We begin today’s collection of posts from the world of espionage, national security, and militarism with a judicial decision from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Secret court approves phone surveillance changes
National intelligence chief James R. Clapper said Thursday that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had approved two limits on how the government can use huge volumes of data it collects about Americans’ phone use. . .
Under the first change, Clapper said, the massive caches of phone records can be searched only after a court finds that there is “a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization.”
That limitation will be in place “absent a true emergency,” Clapper said without elaboration.
The second change requires that the data query results “be limited within two hops of the selection term instead of three.”
Another country, another decision sure to provoke from El País:
High Court to follow through on arrest warrants against top Chinese officials
Former president Jiang Zemin and ex-PM Li Peng wanted for human rights abuses in Tibet
Despite global pressure and objections by prosecutors, the High Court on Thursday said it would go ahead with its international arrest warrants for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, ex-Prime Minister Li Peng and a host of other officials from China, who are wanted for human rights abuses in Tibet.
The warrants, which were ordered by Judge Ismael Moreno on November 18, are the subject of a diplomatic row between Spain and China in which Beijing has been pressuring the conservative Popular Party (PP) government to step in and block the High Court’s investigation into allegedly genocidal policies applied in Tibet.
Last month, the (PP) filed a bill in Congress to restrict the Spanish judiciary from carrying out international prosecutions based on the universal justice doctrine. The proposed reform to the judicial code has come under fire by the opposition, legal experts and human rights organizations which fear that it will affect future cases involving drug traffickers, child abuse, gender violence and female mutilation.
And yet another judicial finding via Techdirt:
Court Says FBI Agent’s Wrong Checkmark Put Woman On No Fly List, Barred Her From The US For 10 Years
from the ouch dept
We’ve been covering the case of Rahinah Ibrahim for a little while now. She’s the Stanford PhD student who was wrongfully placed on the no fly list — something that pretty much everyone admitted early on — but because of that her student visa to the US was pulled, and every attempt she made to come back was rejected, leaving her unable to come back to this country for nearly 10 years. As we noted last month, it seemed clear that Judge William Alsup had ruled that the feds needed to remove her from the no fly list and any other terrorist watch lists, but it was a little unclear, since the full ruling remained under seal. That ruling has now been released in redacted form, and is well worth reading. Not only does it highlight massive bureaucratic bungling over a ten-year period, it also shows how disingenuous and dishonest the DOJ has been in handling the entire case — even to the point of promising not to argue “state secrets” to kill the case, and then (of course) claiming “state secrets” and trying to kill the case just a few weeks later. Judge Alsup appears somewhat limited in what he can do in response to all of this for procedural reasons, but he makes it clear that he’s not pleased about all of this and orders the government to confirm that Ibrahim has been fully removed from the various terrorist databases and lists, as the government has flatly admitted that they don’t believe she poses any threat to national security.
More blowback from that leaked telephonic ambassadorial diatribe from BBC News:
Victoria Nuland gaffe: Angela Merkel condemns EU insult
Germany’s Angela Merkel has said a US official’s apparent insult of the EU’s efforts to mediate in the Ukraine crisis is “totally unacceptable”.
Victoria Nuland has apologised after she referred disparagingly to the EU’s role during a conversation said to be with the US ambassador to Ukraine. A recording of the exchange was posted online, with the US hinting at Russia’s involvement in bugging and leaking it.
The EU and US are involved in talks to end months of unrest in Ukraine. The conversation between Ms Nuland and Mr Pyatt reveals deeper tensions between America and Europe.
Washington seems to prefer a deal brokered by the UN rather than Brussels. If true, that would bruise the feelings of EU officials. They believe this is their crisis to solve.
Today’s comments and accusations are a reminder that this crisis is far from over and that it has the potential to cause division and tension even between allies. In Kiev, Ms Nuland – an assistant secretary of state – said she would not make a public statement on the matter.
Assurances from EUbusiness:
US diplomatic chats safe, State Department says
Secret US diplomatic conversations are safe, a top official said Friday, despite the apparent bugging of an American envoy’s phone.
Asked if she was confident about the security of diplomatic communications, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki replied: “Certainly we are.”
“We do indicate and make clear when there are concerns about when information can be tapped. So we’re cognizant of this. We’re aware of this. And we are constantly taking precautions and updating our approach.”
She revealed that data encryption is given to all State Department employees for their government-issued BlackBerry mobile phones.
And a very relevant question from the McClatchy Foreign Staff:
Post-Snowden, why were U.S. diplomats talking on insecure line?
