And so much more — including a Saudi snowman fatwa. . .
We begin with the ironic from BBC News:
US Centcom Twitter account ‘hacked by Islamic State’
US Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts have been hacked by a group claiming to back Islamic State.
One message said: “American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back.” It was signed by Isis, another name for the Islamic State. Some internal military documents also appeared on the Centcom Twitter feed.
US Centcom said it was taking “appropriate measures”. The Twitter account was later taken down so no tweets could be viewed. The hack happened as President Barack Obama was preparing a major speech on cybersecurity.
A video report from CBC’s The National:
White House responds to Central Command Twitter Hack
Program notes:
The White House press secretary Josh Earnest responds to hacking of U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account
And from the Hill, on the job:
FBI investigating ‘ISIS’ hack of military accounts
The FBI is looking into the hacking attack against U.S. Central Command (Centcom) that the perpetrators claimed was done on behalf of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS).
“The FBI is investigating the recent intrusion involving CENTCOM social media accounts and continues to work with the Department of Defense in order to determine the nature and scope of this incident,” the agency said in a statement.
The hacking began Monday afternoon and lasted for approximately 30 minutes. Messages in support of ISIS began appearing on the Central Command Twitter account, along with threats to U.S. forces and their families.
National Journal covers the one seemingly bright spot:
Pentagon: Hackers Didn’t Get Classified Information
Military Twitter and YouTube accounts were hijacked just as Obama was pushing for better cybersecurity
Monday’s hack of Twitter and YouTube accounts belonging to U.S. Central Command was embarrassing, but it doesn’t appear to have compromised any classified information.
“CENTCOM’s operational military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command,” said Navy Commander Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Smith said the military is viewing the incident “purely as a case of cybervandalism.” But, she said, the Pentagon has notified law enforcement about “the potential release of personally identifiable information.”
On to the Paris attacks, starting with this from USA Today:
DHS steps up security following Paris attacks
Homeland Security officials said Monday they have stepped up security at federal buildings and enhanced security screenings at airports in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson described the measures as “precautionary.”
“We have no specific, credible intelligence of an attack of the kind in Paris last week being planned by terrorist organizations in this country,” he said in a statement.
Johnson did not elaborate on the security measures, saying only that the Federal Protective Service would “enhance its presence and security at various U.S. Government buildings” in Washington and other cities around the country.
The Christian Science Monitor has more:
Police on high alert after renewed threats from Islamic State
Security experts are concerned that the recent attacks in France may inspire copycat attacks in the US and elsewhere. Some officials aren’t convinced that the Islamic State threat is now worse, although others see potential risks.
Law enforcement officials across the United States are on heightened alert Monday after a September 2014 message from the Islamic State (IS) was rereleased, telling followers to “rise up and kill intelligence officers, police officers, soldiers, and civilians.” The threat called for attacks against the US, France, Australia, and Canada.
Security experts are now concerned that the recent attacks in France by those who include at least one self-proclaimed IS supporter may inspire copycat attacks. Since last week’s attacks in Paris against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, police officers, and a kosher grocery store, IS supporters have taken advantage of the fervor to encourage further violence.
But while the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security issued bulletins requesting that law enforcement and military personnel throughout the US remain especially alert, some officials aren’t convinced the threat is now worse.
From the Associated Press, a Turkish tweak:
Erdogan jabs French intelligence over surveillance
Turkey’s president is asking why two of the gunmen in last week’s terror attacks in France were not monitored more closely after being released from prison.
At a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked “Doesn’t the intelligence service there follow those who have been released?”
Two of the gunmen in the Paris attacks, Amed Coulibaly and Sherif Kouachi, had served prison sentences.
Erdogan’s comments come as Turkey faces questions about how the common law wife of one of the perpetrators passed through Turkey shortly before the attacks and later crossed into Syria.
More from BBC News:
Paris suspect Hayat Boumeddiene ‘caught on Turkey CCTV’
Newly-released CCTV footage appears to show the partner of Paris supermarket attacker Amedy Coulibaly arriving at an Istanbul airport in Turkey.
The video purports to show Hayat Boumeddiene passing through passport control with another man on 2 January. She is thought to now be in Syria.
French police are seeking her after Coulibaly and two other gunmen launched deadly attacks on Paris last week.
The Turkish foreign minister said she arrived in Turkey on 2 January from Madrid, before continuing to Syria six days later.
