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Paul Merrell

FBI Now Holding Up Michael Horowitz' Investigation into the DEA | emptywheel - 0 views

www.emptywheel.net/...itz-investigation-into-the-dea

surveillance state DEA FBI IG-investigation phone-databases

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Man, at some point Congress is going to have to declare the FBI legally contemptuous and throw them in jail. They continue to refuse to cooperate with DOJ’s Inspector General, as they have been for basically 5 years. But in Michael Horowitz’ latest complaint to Congress, he adds a new spin: FBI is not only obstructing his investigation of the FBI’s management impaired surveillance, now FBI is obstructing his investigation of DEA’s management impaired surveillance. I first reported on DOJ IG’s investigation into DEA’s dragnet databases last April. At that point, the only dragnet we knew about was Hemisphere, which DEA uses to obtain years of phone records as well as location data and other details, before it them parallel constructs that data out of a defendant’s reach.
  • But since then, we’ve learned of what the government claims to be another database — that used to identify Shantia Hassanshahi in an Iranian sanctions case. After some delay, the government revealed that this was another dragnet, including just international calls. It claims that this database was suspended in September 2013 (around the time Hemisphere became public) and that it is no longer obtaining bulk records for it. According to the latest installment of Michael Horowitz’ complaints about FBI obstruction, he tried to obtain records on the DEA databases on November 20, 2014 (of note, during the period when the government was still refusing to tell even Judge Rudolph Contreras what the database implicating Hassanshahi was). FBI slow-walked production, but promised to provide everything to Horowitz by February 13, 2015. FBI has decided it has to keep reviewing the emails in question to see if there is grand jury, Title III electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting Act materials, which are the same categories of stuff FBI has refused in the past. So Horowitz is pointing to the language tied to DOJ’s appropriations for FY 2015 which (basically) defunded FBI obstruction. Only FBI continues to obstruct.
  • There’s one more question about this. As noted, this investigation is supposed to be about DEA’s databases. We’ve already seen that FBI uses Hemisphere (when I asked FBI for comment in advance of this February 4, 2014 article on FBI obstinance, Hemisphere was the one thing they refused all comment on). And obviously, FBI access another DEA database to go after Hassanshahi. So that may be the only reason why Horowitz needs the FBI’s cooperation to investigate the DEA’s dragnets. Plus, assuming FBI is parallel constructing these dragnets just like DEA is, I can understand why they’d want to withhold grand jury information, which would make that clear. Still, I can’t help but wonder — as I have in the past — whether these dragnets are all connected, a constantly moving shell game. That might explain why FBI is so intent on obstructing Horowitz again.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15
     
    Marcy Wheeler's specuiulation that various government databases simply move to another agency when they're brought to light is not without precedent. When Congress shut down DARPA's Total Information Awareness program, most of its software programs and databases were just moved to NSA. 
Paul Merrell

Obama to Place Some Restraints on Surveillance - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...hamper-surveillance-court.html

surveillance state NSA Obama Obama-decision

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.
  • President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.
  • The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later. The decision to provide additional privacy protections for non-American citizens or residents, for instance, largely codifies existing practices but will be followed by a 180-day study by the director of national intelligence about whether to go further. Likewise, instead of taking the storage of bulk data out of government hands, as recommended by a review panel he appointed, Mr. Obama will leave it in place for now and ask lawmakers to weigh in.The blend of decisions, to be outlined in a speech at the Justice Department and in a presidential guidelines memorandum, will be Mr. Obama’s highest-profile response to the disclosures about the National Security Agency made in recent months by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor who has fled to Russia.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The developments came as the nation’s judiciary waded into the highly charged debate. In a letter made public on Tuesday, a judge designated by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to express the views of the judicial branch warned that some changes under consideration would have a negative “operational impact” on a secret foreign intelligence court.Judge John D. Bates, a former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, urged Mr. Obama and Congress not to alter the way the court is appointed or to create an independent public advocate to argue against the Justice Department in secret proceedings. Any such advocate, he wrote, should instead be appointed only when the court decided one was needed.Judge Bates objected to the workload of requiring that courts approve all national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas allowing the F.B.I. to obtain records about communications and financial transactions without court approval. And he raised concerns about greater public disclosure of court rulings, arguing that unclassified summaries would be “likely to promote confusion and misunderstanding.”
  • But the president will not, at least for now, back the panel’s suggestion that telecommunications firms keep such data and that the government be allowed to tap into those databases only when necessary. Intelligence officials complained it would be inefficient to have to go to multiple companies, so some officials proposed creating an independent consortium to store the data instead.Mr. Obama has decided against keeping the data at the private providers because they do not want that responsibility, officials said, and no independent consortium currently exists. As a result, he will ask Congress to work with him to determine the best way to store the data.
  • The judge’s objection to the proposal on national security letters dovetailed with that of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who argued it would be inefficient to have to go to a judge each time records were sought. Mr. Obama has decided not to require court approval in every case, but might still require it in some circumstances, according to one administration official.Mr. Obama will cut back on the number of people whose phone records can be examined by the N.S.A. through its bulk data program. Currently the agency can scrutinize call records of people as far as three steps, or “hops,” removed from a suspect. Mr. Obama’s review panel proposed limiting searches to people just two steps removed. He is also likely to cut down the number of years such data can be retained; currently it is deleted after five years.
  • The judge’s letter, versions of which he sent to the leaders of several congressional committees, was released as all five members of Mr. Obama’s surveillance review group testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, seeking support for their recommendations.Illustrating the cross-pressures on the president, the advisers argued for the appointment of the independent version of a public advocate, a recommendation the president is expected to follow, though it is not clear how he will structure the position.
  • The letter by Judge Bates was accompanied by 15 pages of often specific comments about possible surveillance reforms.It is highly unusual for judges to weigh in on public policy debates involving the other two branches of government, but Judge Bates, the director of the Administrative Office of the United States Court, said that Chief Justice Roberts had designated him to “act as a liaison” and that he had consulted other judges.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14
     
