And so very, very much more. . .
We begin with action on the domestic front from Reuters:
Marchers in Washington, New York, Boston protest police killings
Thousands marched in Washington, New York and Boston on Saturday to protest killings of unarmed black men by police officers.
Organizers said the marches were among the largest in the recent wave of protests against the killings of black males by officers in Ferguson, Missouri; New York; Cleveland; and elsewhere. The protests were peaceful, although police in Boston said they arrested 23 people who tried to block a highway.
Decisions by grand juries to return no indictments against the officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York have put police treatment of minorities back on the national agenda.
“We’re going to keep the light on Mike Brown … on all of the victims. The only way you make roaches run is to keep the light on,” said civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network organized the Washington rally.
The McClatchy Washington Bureau covers umbrage taken:
Police officers across U.S. upset at being seen as brutal racists
Police officers dispatched to investigate a 911 hang-up last week in an Idaho suburb were surprised by the reaction they got from the mother of the children who’d been playing with the phone.
“She said, ‘I’ve told my kids not to talk to you because you’re the people who kill us,’ “ recalled Tracy Basterrechea, deputy police chief in Meridian, Idaho, near Boise. The mother was Hispanic and her children African-American, he said.
Police in Meridian and other cities across the country are facing an angry backlash from the public after a series of police killings of unarmed African-Americans.
From United Press International, via the Department of Implausible Excuses:
Police officer disciplined for playing ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ at protest
The man who recorded “Sweet Home Alabama” coming from a Chicago police car at a protest said he knows some groups use it as “an anthem of Southern pride and those Confederate-type values.”
A Chicago police officer said he played “Sweet Home Alabama” at a weekend protest because he is a University of Alabama fan, the department said.
In a statement released Thursday, police officials said the officer faces disciplinary action. The Chicago Tribune said it was told by a source he will be suspended for 10 days if Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy approves the penalty.
Gabriel Michael, a Chicago resident who was at Sunday’s “Black lives matter” march, which protested the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York, heard the Lynyrd Skynyrd song coming from what appeared to be an unmarked police car. Michael said the car was in the midst of a group of police cars following the march.
Michael videotaped the car.
“Some of the lyrics in themselves aren’t racist … but I know it’s also been co-opted by groups, maybe bigoted groups, as an anthem of Southern pride and those Confederate-type values,” Michael told the Tribune. “That’s what was so jarring to me. To hear that playing from a police car at the end of a protest against police brutality and the murder of African-Americans, it was just jarring.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covers police injustice compensated:
Cobb County to pay $100K to woman arrested for ‘F-bombing’ cops
Cobb County is paying $100,000 to a woman who police arrested for shouting profanity to protest their actions.
Amy Elizabeth Barnes, a well-known political activist, sued in federal court saying the county violated her First Amendment rights and maliciously prosecuted her when it jailed her on charges of disorderly conduct and the use of abuse words to “incite an immediate breach of the peace.”
She had been shouting “Cobb police suck” and “(Expletive) the police” and raising her middle finger while riding her bicycle past two officers questioning an African-American man outside a convenience store on Easter Sunday 2012.
“Ms. Barnes’ comments to the police may have been offensive, but no one in the United States of America should be chased down and arrested for their free speech,” said lawyer Cynthia Counts, who represented Barnes in her civil and criminal litigation. “The officers argued that it was a bad neighborhood and you shouldn’t disrespect the police because it could create issues,” she added.
The Guardian again, with the cost of another case of overzealous policing:
New York woman wins $1.12m after arrest for snapping military base for website
Deputy sheriff allegedly said he wanted to make an example of ‘right-wingers’
Jailed for four days and misdemeanor trespass charge was dismissed
A New York woman who claimed she was falsely arrested outside an Air National Guard base for taking photographs for a “Support Our Troops” website has been awarded $1.12m in compensatory damages, her attorney said on Friday.
“What they took from this woman cannot be measured in money,” said prominent Long Island civil rights attorney Frederick Brewington. “There is no reason to treat another human the way they treated her.”
He said Suffolk County sheriff’s deputies humiliated Nancy Genovese after arresting her in July 2009 while she took photographs of a decorative helicopter on display outside the Gabreski Airport Air National Guard base in Westhampton Beach on eastern Long Island. A deputy sheriff allegedly said he would arrest her for terrorism to make an example of other “right-wingers”, according to Brewington.
From the the Los Angeles Times, oy vey:
San Diego council aide suspended for comments about protesters
A San Diego City Council member has suspended a staffer without pay for two weeks for referring to police-conduct protesters as idiots and suggesting – in jest – that she wanted to shoot them.
The comments were made after a council meeting Wednesday in which two dozen protesters indicated opposition to the decisions by grand juries in Ferguson, Mo., and New York not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men.
Children in the group wore black sweat shirts with the phrase: “Don’t Shoot.”
In the moments after the meeting, Shirley Owen, staff member to Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, reportedly told a friend that the protesters were “ … idiots” and “I wanted to shoot them.”
The McClatchy Washington Bureau poses a question:
Will police protests fade like tea party and Occupy?
Protesters may find they’ll have to channel their energy into community organizing or other non-traditional means rather than rely on the political process.
“People today see politicians as spinally challenged,” said South Carolina state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee’s Southern Caucus. “They know we ought not to see getting elected to office as the only way to change the system.”