From Sky News, keeping the heat up:
French Police: Six Terrorists ‘Still At Large’
Security forces in France say they are still hunting members of a group behind the deadly Paris terror attacks
Up to six terror cell members may still be at large after the Paris attacks in which 17 people were murdered, French police have warned.
One of them has been spotted driving a car registered to the partner of one of the dead attackers, according to the authorities.
Police officials said a search was being carried out of the Paris area for the Mini Cooper car registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, the girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, who gunned down a police officer before killing four people in a Jewish supermarket last Friday.
From the New York Times, troops on the march:
France to Deploy Thousands of Troops to Protect Jewish Schools and ‘Sensitive Sites’
Confronting a nation in shock from last week’s terrorist attacks, the French authorities on Monday began to unveil a broad array of measures to send thousands of soldiers and police officers to guard Jewish schools and other sites, reinforce electronic surveillance and reach into schools and prisons that have a reputation as crucibles of jihadist recruitment.
The display of muscle by a government likely to face mounting questions about its failure to prevent the killings recalled the mood in the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the authorities embarked on a broad front of measures to tighten security and provide legislation for more intrusive surveillance.
The French response played into an emerging and potentially divisive debate across Europe that pits civil liberties campaigners against the demands of security officials who cite the attacks as evidence of an urgent need to introduce stronger powers to monitor suspects. And it comes as a time when the United States is engaged in intense soul-searching, touched off in part by the release of a searing Senate report on the torture of terrorism suspects, over whether it turned itself into a garrison state after Sept. 11, 2001.
While other sites are under attack, via TheLocal.fr:
France sees dozens of anti-Muslim incidents
There have been over 50 anti-Muslim incidents reported in France since Islamic terrorists opened fire on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the Central Council of Muslims in France has revealed.
The incidents included 21 reports of shooting at Islamic buildings and the throwing of some form of grenades, and 33 threats, a spokesman for the monitoring body at the Central Council of Muslims in France said.
Such a reprisal was “predictable”, said Samy Debah, the president of the president of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF).
“The reality of discrimination is catching up with us,” he told The Local on Monday.
From the Times of India, that ol’ collective guilt chestnut so beloved of bigots:
Muslims have ‘special burden’ to track down Islamist extremists, UK’s David Cameron says
David Cameron has said that Muslims have a “special burden” to track down Islamist extremists.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman confirmed Cameron agreed with culture secretary Sajid Javid who on Sunday had said it was “absolutely fair to say that there is a special burden on Muslim communities because, whether we like it or not, these terrorists call themselves Muslims.”
Speaking on Radio 5 Live, Javid added that it was “lazy” and “wrong” to say that France’s terror attacks had nothing to do with Muslims.
Cameron’s spokesman said: “He would agree with the points that the secretary of state for culture, media and sport was making.”
While Al Jazeera America points to a source of woes:
French prisons again singled out as breeding grounds for extremism
The background of suspects in last week’s killings is a reminder that radicalization sometimes begins behind bars
Karim Mokhtari, a French-born civil rights activist, was 18 when he was sent to jail in the city of Amiens, south of Paris, in 1996. Fellow inmates, who described themselves as Salafists — adherents of an austere version of Islam shared by many in extremist movements — quickly approached him. He admired their inner strength and resilience, and under their guidance, Mokhtari converted to Islam.
Before the group’s spiritual leader was transferred to another institution, he urged Mokhtari to “fight for Islam” upon his release, as Mokhtari recalled. This, he was told, would involve traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan for military training.
“I had had enough of violence, and he was proposing more violence,” said Mokhtari. “I was able to say no, unlike many others.”
After the jump, U.N. calls an anti-Semitism summit. Netanyahu capitalizes on the Paris tragedy as a snap election nears, a British re-enactment of the Paris slaughter, Cameron calls for enhanced spooky powers, elevating the Nordic terror alerts, a German security update, putting the shootings in another context, Charlie Hebdo returns with you-know-who on the cover, anti-Muslim protesters turn out in Germany while their Swiss counterparts plan a rally of their own, a neo-Nazi murder trial continues in Germany, another blow to the Schengen agreement, secret NSA/FBI dealings exposed, Dutch government sued over data-hoarding, Obama outlines privacy and secrecy proposals, the latest commercial spyware keystroke bandit, more corrupt dealings allege at the L.A. Sheriff’s Department, cops behaving badly in Brazil and wiretapping charges hit Panamanian spooks, Albuquerque cops charges in homeless man’s killing, and those lethal flashbangs cops are so eager to use, CIA now want a notable New York Times reporter to shut up, then on to the war with a Sweden presence justified and some of their foes come from Europe as well, a Kerry Pakistani sit-down, Chinese cops kill Muslim bombers in Xinjiang and reassurances from above, Seoul makes another Comfort Women appeal to Tokyo, plus a Saudi snowman fatwa. . .