    I keep wondering if Barack Obama just might be the most timid President the U.S. has ever had. Certainly, he lacks the courage to lead the nation. 
Paul Merrell

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

surveillance state NSA privacy-violations judicial-oversight Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans. The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.
  • “The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.” Walton’s comments came in response to internal government records obtained by The Post showing that National Security Agency staff members in Washington overstepped their authority on spy programs thousands of times per year. The records also show that the number of violations has been on the rise.
  • The court’s description of its practical limitations contrasts with repeated assurances from the Obama administration and intelligence agency leaders that the court provides central checks and balances on the government’s broad spying efforts. They have said that Americans should feel comfortable that the secret intelligence court provides robust oversight of government surveillance and protects their privacy from rogue intrusions.President Obama and other government leaders have emphasized the court’s oversight role in the wake of revelations this year that the government is vacuuming up “metadata” on Americans’ telephone and Internet communications. “We also have federal judges that we’ve put in place who are not subject to political pressure,” Obama said at a news conference in June. “They’ve got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they’re empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren’t being abused.”
Paul Merrell

Secrecy News From All Over - Secrecy News - 0 views

blogs.fas.org/...all-over

surveillance state FISA email-metadata government secrecy declassification

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The Director of National Intelligence yesterday declassified and released hundreds of pages of records concerning collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, illuminating the origins of bulk collection of email metadata, as well as interactions with the FISA Court and Congress.
  • By themselves, the latest disclosures (provided in response to FOIA litigation brought by ACLU and EFF) are unlikely to resolve ongoing disputes about NSA intelligence gathering. The legitimacy of bulk collection of email and telephone metadata may ultimately be more of a value judgment rather than a factual or legal one. At a minimum, perhaps the new documents will provide a more substantial basis for informed debate. But there is disagreement even about that. “Some would like to believe these disclosures have started a debate about the propriety and efficacy of NSA surveillance programs but, in fact, to a substantial degree, recent unauthorized disclosures have ended the debate because, once disclosed, the programs at issue become substantially less effective,” according to a November 12 report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The nation will suffer as a result.”
  • The Public Interest Declassification Board will hold an open meeting at the National Archives on Thursday, November 21. The Board proposes to focus on prioritizing topics and events for declassification. The intended emphasis is on declassification of historical records, but it need not be limited to that. Although willful abuse of classification authority is not unheard of, there seems to be no case in which it has ever been penalized. “I am extremely concerned that the integrity of the classification system continues to be severely undermined by the complete absence of accountability in instances such as this clear abuse of classification authority,” wrote J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, in an October 18 letter. He was responding to the controversial classification of evidence concerning the defilement of human remains in Afghanistan.  See Marine Corps fight escalates over handling of case involving troops urinating on corpses, Washington Post, November 15;  and Marine Corps Commandant Accused of Improper Classification, Secrecy News, July 30.
Paul Merrell

The Money Changers Serenade: A New Bankers' Plot to Steal Your Deposits | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5359018

banksters fraud electronic-currency Summers

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Writing in the Wall Street Journal (“Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” November 11, 2013), Andrew Huszar confirms my explanation to be the correct one. Huszar is the Federal Reserve official who implemented the policy of QE. He resigned when he realized that the real purposes of QE was to drive up the prices of the banks’ holdings of debt instruments, to provide the banks with trillions of dollars at zero cost with which to lend and speculate, and to provide the banks with “fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions.” (See: www.paulcraigroberts.org) This vast con game remains unrecognized by Congress and the public. At the IMF Research Conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers presented a plan to expand the con game. Summers says that it is not enough merely to give the banks interest free money. More should be done for the banks. Instead of being paid interest on their bank deposits, people should be penalized for keeping their money in banks instead of spending it. To sell this new rip-off scheme, Summers has conjured up an explanation based on the crude and discredited Keynesianism of the 1940s that explained the Great Depression as a problem caused by too much savings. Instead of spending their money, people hoarded it, thus causing aggregate demand and employment to fall.
  • Summers says that today the problem of too much saving has reappeared. The centerpiece of his argument is “the natural interest rate,” defined as the interest rate at which full employment is established by the equality of saving with investment. If people save more than investors invest, the saved money will not find its way back into the economy, and output and employment will fall. Summers notes that despite a zero real rate of interest, there is still substantial unemployment. In other words, not even a zero rate of interest can reduce saving to the level of investment, thus frustrating a full employment recovery. Summers concludes that the natural rate of interest has become negative and is stuck below zero. How to fix this? The way to fix it, Summers says, is to charge people for saving money. To avoid the charges, people would spend the money, thus reducing savings to the level of investment and restoring full employment. Summers acknowledges that the problem with his solution is that people would take their money out of banks and hoard it in cash holdings. In other words, the cash form of money provides consumers with a freedom to save that holds down consumption and prevents full employment. Summers has a fix for this: eliminate the freedom by imposing a cashless society where the only money is electronic. As electronic money cannot be hoarded except in bank deposits, penalties can be imposed that force unproductive savings into consumption.
  • for Summers, the plight of the consumer is not the problem. The problem is the profits of the banks. Summers has the solution, and the establishment, including Paul Krugman, is applauding it. Once the economy officially turns down again, watch out.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 13
     
