Straight to it, first with the unsurprising from Defense One:
Congress Is Not Canceling the Pentagon-to-Police Weapons Program Anytime Soon
Rep. John Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, and two of his Democratic colleagues are asking committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte to convene hearings on the militarization of police forces. And Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia said Thursday he will introduce a bill that would limit the kinds of military equipment local police forces can acquire.
Libertarian-leaning Republicans are joining the chorus as well. Republican Sen. Rand Paul penned a piece for Time protesting the “cartoonish imbalance between the equipment some police departments possess and the constituents they serve,” and Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan spoke out against police militarization via Twitter as well.
The response from congressional Republican leadership, however, has been measured or nonexistent, suggesting the issue is unlikely to make the agenda when Congress returns from recess in September. And even if it does, the program that connects police forces to military equipment has well-placed defenders in Congress.
TPM Livewire covers a First Amendment crackdown:
Three More Journalists Detained In Ferguson
Relations between police in Ferguson, Mo. and members of the media covering protests against law enforcement there broke down again Sunday night.
Echoing the arrests of the Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly and the Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery earlier this week, three reporters said they were briefly handcuffed and detained by police. Other reporters said officers threatened them with mace, while one radio reporter caught an officer’s threat to shoot him on tape.
Three journalists — Neil Munshi of the Financial Times, Robert Klemko of Sports Illustrated and Rob Crilly of the Telegraph — tweeted that they were briefly detained and handcuffed by Missouri highway police Capt. Ron Johnson. Munshi emphasized that the three of them were held by police but were not arrested.
From the Guardian, the harsh reality of Hope™ and Change™:
James Risen calls Obama ‘greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation’
Journalist refuses to reveal source of story about CIA operation
President’s support for press freedom called ‘hypocritical’
The New York Times reporter James Risen, who faces jail over his refusal to reveal a source and testify against a former CIA agent accused of leaking secrets, has called President Barack Obama “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation”.
Speaking to his colleague Maureen Dowd, Risen accused the president of aggressively pursuing journalists, including himself, who report sensitive stories that reflect poorly on the US government.
Risen faces jail over his reporting of a botched intelligence operation that ended up spilling nuclear secrets to Iran. The Justice Department has long been seeking to force him to testify and name the confidential source of the account, which is contained in his 2006 book State of War.
From Techdirt, more of that good ol’ Hope™ and Change™:
Government’s Response To Snowden? Strip 100,000 Potential Whistleblowers Of Their Security Clearances
from the surface-issues-neutralized.-underlying-causes-unaddressed. dept
Snowden just re-upped for three years in picturesque Russia, a land best known for not being a US military prison. Not exactly ideal, but under the circumstances, not entirely terrible. The government knows where Snowden is (more or less) and many officials have a pretty good idea what they’d like to do to him if he returns, but the NSA is still largely operating on speculation when it comes to what documents Snowden took.
But they do have someone looking into this. The government has tried to assess the damage posed by Snowden’s leaks, but so far all it has come up with is vague proclamations that the released have caused grave and exceptional damage to US security and an even vaguer CIA report claiming that a bunch of documents Snowden theoretically has in his possession might severely harm the US if a) they are released and b) they exist.
The Associated Press complains of buggery:
Turkey calls German ambassador over spying claims
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry says the German ambassador has been summoned for talks over reports that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency had eavesdropped on conversations between officials in the U.S. and Turkey, both NATO allies.
German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday that the agency, known by its German acronym BND, had listened to calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton. It also cited a confidential 2009 BND document listing Turkey as a target for German intelligence gathering.
A Foreign Ministry official said Monday the ambassador was summoned to “discuss” the report.
Peter J. Espina of China’s state-published Global Times offered his take on a certain irony of German “unintentional” eavesdropping on calls by John Kerr and Hillary Clinton:
More from Der Spiegel:
Targeting Turkey: How Germany Spies on Its Friends
For years, the BND has intercepted satellite telephone conversations from its listening station in Bad Aibling in Bavaria in order to obtain knowledge of the Islamist terrorist scene. But intelligence sources now say that US office holders have also fallen into the BND’s crosshairs while making satellite telephone calls from airplanes. Sources described it as a kind of unintentional “by-catch”.