That’s a big change from days past, making the legacy of today’s protests uncertain.
This much, though, is clear, said Shackelford: “These protests are making people think about change again.”
And from the Sacramento Bee, a look at a step in the right direction, not a panacea:
Stockton Police Department demonstrates body camera
Program notes
The Mobile Field Force Operation of the Stockton Police Department has equipped its officers with body cams for over a year now. Only two of the more than a dozen law enforcement agencies in the greater Sacramento area equip police with body cameras meant to record officers’ interactions with civilians. Andrew Seng/Aseng@sacbee.com
Drone scare from the London Telegraph:
Drones ‘could be used as flying bombs for terror attack on passenger jet’
Terrorists could “with impunity” fly multiple drones to take out passenger aircraft, a leading expert warns, following report into ‘near-miss’ at Heathrow Airport
Drones could be used as flying bombs by terrorists to take down a passenger aircraft, according to a leading expert, who called for improved security measures to deal with the “gaping hole” in the national defences.
Prof David H Dunn, of the University of Birmingham, said that jihadis could “with impunity” fly multiple remote-controlled unmanned aircraft into the engines of a jumbo jet, causing it crash.
Prof Dunn was speaking after it emerged that a drone flew within 20ft of an Airbus A320 as it landed at Heathrow Airport in July.
While SciDev.Net covers a drone boon:
View on Migration: Drone searches aid refugee rescues
Italy has cut its migrant search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean
A charity has been using drones to spot migrants in trouble and alert help
But even the Migrant Offshore Aid Station must fundraise to continue work
While Italy has scaled back its operations, a new NGO based in Malta has been assisting migrants with the help of cutting-edge technology: Schiebel camcopter drones. “We are using equipment for humanitarian reasons that — up to now — has been used almost exclusively by the military,” says Martin Xuereb, the NGO’s director.
The NGO, called the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), was launched last April by Christopher and Regina Catrambone, two entrepreneurs based in Malta who committed US$2.64 million of their own funds to the project. Since then, MOAS has been using the military grade camcopters to locate migrants in trouble on the sea, and then either alert the relevant authorities or dispatch its own rescue boats. So far 3,000 people — mainly Syrian and Eritrean asylum seekers — have received help from MOAS.
“We feel this is a global problem that should be addressed globally, and not only by nation-states or international organisations; we have a moral responsibility to ensure that nobody dies at sea,” Xuereb tells me.
A Scandinavian terror scare from TheLocal.dk:
Terror threat in Denmark has increased: PET
A new report from the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) says that the number of Danes fighting in Syria and Iraq has increased, as has the risk of a terror attack.
Using a small but significant change in language, domestic intelligence agency PET has warned of a greater risk of a terror attack in Denmark.
The latest threat level assessment from PET’s Center for Terror Analysis (CTA) states that “the terror threat against Denmark is serious, but the risk of being the victim of a terror attack in Denmark is limited”.
In CTA’s previous threat level assessment, the agency called the risk of a terror attack “very limited”.
Off to the war with BBC News:
‘Hundreds’ more UK troops to be sent to Iraq – Michael Fallon
Hundreds of British troops will be sent to Iraq in the New Year, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said.
The deployment – to help train local forces – will be in the “very low hundreds” but could also include a small protection force of combat-ready soldiers, he said. About 50 UK troops are already training Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence said the move had not yet been formally approved. An MoD spokesman said: “No decision on troop numbers, units or locations have yet been made”.
Weaponizing water with Homeland Security News Wire:
ISIS uses control of water as a tool of war
Global security analysts have warned for some time now that water scarcity due to climate change will be used as a tool of war in regions with poor government.
The on-going wars in Iraq and Syria provide the first examples of the strategic and tactical use of water as a tool of war, as militant groups operating in both countries have been using water against residents of areas they control. “ISIS has established a blueprint that can be used by other entities to take advantage of drought and water scarcity,” writes on researcher.
“For all the conversation about ISIS taking control of oil refineries, one could argue that their control of water is even more significant, as it deprives the population of a resource necessary for daily sustenance and gives the militant group significant leverage over local governments and populations.”
From the McClatchy Washington Bureau, treating us like mushrooms [kept in the dark and fed with bullshit]:
U.S. providing little information to judge progress against Islamic State
The American war against the Islamic State has become the most opaque conflict the United States has undertaken in more than two decades, a fight that’s so underreported that U.S. officials and their critics can make claims about progress, or lack thereof, with no definitive data available to refute or bolster their positions.
The result is that it’s unclear what impact more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iraq and Syria have had during the past four months. That confusion was on display at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing earlier this week, where the topic – “Countering ISIS: Are We Making Progress?” – proved to be a question without an answer.
“Although the administration notes that 60-plus countries having joined the anti-ISIS campaign, some key partners continue to perceive the administration’s strategy as misguided,” Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the committee’s chairman, said in his opening statement at the hearing, using a common acronym for the Islamic State. “Meanwhile, there are grave security consequences to allowing ISIS to control a territory of the size of western Iraq and eastern Syria.”
Messaging the media with the New York Times:
Online Trail Leads to Arrest of Indian as Man Behind Posts Backing Extremists
Police in Bangalore, India, arrested on Saturday the man accused of being behind @ShamiWitness, the Twitter handle of a fervent and widely followed English-language supporter of the Islamic State extremist group.