    Paul Craig Roberts exposes Larry Summers formula for the banksters to grab money from everyone: eliminate all but electronic-currency and penalize savings. Not mentioned by Roberts, but much of the infrastructure for this is already in place. For example, late last year all recipients of Social Security and VA benefit checks were notified that after March 1, 2013, they would be in violation of the law if they continued to receive paper checks. They were required to enroll in approved electronic deposit programs, all of which are offered by banks. Until about two years ago, people could merely state in writing that they didn't want it and could continue receiving paper checks. But Congress closed that loophole.  (I remain out of compliance.) Debit card is now mandatory, although they have not yet enacted penalties for non-compliance.  So the banksters now get the "float" on virtually all federal SS and VA benefit payments until spent. That's as opposed to the prior Treasury Department drafts whose funds were not in the banking system.   More to the point, the web portal for the federal "Go Direct" program to sign up for direct deposit is in place and debugged. It wouldn't take much beyond a bigger data set to issue debit cards for everyone in the U.S. during a transition to a cashless economy.  The Constitution says gold and silver only for payment of debts; paper currency paved the way for financial abuse of the economy by banksters. Now Summers wants to do away with cash entirely in favor of digital currency with penalties for saving? My life savings must be surrendered to a bank so I can be penalized for saving? And of course moving to all-digital currency would give the spy agencies a much more detailed record of your purchases to work with. The location where you bought that last cup of coffee is instantly available to the NSA? Gimme a break!    
Gary Edwards

WHO ARE THE REAL TRAITORS? - BlackListedNews.com - 1 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

blacklistednews Banksters Edward-Snowden Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Globalist-Elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Oct 13
     
    I was going through my email, trying to clean things up, and hit on this post from a member of the Bay Area Patriots, Nina Ortega. Like many Tea Party patriots, Nina is a Libertarian. The letter itself though is stunning. Maybe the most heartfelt cry of an American patriot I have ever read. Using lots of Quotes, and some very colorful language, the author, Jim Quinn responds to the Edward Snowden controversy, arguing that this brave patriot's courgage is on a par with that of the founding fathers. And those accusing him are the real traitors. Great stuff. Take some time, and let it all out. intro: "There are weeks that change the course of human history. There are weeks when people must choose sides. There are weeks that expose the real American traitors. There is no middle ground in this debate. You are either on the side of freedom, liberty, truth, transparency and the U.S. Constitution or you are on the side of mindless obedience, oppression, deception, corruption and tyranny. A courageous young Millennial named Edward Snowden has risked his life and his future to expose the illegal, surreptitious surveillance programs being conducted by the United States government in clear violation of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The NSA, with the full knowledge of Barack Obama and Congress, has been covertly collecting phone and internet records on millions of Americans with the full cooperation of Verizon and other mega media/data corporations. Our owners have been using the U.S. Constitution to wipe their asses. The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is so unambiguous that any intelligent politician, bright journalist or fifth grader in Miss Sabatini's history class could interpret its meaning and intention. Our founding fathers believed in truth, clarity and simplicity. The traitorous sociopaths in control of our government today believe in obfuscation, ambiguity and complexity."
Paul Merrell

ExposeFacts - For Whistleblowers, Journalism and Democracy - 0 views

exposefacts.org

transparency whistle-blowers resources Wikileaks Tail

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Launched by the Institute for Public Accuracy in June 2014, ExposeFacts.org represents a new approach for encouraging whistleblowers to disclose information that citizens need to make truly informed decisions in a democracy. From the outset, our message is clear: “Whistleblowers Welcome at ExposeFacts.org.” ExposeFacts aims to shed light on concealed activities that are relevant to human rights, corporate malfeasance, the environment, civil liberties and war. At a time when key provisions of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments are under assault, we are standing up for a free press, privacy, transparency and due process as we seek to reveal official information—whether governmental or corporate—that the public has a right to know. While no software can provide an ironclad guarantee of confidentiality, ExposeFacts—assisted by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and its “SecureDrop” whistleblower submission system—is utilizing the latest technology on behalf of anonymity for anyone submitting materials via the ExposeFacts.org website. As journalists we are committed to the goal of protecting the identity of every source who wishes to remain anonymous.
  • The seasoned editorial board of ExposeFacts will be assessing all the submitted material and, when deemed appropriate, will arrange for journalistic release of information. In exercising its judgment, the editorial board is able to call on the expertise of the ExposeFacts advisory board, which includes more than 40 journalists, whistleblowers, former U.S. government officials and others with wide-ranging expertise. We are proud that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was the first person to become a member of the ExposeFacts advisory board. The icon below links to a SecureDrop implementation for ExposeFacts overseen by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and is only accessible using the Tor browser. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation notes, no one can guarantee 100 percent security, but this provides a “significantly more secure environment for sources to get information than exists through normal digital channels, but there are always risks.” ExposeFacts follows all guidelines as recommended by Freedom of the Press Foundation, and whistleblowers should too; the SecureDrop onion URL should only be accessed with the Tor browser — and, for added security, be running the Tails operating system. Whistleblowers should not log-in to SecureDrop from a home or office Internet connection, but rather from public wifi, preferably one you do not frequent. Whistleblowers should keep to a minimum interacting with whistleblowing-related websites unless they are using such secure software.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 07 Jun 14
       
