For today’s tales from the dark side, we begin with this from MintPress News:
Will The House’s Gutted USA Freedom Act Really Stop The NSA?
“While it represents a slight improvement from the status quo, it isn’t the reform bill that Americans deserve,” says a staff attorney with the ACLU.
In a Thursday op-ed for Hays Post, Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp explained his reasoning for not voting for the USA Freedom Act, which cleared the House earlier in the day in a 303-121 vote.
“[The] bill presented on the House floor today does not address many of privacy and constitutional concerns expressed by Kansans over the warrantless bulk collection of Americans’ personal information,” wrote Huelskamp.
Huelskamp was an original sponsor to the bill. Originally meant to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of metadata from Americans’ phone records, the bill was initially heralded as the first serious attempt to bring balance to the way the nation handles electronic surveillance.
From the Guardian, the obvious conclusion:
The year of living more dangerously: Obama’s drone speech was a sham
We were promised drone memos. And a case for legal targeted killing. And no more Gitmo. We’re still waiting
Twelve months ago today, Barack Obama gave a landmark national security speech in which he frankly acknowledged that the United States had at least in some cases compromised its values in the years since 9/11 – and offered his vision of a US national security policy more directly in line with “the freedoms and ideals that we defend.” It was widely praised as “a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America”.
Addressing an audience at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, the president pledged greater transparency about targeted killings, rededicated himself to closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and urged Congress to refine and ultimately repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which has been invoked to justify everything from military detention to drones strikes.
A year later, none of these promises have been met. Instead, drone strikes have continue (and likely killed and wounded civilians), 154 men remain detained at Guantanamo and the administration has taken no steps to roll back the AUMF. This is not the sort of change Obama promised.
Coming up with a drone report the old-fashioned way with RT:
Over 60% of US drone targets in Pakistan are homes – research
The CIA has been bombing Pakistan’s domestic buildings more than any other targets over the past decade of the drone war launched by the US, says the latest research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Almost two thirds, or over 60 percent, of all US drone strikes in Pakistan targeted domestic buildings, says joint research conducted by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), a London-based non-profit news group, along with Forensic Architecture, a research unit based at Goldsmiths University, London, and Situ Research in New York.
The authors of the paper analyzed thousands of media reports, witness testimonies and field investigations to obtain the data on drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
According to the study, at least 132 houses have been destroyed in more than 380 strikes over the past decade with at least 222 civilians being among the 1,500 or more people killed.
Security checks and no security, from Quartz:
You should fear background checks even if you’ve done nothing wrong
41% error rate
This issue matters not only because innocent people and employers who hire screening companies are getting ensnared by a digital dragnet; it also matters because 65 million Americans have criminal records, and those who want to turn their lives around are hurt by background check mistakes. Maybe you don’t care that employers end up screening out deserving applicants. Maybe you scoff at liberals like me who worry that background screening has a discriminatory impact on people of color. At least you should care that the mistakes cut both ways: employers can end up hiring applicants whose full criminal records are not showing up on background screens.
You can find a litany of common screw-ups in this report by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC). It’s impossible to quantify the extent of the errors, partly because the industry has no registration requirements and any fly-by-night operation with web access can set up shop. But the NCLC says “tens of millions of workers may pay for these third-party errors with their jobs.” One screening company studied federal corrections databases and found a “41% error rate.”
If you got arrested 30 years ago for selling a little weed but were never charged, or if you went to trial but were never convicted, you still might be tagged with a criminal record. That’s because too many screeners don’t bother to check original court records to verify the status of cases, according to Welby. These screening companies often rely only on bulk databases that aren’t properly updated.
Techdirt covers another reason for insecurity:
Another Bogus Hit From A License Plate Reader Results In Another Citizen Surrounded By Cops With Guns Out
from the verification-to-be-performed-at-gunpoint dept
We recently covered a story about a lawyer who found himself approached by cops with guns drawn after an automatic license plate reader misread a single character on his plate as he drove by. The police did make an attempt to verify the plate but were stymied by heavy traffic. Unfortunately, it appears they decided to force the issue rather than let a potential car thief escape across the state line.
As I pointed out then, the increasing reliance on ALPRs, combined with the one-billion-plus records already in storage and the millions being collected every day, means the number of errors will only increase as time goes on — even as the technology continues to improve. This person was lucky to escape with nothing more than an elevated heart rate. Others won’t be so lucky… like Denise Green of San Francisco.
Green’s civil rights lawsuit has just been reinstated by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned an earlier decision that granted summary judgment in favor of the San Francisco Police Department. The lower court found that the officers had made a “good faith, reasonable mistake” when they performed a felony stop of Green, which included being ordered out of her vehicle and onto the ground at gunpoint and held in cuffs for nearly 20 minutes while officers verified the plates and filled out paperwork.