The authorities had been on the hunt for the man, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, since Channel 4 news in Britain broke the improbable story of a clean-shaven Indian executive who it said lived a double life: spending his hours off from his food company far from any Middle Eastern battlefield cheering on the Islamic States’ advances and trying to rally Muslims from around the world to its jihadi cause.
The police said Mr. Biswas, 24, would be charged with multiple offenses, including waging war against Asiatic states.
And on to torture, first with enablers in white coats from the Washington Post:
CIA report describes medical personnel’s intimate role in harsh interrogations
As the tempo of harsh CIA interrogation of terrorism suspects increased in early 2003, an agency medical officer observed to a colleague that their role of providing an “institutional conscience and the limiting factor” for the program had clearly changed.
Medical personnel, the officer wrote in an e-mail, were becoming “the ones who are dedicated to maximizing the benefit in a safe manner and keeping everyone’s butt out of trouble.”
As described in the Senate Intelligence Committee report released this week, CIA medical doctors, as well as psychologists, were intimately involved in virtually every interrogation session to a far greater extent than was previously known.
Oops! Where failures of intelligence andmorality meet, via the New York Times:
Amid Details on Torture, Data on 26 Who Were Held in Error
The Senate Democratic staff members who wrote the 6,000-page report counted 119 prisoners who had been in C.I.A. custody. Of those, the report found that 26 were either described in the agency’s own documents as mistakenly detained, or released and given money, evidence of the same thing.
The C.I.A. told the Senate in its formal response that the real number of wrongful detentions was “far fewer” than 26 but did not offer a number. Human rights advocates who have tracked the C.I.A. program believe that considerably more than 26 were wrongfully detained. Another Yemeni client of Ms. Satterthwaite, for instance, Mohammed al-Asad, was left out of the Senate’s count, even though he languished for months in C.I.A. prisons without being questioned, was sent home to Yemen and was never charged with a terrorism-related crime.
“The U.S. caused a great deal of suffering to people who posed no threat,” said Anne FitzGerald, director of research and crisis response at Amnesty International, who visited Yemen eight times to talk to Mr. Bashmilah, Mr. Asad and others who appeared to be former C.I.A. detainees. “International standards are there for a reason — they protect everyone.”
From the Hill, a damaging admission:
Bush attorney general says CIA overstepped legal guidance
Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that it appeared that the Central Intelligence Agency had overstepped Justice Department guidance offered by the agency on the use of harsh interrogation techniques.
“You know, we provided a guidance, and, you know, it was up to the CIA to comply with that guidance. As I started hearing about some of the items in the report, I became a little — I became troubled, because some of those things, some of what was being referenced appear beyond the guidance,” Gonzales said on NewsMaxTV’s “Steve Malzberg Show.
Gonzales was White House counsel when the Justice Department issued its memos on the CIA’s ability to use torture. He later became Attorney General.
He also said that the drone program — which President Obama has supported — was likely as damaging to America’s reputation abroad as waterboarding.
VICE News notes context:
CIA Torture Was No ‘Rash’ Mistake
This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed this with the release of its 500-page executive summary of its $40 million report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program: broken bones stood on, forced rectal feeding, near drowning. On it went, because no one wanted to be “that guy” who said “enough.” Anyone who did was crushed.
In the polemic and fictional world of Zero Dark Thirty — and in the minds of real-life politicians — this barbarism effectively served a dangerous political requirement to find the monster in the cave: Torturing bad guys would lead us to bin Laden. Of course, as the report found, torture did not actually lead us to that prize — but let’s imagine that by some unhappy accident, it did. Would we then rest easy with the fact that American agents systematically, and with ample funding and support, became torturers? Would it have been worthwhile to waterboard, and freeze, and beat, and so much more? All for an infamous corpse in Abbottabad, tossed out the chambers of the sea.
The answer is no. We play a dangerous game in decrying torture because it is ineffective and not because it is torture. We also, in focusing on the failure of CIA torture in getting results, give an easy pass to the recent historical context that birthed the interrogation program. The widespread use of torture was a vile consequence; the problem was a paranoid national security ideology that would, did, and does justify any violation of rights and liberties under the pretext of fighting terror. To hold itself accountable in any honest way, which it will not, the US must admit that it was wrong because it perpetrated crimes. But beyond that, the country must face the fact that after 9/11, it would have done anything — torture, and much more.
The Guardian covers Old Blighty blowback:
Britain convulsed by its dirty secret in wake of CIA torture report
Senate report on rendition contrasts with recalcitrant UK, whose judge-led inquiry was shut down by Cameron
In September 2005, on the day the Guardian published its first edition in the new Berliner format, the newspaper informed its readers that a fleet of CIA aircraft had been using the UK’s airports during the agency’s so-called extraordinary rendition operations.
Aircraft from the 26-strong fleet had flown into and out of the UK at least 210 times since 9/11, the newspaper reported, “an average of one flight a week”, refuelling at RAF bases and civilian airports that included Northolt, Heathrow, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Belfast and – the agency’s favourite destination – Prestwick.
“It is not a matter for the MoD,” one Ministry of Defence official told the newspaper. “The aircraft use our airfields. We don’t ask any questions.”