      Thanks Paul! Great article and I agree with you about switching. Rather than a USB, I would rather look into a SSD and try to isolate performance to an ISP bandwidth issue. FYI, I read your Diigo posts daily at this Web site: https://groups.diigo.com/group/socialism-and-the-end-of-the-american-dream/content/user/marbux Seems to be the best visual presentation of your research. I do however think Diigo could improve their hosting of this research by enabling more extensive comments. Notice that your comments are often clipped :( Still, I really do appreciate your sharing both your research and your commentary. Priceless stuff! Many thanks! ~ge~
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14
     
    A new resource site for whistle-blowers. somewhat in the tradition of Wikileaks, but designed for encrypted communications between whistleblowers and journalists.  This one has an impressive board of advisors that includes several names I know and tend to trust, among them former whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Ann Wright. Leaked records can only be dropped from a web browser running the Tor anonymizer software and uses the SecureDrop system originally developed by Aaron Schwartz. They strongly recommend using the Tails secure operating system that can be installed to a thumb drive and leaves no tracks on the host machine. https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html Curious, I downloaded Tails and installed it to a virtual machine. It's a heavily customized version of Debian. It has a very nice Gnome desktop and blocks any attempt to connect to an external network by means other than installed software that demands encrypted communications. For example, web sites can only be viewed via the Tor anonymizing proxy network. It does take longer for web pages to load because they are moving over a chain of proxies, but even so it's faster than pages loaded in the dial-up modem days, even for web pages that are loaded with graphics, javascript, and other cruft. E.g., about 2 seconds for New York Times pages. All cookies are treated by default as session cookies so disappear when you close the page or the browser. I love my Linux Mint desktop, but I am thinking hard about switching that box to Tails. I've been looking for methods to send a lot more encrypted stuff down the pipe for NSA to store. Tails looks to make that not only easy, but unavoidable. From what I've gathered so far, if you want to install more software on Tails, it takes about an hour to create a customized version and then update your Tails installation from a new ISO file. Tails has a wonderful odor of having been designed for secure computing. Current
Paul Merrell

Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...urt-surveillance-phone-records

surveillance state NSA Obama phone-metadata litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months. The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.
  • But Carlin asked the Fisa court to set aside a landmark declaration by the second circuit court of appeals. Decided on 7 May, the appeals court ruled that the government had erroneously interpreted the Patriot Act’s authorization of data collection as “relevant” to an ongoing investigation to permit bulk collection. Carlin, in his filing, wrote that the Patriot Act provision remained “in effect” during the transition period. “This court may certainly consider ACLU v Clapper as part of its evaluation of the government’s application, but second circuit rulings do not constitute controlling precedent for this court,” Carlin wrote in the 2 June application. Instead, the government asked the court to rely on its own body of once-secret precedent stretching back to 2006, which Carlin called “the better interpretation of the statute”.
  • But the Fisa court must first decide whether the new bulk-surveillance request is lawful. On Friday, the conservative group FreedomWorks filed a rare motion before the Fisa court, asking it to reject the government’s surveillance request as a violation of the fourth amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Fisa court judge Michael Moseman gave the justice department until this coming Friday to respond – and explicitly barred the government from arguing that FreedomWorks lacks the standing to petition the secret court.
Gary Edwards

George W. Bush: The Biggest Spender Since LBJ : Business Insider / Cato Institute - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/gest-spender-since-lbj-2009-12

GWB spending financial-crisis banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 09
     
    Looking at the Facts.... on Dec 28, 4:18 PM said: Economy Comparison: William J. Clinton (WJC); George W. Bush (GWB) Average annual GDP growth: W.J. Clinton: 3.6%; G.W. Bush: 2.6% Real median household income: WJC: grew by $5,825; GWB: fell by $1,273 Unemployment: WJC: 7.3% -> 4.2%; GWB: 4.2% -> 6.5% Non-farm employment: WJC: 22.7 million jobs; GWB: 3 million jobs (worst record of any US president in 70 years) Poverty rate: WJC: fell 3.5% (6.4 million fewer people) GWB: rose 1.3% (5.4 million more people) Federal Spending as % of GDP: WJC: 22.1% (fiscal 1992) to 18.4% in 2000; GWB: back up to 20.8% -2006 Total executive branch employment (does not include classified numbers for CIA, DIA, NSA, & other intelligence agencies; does not include outsourced jobs): WJC: down by almost 450,000 (2.225 million -> 1.778 million); GWB: up by almost 100,000 (to 1.872 million). Federal Debt: WJC: inherited deficit of $290 billion -> surplus of $236 billion (fiscal 2000); GWB: increased by almost $3 trillion (as of 2006) Public Debt as % of GDP: WJC: -16.4%; GWB: +4.4%
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Is media just another word for control? - 0 views

