unofficial narrative

Surveillance technology out of control, says Lord Ashdown

Spread the love

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/surveillance-technology-out-of-control-ashdown

Image of GCHQ donught building

The technology used by Britain’s spy agencies to conduct mass surveillance is “out of control”, raising fears about the erosion of civil liberties at a time of diminished trust in the intelligence services, according to the former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown.

The peer said it was time for a high-level inquiry to address fundamental questions about privacy in the 21st century, and railed against “lazy politicians” who frighten people into thinking “al-Qaida is about to jump out from behind every bush and therefore it is legitimate to forget about civil liberties”. “Well it isn’t,” he added.

Ashdown talks frequently to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and is chair of the the Liberal Democrats‘ general election team. Though he said he was speaking for himself, his views are understood to be shared by other senior members of the Liberal Democrats in government, who are also keen for some kind of broad inquiry into the subject.

This idea is also supported by Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ. He told the Guardian he was in favour of an inquiry and thought it would be wrong to “dismiss the idea of a royal commission out of hand”. It was important to balance the need for the agencies to have powerful capabilities, and the necessity of ensuring they did not use them in a way parliament had not intended, Omand added.

Ashdown is the latest senior politician to demand a review of the powers of Britain’s intelligence agencies – GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 – and the laws and oversight which underpin their activities.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ashdown said surveillance should only be conducted against specific targets when there was evidence against them. Dragnet surveillance was unacceptable, he added.

Ashdown made clear revelations in the Guardian about GCHQ and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, had raised important issues that “could not be ignored or swept aside in a barrage of insults”.

He also criticised the Labour party, which was in power when the agencies began testing and building many of their most powerful surveillance capabilities. Labour’s former home secretary Jack Straw was responsible for introducing the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000 (Ripa), which made the programmes legal.

“Ripa was a disgraceful piece of legislation,” Ashdown said. “Nobody put any thought into it. Labour just took the words they were given by the intelligence agencies. I don’t blame the intelligence agencies.

…

Pantsdown continues in the article to discuss witnessing the steaming open of envelopes by spooks. In line with the full disclosure policy of this blog I can reveal that nowadays they use endescopes to read letters. The tell-tale sign is a small rip to the seal of the envelope at one end.

[19/11/13  The tell-tell sign of the use of an endescope will usually be on the right-hand side of the envelope’s seal and occasionally on the left-hand side. Why is that?

Continue ReadingSurveillance technology out of control, says Lord Ashdown

No more evasion and prevarication – Britain’s elite must be held to account

Spread the love

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/17/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair-bush

The blocking of the Chilcot report underlines how the powerful shield their activities from the public

Henry Porter

Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George 'Dubya' Bush
Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George ‘Dubya’ Bush

 …

It is the greatest scandal of British public life in a generation, yet Blair and his allies, such as Jack Straw and Alastair Campbell, have never been properly held to account. More than a decade after we went to war, Sir John Chilcot’s report is stalled because Sir Jeremy Heywood, the current cabinet secretary, who was at Blair’s side as principle private secretary during the run-up to the invasion, is blocking crucial evidence to the inquiry.

It is an unbelievable state of affairs. As the former foreign secretary Lord Owen pointed out last week, you couldn’t have a more dubious arrangement. A man who was integral to the government that took us to war is now sitting on evidence of 200 relevant cabinet level discussions, 25 notes written by Blair to George Bush and records of 130 phone conversations between Blair, Bush and Gordon Brown. Heywood claims that he’s bound by the decision taken by his predecessor, Lord O’Donnell, to protect the confidentiality of Blair and Bush’s discussions. In effect, Heywood is claiming that he has no discretion and therefore his past as senior official in Blair’s Number 10 at the time has no relevance.

What is so dismal about this situation, quite apart from the naked self-interest that it represents, is that it underlines that while the British public is expected to put up with ever-increasing levels of intrusion by surveillance, in the name of transparency and security, those in power create for themselves an impregnable bunker where honour, accountability and public opinion count for nothing. They conceal their actions and shield themselves from entirely legitimate requests from an inquiry set up by the prime minister himself.