[H]ere you have two high-ranking American officials – Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt – discussing sensitive matters apparently on an unsecured line, just days after a similar call had been recorded and, embarrassingly, put online.
Nuland, who refused to comment on the specifics of a conversation meant to be private, did note during a news conference Friday in Kiev that the static-free recording “was pretty impressive tradecraft. The audio was pretty clear.”
But she didn’t address why she was exposing herself to the obvious threat of being recorded. In the wake of the NSA spying scandal, the U.S. administration has repeatedly defended its actions using the line of reasoning: “Everybody does it.”
But if everybody does it, why wasn’t Nuland more careful, especially since it’s pretty well-known that the Russians don’t like her very much?
China Daily has Swiss NSA blowback:
Swatch CEO ticked off about NSA spy scandal
The eccentric chief executive officer of Swatch Group, one of the world’s top watchmakers, was so incensed by recent allegations of mass U.S. spying that he chastised a top New York official over the matter in a letter late last year.
Nick Hayek’s comments seemed odd coming in response to a letter from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who administers the state’s $161 billion pension fund.
DiNapoli had asked Hayek and nine other Olympic sponsors to take a stance against Russia’s recent clampdown on gays ahead of the winter games in Sochi.
Most corporate executives balk at open political conflict. But not the cigar-chomping Hayek. He vigorously defended his Omega subsidiary’s role as a politically neutral timekeeper at the Olympics. And that’s not all. He also gave DiNapoli a dressing down over the spying scandal surrounding the U.S. National Security Agency.
From France, another online governmental mobilization from RFI:
France launches cyberdefence programme
France is to invest a million euros in cyberdefence to combat a mushrooming number of cyberattacks, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced on Friday. The country was the target of nearly 800 significant cyberattacks in 2013, he said.
“I want speedy results,” Le Drian declared at the launch of his Cyberdefence Pact 2014-2016 in the Brittany town of Cesson-Sévigné.
There were more than 780 “significant attacks” in 2013, he revealed, up from 420 in 2012, and they are becoming “more and more varied, complex and diffuse”.
So cyberdefence has become one of the top priorities of the French military’s 2014-2019 programme and a budget of about a billion euros will be allocated to it.
And the latest Snowden revelations with an Old Blighty focus from NBC News:
Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and ‘Dirty Tricks’
British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”
Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and exclusively obtained by NBC News describe techniques developed by a secret British spy unit called the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG) as part of a growing mission to go on offense and attack adversaries ranging from Iran to the hacktivists of Anonymous. According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency’s goal was to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.
Both PowerPoint presentations describe “Effects” campaigns that are broadly divided into two categories: cyber attacks and propaganda operations. The propaganda campaigns use deception, mass messaging and “pushing stories” via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. JTRIG also uses “false flag” operations, in which British agents carry out online actions that are designed to look like they were performed by one of Britain’s adversaries.
The Wire recalculates:
The NSA’s Phone Metadata Connect-The-Dots Program Only Collects 30 Percent of Calls
Lost in the pre-Christmas blur was an NBC News interview with one of the members of the group President Obama tasked with reviewing the government’s surveillance toolkit. In that interview, Geoffrey Stone suggested that the agency’s metadata collection was deliberately incomplete. “Asked if the NSA was collecting the records of 75 percent of phone calls, an estimate that has been used in briefings to Congress,” NBC’s Michael Isikoff reported, “Stone said the real number was classified but ‘not anything close to that’ and far lower.”
Now The Washington Post puts a number on that: 30 percent.
In 2006, the officials said, the NSA was collecting nearly all records about Americans’ phone calls from a number of U.S. companies under a then-classified program, but as of last summer that share had plummeted to less than 30 percent.
There are a few reasons offered for the gap. One rationale offered from “industry officials” is that the increase in internet-based calling would mean that the NSA loses a significant portion of calls. Stone suggested another reason: culling records from smaller cell phone providers wasn’t “cost effective” for the agency, so it didn’t bother.
And The Guardian looks at another spook shop:
CIA confirms agency obliged to follow federal surveillance law
Law concerns financial information and government hacking
Motive for question at Senate committee not known
The CIA has confirmed that it is obliged to follow a federal law barring the collection of financial information and hacking into government data networks.
But neither the agency nor its Senate overseers will say what, if any, current, recent or desired activities the law prohibits the CIA from performing – particularly since a section of the law explicitly carves out an exception for “lawfully authorized” intelligence activities.