johnpilger.com/...-just-another-word-for-control

war & peace mainstream-media propaganda corporatist government

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • A recent poll asked people in Britain how many Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The answers they gave were shocking. A majority said that fewer than 10,000 had been killed. Scientific studies report that up to a million Iraqi men, women and children died in an inferno lit by the British government and its ally in Washington. That's the equivalent of the genocide in Rwanda. And the carnage goes on. Relentlessly.What this reveals is how we in Britain have been misled by those whose job is to keep the record straight.
  • We all live in an information age - or so we tell each other as we caress our smart phones like rosary beads, heads down, checking, monitoring, tweeting. We're wired; we're on message; and the dominant theme of the message is ourselves. Identity is the zeitgeist. A lifetime ago in 'Brave New World', Aldous Huxley predicted this as the ultimate means of social control because it was voluntary, addictive and shrouded in illusions of personal freedom. Perhaps the truth is that we live not in an information age but a media age. Like the memory of Mandela, the media's wondrous technology has been hijacked. From the BBC to CNN, the echo chamber is vast.
  • Today liberal democracy is being replaced by a system in which people are accountable to a corporate state - not the other way round as it should be. In Britain, the parliamentary parties are devoted to the same doctrine of care for the rich and struggle for the poor. This denial of real democracy is an historic shift. It's why the courage of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange is such a threat to the powerful and unaccountable. And it's an object lesson for those of us who are meant to keep the record straight. The great reporter Claud Cockburn put it well: "Never believe anything until it's officially denied".Imagine if the lies of governments had been properly challenged and exposed as they secretly prepared to invade Iraq - perhaps a million people would be alive today.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 14
     
    Are we living in an Information Age or a Media Age? Good question. The Internet offers an Information Age but is the NSA Pandora's Box?
Paul Merrell

Defending Dissent » New Docs Show Army Coordinated Spy Ring - 1 views

www.defendingdissent.org/...army-spy-ring

surveillance state Army fusion-centers litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 May 14 - No Cached
  • Army illegally supplied  intelligence on nonviolent antiwar protesters to FBI and police in multiple states Tacoma, WA – Recently obtained public records confirm an Army-led, multi-agency spy network that targeted “leftists/anarchists” as domestic terrorists. The Army used illegal infiltration to gather information on nonviolent antiwar protesters, disseminate it to the FBI and police departments in multiple states, and in some cases used it to disrupt planned protests by preemptively and falsely arresting activists. Public records obtained last month by Olympia activist Paul French reveal new evidence in the widely-watched Army spying case Panagacos v. Towery. An email from November 2007, in particular, shows that intelligence analyst John J. Towery was paid by the Army to infiltrate political groups and share unlawfully obtained intelligence with a growing network of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, and police departments in Los Angeles, Portland, Eugene, Everett, and Spokane. The Towery email not only represents a broader spying program than previously thought, it also confirms the program was led by the Army, a fact contradicted by Towery’s 2009 sworn statements.
  • “The latest revelations show how the Army not only engaged in illegal spying on political dissidents, it led the charge and tried to expand the counterintelligence network targeting leftists and anarchists,” said Larry Hildes, a National Lawyers Guild attorney who filed the Panagacos lawsuit in 2010. “By targeting activists without probable cause, based on their ideology and the perceived political threat they represent, the Army clearly broke the law and must be held accountable.” Previously obtained public records indicate that absent such accountability, the Army will continue to spy on and target protesters, which it did until at least 2010, long after Towery’s identity was exposed. Public records previously obtained in 2009 already established that over a two-year period beginning in 2006, Towery (under the alias “John Jacob”) spied on the Olympia antiwar group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) as well as several other organizations, including Students for a Democratic Society, the Industrial Workers of the World, and Iraq Veterans Against the War. It has also already been established that Towery’s intelligence was passed on to the Washington State Fusion Center, a communications hub of  local, state and federal law enforcement, and then used by local police to target activists for repeated harassment, preemptive and false arrest, excessive use of force, and malicious prosecution
  • The recently disclosed Towery email was a follow-up to a 2007 Domestic Terrorism Conference he attended in Spokane, during which “domestic terrorist” dossiers on some of the Panagacos plaintiffs were distributed. The Towery email shows the development of a multi-agency spying apparatus in intimate detail. “I thought it would be a good idea to develop a leftist/anarchist mini-group for intel sharing and distro,” wrote the Army analyst to several law enforcement officials. Towery references books, “zines and pamphlets,” and a “comprehensive web list” as source material, but cautions the officials on file sharing “because it might tip off groups that we are studying their techniques, tactics and procedures.” Towery, who worked at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, not only coordinated his actions with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, many of whom are named defendants in the Panagacos case, he also admitted to eavesdropping on a confidential, privileged attorney-client email listserv of criminal defendants and their legal counsel. Such conduct is considered a constitutional violation, but Towery also took sensitive information from the listserv vital to a pending criminal trial in 2007 and passed it on to fusion center officials who then transmitted it to prosecutors, forcing a mistrial in a case the defense was winning handily. The case was later dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct.
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  • The public records disclosure comes as government spying and criticism of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program has reached a fever pitch. However, a little-known and rarely, if ever, enforced law from 1878 distinguishes the spying under Panagacos from that of the NSA. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from enforcing domestic laws on U.S. soil by making such actions a Gross Misdemeanor, yet to-date no official has been prosecuted under the Act. Instead of conceding to the violations, the Army is currently using the Panagacos case to try to seal nearly 10,000 pages of documents, many of which are incriminating and embarrassing to the government. The legal effort to unseal those documents will play out over the next few weeks. The Obama Administration tried to dismiss the Panagacos lawsuit, but in a Ninth Circuit decision from December 2012 the court rejected the government’s arguments, ruling that allegations of First and Fourth Amendment violations were “plausible,” and ordered the case to proceed to trial. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of seven PMR members who sought to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through nonviolent civil disobedience and is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald B. Leighton. In addition to Towery, named defendants in Panagacos include Thomas Rudd, one of Towery’s superiors at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, as well as certain officials within its ranks, the City of Olympia and its police department, the City of Tacoma and its police department, Pierce County, and various personnel from those jurisdictions.
  • Panagacos v. Towery is currently in the discovery stage and is scheduled to go to trial in June 2014. Further information: Recently disclosed Towery email Panagacos lawsuit complaint Domestic terrorism dossiers on plaintiffs
  • Paul Merrell on 30 May 14
     