Since then, a handful of British parliamentarians, judges, human rights activists and journalists have dragged into the public domain one piece of damning evidence after another to construct an incomplete but nonetheless disturbing picture of the UK’s involvement in the global kidnap and torture programme that was launched immediately after 9/11.
Reuters covers the Polish case:
After U.S. torture report, Poland asks what its leaders knew
The disclosure of details about the CIA’s brutal interrogation program could provide new leads for Polish prosecutors investigating how much Poland’s leaders at the time knew about a secret jail the agency was running in a Polish forest.
Prompted by a U.S. Senate report on the CIA’s “black sites” for interrogating al Qaeda suspects, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, at a joint news conference with former Prime Minister Leszek Miller, said on Wednesday he knew about the facility in Poland.
He said the CIA had denied Polish officials access to the site, a villa on the grounds of a Polish intelligence training academy, so they did not know people inside were being tortured. He said that while he and Miller knew people were detained there, they were told the detainees were cooperating willingly with U.S. intelligence and would be treated as prisoners of war.
Lawyers for former detainees say however that even if the detainees were treated as prisoners of war – which the lawyers dispute – it is illegal to detain anyone in secret, and Poland had a legal obligation to prevent this happening.
And from MercoPress, trained by the masters:
US/UK trained Brazil military in torture techniques; British were particularly sophisticated
Officials from the United States and the United Kingdom spent years teaching members of the Brazilian military how to develop and improve their torture techniques during the country’s two-decade long dictatorship (1964/1985), it was confirmed this week by the National Truth Commission, CNV, report.
According to that document the Brazilian Armed Forces’ “systematic use of torture,” which concluded that more than 400 individuals, considered to have been “subversives”, were killed or disappeared by the state, received international training to that purpose.
In effect as part of Washington’s support for anti-Communist governments in Latin America, United States trained more than 300 military officers from Brazil at the notorious ‘School of the Americas’, based in Georgia, the report says. The officers received “theoretical and practical lessons on torture,” it adds, with the intention that they could “replicate” their ideas in Brazil.
The CNV reports also reveals that the UK government shared the anti-communist crusade, and also contributed knowledge on torture techniques in training sessions with Brazilians.
Yet another intel failure, via CNN:
2003 CIA cable casts doubt on claim linking Iraq to 9/11
A recently released CIA cable casts heavy doubt on a key claim used by the Bush administration to justify the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
It discounts intelligence that said Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 ringleaders, met with an Iraqi official in the Czech Republic a few months before the attacks.
The Bush administration — which maintained that Atta had met with Iraqi agent Ahmad al-Anian in Prague in April 2001 — had used the report to link the September 11 attacks to Iraq.
CIA Director John Brennan included a portion of the cable in a letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan. Levin, the retiring chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, made the letter public on Thursday.
The cable reads that “there is not one USG (counterterrorism) or FBI expert that…has said they have evidence or ‘know’ that (Atta) was indeed (in Prague). In fact, the analysis has been quite the opposite.”
In a 2001 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” then-Vice President Dick Cheney said, “It’s been pretty well confirmed that (Atta) did go to Prague, and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in (the Czech Republic) last April, several months before the attack.”
After the jump, new light coming on a mysterious death, Washington rescinds demands that reporters spill their sources, a European leak prosecution, Sweden ups defense spending in Cold War 2.0, another Russian close encounter in Swedish air space, Congress grants new powers to the NSA, a German court turns down a Snowden visit to Germany, Germany says no proof NSA tapped Merkel’s cell but Spiegel stands by their story, cell phone spy gear covers the capital, Google’s NSA response, the Army gets cyberwar serious while Homeland Security extends is cyberpowers, Canada claims a Chinese hack of its research agency, a claim that Iran hacked Sheldon Adelson casinos and claims Iran is busily hacking American firms and universities, a major hacking campaign targets Russia, a Murdoch editor cops to phone hacks, on to the Sony hack, first with an executive’s future clouded, how the Game of Zones forced a Seth Rogen reedit, a Bond script and studio anti-Google strategies leaked as well as sleazy Maureen Down promises, and Sony own DDOS attacks on computers hosting the leaks, protesting Spain’s draconian new anti-protest law, Google retreats from Russia, an Argentinian Dirty War mass grave revealed, mass protests shut down Karachi, Washington hopes for North Korean talks, Hong Kong Occupy final shutdown set for Monday while Beijing hints at stronger measures ahead, the ape of Nanjing commemorated, Obama pressure on Tokyo for talks with Seoul, challenged to Abe’s Japanese militarization turned back by court, A-bomb survivors question Manhattan Project National Park plans, and your camera shake can ID you like a fingerprint. . .
The Observer covers the long overdue:
Spy messages could finally solve mystery of UN chief’s death crash
US urged to hand over intercepts to establish truth of 1961 plane accident in Zambia in which Dag Hammarskjöld died
For more than half a century, the circumstances of the tragic death of Dag Hammarskjöld have been shrouded in mystery.
That the former UN secretary-general died in a plane crash while on his way to negotiate a ceasefire in the breakaway African republic of Katanga, is well documented. But the cause of the crash remains to be established.
That proof may become available if the US National Security Agency (NSA) complies with a new request from the UN and hands over crucial intelligence intercepts that could confirm what brought down the Albertina DC6 in a forest near Ndola in northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in September 1961. All but one on board died in the crash. A 16th passenger, Sergeant Harold Julien, the acting chief security officer, died as a result of injuries a few days later, having told medical staff he had seen “sparks in the sky” shortly before the crash.
