WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may end up at notorious Colorado Supermax jail if convicted of espionage charges – KTLA Los Angeles

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would have to be almost dying to get out of arguably the most notorious prison in the United States if convicted of espionage charges and sent there, a court at Londons Old Bailey heard Tuesday.

Assange, who is fighting an extradition request from the U.S., would likely be sent to the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, if convicted, according to Maureen Baird, a former warden at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks publication of secret American military documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Assanges defense team says he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have also said he is suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he ends up in inhospitable prison conditions in the U.S.

Baird said Assange would likely face the most onerous prison conditions that the U.S. can impose, conditions that she has seen lead to an array of mental health issues, including anxiety and paranoia.

From my experience, of close to three decades of working in federal prisons, I would agree that long term isolation can have serious negative effects on an inmates mental health, she said.

She said Assange would likely be held under special administrative measures, or SAMs, if extradited to the U.S., both in pre-trial detention and after any conviction, because of national security concerns within the U.S. government.

Under these measures, which are at the discretion of the U.S. Attorney General and have been used on convicted terrorists, inmates spend almost the whole day confined in their cells with no contact with other prisoners and little contact with the outside world. She said there was little, if no, flexibility for wardens to ease the restrictions.

There is no grey area, its all black and white, she said.

Given that likely SAMs requirement, Baird said the only place for him to go would be ADX Florence in Colorado unless there was a severe change in his medical status.

Citing the example of convicted terrorist, Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, Baird said Assange would have to be almost dying to be sent to another facility.

Mustafa, who is also known as Abu Hamza and used to be a cleric at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, was extradited from the U.K. to the U.S. in 2012. He has had his two arms amputated and is blind in one eye. SAMs were imposed on him soon after extradition and he has for the past five years been housed in a special secure unit of ADX known as H-Unit.

Lindsay Lewis, a New York attorney who has represented Mustafa, told the court in written testimony that Assange would in all likelihood wind up in this unit as well if held under SAMs and sent to ADX.

There is no reason to conclude that SAMs imposed on Mr. Assange would be any less arbitrary, oppressive, or difficult to challenge, should the U.S. government determine, in its apparently unbridled discretion, that they are appropriate, she said.

The facility is also home to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Ramzi Yousef and Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man ever convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The court has heard how one former warden at the prison, Robert Hood, has described the Supermax prison as a fate worse than death that was not built for humanity.

It is thought that, if extradited, Assange would be first moved to the pre-trial facilities at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the U.S. government have claimed that Assanges mental state is not as bad as his lawyers say and that he wouldnt be subjected to improper conditions.

Clair Dobbin, a lawyer acting on behalf of the U.S. government, said SAMS were only speculative and reviewed regularly. She also said they have been removed from some inmates at the Colorado prison.

Assanges extradition hearing, which was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, is due to end this week.

Read the original here:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may end up at notorious Colorado Supermax jail if convicted of espionage charges - KTLA Los Angeles

From Scandals To War, Here Are The 15 Best Documentaries Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes – ScoopWhoop

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

For the most part, Rotten Tomatoes seems to have its finger on the pulse, at least when it comes to quality. Every rating portal has its flaws, but we all need a reference of some sort. When it comes to documentaries and the recording of human behaviour, here are the best ones according to the folks running the fresh-o-meter.

IN 1974,daredevil Philippe Petit walked between New York's Twin Towers on a thin wire, and this is a 2008 documentary of that feat. It tells of the immense planning that went into getting it done, and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout.

We know everything about our favourite rockstars, but what about the backup singers? They're a vital part of the sound of everyone from the Rolling Stones to David Bowie, and this 2013 documentary shines a light on their passion and hard-work.

This documentary takes a look at the simmering racial relations and tensions in America, based on a manuscript from 1979 by James Baldwin.Raoul Peck made this in 2017, envisioning the parallels between then and now.

This 2013 documentary film directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite tells the story of Tilikum, a captive killer whale. Humans and performance killer whales have a storied history, and this film looks at how we understand very little of these creatures. Basically, it's a total takedown of places like SeaWorld.

This 2010 British documentary was directed by the notorious street artist Banksy. It's an illuminating look at the borderline illegal world of underground art, as told through the eyes of Banksy and fellow artist Thierry Guetta.

This2016 Turkish film directed by Ceyda Torun is a step away from usual direction that documentaries take. It's about the 100s of thousands of cats that roam the metropolis of Istanbul, how the locals live around them, and the frantic modernization of an ancient place with a unique feline history.

This heart-rending2008 Israeli animated war documentary was directed by Ari Folman. The film tells the story of Ari himself trying to recollect memories of the 1982 Lebanon War, in which he served as an infantry soldier. This one is not for the weak of heart, but it is truly masterful.