…

But in all this, there is a much bigger theme, which is seen in another sputtering inquiry into the behaviour of Blair-era politicians and officials – the Gibson inquiry into allegations that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects after 9/11 and that officials in the then foreign secretary Jack Straw’s office were aware. The inquiry’s investigations ended nearly two years ago and the report has been sat on by Number 10 for the past 14 months. After the NGOs and torture victims boycotted Sir Peter Gibson’s inquiry, because it lacked credibility, it probably won’t have the damning impact it should have when it is finally published this week.

As a result, Number 10 may get away without following up with examination of cases such as those of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was rendered with his wife for torture to Gaddafi’s Libya in an operation involving Sir Mark Allen of MI6 during Jack Straw’s time at the Foreign Office.

…

Continue ReadingNo more evasion and prevarication – Britain’s elite must be held to account

Blind old cnut Blunkett all of a sudden – many years too late – says that interception was too much

Spread the love

Blind old cnut Blunkett all of a sudden says “Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves,” he said. “In government you are pressed by the security agencies. They come to you with very good information and they say ‘you need to do something’. So you do need the breath of scepticism, not cynicism, breathing on them. You need to be able to take a step back. If you don’t have this, you can find yourself being propelled in a particular direction.”

I suspect that this is about spying on mobile phone users: In fact I suspect that it’s about governments demanding the ability to spy on mobile phone users is designed into the systems. This was on big C cnut Blunkett’s watch after all …

COUNCIL RESOLUTION of 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications
(96/C 329/01)
Official Journal C 329 , 04/11/1996 p. 0001 – 0006

[These demands from ‘law enforcement agencies’ are for every signal including location. Mobile phones signal their location continuously. Isn’t that a bug? … Blunkett, what do you have to say? You were home secretary after all … ]

[Later edit: Blunkett became Home Secretary in 2001. It should be recognised that mobile phones announce their location and much more.

[Later: It appears that there was no opposition by Blunkett to these demands from ‘law enforcement agencies’. Wasn’t there a scandal about this time about New Labour databases? –  Escalibur was associated with Mandy and Labour coming into power but it was more than that – have to research this.]

Don’t look at this Mobile phones are designed to be mobile bugs

Continue ReadingBlind old cnut Blunkett all of a sudden – many years too late – says that interception was too much

Conspiracy Theory Unofficial Narrative Fake Manufactured Terrorism The story of the London Bombings 7 July 2005 7/7 Jean Charles de Menezes Ian Blair Tony Blair

Spread the love

I’m not sure about this and I’d like some feedback.

THIS ARTICLE IS TO BE REPEATEDLY UPDATED AND AMENDED. While I have a lot, I don’t have the whole story so I would appreciate help with the uncertain parts. Thanks.

[23/11/13 One of the problems I encounter is that people helping don’t realise what I’ve already got. For example, I got the ’empty’ lead years ago when I was ignoring it as it was repeatedly raised.]

It’s a good day (to start).

Context, Terrorism, 2005 election, Inquiries Act, Bristol Indymedia, G8 & Privy Council ruling, Dust explosions, London Bombings, Cobra meeting for G8 not 7/7, Jerusalem Post articles, Ian Blair, murder of Jean Charles de Menezes

START:

Terrorism is a godsend for governments. It provides a wonderful excuse for dodgy newly-developed airplanes falling out of the sky when their doors open at 30 thousand feet and it provides a wonderful excuse for dust explosions on the London Underground. It provides a ready excuse for shitty old Jeeps with documented faults crashing off motorways and bursting into flames. It provides for massive made for television sacrificial rituals to start already planned wars.

7/1/14 The magick is working, I’m making fine progress – it’s almost as if it was hidden in plain sight all along. It was.

Just a tiny piece today. On 7/7/2005 – the day of explosions on the London underground and the strange bombing of a double-decker bus an hour later – the boss of the Metropolitan police Ian Blair said “The most important message though however is just that it, while it is a confused situation it must be a confused situation in multiple sites like this, a co-ordinated effort is slowly bringing order out of the chaos.”

There are two issues about this statement. Firstly try finding it using a search engine. It’s almost as if I made it up. I didn’t of course but the web has been scrubbed. That takes the sort of power that only governments have.