The murky episode, arising from a public Senate hearing on intelligence last week, illustrates what observers call the frustrations inherent in getting even basic information about secret agencies into public view, a difficulty recently to the fore over whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) and its surveillance partners.
Jeepers! Peepers. From the always hyperbolic London Daily Mail:
The spy who scrubbed me: Russian official lets slip that Sochi hotels have hidden surveillance cameras in the SHOWERS
Deputy prime minister: I have seen video from inside cubicles
Dmitry Kozak claimed the footage showed journalists sabotaging facilities
The chief of Olympic preparations had tried to down play criticism of venue
Officials quickly try to backtrack and issue hasty denial
Russia’s Dmitry Kozak, deputy prime minister responsible for Olympic preparation, revealed that authorities have video from hotels showing that people leave the water on.
The astonishing revelations came when Mr Kozak was confronted by journalists about the poor state of facilities around the Olympic Village.
Reuters escalates:
Exclusive: Pentagon to boost missile defense spending by over $4 billion: sources
The U.S. Defense Department plans to ask Congress for $4.5 billion in extra missile defense funding over the next five years as part of the fiscal 2015 budget request, say congressional sources and an expert.
Nearly $1 billion of that sum will pay for a new homeland defense radar to be placed in Alaska, with an additional $560 million to fund work on a new interceptor after several failed flight tests, said Riki Ellison, founder of the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, and two of the congressional sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Pentagon’s request for added funding comes despite continued pressure on military spending and cuts in other arms programs, a sign of Washington’s growing concern about missile development efforts by North Korea and Iran, the sources said.
And Press Trust of India tenses up:
Iran sending warships close to US maritime borders
A senior Iranian naval commander says his country has sent several warships to the Atlantic Ocean, close to US maritime borders for the first time.
The commander of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, is quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying today that the vessels have already begun the journey to the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa.
After the jump, the latest Asian crises [cybernetic, geographic, historic, and purely political], corporations snooping and snooped, sins confessed, warnings mandated, mysterious mail, and more. . .
For our first Asian item, TechWeek Europe covers another hacking allegation:
Huawei Investigated Over Indian Hacking Allegation
Investigation relates to shady happenings around Indian state telecoms company
Chinese network giant Huawei is under investigation in India following claims that it hacked into state-run telecoms carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam.
According to reports, the Chinese manufacturer, which was founded by a former officer of China’s People’s Liberation Army, hacked into the carrier’s phone network, and is now under investigation by the Indian government, which has dispatched an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the matter.
The incident came to light following an enquiry from a member of India’s parliament, who wrote to the government for information. In reply, he was told, “An incident about the alleged hacking of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) network by M/S Huawei … has come to notice,” by Killi Kruparani, junior minister for communications and information technology.
Want China Times beefs up afloat:
PLA has ambitious plans to upgrade naval fleet: US report
The Chinese navy has ambitious plans over the next 15 years to upgrade its fleet of surface ships as well as weapons systems, a US Navy report claims.
The US-based Business Insider said the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) found that China has evolved from a littoral force to one that is capable of meeting a wide range of missions and is “increasingly capable of striking targets hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland.”
According to the report, China has 77 surface ships, more than 60 submarines, 55 amphibious ships and about 85 missile-equipped small ships.
South China Morning Post makes a significant appointment:
Ma Ying-jeou names envoy to US King Pu-tsung as top national security adviser
Appointment of King Pu-tsung, current envoy to US, seen as move to consolidate KMT support ahead of crucial local elections
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou named one of his top aides as his chief adviser on national security on Friday in the latest government personnel reshuffle.
The appointment of King Pu-tsung, currently Taiwan’s envoy to the United States, is seen as an attempt by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) to consolidate support at local elections at the end of this year, widely considered a political popularity test ahead of the presidential election in 2016.
King will replace Jason Yuan as Secretary-General of the National Security Council, Taiwan’s presidential office announced. Yuan is named a senior adviser to Ma, and King’s current post will be filled by the island’s envoy to Britain, Shen Lyushun.
The Global Times critiques:
China says US ‘irresponsible’ over South China Sea ADIZ
Some US officials are “extremely irresponsible” to accuse China over a so-called plan to set up an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, a spokesman said on Friday.
“Some US diplomats have made groundless accusations against China without verifying the claim,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.
Last week, Japan’s daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported that China had drafted proposals for an ADIZ over the South China Sea.