A new summit on an old problem from the Associated Press:
UN to hold meeting Jan. 22 on growth of anti-Semitism
The U.N. General Assembly will hold an informal meeting on the growth of anti-Semitism on Jan. 22 in response to a request from dozens of nations, including Israel, the United States and all European Union members.
The 37 countries sent a letter to assembly President Sam Kutesa on Oct. 1 calling for a meeting in response to “an alarming outbreak of anti-Semitism worldwide.” That was well before last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said Monday: “We have a great deal of work to do to move this issue from the headlines to the history books.”
Reuters covers political showboating:
Netanyahu out of step with French leaders at Paris rally
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to ruffle a few feathers while taking part in the “Charlie Hebdo” rally in Paris on Sunday, an event his office initially said he would not be attending for security reasons.
Perhaps most awkward was his invitation to French Jews — alarmed by the Paris attacks and the killing of four people at a kosher supermarket — to migrate to Israel if they wanted, leaving French Prime Minister Manuel Valls scrambling to reassure the community it was safe and an integral part of France.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the head of the European Jewish Association, was particularly stern, saying Aliyah — the process of Jews migrating to Israel — was not the answer to everything, even if it was an important policy for the state of Israel.
More from BuzzFeed News:
Israeli Prime Minister Receives Warm Welcome At Site Of Kosher Market Tragedy In Paris
Benjamin Netanyahu, facing an election in two months, made the visit after reports that his French counterpart had not wanted him to attend
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu received an emotional welcome on Monday from French Jews gathered outside the kosher market where four were killed in a siege last week.
Netanyahu visited the Hyper Cacher market in eastern Paris early Monday afternoon, three days after the attack, and was greeted by a crowd of people, some waving or wrapped in Israeli flags. The crowd, standing behind security barriers, chanted “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The nation of Israel lives”) and “Shalom Aleichem” (“Peace be with you”), as well as “La Marseillaise,” France’s national anthem, several times. They also chanted Netanyahu’s nickname, Bibi, over and over.
Netanyahu has been criticized by some in Israel for his trip to Paris, where he appeared with world leaders at a unity rally Sunday and spoke at the Grand Synagogue of Paris that evening with French President François Hollande. Hollande had reportedly asked Netanyahu not to come to Paris, over concerns his presence would divert attention from the unity rally. The French were also concerned, Haaretz reported, that Netanyahu — who faces a snap election in March — would use the visit as a campaign event. The French were reportedly peeved that the Israeli entourage was so large.
From the London Telegraph, a British re-enactment of the Paris slaughter:
Paris attacks: British counter-terrorism officers to re-enact Charlie Hebdo massacre
British police and security chiefs to rehearse ‘specific elements’ of Paris attack in counter-terrorism drills
British police and military will re-enact the Paris attack in a series of counter-terrorism drills, Downing Street announced this morning.
Counter-terrorism officers will replicate “specific elements of the Paris attack” in rehearsals for a terrorist outrage in Britain, Number 10 said.
The Prime Minister this morning met security, intelligence and policing chiefs to assess the risk to Britain of an attack similar to that against Charlie Hebdo.
Mr Cameron ordered the police and Armed Forces to co-operate closely “to ensure that the police can call on appropriate military assistance when required”.
From the Guardian, Cameron calls for enhanced spooky powers:
UK spy agencies need more powers, says Cameron
In wake of Paris attacks, intelligence agencies need more access to the contents of communications , PM says
Britain’s spying agencies need more powers to read the contents of communications in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, David Cameron has said.
The prime minister’s comments suggest a Conservative government would bring in new intercept legislation in 2016 to make sure there is no form of communication that cannot be requested with a warrant signed by the home secretary.
This goes further than his separate plans to revive the communications data bill, known by its critics as the snooper’s charter, which was killed off by the Liberal Democrats last year.
Elevating the Nordic terror alerts, via TheLocal.no:
Threat against Denmark and Norway reported
In the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris, a French website reportedly carried a warning that Denmark and Norway would be next.
Norwegian security police are investigating a terror threat against Denmark and Norway that was posted on a French website.