That’s how Clinton got caught in the BND’s net in 2012. The former secretary of state had telephoned with former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. At the time, he was serving as the joint UN-Arab League special envoy for the Syrian crisis. Annan had just left the latest negotiations in Syria and wanted to provide Clinton with an update.
Following protocol, staff at BND headquarters prepared a several-page-long transcript of the conversation and passed it along to senior agency officials. They in turn ordered that the transcript be destroyed. Sources say that the document was not forwarded to Merkel’s Chancellery.
But the person tasked with destroying the transcript was Markus R., an employee in the agency’s Areas of Operations/Foreign Relations department, who also turns out to be the same man recently accused of serving as an agent for the Americans.
And still more from Deutsche Welle:
German surveillance upsets Turkish trust
Germany’s surveillance of Turkey has damaged the trust between the two nations, Turkish experts say. An apology would be appropriate, they argue – but they don’t really expect one.
It took two days before the Turkish government reacted to the news that Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the country’s foreign intelligence agency, had allegedly been spying on Turkey for years.
On Monday, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara summoned Germany’s ambassador Eberhard Pohl, making it clear that the surveillance is unacceptable and must stop.
Foreign Minister Davutoglu called Germany’s behaviour “inexcusable.” There were principles of interaction that must always be considered, he said, adding the German government owed Turkey an explanation. Davutoglu, favored to take over the post of premier after new President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes office, said he would discuss the issue with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the phone.
From Techdirt, why are we not surprised?:
From The Unsealed ‘Jewel v. NSA’ Transcript: The DOJ Has Nothing But Contempt For American Citizens
from the and-[local]-god-help-you-if-you’re-a-foreign-citizen dept
With some of the proceedings unsealed in the EFF’s long-running Jewel vs. NSA lawsuit, more details can finally be exposed. Not that what’s already been exposed hasn’t been damning enough. Over the past several months, the DOJ has run interference for the NSA, traveling from courtroom to courtroom, destroying and saving (or at least pretending to…) collected data amongst a flurry of contradictory orders.
Not that it ultimately mattered. The NSA just kept destroying relevant evidence, claiming the system was too complex to do anything with but allow to run its course. Evidence would be destroyed at the 5-year limit, no matter what preservation orders were issued. The NSA, of course, has a vested interest in destroying evidence that its 215 and 702 programs collect the data and communications of Americans. Thanks to Snowden’s leaks, it can no longer pretend it doesn’t. But despite this, the DOJ still claims Section 702 targets only foreigners and American suspects located outside of the US.
The mock concern about compliance with court orders was a hustle. The DOJ wants as much evidence that might be useful to plaintiffs gone as swiftly as possible. Thanks to the unsealing of Jewel court documents, the EFF can now relate that the DOJ’s efforts went much further than simply letting aged-off collections expire. It also actively tried to change the historical record of the Jewel case, as Mike covered here recently.
Al Jazeera English announces a move:
Julian Assange ‘to leave’ Ecuador embassy
WikiLeaks founder says he will leave Ecuador’s embassy in London “soon”, but gives no further details.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said he plans to leave Ecuador’s embassy in London “soon”, having spent the last two years avoiding extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault.
Assange told reporters during a news conference on Monday that he would be “leaving the embassy soon” but not for reasons “reported by the Murdoch press”, without elaborating further.
“I am leaving the embassy soon… but perhaps not for the reasons that Murdoch press and Sky news are saying at the moment,” he said.
And a video report from RT:
‘Important changes coming’ – Assange’s friend
Program note:
After spending more than two years trapped in a tiny embassy room, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made a sudden announcement that he will leave the embassy ‘soon’. For more perspective on what Assange had to say, and why he said it RT talks to someone who knows him personally – Gavin Macfadyen, Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism.