Three separate inquiries have been unable to come to a definitive conclusion about what happened on the fateful night. Since then, conspiracy theorists have gone into overdrive, possibly with good cause. The day after the crash, former US president Harry Truman told reporters Hammarskjöld “was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’.” Truman refused to elaborate but this served only to fuel the rumour mill.
From the New York Times, a press-ing issue:
Holder Faces Another Decision on Forcing a Reporter to Testify
With Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. facing a deadline over whether to force a reporter for The New York Times to reveal his sources, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, has recommended that Mr. Holder approve a subpoena for another journalist, a reporter for CBS News.
Mr. Bharara wants to force Richard Bonin, a longtime producer for “60 Minutes,” to testify next month at a terrorism trial over bombings by Al Qaeda in 1998. One of the two defendants, Khaled al-Fawwaz, is accused of running Al Qaeda’s media office in London. Prosecutors want Mr. Bonin to discuss his dealings with the group’s media office in an unsuccessful effort to interview Osama bin Laden in 1998, officials and others briefed on the case said.
No subpoena has been issued, but the recommendation comes at a difficult time for Mr. Holder, who has faced criticism from free-press groups for repeatedly issuing subpoenas to journalists. He said recently that his biggest regret was his handling of a subpoena for James Rosen, a reporter for Fox News whom the Justice Department described as a criminal co-conspirator for talking to a government official about classified information. Criticism over that case and others prompted the Justice Department to rewrite its rules for issuing subpoenas to journalists.
And a reporter reprieved, via the Hill:
Holder won’t force NYT reporter to reveal source
Attorney General Eric Holder has decided against compelling a New York Times reporter to reveal a confidential source, NBC News reported Friday night.
The government has for years been seeking the testimony of Times reporter James Risen in the trial of a former CIA official accused of leaking information.
In a book, Risen revealed that the CIA had attempted to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. Prosecutors believe that information came from the official on trial.
A federal judge said earlier this week that prosecutors had until next Tuesday to decide whether to legally demand that Risen name his source.
The Guardian covers a European leak prosecution:
Luxembourg judge brings theft and trade secrecy charges
Charges against unnamed individual follow publication of journalistic investigation and PricewaterhouseCoopers complaint
An investigating judge in Luxembourg has charged an unnamed individual with theft and other criminal offences after a complaint was brought by PricewaterhouseCoopers in the wake of a leak of hundreds of confidential tax deals exposing avoidance by multinational corporations.
Last month journalistic investigations into PwC tax deals were published by the Guardian and more than 20 media organisations around the world linked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, sparking an international scandal that continues to threaten the position of the new European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
Juncker stepped down as prime minister of Luxembourg last year after almost two decades at the helm, dominating politics, setting tax policy and aggressively courting investment from multinationals.
Sweden ups defense spending in Cold War 2.0, via TheLocal.se:
Assertive Russia causes Swedish military rethink
With an assertive Russia next door, Sweden has started to beef up its military after a decade of downsizing, but a credible deterrent may take years to achieve, analysts warn.
In one of Sweden’s most dramatic steps since the end of the Cold War, it has brought back the option of using reservists to boost its military force, making no attempt to hide the fact that the main motivation behind the move is Russia.
Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist went on TV this week to argue the move was necessary against the backdrop of Russia’s rearmament and its annexation of Crimea, as well as the Ukrainian conflict.
The decision also came just two months after Sweden got a rough wake-up call in the form of a lengthy but ultimately futile submarine hunt in the Stockholm archipelago.
Another Russian close encounter in Swedish air space, via USA Today:
Sweden: Russian aircraft nearly collides with passenger jet
For the second time this year, a Russian military aircraft turned off its transponders to avoid commercial radar and nearly collided with a passenger jet over Sweden, officials said Saturday.
“This is serious. This is inappropriate. This is outright dangerous when you turn off the transponder,” Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said on Swedish radio.
Officials at Russia’s Ministry of Defense in Moscow were not immediately available to comment Saturday.
Congress grants new powers to the NSA, via Nextgov:
Congress Quietly Bolsters NSA Spying in Intelligence Bill
Congress this week quietly passed a bill that may give unprecedented legal authority to the government’s warrantless surveillance powers, despite a last-minute effort by Rep. Justin Amash to kill the bill.
Amash staged an aggressive eleventh-hour rally Wednesday night to block passage of the Intelligence Authorization Act, which will fund intelligence agencies for the next fiscal year. The Michigan Republican sounded alarms over recently amended language in the package that he said will for the first time give congressional backing to a controversial Reagan-era decree granting broad surveillance authority to the president.
The 47-page intelligence bill was headed toward a voice vote when Amash rose to the House floor to ask for a roll call. Despite his efforts—which included a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to all members of the House urging a no vote—the bill passed 325-100, with 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans opposing.
A German court turns down a Snowden visit to Germany, via the Guardian:
Court rejects attempt to allow Edward Snowden into Germany
Opposition parties wanted Snowden to give evidence in person to a parliamentary committee investigating NSA espionage
Attempts by opposition parties in Germany to bring Edward Snowden to Berlin to give evidence about the NSA’s operations have been thwarted by the country’s highest court.