Norway’s TV2 reported over the weekend that Norwegian officials are trying to determine the legitimacy of a post on a French site that stated that Denmark and Norway are the next targets for terrorists.
A German security update from Deutsche Welle:
Security situation in Germany ‘constantly serious’
After the attacks in France, security authorities in Germany are on high alert. Politicians are talking about new measures to implement, but some are highly contentious.
Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas from the Social Democrats (SPD) said he’d present new laws on fighting terrorism to the Cabinet as early as this month. The focus will be on two measures in particular: punishing those who provide financial support to terrorist organizations, and prosecuting Islamists who travel to the Mideast to join the jihad or “holy war.”
The latter would include “those who train at terror camps in Syria,” Maas said to German daily “Bild” on Monday.
Politicians in Germany have discussed how to stop the dangerous trend of Germans traveling to Syria or Iraq to fight with the jihadist group “Islamic State” (IS) for a while now.
“The returnees are the greatest danger to this country,” Bosbach, head of the Bundestag Committee of the Interior, said, referring to Islamic fighters who have been trained to kill coming back to Germany.
Spiegel covers a related story:
Keeping Its Composure: Germany Seeks Calm after French Attack
The German government is trying to address the French terror attacks with a sense of calm, with no plans for new terror laws. However, fears are growing that the massacre will boost a disturbing anti-Muslim current in the country.
“Keep a cool head.” It’s something many politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition government — comprised of her CDU and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — are now saying, partly to calm themselves. It is up to them and the media to show that they can keep Islam and Islamism separate in their rhetoric and actions, even under great pressure. If they do not succeed, Germany could change. Suspicion could proliferate against all things Muslim and corrode society. Our society’s openness is its strength, but so is its internal and external vulnerability.
It’s a fine line. The interior minister and the justice minister stress that they are opposed to new security laws. But they are also quick to list the decisions that were reached before the attack, and the pending legislation currently stuck in the parliamentary bureaucracy. It sounds like a reinsurance policy.
Only the next several days will show whether calm will prevail in Germany, because there is one factor that is difficult to predict: What does it mean that a relatively successful party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is trying to derive political capital from the killings?
From Salon, putting the shootings in another context:
Hebdo shooting’s missing context: How long-held vilification of Muslims got lost in the discussion
The shootings were obviously horrific — but the response has been transformed by a narrative of Islamic terrorism
The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls took time away from his effort to impose economic austerity upon French society to assert a brave, commonly echoed sentiment, among the French: “We are all Charlie, we are all police, we are all Jews of France.” But this splendid statement of resistance was hardly as heroic as it was intended to seem.
As some have pointed out, Charlie Hebdo’s acts of “satire” were disproportionately directed toward the approximately four million Muslims who have attempted to make France their home. Others have charged that the satirical ire the magazine repeatedly directed toward Muslims could be more accurately characterized as racist rather than merely satirical. But at some level, that doesn’t really seem to be at the heart of the anger expressed against the violent acts committed by the Saïd and Cherif Kouachi or Ahmed Coulibaly.
Rather, the anger seems to be directed against the supposed inability of Muslims to laugh at themselves, i.e., their supposedly unique inability to tolerate the satire or invective or belittling of the precepts that good French Republican citizens imagine are representative of Islam. And this is where the foundations of the politically inexpensive show of defiance on display in the march can be found: it is in a collective outrage that Muslim migrants to France, along with the Algerian migrants and inheritors of a French colonial legacy, refuse to know their place.
Charlie Hebdo returns with you-know-who on the cover, via Bloomberg:
Charlie Hebdo To Print 3 Million Copies With Muhammad Cover
Charlie Hebdo will print 3 million copies of a special issue of the satirical magazine, depicting the Prophet Muhammad on the cover, a week after an attack at its headquarters left a third of its journalists dead.
Publishers of the weekly magazine will put the copies on newsstands worldwide in 16 languages on Jan. 14. The issue will feature a cartoon of Muhammad, crying, on a green background, holding a board saying “Je suis Charlie” or “I am Charlie.” Above his image is written “All is Forgiven.”
Millions of people in France and across the world rallied in marches in the past week to show support for the Charlie Hebdo victims. A Jan. 7 attack at the magazine left 12 people dead. An associated gunman killed a policewoman and four shoppers in a kosher food store in separate attacks in the following two days. The three gunmen were killed by the police on Jan. 9.