A video of Assange’s full statement is here.
But the London Telegraph promptly threw a bucket of cold water:
Home Office shoots down Julian Assange’s claim about extradition law change
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, says he plans to leave the Ecuador embassy in London after spending two years there
Mr Assange and his legal advisers appeared to have made an embarrassing error by misunderstanding a basic aspect of the new legislation.
The Home Office quickly undermined his key claim by confirming the changes would not apply in the case of Mr Assange, who has been a wanted man in Sweden since 2010, because they are not retrospective.
Mr Assange, 43, is alleged to have raped a woman known as SW, then aged 26, and committed other sexual offences against AA, a 31-year-old woman.
From the Register, the Rupester crows:
Rupert Murdoch says Google is worse than the NSA
Mr Burns vs. The Chocolate Factory, round three!
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has taken to Twitter and labelled Google worse than the NSA.
Here’s The Dirty Digger’s missive:
Rupert Murdoch @rupertmurdoch
NSA privacy invasion bad, but nothing compared to Google.
10:15 AM – 17 Aug 2014
Murdoch and Google have history, with the former accusing the latter of stealing his newspapers’ content (yet never putting in place a robots.txt file that would prevent search engines crawling it). Uncle Rupert has also criticised Google as enabling the theft of films by indexing torrent sites.
Reuters covers a hack:
Community Health says data stolen in cyber attack from China
Community Health Systems Inc (CYH.N), one of the biggest U.S. hospital groups, said on Monday it was the victim of a cyber attack from China, resulting in the theft of Social Security numbers and other personal data belonging to 4.5 million patients.
Security experts said the hacking group, known as “APT 18,” may have links to the Chinese government.
“APT 18″ typically targets companies in the aerospace and defense, construction and engineering, technology, financial services and healthcare industry, said Charles Carmakal, managing director with FireEye Inc’s (FEYE.O) Mandiant forensics unit, which led the investigation of the attack on Community Health in April and June.
From TechWeekEurope, cyberwarfare:
Syrian Malware Is On The Rise, Warns Kaspersky
As the civil war in Syria enters its fourth year, cyber warfare shows no sign of abating
The number of cyber attacks against Internet users in Syria is growing, with organised groups relying on increasingly sophisticated strains of malware to target media agencies, activists and dissidents, warns Russian security vendor Kaspersky Labs.
According to a report by Kaspersky’s Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT), groups from both sides of the civil war are using advanced social engineering techniques, modifying legitimate apps and obfuscating their code in order to infect target machines with Remote Access Tools (RATs) such as the ‘Dark Comet’.
The company says people should be extra careful when they access online material that relates to the conflict.
From PetaPixel, delinquency of a [data] miner:
Tumblr Will Soon Scan Your Photos for Clues About What Brands You Use
Tumblr users post approximately 130 million photos every day. And starting this week, they will begin to sort through every single one of them for various brands and items, with the help of Ditto Labs.
The Yahoo-owned social media platform and Ditto are officially signing a deal this week that will help Tumblr take advantage of the unfathomable amount of images shared on its services every day. Specifically, the technology Ditto owns will allow Tumblr to analyze photos posted by users and draw out brand-related data.
This means, if someone shares an image with a pair of Beats headphones, Nike shoe, Starbucks drink or Canon camera, Ditto’s technology will be able to pinpoint the products, more effectively defining demographics for advertisers. However, accorfing to T.R. Newcomb, head of business development at Tumblr, “right now, we’re not planning to do anything ad-related.”
After the jump, a Chinese media crackdown and the latest on the Asian Game of Zones, including border crossings, peace feelers, a Japanese military woe and internal doubts, more allegations of Japanese ethnic intolerance, and more ghosts from World War II troubled the Asian present. . .
First up, South China Morning Post heralds a media crackdown:
Xi Jinping calls for new style of media organisation
Reform initiative aims to create groups that are ‘diversified’, ‘advanced’, and ‘competitive’
President Xi Jinping called for the country to build a homegrown new media industry yesterday as he chaired the powerful central leading group for deepening reform.