    One I had missed from February, 2014. I believe I had bookmarked something about this before the lawsuit was filed. Now not only has the case been filed but the alleged grounds for the lawsuit have been greenlighted by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If you click through the link to the court's opinion, you'll find one of the Ninth Circuit's shorter opinions, less than five pages, which does not even mention that the defendants were employed by the U.S. Army or any branch of government, while still rejecting their claim of government officials' qualified immunity from suit for the alleged First and Fourth Amendment violations. The third amended complaint sufficiently alleged facts to support claims that had been clearly established as violative of the First and Fourth Amendments.   It's clear that the plaintiffs have smoking gun evidence and that the National Lawyers' Guild is all over this one. Trial is scheduled next month, according to the article. It's just under 300 miles from here to Seattle, but I just might make the trip to watch a few days of this trial. Strong First Amendment cases for damages that survive appellate review of the qualified immunity nearly always settle before trial. But this one smells like it is going to trial for publicity purposes even if not for the vindication of rights, considering the nature of the organizations involved both as targets of the surveillance and their lawyers. It's great entertainment watching government guys and gals squirm on the witness stand when they've been caught violating civil rights. In criminal cases, invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination cannot be taken as evidence of guilt. But in a federal civil rights case, that entitles the plaintiffs to have the jury instructed that it can infer liability from the resort to the Fifth Amendment to refuse answering questions.  Better back in the day when I was the lawyer asking the questions. But it's still great fun just to watch
Paul Merrell

Senator Who Put Pentagon Papers Into Public Record Urges Udall To Do Same With Torture ... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...ord-urges-udall-torture-report

war & peace torture CIA Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report Udall

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution establishes an absolute free-speech right for members of Congress on the floor or in committee, even if they are disclosing classified material. It states that “for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” Within hours of Colorado Senator Mark Udall losing his reelection bid last week, transparency activists were talking about how he should go out with a bang and put the Senate intelligence committee’s torture report into the congressional record.  The report is said to detail shockingly brutal abuse of detainees by the CIA during the George W. Bush administration, as well as rampant deception about the program by top officials. But the Obama White House is refusing to declassify even a summary of the report without major redactions. And Republicans take over the Senate in January.
  • Udall is one of two senators — along with fellow Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden — who have consistently demanded greater transparency from the intelligence community. If he made the report public on the Senate floor or during a hearing, he couldn’t be prosecuted. The last time any senator did anything nearly so grand was in 1971, when Mike Gravel, two years into his 12 years representing the state of Alaska, entered 4,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record just before the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction on publishing them in the press.
  • Now, Gravel is urging Udall to join the club. “If Udall wants to call me, I can explain this to him,” Gravel, pictured above, said in a phone interview from his home in Burlingame, Calif. Gravel’s recommendation: “What he’d have to do is call a subcommittee meeting like I did, late at night.”
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  • Back in 1971, Gravel first tried to read the Papers from the Senate floor. He even got himself rigged up with a colostomy bag so he wouldn’t need to take breaks. But he was stymied by an unexpected procedural move. So he moved to Plan B: He called a late-night subcommittee meeting with almost no notice to the other members. Gravel read some of the Pentagon Papers out loud, but challenged by dyslexia and overcome with emotion, he finally opted for another way: “I asked for unanimous consent to put it in the record of the subcommittee. And there was no one there to object.” Here is amazing unedited footage of that night:
Paul Merrell

Watch Clapper Lie To Sen. Ron Wyden - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35246.htm

security state NSA digital surveillance Clapper Wyden perjury

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In the aftermath of the revelation that the NSA vacuums up the telephone records of millions of Americans with near-routine frequency and has programs for the surveillance of Internet activity, Clapper has tried to banish the impression that he misled Congress. The spy chief's main defense appears to be rooted in the intelligence community's technical definition of "collect," which basically requires that an analyst process the information scooped up by other means. (This document, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, puts it slightly differently: "Data acquired by electronic means is 'collected' only when it has been processed into intelligible form.")
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jun 13
     
    Perjury? The question and the answer on video.
Gary Edwards

The Ruling Class Consensus On Domestic Spying | Online Library of Law and Liberty - 0 views

www.libertylawsite.org/...s-consensus-on-domestic-spying

Angelo-Codevilla ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • This means that the US government’s vast apparatus is almost completely useless against serious terrorists or criminals, and useful primarily to do whatever the government might choose to innocent persons.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13
       