From the Christian Science Monitor, righting wrongs:
Dallas targets wrongful convictions, and revolution starts to spread
The Conviction Integrity Unit formed in Dallas to correct wrongful convictions has become a national model that is slowly changing prosecutors’ willingness to reopen the books nationwide.
Some of these units are window dressing created mostly for public relations, critics say. But the Dallas CI Unit has had a profound impact in the city and has come at a time when concerns about wrongful convictions are rippling through the American justice system.
Indeed, as exonerations nationwide force prosecutors to reconsider their role in public safety, Mr. Watkins has cast himself as a leading reformer, taking on the insular culture within district attorneys’ offices and challenging the credo that the most effective district attorney is the one who wins the most convictions.
“One overriding truth is that the prosecutor is by far the most important and powerful actor in the criminal justice system,” says Samuel Gross, editor of the National Registry of Exonerations.
RT covers a curious possibility:
Snowden ‘considers’ returning to US – report
American whistleblower Edward Snowden is “considering” returning home to the USA under certain conditions, his lawyer told German news magazine Der Spiegel.
“There are negotiations,” Snowden’s German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck told Der Spiegel. “Those who know the case are aware that an amicable agreement with the US authorities will be most reasonable.”
All efforts are now focused on finding a solution acceptable for Edward Snowden, at least in the medium term, according to Kaleck, who is also secretary-general for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
From Medill News Service, snitchin’ in the kitchen?:
With ‘Internet of Things,’ your fridge will know when milk is low
Americans are adapting to a world in which virtually everything _ from cellphones and cars to washing machines and refrigerators _ is going to be connected to the Internet or networks. Many of these devices will _ and do _ “talk” to one another via tiny sensors that function almost like human senses, logging information such as temperature, light, motion and sound.
Theoretically, the sensors could allow a new refrigerator, for example, to send an alert to a homeowner’s smartphone whenever the fridge is running low on milk. This concept of device conversation is known as the Internet of Things. The technology will make life easier, but it also means more people are vulnerable to device malfunction or hacking.
Experts and government officials acknowledge the transformative power of the Internet of Things. But the authors of a White House report in May on the effects of big data _ including all the information that devices collect _ are also concerned about the potential for privacy abuses that comes with the technology.
Getting censorious with the New York Times:
Twitter Agrees to Block ‘Blasphemous’ Tweets in Pakistan
At least five times this month, a Pakistani bureaucrat who works from a colonial-era barracks in Karachi, just down the street from the former home of his country’s secularist founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, asked Twitter to shield his compatriots from exposure to accounts, tweets or searches of the social network that he described as “blasphemous” or “unethical.”
All five of those requests were honored by the company, meaning that Twitter users in Pakistan can no longer see the content that so disturbed the bureaucrat, Abdul Batin of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority: crude drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, photographs of burning Qurans, and messages from a handful of anti-Islam bloggers and an American porn star who now attends Duke University.
The blocking of these tweets in Pakistan — in line with the country-specific censorship policy Twitter unveiled in 2012 — is the first time the social network has agreed to withhold content there. A number of the accounts seemed to have been blocked in anticipation of the fourth annual “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” on May 20.
Digital Alzheimer’s from the Associated Press:
Europe’s move to rein in Google would stall in US
Europe’s moves to rein in Google — including a court ruling this month ordering the search giant to give people a say in what pops up when someone searches their name — may be seen in Brussels as striking a blow for the little guy.
But across the Atlantic, the idea that users should be able to edit Google search results in the name of privacy is being slammed as weird and difficult to enforce at best and a crackdown on free speech at worst.
“Americans will find their searches bowdlerized by prissy European sensibilities,” said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “We’ll be the big losers. The big winners will be French ministers who want the right to have their last mistress forgotten.”
Mountain View, California -based Google says it’s still figuring out how to comply with the European Court of Justice’s May 13 ruling, which says the company must respond to complaints about private information that turns up in searches. Google must then decide whether the public’s right to be able to find the information outweighs an individual’s right to control it — with preference given to the individual.
After the jump, the latest developments from the Asian Game of Zones, including Chinese strategy, bonding afloat with Moscow and Beijing, playing chicken over the China Seas, nukes afloat, Chinese domestic insecurity, and Japan’s relentless remilitarization push. . .
Want China Times spots a game plan:
Xi Jinping to test new security concept in Asia: Duowei
Chinese president Xi Jinping’s new security concept will be tested out in Asia, reports Duowei News, an outlet run by overseas Chinese.
At the fourth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit in Shanghai this week, Xi spoke of innovating the region’s “security cooperation” and establishing a “new regional security architecture.”
“China will take solid steps to strengthen security dialogue and cooperation with other parties, and jointly explore the formulation of a code of conduct for regional security and an Asian security partnership program, making Asian countries good partners that trust one another and cooperate on an equal footing,” Xi said.