The meeting came after the conclusion of the annual informal closed-door talks among Communist Party leaders at the seaside resort of Beidaihe in Hebei , and ahead of a series of key events including the 110th birthday anniversary of late leader Deng Xiaoping and the party’s fourth plenary session in October.
Xinhua reported that various other reform initiatives were discussed at yesterday’s meeting, including regulating the pay of top executives at state-owned enterprises.
An armed border crossing via the Economic Times:
Chinese troops enter 25km deep into Indian territory: Sources
Chinese troops are reported to have entered 25 to 30km deep into Indian territory in Burtse area in Ladakh where they had pitched their tents last year that had led to a tense three-week standoff.
Official sources said on Monday a patrol of Indian troops noticed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel yesterday while moving from their base towards the higher ‘New Patrol base’ post in Burtse area of North Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The area is at an altitude of 17,000 feet.
The sources said the troops after walking barely 1.5km from their base spotted the Chinese personnel in Indian territory 25 to 30km from the perceived Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Kyodo News covers a peace feeler:
Japan lawmakers, China’s vice president agree to seek improved ties
A group of Japanese lawmakers agreed Monday with Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao that both countries need to make efforts to mend bilateral relations badly damaged over territorial and historical issues.
“Vice President Li said at least three times that we should overlook minor disagreements for the sake of common interests. That’s important for Japan and China,” Kiyohiko Toyama, a New Komeito lawmaker who heads the cross-party group, told a press conference in Beijing after the meeting.
The eight-member group said it asked Li to cooperate in arranging a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to be held in November in the Chinese capital.
The Mainichi covers Japanese doubts:
2011 Cabinet document raised questions over necessity of state secrets bill
The Cabinet Legislation Bureau raised questions about the necessity of state secrets protection legislation when an initial bill on the law was being drawn up in 2011, an internal document obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun shows.
Officials of the bureau noted that there were few incidents of leaking confidential government information, according to the document.
Those involved in the consultations have declined to comment, saying that they are not in a position to talk about something they were previously in charge of.
And from Jiji Press, another spanner in the gears:
Japan SDF Struggling to Secure Required Number of Reserves
The number of civilians registered as reserves for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to work as SDF personnel in emergency situations is dwindling mainly due to the difficulty of balancing training with careers.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the launch of the SDF reserves system, which was started when the SDF was created in 1954 in order to limit the number of active SDF officers.
At the time of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, some 1,690 SDF reserves were called up for the first time ever to join actual SDF operations with about 100,000 active SDF personnel.
The Mainichi partners up:
Japan-U.S. joint drills to be held in Kumamoto, Osprey use possible
The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force and U.S. Marine Corps plan to conduct joint drills in December in Kumamoto Prefecture, possibly using the MV-22 Osprey aircraft, GSDF officials said Monday.
The GSDF Western Army based in Kumamoto said their envisioned joint exercises at the GSDF’s Oyanohara Training Area in Yamato, Kumamoto with the Marines stationed in Okinawa Prefecture will be the first of its kind to be held in the Kyushu region in southwestern Japan, the officials said.
The Defense Ministry has yet to brief the Kumamoto prefectural government and Yamato town about the exercises as details of the training have not been finalized.
And the Yomiuri Shimbun fans the flames of history:
New statement on ‘comfort women’ urged
The Asahi Shimbun’s admission of mistakes in its reports on the so-called comfort women and retraction of some of the contents earlier this month has continued to stir the political pot, prompting some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to demand the release of a new government statement on the issue to replace a 1993 statement made by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.
LDP members belonging to a group studying Japan’s future and history education held an emergency plenary meeting of the group Friday.
About 40 lawmakers attended the plenary meeting of the group headed by Keiji Furuya, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission. One participant after another criticized the Kono statement, which expressed the government’s “sincere apology and remorse” to former comfort women, saying the government should deny the Kono statement or clarify that it is not based on fact.