From Deutsche Welle, anti-Muslim protesters turn out in Germany:
Thousands of PEGIDA supporters march in Dresden and other German cities
Members of the anti-Islamization PEGIDA movement have gathered Monday for the first time after the Paris attacks. Some of the protesters carry signs “Je suis Charlie.”
The latest mass-rally of the self-styled “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West” came just hours after the chancellor Angela Merkel said that “Islam has a place in Germany.” German politicians previously called on Pegida to cancel their weekly march, saying the movement had no right to incite hatred against Muslims using the Paris attacks.
However, PEGIDA has said on its Facebook page that the killings at Charlie Hebdo in Paris confirmed its own views.
“The Islamists, which PEGIDA has been warning about for 12 weeks, showed France that they are not capable of democracy but rather look to violence and death as an answer,” it said.
A video report from euronews:
Anti-Islamisation rallies in Dresden and other German cities
Program notes:
More than 25,000 people are reported to have taken to the streets of Dresden and other German cities on Monday for anti-Islamisation rallies. The PEGIDA movement, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, organised the marches. A week earlier, they had attracted some 18,000 followers to a similar demonstration in Dresden.
While their Swiss counterparts plan a rally of their own, via TheLocal.ch:
Swiss Pegida wing plans anti-Islam protest
An anti-Islamic movement that is growing in Germany has established a Swiss wing and is planning a demonstration at an undisclosed location in Switzerland next month.
The Swiss wing was launched late last week, taking the name of Germany’s “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident” (Pegida).
It announced on its Facebook page it would organize a demonstration on February 16th.
A counter demonstration has already been announced for the same day.
Germany’s Pegida has seen soaring support as it rides a wave of fear and revulsion at last week’s killings of 17 people in France by Islamic extremists.
A neo-Nazi murder trial continues in Germany, via Deutsche Welle:
Neo-Nazi trial focuses on Cologne bombing
The neo-Nazi group National Socialist Underground is accused of committing 10 murders around Germany. But that’s not all. At the NSU trial in Munich, the proceedings are now focusing on the 2004 Cologne bombing.
On June 9, 2004, a nail bomb was detonated in Cologne, injuring 22 people, several of them critically. Given the power of the explosion, it was almost a miracle that nobody was killed where the bomb went off: Keupstrasse, a busy street in the neighborhood of Mülheim where many Turkish immigrants live.
It appears all but certain that the bomb was the work of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a trio of rightwing extremists that is currently on trial for 10 murders, primarily of immigrants, allegedly committed between 2000 and 2007. But the public only found that out when the NSU was caught in November 2011.
During those years, when the public hadn’t even heard of the NSU, many of the victims of the attack found themselves under suspicion of having played a role in it. Police investigations focused almost exclusively on drug crime, mafia and familial disputes in the area. Politicians upheld those suspicions, with the former interior ministers of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia and the German federal government, Fritz Behren and Otto Schily, respectively, publicly dismissing any racist motivation behind the nail-bomb attack.
Another blow to the Schengen agreement, via the Guardian:
EU officials consider pooling air passenger data after Paris attacks
ID checks could be reintroduced within Schengen zone as European governments race to tighten security measures
Information on travellers flying between European cities could be traded between government security services in the EU and passport and identity checks could be reintroduced within the EU’s passport-free travel zone, under measures being discussed urgently among governments in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Senior EU officials dealing with security and counter-terrorism are to meet in Brussels on Friday in an attempt to prepare new policies that will be put to an EU summit next month.
Two years of attempts to produce a coherent European counter-terrorism strategy have produced scant results. Galvanised by the attacks in Paris – attacks that were viewed as inevitable by senior EU diplomats and officials involved in security policy – European governments are now racing to close the perceived gaps.
Secret NSA/FBI dealings exposed, via the Register:
FBI has its fingers deep in NSA surveillance pie, declassified report shows
Feds had a hand in PRISM, too
The FBI had, and most likely still has, a much closer involvement with the NSA’s mass surveillance programs than previously thought – with access to raw foreign intelligence and data on Americans gleaned from the PRISM program.
The 231-page report, from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, was obtained – albeit in a heavily redacted form – after a Freedom of Information request by The New York Times, a request made possible using key details leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The report finds that in 2008 – almost since the inception of the PRISM program, which allows the NSA access to citizens’ information stored by Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo! among others – the FBI had access to slurped private data.