In a thinly veiled comment directed at interference from the United States, Xi also said, “Asia countries should all cooperate to resolve security issues in the region. A third party aimed at enhancing military alliances in the region does not serve our interests.”
Want China Times bonds afloat:
PLA and Russian Navy learn from Joint Sea 2014 drills
The recently-concluded Joint Sea 2014 naval exercise provided the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Russian Navy with the experience to compete against the United States Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in a real combat environment, reports China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
During the three-day drill, Chinese and Russian warships formed separately into blue and red forces to compete against each other, much like the previous naval exercises held between the two nations. This time around warships from the two navies also mixed into two groups, allowing Chinese crew to work closely with their Russian counterparts.
In addition, the recent drills allowed Chinese and Russian sailors to train how to react to a potential attack beyond visual range. Missile attacks were staged at random to provide the Chinese and Russian warships with the chance to detect and destroy the missiles without any warning. By doing this, both navies learned how to respond to a suprise attack from the enemy in a real combat environment.
Xinhua flies off at the handle:
China demands Japan stop disturbing China-Russia naval drills
Japan must respect the legitimate rights of Chinese and Russian navies and stop its reconnaissance and disturbance to the China-Russia naval drills, China’s Ministry of National Defense said on Sunday.
More from Jii Press:
China Claims Japan SDF Planes Obstructed Drills
China’s Ministry of National Defense claimed Sunday that Japanese Self-Defense Forces aircraft obstructed drills, commenting on Chinese warplanes’ flights close to SDF planes over the East China Sea on Saturday.
The ministry said in a statement that SDF aircraft entered China’s air defense identification zone and reconnoitered and obstructed joint drills between the Chinese and Russian navies.
Chinese warplanes were thus scrambled, and they took necessary identification and security steps, it said.
Still more from JiJi Press:
Japan Defense Chief Criticizes China Warplanes’ Flights as Aberrant
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Sunday that Chinese warplanes’ flights extremely close to Japanese Self-Defense Forces aircraft on Saturday were “completely aberrant acts.”
His ministry said Saturday that Su-27 fighter jets of the Chinese military neared an OP-3C reconnaissance aircraft of the Maritime SDF around 11 a.m. on the day (2 a.m. GMT) and a YS-11EB electronic intelligence plane of the Air SDF around noon over the East China Sea at distances of only 30 to 50 meters.
The defense chief told reporters at the ministry Sunday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed him Saturday to take steps firmly.
And strengthening ties in another venue from Xinhua:
China calls for joint efforts to deepen China-Russia strategic economic cooperation
Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao on Saturday called for joint efforts of China and Russia to further deepen their strategic economic cooperation.
Addressing the China-Russia Business Roundtable of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Li said that to deepen bilateral economic cooperation is integral to the building of comprehensive relations of strategic cooperation and partnership between China and Russia.
Deepening China-Russia strategic economic cooperation serves the fundamental interests of both sides, said Li, adding that the bilateral economic cooperation faces four unprecedented opportunities: the recovery and transformation of the world economy, the high degree of political mutual trust between the two countries, mutual complementarity of the respective advantages of the Chinese and Russian economies, and the economic innovation and systemic transformation of the two countries.
Want China Times goes ballistic:
PLA ballistic missile submarines spotted off Hainan
Three Chinese ballistic missile submarines have been seen spotted near the waters off China’s southern island province of Hainan, according to the Canada-based Kanwa Defense Review operated by Andrei Chang also known as Pinkov, a military analyst.
According to Kanwa, satellite photos available online show three submarines that seem to be shorter than the ordinary Type 094 Jin-class ballistic missile submarine. With the capability to carry 12 JL-2 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the three submarines are either the modified version of Type 094s or Type 096 Tang-class ballistic missile submarines. It indicates however that China is building more nuclear-powered strategic submarines, Kanwa said.
Hainan is the forward base for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy to deploy its warships into the disputed South China Sea, and this may explain the three ballistic missile submarines in the region. In addition, the deep waters of the South China Sea provide Chinese nuclear-powered strategic submarines with the perfect cover to avoid the detection of US aircraft, warships and satellites.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore goes on the offensive at home:
China vows year-long terrorism crackdown after attack
China on Sunday vowed a year-long campaign against terrorism, days after attackers in the western region of Xinjiang killed 39 people in a suicide raid.
“With Xinjiang as the centre, and with cooperation from other provinces, we will start a year-long specialised hard-strike campaign against violent terrorism,” the ministry of public security said on its website.
The statement reflects the government’s concerns about terror after a series of deadly attacks in recent months targeting civilians and linked to Xinjiang, home of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
A retaliatory Reuters severs the connection:
China’s state-owned sector told to cut ties with U.S. consulting firms
China has told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking U.S. companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
China’s action, which targets companies like McKinsey & Company and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), stems from fears the firms are providing trade secrets to the U.S. government, the FT reported, citing unnamed sources close to senior Chinese leaders.