And from the Japan Times, a papal meeting adds more fuel:
Pope Francis greets former ‘comfort women’ during Mass in Seoul
Pope Francis on Monday greeted a group of South Korean women who were forced to work in brothels for the Imperial Japanese military before and during World War II.
At Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, the pope briefly shook hands with each of the seven women, some in wheelchairs, at the start of a mass he led for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula.
One of them gave the pope a pin badge showing support for the “comfort women,” Japan’s euphemism for the sex slaves, and he immediately pinned it to his vestments and wore it throughout the mass.
The Mainichi adds still more:
Dedicated research uncovers dark history of former Noborito military lab
Atop a rise in this city’s Tama Ward lies Meiji University’s Ikuta Campus, and nestled in the corner is Ikuta Shrine — a place frequented by high school students praying for admission to their university of choice, and a well-known spot to the Meiji students as well.
It’s a peaceful place, but it was not always so. This was once the home of the 9th Army Technical Research Laboratory, also called the Noborito Laboratory. Founded in 1937 just before the second Sino-Japanese War, the lab’s work included biological weapons research, foreign currency counterfeiting and the development of balloon bombs, released into the jet stream to fall on the continental United States in World War II. Ikuta Shrine, that present-day magnet for academic hopes and dreams, was erected in 1943 apparently to enshrine the souls of lab workers killed in research accidents.
The Asahi Shimbun covers claiming by sinking:
Philippines relies on ‘wreck’ to keep its outpost against China in Spratly Islands
A rusting World War II-era hulk is all that is stopping China from seizing a vital reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
The vessel is owned by the Philippine military and serves as the Philippines’ stronghold to counter China in the dispute. It was deliberately run aground on Ayungin Shoal, effectively putting many of the Spratlys under the control of the Philippines.
The 70-year-old dilapidated vessel, Sierra Madre, was built to land U.S. tanks. Now it is covered in holes and rust, and it is just a matter of time before it becomes a shipwreck proper.
From the Japan Times, challenging intolerance:
Korean resident of Japan sues Zaitokukai over hate speech, defamation
A South Korean resident of Japan on Monday filed a suit with the Osaka District Court seeking about ¥5.5 million in damages from an anti-Korean group and its chairman for emotional trauma inflicted by hate speech.
Freelance writer Lee Shin-hye, 43, said Zaitokukai Chairman Makoto Sakurai described her as “a Korean crone” on the Internet and also during right-wing campaigns between January last year and this July.
She claimed that his actions constituted race discrimination that insulted and defamed her.
From the Japan Times, media war:
Sankei Seoul bureau chief grilled over Park article
The Seoul bureau chief of the daily Sankei Shimbun appeared Monday at the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office after being summoned over the alleged defamation of President Park Geun-hye.
Tatsuya Kato arrived at around 11 a.m. and entered with a defense lawyer and translator. The questioning was expected to focus on whether an article written by Kato, 48, defamed Park. The office has issued a travel ban on Kato.
A conservative civic organization filed a defamation suit against the bureau on Aug. 9 for the article, which was carried in the online edition of the conservative daily on Aug. 3.
For our final item, via the Mainichi, Tweeting intolerance:
Sapporo city councilor in hot water for tweeting native Ainu people ‘don’t exist’
A city councilor here is under fire for an Aug. 11 Twitter post in which he declared that the native Ainu people “don’t exist anymore.”
“What Ainu people? They don’t exist anymore,” tweeted 43-year-old city councilor Yasuyuki Kaneko, a member of the Sapporo Municipal Assembly’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) contingent — the largest in the chamber. The comment has drawn intense criticism from local Ainu citizen groups, who called it “thoughtless.”
Kaneko, a first-term councilor from the city’s Higashi Ward, also tweeted, “Even if there are Ainu, they are no more than Japanese who are descended from Ainu,” and, “All they do is insist relentlessly on exercising their rights. It’s absurd, and I can’t explain it to the taxpayers.”