The following year the Feds requested and was given its own raw feed on the activities of foreign nationals spied on under Section 702 of the Patriot Act. By April 2012 the agency, which is tasked with domestic security operations, was beginning to ask for information on specific individuals.
Dutch government sued over data-hoarding, via Network World:
Dutch government sued over data retention law
The Dutch data retention law will have its day in court on Feb. 18, when the District Court of the Hague hears a legal challenge to it filed by a broad coalition of organizations.
The law requires telecommunications and Internet companies to retain their customer’s location and traffic metadata for six to 12 months, depending on the type of data, for investigatory purposes.
However, the complainants want the court to invalidate the law because it violates fundamental privacy rights, said their law firm Boekx advocaten. The main reason the law should be scrapped, they say, is a ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last year, which invalidated the EU’s Data Retention Directive on which the Dutch law is based because it violates fundamental privacy rights.
BuzzFeed News outlines Obama’s new digital agenda:
Obama Calls For New Hacking And Privacy Laws, Hackers Keep Hacking
On Monday President Obama outlined a proposal for stricter laws on how companies should respond to hacking. At the same time, hackers gained access to two high-profile U.S. government social media accounts.
President Obama announced his support for new rules on hacking and privacy today, previewing policy proposals he will make in his State of the Union address on Jan. 20. During the speech, hackers hit two high-profile U.S. government targets, gaining control of the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and posting a series of taunting messages.
While the hacks on Monday appeared relatively superficial and limited to CENTCOM’s presence on third-party social media sites, the proposals from Obama targeted incidents where digital intruders access the inner workings of a company’s computer systems and steal personal data. When companies get hacked like this, executives, employees, law enforcement, and contractors can often find out about the incident long before the customers whose data has been breached.
Obama today called for a single federal standard on notifying customers that their data has been breached, within 30 days of the hack.
“This proposal clarifies and strengthens the obligations companies have to notify customers when their personal information has been exposed, including establishing a 30-day notification requirement from the discovery of a breach, while providing companies with the certainty of a single, national standard,” the White House said today.
Boing Boing covers the latest commercial spyware keystroke bandit:
Keysweeper: creepy keystroke logger camouflaged as USB charger
Keysweeper is a super-creepy keystroke logger disguised as a USB wall charger that piggybacks on GSM networks.
Its developer, Samy Kamkar, describes it as a “stealthy Arduino-based device, camouflaged as a functioning USB wall charger, that wirelessly and passively sniffs, decrypts, logs and reports back (over GSM) all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboard in the vicinity.”
It logs keystrokes online and locally, and the user can set up SMS alerts to be sent when certain trigger words, usernames or URLs are sent, to better identify passwords.
“If unplugged, KeySweeper continues to operate using its internal battery and auto-recharges upon repowering. A web based tool allows live keystroke monitoring.”
From the Los Angeles Times, allegations of cops behaving badly:
L.A. County sheriff’s deputies implicated in towing scheme
Three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were relieved of duty for allegedly accepting bribes from drivers and stealing items from towed vehicles, the Sheriff’s Department announced Monday.
In addition to the three deputies, a parking control officer was also relieved of duty until the department’s internal investigation is complete.
The four allegedly took payments from drivers who wished to avoid having their vehicles towed or impounded. No other sheriff’s officials are believed to be involved, the department news release said.
Cops behaving badly in Brazil, via the Washington Post:
In Brazil, unrest is simmering again, over bus fares, Olympic golf and Nazi cops
At 9 p.m. Friday night, on a dark, cobbled street in the city center, the violence that had been threatening to break out finally spluttered. Amid chants of “fascist!” two riot police in full armor were cornered in an alleyway. Something was thrown, glass shattered. The boom and hiss of a tear gas grenade sent the crowd running. Then it fizzled out.
The protest was over a bus fare increase. In its last hours, tension had flared — and damped — again and again. As many as 2,000 demonstrators had passed by Rio’s Central Station, where in February 2014 a cameraman, Santiago Andrade, was killed by a flare fired by a protester. Inside the station concourse, a troupe of clowns in black and white face paint and anarchist insignia beat out frenzied rhythms on tin cans while masked youth leapt up and down, taunting a line of riot police with the chant of “Look at me, here again!”
In São Paulo the same night, more violence flared toward the end of a bigger march of between 5,000 and 10,000 people; 51 were arrested. Banks and shop windows were broken, tear gas and rubber bullets fired. Local media reported bystanders taking shelter in bars and shops. Demonstrators’ videos showed passers-by injured in the crossfire.