“We haven’t received any notification of this kind,” said Margaret Kashmir, a spokeswoman for Strategy& – formerly Booz & Company – in an email, adding that serving clients in China and globally continues to be the company’s main priority.
Xinhua analyzes ex post facto:
Vietnamese authorities miscalculated in anti-China protests: scholar
Vietnamese authorities apparently miscalculated during the protest targeting foreign enterprises in Vietnam last week, Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
“They have, in some way, connived in the protest and the subsequent developments, but they apparently underestimated the possibility that the initially mild protests could turn violent,” Li said.
Li said it’s hardly likely for the violence to have been orchestrated in the way a color revolution was organized, given the abruptness of the riots breaking out. However, there had been signs that certain groups in the opposition were waiting for an opportunity to put pressure on the Vietnamese government.
The possibility cannot be ruled out that some Vietnamese-American groups have been behind the protest, he said.
The Japan Times goes on a sales blitz:
Abe to break out 15 contingencies for collective defense, in bid to woo skeptical Komeito
Contingencies involving U.S. military to lead next round of talks on reinterpreting Constitution
As part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to get Japan a greater security role overseas, the government is planning to present 15 military contingency scenarios at the ruling coalition’s ongoing talks this week, a source said.
The scenarios include one in which the Self-Defense Forces protect U.S. vessels in a military emergency when a neighboring country is preparing to launch a ballistic missile, the government source said Saturday.
Another involves the SDF protecting U.S. vessels carrying Japanese on the high seas, the source said.
The government disclosed 10 similar scenarios last week to suggest that Japan might have to break the Constitution and exercise its right to collective self-defense.
The Japan Times slices the salami:
Abe may get freer hand to deploy SDF in ‘gray zone’ incidents
The government is considering giving prime ministers a free hand in mobilizing the Self-Defense Forces to respond swiftly to “gray-zone” incidents, government sources said Sunday.
Such power might be imbued through advance approval from the Cabinet, allowing the SDF to quickly respond to incidents that could threaten Japanese interests, such as small-scale attacks on commercial shipping vessels or illegally landings on remote Japanese islands.
But making mobilization easier, observers say, could raise the possibility of armed clashes erupting because rapid SDF involvement could give a foreign country a pretext for launching an attack on Japan.
The Japan Times raises opposition:
Group battles to preserve achievements of Article 9
As the government moves toward expanding the nation’s security capacities, voices continue to be raised demanding that the country adhere to the ideals of its pacifist Constitution.
Since nine influential people, including Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, gathered 10 years ago to draw attention to the significance of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, more than 7,000 like-minded groups have sprung up nationwide.
“We have called on people during the past 10 years to share the importance of the pacifist clause with those around them in their communities or at their workplaces,” said Yoichi Komori, who serves as secretary-general of the Article 9 Association, founded by the nine.
Xinhua does the same:
“Murayama statement” undeniable: former Japanese PM
Former Japanese Prime Minster Tomiichi Murayama, known for his apology for Japan’s past wartime atrocities while in office, said Sunday that the “Murayama Statement” was a formal decision made by Japan’s Cabinet which should not be denied ever.
The former prime minister stressed in a special speech in Tokyo that the “Murayama Statement”, released nearly 20 years ago, has become a hot issue recently due to incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aim to deny it. “While in the name of reexamining it, Abe’s true thought is to unveil a new statement by himself.” Murayama said. “Different from ‘Koizumi Statement’to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II, ‘Murayama Statement’ was based on a Cabinet decision, meaning it represented the official position of the Japanese government,” said Murayama, who served as Japan’s prime minister from 1994 to 1996. “All previous prime ministers of Japan said that they inherit the’Murayama Statement’, it has become an international pledge and Japan’s national policy.”
On Abe’s push for collective self-defense right, Murayama showed strong disagreement on the current government’s attempt to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution. “Japan’s Cabinet Legislation Bureau always insists on banning the collective self defense right. While Abe’s government tries to allow its exercise by reinterpreting the Constitution, which is unworkable, or the Constitution will lose its meaning.” “According to the Constitution, no matter prime minister or lawmakers have the obligation to respect it. It’s terrible that even prime minister dare say some nonsense words to the Constitution.” Murayama said.
And for our final item, the Japan Times plans for things to come:
Abductees top agenda for Japan-North talks
During negotiations beginning Monday in Sweden, Japan aims to get North Korea to agree to reinvestigate the fates of Japanese it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s, government sources said Saturday.
Japan is considering easing sanctions it has unilaterally imposed on North Korea, such as travel restrictions, if the reinvestigation makes a certain amount of progress, the sources said.
It will also ask North Korea to put any agreements reached during the three-day talks through Wednesday in the capital, Stockholm, in writing, they said.