The Japan Times brandishes:
U.S. vows to defend Japan if conflict erupts in East China Sea
Washington – Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Friday that the United States would defend Japan against attack, even in conflicts involving islands claimed by China and Taiwan, as tensions continue to boil between the Asian powers.
Kerry, who said he would visit China next week, met in Washington with Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and reaffirmed the 1960 treaty that commits the United States to protect its ally.
“That includes with respect to the South China Sea,” he said, before correcting himself to say the East China Sea, where China and Japan have conflicting claims.
More from the Yomiuri Shimbun:
Japan, U.S. agree to prevent expansion of China ADIZ
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed Friday to prevent China from expanding its self-declared air defense identification zone, possibly into areas above the South China Sea.
At their meeting in Washington, Kishida and Kerry shared the view that Japan and the United States cannot accept the Chinese-claimed ADIZ over the East China Sea, including the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture.
They reaffirmed that Japan and the United States will work with other countries concerned on the issue in view of the possibility of China expanding the ADIZ to cover areas above the South China Sea, where it has been embroiled in territorial disputes.
And from Tokyo, another provocation from the Japan Times:
DPJ exec’s denial of Nanjing stands
Matsubara refuses to retract contentious remark made in 2007
Jin Matsubara, the Democratic Party of Japan’s Diet affairs chief, declined Friday to retract his remarks almost seven years ago insisting that there was no Nanjing Massacre, a move likely to stir the controversy already brewing over an NHK governor’s similar denial of one of the most notorious wartime atrocities committed by Japanese troops in China.
“You can understand my remarks if you read minutes (of the Diet sessions). (My opinion) is just like the remarks in the minutes,” Matsubara told a regularly scheduled press briefing at the Diet.
During a session of the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 25, 2007, Matsubara maintained that the wartime Chinese government didn’t claim there was or criticize a massacre by Japanese troops in Nanjing, leading to the natural conclusion that no mass-killing took place when they conquered the city in December 1937.
The Independent frames the topic:
How Japan’s ‘BBC’ is rewriting its role in Second World War
Naoki Hyakuta says Japan was lured into the Second World War by America while liberating Asia from white colonialism.
He denies war crimes such as the 1937 Nanjing massacre, when Japanese troops killed thousands of Chinese civilians. Such views are common among revisionists in Japan. Mr Hyakuta, however, sits on the board of the nation’s public service broadcaster.
NHK has annual revenue of more than $6bn (£3.7bn), putting it close to the BBC. Like the British broadcaster, it is obliged to be impartial and aloof from the political fray, so the company is under intense fire for the extraordinary views of four its governors, all reportedly handpicked by the right-wing Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. The 12-member board controls programming policy and budgets.
The Mainichi oils troubled waters:
NHK president Momii takes back remarks on ‘comfort women,’ other sensitive issues
Following a major backlash over his comments on wartime “comfort women” and other delicate issues at a news conference, NHK President Katsuto Momii told a House of Councillors committee on Feb. 7 that his remarks on five topics were his personal opinion and that he has “taken them back.”
The president of the public broadcaster told the upper house Committee on General Affairs that he has retracted his remarks on the “comfort women” issue, the special state secrets law, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, his authority in program editing, as well as on international broadcasting — where he said he attaches the utmost importance to expressing Japan’s stance on territorial disputes with China and South Korea in NHK programming for foreign viewers and listeners.
While Momii earlier mentioned in the news conference that he had taken back his remarks on the “comfort women” issue, he had not made his position clear about his other controversial comments.
China Daily goes to school:
Japan to extend ‘territorial education’
Japanese Cabinet members have publicly confirmed that Tokyo will expand “territorial education” regarding disputed islands to include elementary schools.
Hakubun Shimomura, minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, said during a Wednesday committee meeting of Japan’s upper house that changes will be made in relevant teaching guidelines after appropriate discussions.
Japanese media said the revision plans include the Japanese government’s spin on China’s Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea and the disputed islands that Seoul calls Dokdo and Tokyo calls Takeshima.
“There was no big massacre, nor a massacre. There’s no doubt about that,” Matsubara told the Lower House session.
While Jiji Press relieves pressure elsewhere:
Abe Vows to Work Patiently on Isle Row with Russia
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, said Friday that he will continue strenuous efforts to resolve the two countries’ decades-old territorial row over four Russian-held northwestern Pacific islands.
“I will patiently work to resolve the territorial dispute, which is the biggest pending issue between Japan and Russia, in order to help the two nations conclude a peace treaty,” Abe told a national convention in Tokyo seeking the return of the islands off Japan’s northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido.