Secondly, what is meant by the phrase ‘order out of (the) chaos’ which is explained very well here

The need to deter democracy by alienating public opinion from public policy, is one that has been long understood. Back in 1921, the highly influential political columnist and media analyst Walter Lippmann, wrote the book “Public Opinion”,where he discussed the need for the “manufacture of consent”; given the inherent pitfalls and barriers to an accurate and effective public opinion (democracy, essentially), it is necessary that this opinion is crafted by a higher sphere of influence. This was understood very well by Edward Bernays, who was the founder of Public Relations (he indeed coined the term), and the formulator of not just corporate, but also political PR. He sketches out his views on this in his 1928 work, “Propaganda where he states that “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society”, suggesting like Lippmann, that democracy is a “chaos” that needs regulation from above. This “above” is a small section of elites: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” These are the people who will ensure that the masses are sedated, and free to run their daily lives, without participating in the broader picture of public policy, given the dangers that this would pose to the influence of said elites, and thus the smooth functioning of society. To paraphrase Bernays, a leader must serve by leading, not lead by serving.   Read more: http://u2r2h.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/911-and-propaganda-model.html#ixzz2pkrbXafu

As explained in the quoted section above, bringing order out of chaos can be understood to be ‘manufacturing of consent’,  “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses …”

Well-educated people – better educated than myself – politicians and the like, people who … for whatever reason … have come to realise the meaning of the term would, er … recognise the term and know what it means. That there was a manipulation of events to manufacture consent going on.

8/1/14 Just for fun since we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously, … he know’s I’m right. I’ve seen the light, it’s been revealed to Me, etc.

Enjoy

 

Continue ReadingConspiracy Theory Unofficial Narrative Fake Manufactured Terrorism The story of the London Bombings 7 July 2005 7/7 Jean Charles de Menezes Ian Blair Tony Blair

Google and Yahoo furious at reports NSA secretly taps data centres

Spread the love

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/google-reports-nsa-secretly-intercepts-data-links

Files obtained from Edward Snowden suggest NSA can collect information sent by fibre optic cable between Google and Yahoo data hubs ‘at will’

google-data-center-street-view
Google and Yahoo, two of the world’s biggest tech companies, reacted angrily to a report on Wednesday that the National Security Agency has secretly intercepted the main communication links that carry their users’ data around the world.

Citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials, the Washington Post claimed the agency could collect information “at will” from among hundreds of millions of user accounts.

The documents suggest that the NSA, in partnership with its British counterpart GCHQ, is copying large amounts of data as it flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the worldwide data centers of the Silicon Valley giants. The intelligence activities of the NSA outside the US are subject to fewer legal constraints than its domestic actions.

The story is likely to put further strain on the already difficult relations between the tech firms and Washington. The internet giants are furious about the damage done to their reputation in the wake of Snowden’s revelations.

…

guardian-sourced-NSA-google-interception

According to a top-secret document cited by the Post dated 9 January 2013, millions of records a day are sent from Yahoo and Google internal networks to NSA data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The types of information sent ranged from “metadata”, indicating who sent or received emails, the subject line and where and when, to content such as text, audio and video. [edit:  This is discussing data knowingly sent by Google and Yahoo to NSA under the Prism system.]

The Post’s documents state that in the preceding 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent on 181,280,466 new records.

Internet firms go to great lengths to protect their data. But the NSA documents published by the Post appear to boast about their ability to circumvent those protections. In one presentation slide on “Google Cloud Exploitation,” published by the Post, an artist has added a smiley face, in apparent celebration of the NSA’s victory over Google security systems.

The Post said that the interception took place on the cables that connect the internet giants’ data centers. The New York Times reported on Wednesday evening that one of the companies that provides such cables for Google was Level 3. It said in a statement provided to the Times: “We comply with the laws in each country where we operate. In general, governments that seek assistance in law enforcement or security investigations prohibit disclosure of the assistance provided.“

…

The Post said that by collecting the data overseas, the NSA was able to circumvent the legal restrictions that prevent it from accessing the communications of people who live in the United States, and that it fell instead under an executive order, signed by the president, that authorised foreign intelligence operations.

In response, the NSA specifically denied that it used the presidential order to circumvent the restrictions on domestic spying, though the agency said nothing about the rest of the story.

…

The Independent reports that: The infiltration is striking because the NSA, under a separate programme known as Prism, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingGoogle and Yahoo furious at reports NSA secretly taps data centres