The Green and Left parties wanted the whistleblower to give evidence in person to a parliamentary committee investigating espionage by the US agency, but Germany’s constitutional court ruled against them on Friday.
The government has argued that Snowden’s presence in Germany could impair relations with the US and put it under pressure to extradite him.
It has suggested sending the committee – which consists of eight MPs – to interview him in Moscow, where Snowden is living in exile. Snowden has said through a lawyer that he is prepared to speak to the panel only if permitted to do so in Germany.
Germany says no proof NSA tapped Merkel’s cell, via the New York Times:
Germany: No Proof Found So Far That U.S. Tapped Merkel’s Phone
Germany’s top public prosecutor said an investigation into whether Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone had been tapped by American spies had so far failed to find any concrete evidence.
A former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, has said that Washington carried out electronic espionage in Germany. The prosecutor, Harald Range, began an investigation in June.
On Wednesday, Mr. Range said, “There is no proof at the moment which could lead to charges that Chancellor Merkel’s phone connection data was collected or her calls tapped.” The investigation is continuing.
Spiegel sticks to its guns:
NSA Spying Scandal: SPIEGEL Stands Behind Merkel Cell Phone Spying Report
In 2013, SPIEGEL reported on the tapping of chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone by the NSA. Now the case is back in the news following the German federal prosecutor’s efforts to publicly undermine SPIEGEL’s credibility.
In June, German Federal Prosecutor Harald Range opened an official investigation into allegations the NSA spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. So far, though, he hasn’t made much progress.
The US signals intelligence agency has ignored all questions submitted by Range’s investigative authority. And Germany’s own foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), hasn’t provided any further assistance.
SPIEGEL first drew the German government’s attention to the actions in the autumn of 2013 when it reported on information from an NSA database entry about the tapping of Merkel’s phone. “That’s why I asked the reporters at SPIEGEL to answer questions about the document or to provide it to us. But the newsmagazine, citing the right of the press to refuse to give evidence, did not comply”, the federal prosecutor said during his annual press conference in Karlsruhe on Thursday. He seemed frustrated.
In his statement, Range insinuated that “the document that has been perceived by the public as proof of the actual tapping of the mobile telephone is not actually an authentic NSA order for signals intelligence.” He also claimed it didn’t come from an NSA database. “A SPIEGEL editor produced it himself, stating it was based on an NSA document which had been seen.”
Cell phone spy gear covers the capital, via TheLocal.no:
Revealed: spy equipment in central Oslo
Spy equipment that can be used to eavesdrop on the mobile phones of politicians and ordinary Norwegians has been discovered in several places in the Oslo area, including close to the country’s parliament, newspaper Aftenposten has revealed.
The equipment, hidden in fake mobile base stations, can be used to monitor all mobile activity in the vicinity. The paper conducted tests close important buildings in central Oslo and discovered a number of the devices, including close to the prime minister’s residence on Parkveien and close to the government offices.
The purpose of the equipment appears to have been to find out who was entering and passing parliament, the government offices and other buildings in the area. It could also be used to listen to phone calls and monitor data traffic of selected people in the area, the paper says.
It is not known who placed the equipment, according to the paper, but no Norwegian agency has admitted to being responsible. Only the police, security police and the National Security Agency (NSM) are entitled to use eavesdropping equipment under Norwegian law.
From Network World, Google’s NSA response:
Schmidt: NSA revelations forced Google to lock down data
Google has worked hard to lock down the personal data it collects since revelations in the last year and a half about mass surveillance programs at the U.S. National Security Agency, company Chairman Eric Schmidt said.
The news of surveillance by the NSA and intelligence agency counterparts at allied nations has damaged the U.S. tech industry on “many levels,” with many Europeans now distrusting U.S. tech companies to hold on to their personal data, Schmidt said Friday at a surveillance conference at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Schmidt learned of efforts by U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ to intercept traffic between Google data centers through a newspaper article, he told the audience. “I was shocked,” Schmidt said.
The Army gets cyberwar serious, via Public Radio International:
The Army is getting serious about cyberwarfare
The Army established a branch for cyberwarfare just weeks ago, giving these soldiers the same status as traditional fields like infantry or artillery. And at Fort Gordon, Georgia, the new home of that branch, things are ramping up.
“The last time the Army did this was with Special Forces, 27 or 28 years ago,” says Col. Jennifer Buckner, the first commander of the Army’s new Cyber School, which will soon take over training the Army’s future cyber warriors. “So this is kind of a big deal for the Army, and we’re really the only branch of the service that is approaching it this way.”
“Our cyber force is in the fight every single day,” Buckner says. Networks are running all the time, and hackers — some backed and trained by major powers like China and Russia — are always looking for vulnerabilities. “They probably go home every day, and so it’s a little deceiving. But yet, they are are in a fight on our networks every single day.”
Another cyberpower grab from Nextgov:
Congress Strengthens Homeland Security’s Cyber Role with FISMA Reform, Other Bills
Lawmakers have sent a raft of cyber legislation to President Barack Obama’s desk, breaking through a six-year logjam. No doubt congressional action was spurred on by escalating intrusions into government and contractor networks.
In a move backed by the White House, but not necessarily all Pentagon hawks, each of the measures positions the Department of Homeland Security as head of governmentwide cyber operations.