      Bold statement, but then how did the Fort Hood massacre and Boston Marathon massacre occur?  Plenty of email and phone call evidence in both cases.  Yet the government was caught totally unaware.  I guess it really depends on who the watchers are watching.  Proof is slowly being gathered that the watchers are watching those whom the government elites seek to destroy through blackmail, intimidation (IRS anyone?), and breach of Constitutional rights (take your pick of any three letter government agency acronym you like).
  • Ever since the 1970s, the art of code-making has surpassed the art of code-breaking – period.
  • Hence, on the high end, anyone can purchase voice and internet communications software that are beyond the capacity of anyone to access without an electronic key.
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  • If collection is universal, the collectors don’t have to explain to others (or even to themselves) why they are targeting this person or group and not another. Possessing the data in secret, they can then decide in secret who they are really interested in.
  • That flight from responsibility is also why, in 1978, the intelligence agencies pressed Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), under which the agencies submit their requests for detailed targeting, in secret, to a court that decides ex parte and in secret.
  • the FISA court. But that court acts not just in secret, but ex parte – hearing only one side.
  • The relevant question about the uses of the NSA programs, then, is simply “against whom, in the broad American public, is the US government likely to turn its animus?
  • Alas, the ruling class has shown itself all too able to treat domestic opponents as public enemies. But that is another story.
  • Project Constant Informant, which tracks essentially all American phone calls, allows matching the account holder’s identity with each call’s precise location in time and place.
  • From Barack Obama to Karl Rove, the ruling class is in unison: The NSA’s collection of data on virtually all Americans is essential to preventing you from “being blown to smithereens on your morning commute”
  • In the words of General Keith Alexander, director of NSA, this surveillance has “helped to prevent” “dozens of terrorist events.”
  • Here are the facts.
  • These programs stand between Americans and terrorists. Worries that they will be misused are misplaced or downright kooky.
  • Another, PRISM, gives access to all records of email, chat, photos, videos and file transfers from the servers of leading US internet companies.
  • anyone who has followed telecommunication technology and intelligence during the past three decades can only scoff at the claim that universal collection of telephone externals and access to internet traffic can thwart serious criminals or terrorists.
  • In fact, the expansion of the US government’s capacity to intrude on innocent communications happened just as technology enabled competent persons who intend to hide their communications to do so without fail.
Paul Merrell

CNN.com - Transcripts - 0 views

transcripts.cnn.com/...cnr.03.html

surveillance state NSA all digital communications NSA-records

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Joining us now from Los Angeles, Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent. Good morning, Tim. TIM CLEMENTE, FORMER FBI COUNTERTERRORISM AGENT: Good morning, Carol. Thanks for having me.
  • COSTELLO: Let's turn our attention to the phone call between Katherine Russell and her husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. You said something very interesting on Erin Burnett show last night. You said that if Katherine Russell does not divulge the contents of this phone call that the FBI had other methods of finding out what was said. What did you mean by that? CLEMENTE: Well, on the national security side of the house, in the federal government, you know, we have assets. There are lots of assets at our disposal throughout the intelligence community and also not just domestically but overseas. Those assets allow us to gain information intelligence on things that we can't use ordinarily in a criminal investigation, but are used for major terrorism investigations or counter intelligence investigations. COSTELLO: You're not talking about voicemail, right? What are you talking about exactly? CLEMENTE: I'm talking about all digital communications are -- there's a way to look at digital communications in the past. I can't go into detail of how that's done or what's done. But I can tell you that no digital communication is secure. So these communications will be found out. The conversation will be known. It is just a question of whether or not Katherine Russell decides to own up to what was said prior to that information being known or after the fact. It will be unfortunate for her if she doesn't own up to it completely and fully because the facts of this case, the fact of her involvement in communication with her husband will be known.
Gary Edwards

Told Ya So: NSA's Collection Of Metadata Is Screamingly Illegal - Forbes - 1 views

www.forbes.com/...2

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA Edward-Snowden

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The PCLOB disagrees.  While “the matter is not free from doubt, we believe that these decisions are wrong. ‘[I]t is a commonplace of statutory construction that the specific governs the general,’ the Supreme Court has said.” If Congress said telephone companies can share customer data in specific circumstances, but not in response to Section 215 orders, that’s what the law is.  That conclusion seems, to us if not to Judge Pauley, crystal clear.
  • So the NSA’s telephone metadata spying program exceeds the agency’s authority under the Patriot Act, and violates ECPA in the process. But we’re still not done – it gets worse yet. For there are good reasons to believe the NSA’s phone records collection is not just illegal, but criminal.
  • Telephone and Internet metadata are protected by law under the aforementioned “pen register” statute.  That statute says that “no person may install or use a pen register or a trap and trace device without first obtaining a court order under section 3123 of this title or under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.).” Pen registers and trap and trace devices collect dialing, routing, signaling or addressing information. Violation of the statute is a criminal misdemeanor.
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  • We suspect that the phone companies have put in place a process adopted specifically to collect the information that the government demands via its section 215 orders and transmit that information to the government according to technological specifications that the government establishes.  We have seen just this sort of cooperative relationship in another of the NSA’s mass surveillance programs – PRISM – which collects the content of emails, text messages, IMs, and other Internet communications.
  • The government works with telephone and Internet companies to get access to the data it wants in a specific, interoperable format. And this is the problem: If the process for collecting data in response to section 215 orders is in any way different from the process for regular billing, without meeting the statutory requirements for installation of a pen register device, it is a crime.
Paul Merrell