Spooks behaving badly, via Fox News Latino:
Panama arrests former security officials for illegal wiretaps
Two men who were part of Panama’s national security council during the 2009-2014 administration of President Ricardo Martinelli were detained Monday as part of an investigation of illegal wiretapping, authorities said.
Councilor Alejandro Garuz – who is related to Martinelli by marriage – and former police chief Gustavo Perez remain in custody as police various residences belonging to the two men.
The two former high-ranking officials were arrested in the wee hours, Channel 13 television reported, airing separate images of Garuz and Perez at the prosecutor’s office.
“Numerous military weapons have been seized” from the suspects homes, an official source said.
Albuquerque cops charges in homeless man’s killing, via BBC News:
Albuquerque police charged in homeless killing
Two police officers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will face charges for killing a homeless camper, their lawyers say.
Former detective Keith Sandy and officer Dominique Perez will face a murder charge in the death of James Boyd, 38. Their lawyers argued the two will be cleared of wrongdoing.
The fatal shooting in March last year sparked city protests, some violent, and came amid a federal investigation into the police department’s practices. A year-long US investigation found Albuquerque police had inappropriately killed suspects and used more force on those with mental illnesses.
And lethal overeagerness from ProPublica:
Hotter Than Lava
Every day, cops toss dangerous military-style grenades during raids, with little oversight and horrifying results.
First designed nearly 40 years ago to help military special forces rescue hostages, flashbangs create a stunningly bright burst of light and an ear-splitting boom that temporarily blind and deafen anyone standing within a few feet of them. Last week, French special forces used flashbangs as part of a dramatic operation to free hostages held at a kosher supermarket in Paris. But when these modified hand grenades explode on the human body, they can cause severe injury or death.
A ProPublica investigation has found that at least 50 Americans, including police officers, have been seriously injured, maimed or killed by flashbangs since 2000. That is likely a fraction of the total since there are few records kept on flashbang deployment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit wrote in 2000 that “police cannot automatically throw bombs into drug dealers’ houses, even if the bomb goes by the euphemism ‘flash-bang device.’” In practice, however, there are few checks on officers who want to use them. Once a police department registers its inventory with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it is accountable only to itself for how it uses the stockpile. ProPublica’s review of flashbang injuries found no criminal convictions against police officers who injured citizens with the devices.
Feds now want a notable reporter to shut up, via the Associated Press:
CIA leak case about-face: Feds don’t want reporter on stand
After pushing for years to get testimony from a recalcitrant New York Times reporter in a CIA leak case, prosecutors now want to bar journalist James Risen from testifying at all.
Federal prosecutors in Alexandria filed a motion Monday saying that neither prosecutors nor the defense should be permitted to call Risen at the trial of ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling, whose jury trial begins Tuesday.
Prosecutors believe Sterling leaked details about a botched CIA operation in Iran to Risen. But prosecutors say that Risen has made clear he won’t divulge his sources, so there’s no point calling him. Defense lawyers want to call Risen and believe some of his testimony would help their client.
On to the war with a Sweden presence justified, via TheLocal.se:
Sweden must ‘share responsibility’ for Iraq
After announcing that she wants to send Swedish military staff to Iraq, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström has told The Local that the move is designed to ‘share responsibility’ for tackling extremism.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström revealed over the weekend that she hoped her country could send military staff to Iraq, to train soldiers on how to fight against Islamist extremists.
Speaking to The Local on Monday, she gave more details about the plan, stating:
“The Government is now looking into the possibility of proposing to the Riksdag that Swedish military personnel be sent to Erbil, Iraq, to help train troops fighting ISIL. This would be an important contribution to show that we want to share responsibility for meeting a difficult threat…This contribution will not involve active combat.”
From RT, and some of their foes come from Europe as well:
1,400 Frenchmen joined or ‘plan to join’ terrorists in Syria, Iraq – PM
Some 1,400 people living in France have joined or plan to battle alongside militants in Syria and Iraq, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. The number of French jihad followers has risen by at least 200 people in the past month.
“There are 1,400 individuals who are involved in the departures for jihad, for terrorism, in Syria and in Iraq,” Valls told BFMTV.
“There are close to 70 French citizens or residents in France who have died in Syria and Iraq in the ranks of the terrorists,” he added.
In December, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the nation’s parliament that around 1,200 French citizens had left to fight alongside Islamists, and 390 were members of radical groups in the region.