Since 2002 – when only purported Nigerian royalty sent malicious emails – agencies have had to compile an annual booklet of checklists self-certifying systems are accounted for and secure. Various proposals to mandate real-time monitoring have had strong bipartisan support — but not much urgency.
Canada claims a Chinese hack of its research agency, via CBC News:
Chinese hackers installed malware on National Research Council computers
Council carries out advanced research in aerospace, health, mining and physics
Chinese hackers used tempting emails, malware and password theft to worm their way into National Research Council computers in pursuit of valuable scientific and trade secrets, a newly released federal analysis reveals.
The attack, which prompted a shutdown of the government research council’s computer network in July, relied on textbook moves commonly seen in state-sponsored digital assaults, says the case study by the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre.
Highly skilled perpetrators used complex techniques to infiltrate the council and “establish a foothold” within its networks, says the study, released under the Access to Information Act.
Portions of the document remain secret because they deal with computer-system vulnerabilities or methods used to protect networks.
Hacking Sheldon, via TechWorm :
Biggest Las Vegas Casino Network hacked by Iranian Hackers
Iranian hackers used a 150 line code to wipe out the entire network of Sands Corp
All that majority share owner of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. did was to call upon United States to nuke Iran to stop its nuclear program and what he got in return would become the worst nightmare for him, his company and other stakeholders.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. is a casino operating company, which operates some of the biggest casinos in the world on Las Vegas Strip like Sands, Venetian, and Palazzo hotels and casinos. And Sheldon Adelson owns 52 percent of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and a Israeli resident. In October, 2013, while making a appearance on a panel at the Manhattan campus of Yeshiva University, he called for a nuclear attack on Iran to get the country to abandon its own nuclear program according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
“What I would do,” he said during the panel, rather than negotiating, “would be to say, ‘Do you see that desert over there? I want to show you something.’ You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say ‘Ok let it go.’…Then you say, ‘See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.” In reply to Sheldon’s speech, the Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked the US government to “slap these prating people in the mouth and crush their mouths,” in a fiery speech.
And claims Iran is busily hacking American firms and universities, via the London Daily Mail:
Iranian hackers planning attack on U.S. energy firms and universities, FBI warns
Confidential safety document warns businesses to watch out for hack
FBI identifies two IP addresses in Iran where attack will likely come from
Comes after report last week found same addresses targeted 50 countries
Latest document suggests situation is more widespread than they thought
The FBI has warned U.S. businesses to be on the alert for a sophisticated Iranian hacking operation whose targets include defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, a confidential agency document reveals.
The operation is the same as one flagged last week by cyber security firm Cylance Inc as targeting critical infrastructure organizations worldwide, cyber security experts said.
Cylance has said it uncovered more than 50 victims from what it dubbed Operation Cleaver, in 16 countries, including the United States.
And Russia targeted, via RT:
Russia targeted by another large-scale cyber espionage campaign – Kaspersky Lab
Russian companies in oil, finance, military, and other sectors – as well as the country’s embassies abroad – have become the primary targets of a new espionage campaign, labeled ‘Cloud Atlas’ by global information security powerhouse Kaspersky Lab.
Enterprises in Belarus and Kazakhstan – which are Russia’s partners in the Eurasian Custom Union – are also affected. Another major target of the campaign is India, the Moscow-based company said.
According to Kaspersky Lab, Cloud Atlas infects corporate computers via RTF (Rich Text Format) files attached to emails.
A Murdoch editor cops to phone hacks, via the Guardian:
NoW’s former features editor faces jail after pleading guilty to phone hacking
Jules Stenson admits at Old Bailey overseeing a four-year long hacking operation
The former features editor at the News of the World is facing a jail sentence after he admitted overseeing four years of phone hacking. Jules Stenson pleaded guilty to involvement in what the prosecution has called “industrial-scale hacking” operation at the News International newspaper under disgraced editor Andy Coulson between 2003 and 2007. The 48-year-old, from Wandsworth, south London, will be sentenced on a date to be fixed next year.
The paper’s former deputy editor Neil Wallis, 63, pleaded not guilty to the same allegation at the Old Bailey on Friday and was given unconditional bail. He awaits a six-week trial on 3 June next year.
The pair were the first to be charged under the Metropolitan police’s Operation Pinetree, an investigation into allegations of phone hacking at the features desk that stemmed from the Operation Weeting inquiry that led to the conviction of Coulson earlier this year. The Weeting conspiracy involved Coulson, news desk executives Greg Miskiw, James Weatherup, Neville Thurlbeck and Ian Edmondson, features reporter Dan Evans, and private detective Glenn Mulcaire, all of whom were either found guilty or pleaded guilty to being involved in hacking on the paper.
And on to the Sony hack, first with an executive’s future clouded, via the Washington Post:
Sony’s Amy Pascal’s future in Hollywood in doubt following disastrous e-mail hack
It remains unclear what the full scope of the damage will be to both Sony and Pascal. Some analysts said the drama may actually boost box office numbers for “The Interview,” the North Korea-focused movie that some news reports claim spurred the hacks. But no one’s saying this will help Pascal, who has now come under the greatest scrutiny of her otherwise meteoric career. The embarrassment comes at a particularly delicate moment for the executive. Pascal’s contract with Sony expires in 2015, heightening doubts over her future with the company, if not in the industry.