Feds move to keep National Security Agency call data indefinitely - POLITICO.com - 0 views

www.politico.com/...-data-indefinitely-184061.html

surveillance state NSA call-metadata digital preservation

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Citing the need to preserve evidence related to pending lawsuits, the Obama administration is asking for permission to keep data on billions of U.S. phone calls indefinitely instead of destroying it after five years. In a motion filed Tuesday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Justice Department says the series of lawsuits over the program — including one filed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — create a duty for the government to hang on to the so-called metadata currently in the National Security Agency’s computer systems. “Based upon the issues raised by Plaintiffs in the … lawsuits and the Government’s potential defenses to those claims, the United States must ensure that all potentially relevant evidence is retained which includes the [business record] metadata obtained in bulk from certain telecommunications service providers pursuant to this Court’s production orders,” Justice Department lawyers write in a motion (posted here).
  • The motion was released Wednesday on the court’s public web page. There was no immediate indication of a ruling from the surveillance court. The NSA’s call metadata program is aimed at detecting terrorist plots affecting the U.S., but evidence of the effort’s success is murky. President Barack Obama has proposed ending the NSA’s collection of the data. Officials are considering storing it with the telephone companies themselves, creating a new entity to hold it, or reconstructing the program in some other way. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that U.S. officials were considering making the request submitted on Tuesday.
Paul Merrell

Why Does Anyone Trust the National-Security State? - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...281429

surveillance state secrecy-do-we-need-it? government secrecy oversight

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The ongoing debate about the national-security state's conduct drills down, for many participants, to this question: How much do you trust the people in charge? Do you believe they'll reliably uphold the laws and norms of a free society? Or do you think that, permitted enough secrecy, they'll break U.S. laws and violate rights? For me, it isn't a close call. The United States needs protection from the people protecting it, always has, and always will. The character of the president isn't the issue. Neither are the individuals running the FBI, CIA, NSA, JSOC, or the Department of Homeland Security. It wouldn't matter if the national-security state was staffed from top to bottom with people I could hand select based on my esteem for their character. Letting them operate in secret would still be dangerous.
  • That conclusion isn't something I've derived in the abstract from political philosophy. The best reason to mistrust the national-security state is its track record. Abuses at the FBI, CIA, and NSA go back a long way, as any student of the J. Edgar Hoover era or the Church Committee report can attest in shocking detail. There's no reason to think that generation was more prone to misbehave than ours. But one needn't look to past generations to find good reasons for mistrust. The War on Terrorism is full of them.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13
     
    Excellent essay on why the national security folk deserve no trust.
Paul Merrell

Private firms selling mass surveillance systems around world, documents show | World ne... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...mass-surveillance-technologies

surveillance state surveillance-industry capabilities

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Private firms are selling spying tools and mass surveillance technologies to developing countries with promises that "off the shelf" equipment will allow them to snoop on millions of emails, text messages and phone calls, according to a cache of documents published on Monday.The papers show how firms, including dozens from Britain, tout the capabilities at private trade fairs aimed at offering nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East the kind of powerful capabilities that are usually associated with government agencies such as GCHQ and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency.The market has raised concerns among human rights groups and ministers, who are poised to announce new rules about the sale of such equipment from Britain.
  • The documents are included in an online database compiled by the research watchdog Privacy International, which has spent four years gathering 1,203 brochures and sales pitches used at conventions in Dubai, Prague, Brasilia, Washington, Kuala Lumpur, Paris and London. Analysts posed as potential buyers to gain access to the private fairs.The database, called the Surveillance Industry Index, shows how firms from the UK, Israel, Germany, France and the US offer governments a range of systems that allow them to secretly hack into internet cables carrying email and phone traffic.The index has details from 338 companies, including 77 from the UK, offering a total of 97 different technologies.
  • The documents include a brochure from a company called Advanced Middle East Systems (AMES), based in Dubai. It has been offering a device called Cerebro – a DIY system similar to the Tempora programme run by GCHQ – that taps information from fibre-optic cables carrying internet traffic.AMES describes Cerebro as a "core technology designed to monitor and analyse in real time communications … including SMS (texting), GSM (mobile calls), billing data, emails, conversations, webmail, chat sessions and social networks."The company brochure makes clear this is done by attaching probes to internet cables. "No co-operation with the providers is required," it adds."Cerebro is designed to store several billions of records – metadata and/or communication contents. At any time the investigators can follow the live activity of their target with advanced targeting criteria (email addresses, phone numbers, key words)," says the brochure.
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  • Another firm selling similar equipment is VASTech, based in South Africa, which has a system called Zebra. Potential buyers are told it has been designed to help "government security agencies face huge challenges in their combat against crime and terrorism".VASTech says Zebra offers "access to high volumes of information generated via telecommunication services for the purposes of analysis and investigation".It has been designed to "intercept all content and metadata of voice, SMS, email and fax communications on the connected network, creating a rich repository of information".
  • It is now possible, from a single laptop computer, to locate where a mobile phone is calling from anywhere in the world, with an accuracy of between 200 metres and a mile. This is not done by attaching probes, and it is not limited to the area where the laptop is working from. The "cross border" system means it is now theoretically possible to locate a mobile phone call from a town abroad from a laptop in London.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 13
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