“It is abnormal that Japan and Russia do not have a peace treaty although as long as 68 years have passed since the end of World War II,” Abe said, adding that he would deal with the matter by keeping in mind that the territorial dispute has to be resolved at the earliest possible time as former residents of the islands are growing old.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore covers the newest on the hyperbolic front:
Chinese insults show Philippines is right: Aquino
Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Friday brushed off a barrage of Chinese insults that were triggered by him comparing China’s rulers with the Nazis, as the two sides traded further angry accusations over a territorial dispute.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency released a blistering commentary on Wednesday in which it labelled Aquino “amateurish”, “ignorant” and “lame”.
The commentary came a day after Aquino said China’s efforts to seize disputed parts of the South China Sea were similar to Nazi Germany’s actions before World War II, and called on global leaders not to make the same mistake of appeasement.
“Well, I thank Xinhua because they are re-affirming the validity of our position. As the saying goes, if someone cannot answer an issue, then he resorts to name-calling,” Aquino said when asked for a response to the Xinhua commentary.
From Jiji Press, a house divided:
Japan Ruling Bloc at Odds over Constitutional Interpretation
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its New Komeito ally remained at odds Friday over an envisioned change to the government’s interpretation of the constitution to lift the country’s self-imposed ban on collective self-defense.
At a House of Councillors Budget Committee meeting, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also president of the LDP, rejected the New Komeito position that it would be enough to expand the scope of individual self-defense.
“The idea of expanding the right to individual self-defense is not common internationally,” Abe said.
The Mainichi blows an opportunity:
2 anti-nuclear Tokyo governor aspirants decline to unify candidacies due to differences
Two Tokyo governor hopefuls who are advocating an immediate end to nuclear power — Kenji Utsunomiya, 67, and Morihiro Hosokawa, 76 — have declined to unify their candidacies, a group calling for the merger said.
The group, known as the ‘Association calling for the unity of anti-nuclear Tokyo gubernatorial candidates,’ has 19 members including journalist Satoshi Kamata, as well as cultural figures, academics, and other assorted affiliates.
Association members said that they approached the campaign offices of both candidates with their request on Feb. 3.
While Jiji Press Friends:
Japan, U.S. Sign Fingerprint Data Exchange Pact
The Japanese and U.S. governments signed on Friday a bilateral security agreement that allows both countries to exchange fingerprint data of suspected criminals in order to prevent and solve serious crimes.
The Agreement on Enhancing Cooperation in Preventing and Combating Serious Crime, known as the PCSC agreement, allows the two countries to access each other’s criminal fingerprint database online for automatic and real-time checks.
Under the accord, fingerprints of suspicious foreign individuals found on arrival, those of suspects for serious crimes such as terrorism and murder, and those taken from criminal scenes in one country are matched against the fingerprints on the other country’s database.
The Guardian weighs in with another developing rhetorical front:
Singapore in row with Indonesia over naming of boat
Anger as Indonesia dedicates new navy vessel to marines who planted bomb in Singapore during 1960s konfrontasi era
Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, instigated the 1960s konfrontasi campaign against the formation of Malaysia, which then included Singapore Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, instigated the 1960s konfrontasi campaign against the formation of Malaysia, which then included Singapore.
Anger is mounting in Singapore over neighbouring Indonesia’s decision to name a new naval ship after two marines executed by the city-state for a 1960s bombing that left three people dead.
Three Singapore ministers have asked their Indonesian counterparts to reconsider the move to name a new frigate after Osman Haji Mohamed Ali and Harun Said, who were convicted for the March 1965 bombing of MacDonald House on Orchard Road in the city’s main shopping district.
The issue is likely to be another pressure point in the delicate relationship between the neighbours – ties were tested last year when the annual burning of Indonesian forests blanketed Singapore in a thick smog.
From The Wire, another leaker pays the price and adds to its record as the administration promised to be the Most Transparent in History™ and instead has given us more criminal leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined:
Ex-State Department Advisor Will Plead Guilty to Leaking Information to Fox News
A former adviser for the State Department will plead guilty on Friday for sharing confidential information with a Fox News reporter. According to U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim also admitted that he “wasn’t a whistleblower,” and that “his actions put America at risk.” Under the agreement, he’ll go to jail for 13 months. Judge Judge Kollar-Kotelly is expected to accept the plea deal on Friday.