This being Hollywood, there’s no shortage of opinion. “Typically, somebody senior’s head rolls when there is a hacking scandal, and the embarrassing e-mail disclosures just help determine who that is going to be in this case,” Laura Martin, senior media analyst at Needham & Co., told the Los Angeles Times. “If she becomes the weak link because people believe she can’t actually work in the business, it’s just, OK, now we know who it is going to be. None of it is particularly fair, but if somebody’s head has to roll, they are looking for the path of least resistance.”
And for Sony, which has endured a string of humiliating hacking scandals, Pascal has become its most exposed employee. Writing in Deadline, columnist Mike Fleming thinks the drama could knock her from her Sony position. “Is it possible their track records for quality, thoughtful films and collaborations with top talent can be set aside and that Rudin and Pascal could be tarred and defined by momentary lapses and poor attempts at humor that paint them as being racially insensitive?” he asked on Thursday. “How long before Sony’s unwillingness to hit back … topples this regime?”
How the Game of Zones forced a Seth Rogen reedit, via the Guardian:
Seth Rogen forced to tone down key Kim Jong-un scene in The Interview
Sony’s Japanese CEO demanded – and won – concessions that scenes featuring Kim Jong-un were cut
Seth Rogen was forced to tone down a Kim Jong-un death scene for his new comedy The Interview following a personal intervention by the Japanese head of Sony’s parent company, according to hacked emails.
Studio boss Amy Pascal relayed a series of requests to Rogen from Kazuo Hirai, chief executive officer of Sony Corp. The actor and director, whose movie centres on a farcical US plot to assassinate the North Korean leader, was reluctant to agree to edits but eventually bowed in the face of extreme corporate pressure.
“This is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy,” he complained, in an email dated 15 August. “That is a very damning story.”
But Rogen later emailed to confirm he had removed some gory details, including “flaming hair” and a wave of “head chunks” from a scene in which Kim Jong-un’s head explodes after being struck by a tank shell.
Pascal pointed out that she had not previously received a single word of direction from Sony’s corporate parent company in the 25 years she had worked for the studio. “This isn’t some flunky. It’s the chairman of the entire Sony Corporation who I am dealing (with),” she said. “I haven’t the foggiest notion how to deal with Japanese politics as it relates to Korea so all I can do is make sure that Sony won’t be put in a bad situation, and even that is subjective.”
From the London Daily Mail, a Bond script leaked:
Now Bond falls victim to Sony hackers: Leaked script reveal the bitter arguments over $300million movie’s lackluster ending
The script for the upcoming James Bond film Spectre has been leaked in the Sony hack
The $300million film is in production now, even though executives seem to have numerous problems with the script
It is now known how the film will end and the characters each actor will be portraying
Set to be released on November 6, 2015, the movie will film in London, Mexico City, Rome and Tangier and Erfoud in Morocco. Also included are such Austrian towns as Obertilliach, Lake Altaussee and Sölden, centering around Bond’s quest to uncover a sinister organisation after receiving a cryptic message from his past.
And now, as a result of this leak, it is known exactly what will happen and what characters the new actors will be playing.
Sony anti-Google leakage, from RT:
Project Goliath: Sony leaks reveal alleged MPAA plot against Google
Emails found by the Verge in Sony’s hacked data show that the company and other Hollywood execs were planning to attack Google, gathering a $500,000 fund for legal action against the corporation.
A series of emails by one of the MPAA’s (the Motion Picture Association of America) top lawyers, Steven Fabrizio, and six major Hollywood studios – Universal, Sony, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., and Disney – indicate they have teamed up against “Goliath”, their adversary in the online piracy battle.
The plan, started in January, involved major studios donating money to a special $500,000 annual legal support fund. The executives debated legal and technically advanced tools to block pirated content.
Top Hollywood bosses talk about “the problems created by Goliath” and the need to “respond to/rebut Goliath’s public advocacy” and “amplify negative Goliath news.”
Sleazy Maureen Down promises included, via the London Daily Mail:
Hackers reveal how New York Times’ Maureen Dowd promised to make her friend and Sony chairman Amy Pascal ‘look great’ in article that ‘impressed’ staff back at Sony
New emails released in the Sony hack reveal that Amy Pascal was promised favorable coverage in a New York Times column
Writer Maureen Dowd said Pascal would look ‘great’ in a piece about women in Hollywood which she wanted to interview the studio head for
Pascal’s husband Bernie Weinraub also reveals that he was able to look at the column before it was published
Dowd said in a statement that she did not allow Weinraub to see the column before it was published
This as Pascal has issued an apology for her ‘insensitive’ remarks in a racist email exchange with producer Scott Rudin about President Barack Obama
Pascal also gave an interview saying she does not believe her job is in jeopardy over these leaked emails
Re/code covers Sony’s own cyberwar:
Sony Pictures Tries to Disrupt Downloads of Its Stolen Files
Sony Pictures Entertainment is fighting back.
The studio behind the “Spider-Man” franchise and “The Social Network” has taken technological countermeasures to disrupt downloads of its most sensitive information, which was exposed when a hacking attack crippled its systems in late November.
The company is using hundreds of computers in Asia to execute what’s known as a denial of service attack on sites where its pilfered data is available, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Sony is using Amazon Web Services, the Internet retailer’s cloud computing unit, which operates data centers in Tokyo and Singapore, to carr