From Reuters, a Kerry Pakistani sit-down:
Kerry holds security talks in Pakistan after school massacre
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held talks in Pakistan on Monday during a visit intended to press the government to do more to crack down on militant groups after last month’s massacre of 134 children by Taliban gunmen.
Kerry met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as well as Army Chief Raheel Sharif on his unannounced trip, in which he aims both to offer sympathy and galvanize Pakistan to combat militants who have used its territory to attack neighboring Afghanistan and India.
Speaking as he met Kerry, Pakistani foreign adviser Sartaj Aziz suggested Kerry might visit Peshawar, the city where the Dec. 16 attack on an army-run school took place.
Chinese cops kill Muslim bombers in Xinjiang, via Al Jazeera America:
Chinese police kill six in alleged bombing attempt
State media reports that would-be attackers were shot dead in Xinjiang province
Chinese police shot and killed six would-be bombers Monday in the latest violence to strike the far northwestern region of Xinjiang, a local government spokesman and official website said. The area has seen sporadic unrest blamed on Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic minority whose members often complain of government repression and cultural displacement by China’s majority ethnic Han.
Police were called to a business district in the town of Shule on Monday morning to investigate a suspicious man carrying what appeared to be an explosive device, according to TS News, which specializes in news about Xinjiang.
It said the man was shot and killed after he charged police with an axe and attempted to detonate the device. Another five suspects with bombs were also shot and killed as police conducted a cleanup operation, the site said, without elaborating. It said no officers or onlookers were injured.
And reassurances from above via Want China Times:
China’s defense minister stresses ability to ensure Xinjiang stability
Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Chang Wanquan has called on the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) to contribute more to social stability in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Chang asked the XPCC — a paramilitary force that combines the functions of production, administration and defense — to fulfill its fundamental role in maintaining social stability and border defense during a recent inspection tour in the XPCC.
While lauding the XPCC’s contribution to Xinjiang’s stability and prosperity in the past 60 years, Chang urged the XPCC to reform, develop, and play an exemplary role in promoting coordinated development and ethnic integration.
Beijing rankled over Japanese bluster, from Reuters:
China bristles at Japan’s defense minister remarks
China criticized Japan’s newly appointed defense minister for the first time on Monday, saying it was “firmly opposed” to his comments that Beijing has repeatedly engaged in “dangerous actions” in the East China Sea.
Although both countries reached an agreement late last year to reset ties, the comments by China’s defense ministry underscore the fragile state of relations between China and Japan.
Relations, which have long been poisoned by what China sees as Japan’s failure to atone for its occupation of parts of China before and during World War Two, have deteriorated sharply over the past 18 months because of a dispute over a chain of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea.
Gen Nakatani, a lawmaker who served in Japan’s armed forces for several years, was appointed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in late December. Nakatani has held the defense minister’s post before and believes Japan should have the ability to hit enemy bases pre-emptively in the face of imminent attack.
Beijing rankled over Japanese bluster, from NHK WORLD:
DPJ candidates wary of revising constitution
The 3 people vying to become president of Japan’s largest opposition party have expressed caution about the government’s plans to revise the constitution.
The candidates to lead the Democratic Party of Japan are former health and welfare minister Akira Nagatsuma, former party secretary general Goshi Hosono, and acting party president Katsuya Okada.
They spoke at a meeting of party members and supporters in the northern city of Sendai on Monday.
Seoul makes another Comfort Women appeal to Tokyo, via the Yomiuri Shimbun:
Park: Japan should offer comfort women solutions
South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday called on Japan to actively present solutions to the issue of so-called comfort women, saying “a shift in Japan’s stance is important” to realize a summit meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“We will explore a new relationship with Japan,” Park said during a New Year press conference held at the Blue House. This year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic normalization between Seoul and Tokyo.
Asked by a South Korean reporter during a question-and-answer session at the press conference about conditions for holding a summit meeting with Abe, Park called for an early settlement of the comfort women issue. “We have to make the summit meeting something with which we can take a step forward, but there are difficulties,” Park said. With aging former comfort women in mind, she said, “It is important to solve the issue properly while they are alive.”
And to close, this from the Guardian:
Saudi cleric issues fatwa on snowmen
Religious leader forbids building of anti-Islamic idols that might resemble human beings, after winter storm in north of country
A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious edict forbidding the building of snowmen, describingt them as anti-Islamic.
Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”
Quoting from Muslim scholars, Munajjid argued that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human being, an action considered sinful under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.