Kim admitted to sharing information from a classified report on North Korea with James Rosen at Fox News. The federal government also considered filing charges against Rosen himself, as the FBI reportedly considered him to be a co-conspirator, rather than a journalist communicating with a source, in the leak. To find out Rosen’s source, investigators requested a wide range of phone records.
The piece in question is a 2009 report on North Korea’s plans to conduct a nuclear test, information that Rosen wrote was obtained from a CIA source inside North Korea. It was based on information distributed to just a small circle of people within the State Department around the time that the report went up. The criminal investigation into Rosen’s journalism eventually prompted the Justice Department to reform its guidelines for investigating disclosures.
GlobalPost delivers a hack attack:
Anonymous apparently just leaked personal data of Singaporean gov’t workers
Individuals associated with the Anonymous collective have published what they claim is stolen personal information belonging to Singaporean government officials and private contractors, in retaliation for the arrest of individuals allegedly involved in 2013 defacements of Singaporean government websites.
The information leaked Friday includes names, home and office addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers, citizenship status and passport numbers of 10 people who appear to be government employees. Portions of the database containing the hacked information were provided to GlobalPost ahead of Friday’s public release.
El País covers secret sins confessed:
Controversial Catholic lay group asks forgiveness for founder’s sex abuses
Legionaries of Christ given Vatican’s blessing to continue as an official movement
One day after the United Nations handed down a hard-hitting report on sex abuse cases inside the Catholic Church, the Legionaries of Christ — the ultra-conservative group founded in 1941 by controversial Mexican priest Marcial Maciel — publicly issued an apology for “serious and immoral abuses” committed by its founder.
The statement was unprecedented because it was the first time the legion — which has been under attack for years for covering up the sex abuse that took place inside the organization — has distanced itself from Maciel, who died in 2008.
Pope Francis has permitted the group to announce the name of a new director general, the Mexican Eduardo Robles Gil, a sign that the legion has been given official authorization to continue as a Regnum Christi movement within the church after a three-year observation period imposed by the Holy See.
PandoDaily facilitates the panoptic:
Surveillance Valley has put a billion bugs in a billion pockets
Last week, we were treated to yet another shocking revelation of government espionage: leaked Power Point slides revealing that American and British intel agencies are using our most cherished mobile apps and games to spy on us. Apparently no app is safe from NSA snooping — not even Angry Birds, beloved by hundreds of millions of kids all across the globe.
The techie spooks were so psyched by the loads of mobile data they could scoop with almost no effort that they couldn’t restrain their glee. It’s a “Golden Nugget!” they yelped on one of the slides.
The leaked documents made headlines around the world, and were held up by journalists and privacy activists as yet another example of the ridiculous lengths the NSA is willing to go to monitor every aspect of our daily lives.
But if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, these NSA revelations say less about government spying than they do about the our hyper-connected mobile culture and the creepy for-profit surveillance business model that underpins it. The story wasn’t that the NSA had bugged our phones, but that they had used existing surveillance tools built into handsets and apps in order to access our data in the exact same way that companies like Burger King or Starbucks are able to do.
Mashable delivers the warning label:
Google Forced to Post Privacy Warning on Its French Site
French netizens visiting Google France began seeing an unusual message on the search giant’s usually bare homepage on Saturday. The message informs users that Google has been fined 150,000 euros (around $200,000) for violating French privacy laws.
France’s Commissions Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) imposed the fine, and the obligation to post the notice, in January. The decision (French) ended a probe into Google’s privacy policy change, implemented by the company in 2012, when all its services’ privacy policies were unified into one. After the change, Google combined user data across its different services like YouTube or Gmail.
The CNIL found that the policy didn’t give users enough control over their private information, and didn’t do a good enough job of explaining exactly what Google can do with that data.
For our final item, via the San Francisco Chronicle, consider the possible implications:
Calif. woman gets credit offer with sexual slur
An international honor society and Bank of America apologized Friday for a credit card offer to a feminist writer that referred to her by a sexual slur.
Golden Key International Honour Society spokeswoman Melissa Leitzell said on Friday that the group is looking into how the epithet ended up on the letter to Lisa McIntire.
The mailer, which said “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire, you’ve earned this special offer,” offered her a Bank of America credit card tied to her membership in the Berkeley chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society.
Leitzell said the organization takes full responsibility and has apologized to McIntire. The freelance writer, a former communications staffer for one of California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaigns, tweeted a picture of her mail to one of the bank’s Twitter accounts Thursday.
