russian state’s media watchdog, the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service, pointed to a quote by Yermoshkin: “My very existence is effective proof that homosexuality is normal.”