Matt Damon narrates this documentary by Charles Ferguson about the consequences of the 2008 global financial meltdown on the American people. It examines the key elements that led to the collapse, as well as the powerful people who played a part in making it happen. Over the course of the unofficial investigation, you're taken to China, the US, and even Iceland.

This Canadian rockumentary is about a heavy metal band named Anvil that released an album in 1982. This album went on to inspire and influence everyone from Metallica to Anthrax, yet Anvil itself dropped into obscurity, consistently touring and suffering the rigours of the road without ever finding fame. It's comical, touching, and surprisingly emotive.

This 2011 British documentary focuses on a science experiment from the 1970s that involved a chimpanzee named Nim. The basis of the project was to establish that an ape could communicate through language if raised as a human child. However, it soon devolved into a heart-wrenching indictment of how terribly humans treat animals in the name of science.

This2014 biographical documentary chronicles the storied life of legendary film critic Roger Ebert. From his battles with the film industry to his battles with alcohol, this one pulls no punches.

Enron, one of the most notorious American corporations in history, a name synonymous with corruption and the evils that companies get up to. This 2005 documentary is based on the book of the same name, and tells the story of how Enron traders resorted to all manner of illegal schemes, at the cost of the public, to keep their high paying jobs.

This2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras was one of the first to have direct contact with Edward Snowden after the NSA spying scandal made his a notorious figure who was constantly on the run. While the information he provided is now decently documented, it's still almost surreal to see what things were like at the time, when history was being made.

This documentary chronicles the life of the charismatic and headstrong Anthony Weiner, as he runs for mayor of New York in 2013. Unfortunately for him, his political and personal life comes crashing down after a sex scandal involving him sending a picture of... well, his wiener. The irony was not lost on anyone.

This 2019 documentary wasdirected by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, and chronicles the lost-lasting, often tragic consequences of China's One Child Policy, which lasted from 1979 to 2015. It affected entire generations in a way that can only be described as devastating.

Continue reading here:
From Scandals To War, Here Are The 15 Best Documentaries Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes - ScoopWhoop

Oxford Universitys scholarly RT hit piece has no room for the mundane reality of how the worlds news organisations work – RT

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

The venerable Oxford University has entered the fray and churned out some RT bashing in the name of scholarship, and when the term disinformation is in the very first line of the report, its clear were on familiar ground.

The Oxford Internet Institutes new study The Organizational Behavior of RT makes the claim that it advances the scholarship of news organizational behavior, information warfare, and international broadcasting. I will now make the claim that what it actually advances is the method of repeating the same old guff from anonymous sources and pretending its research.

Lets get this on the record to start with: RT certainly does seek to represent a Russian view of the world and it does not hide that fact, and it is extremely critical of the West. As far as I know, RT makes no claims to have the monopoly on the truth, which is one way it certainly differentiates itself from Western organisations. It has made and does make mistakes, is not perfect, and, Ill be honest, the canteen is very disappointing. However, if you think its some kind of homogenous organisation staffed by serfs spewing out the view of one person, well, then youve never met a Russian.

So, that being said, heres my attempt at adding some informed common sense that may actually help Oxford University come to terms with what RT actually is, rather than just confirming its own bias. Ill stay away from the geopolitical stuff because you cant win there, and stick to the things I know a bit about, and show how the claims being made are cherry-picked and morphed to reflect the worldview this report is trying to bolster.

Ill go into the findings and conclusions, and suggest there may be a little more going on, and perhaps if the researchers had decided to question more (a little RT humour there), they may have actually cast some light, instead of just heat.

So, the methodology is interesting. Researchers contacted 240 former and current RT staff members, although only 23 agreed to be interviewed and, of those, 21 had left the company. It doesnt take an Oxford professor to think that when the majority of your evidence comes from former employees (the ones who were willing to talk), at least some of them are going to have attitudes towards a former employer that are less than scholarly.

The authors admit the participants had no journalistic experience before joining RT which begs the question, why would you use this group to provide insight into how a media outlet works?

Theres something about Russians that makes the authors of reports such as this ignore the mundane reasons things might actually happen and, instead, turn them into some kind of grand global plan to create chaos. Its as if RT operates in some kind of Bond-villain vacuum in which its the only baddy.

Theres a lot made of the fact RT hired inexperienced British journalists when it launched, suggesting this was some kind of nefarious strategy. The reality is that, when youre launching an English-language channel based in Moscow and you need hundreds of employees to get the thing started, an English-speaking workforce tends to live in Britain, not Russia.

There is criticism that RT staff are asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, ignoring the fact that staff are constantly being contacted to dish the dirt on the organisation by, among others, universities!

They [RT] did not want anyone to say bad things about the company. After Liz Wahl and Sara Firth [left RT], they did not want any more people doing this. Please, please, please, before the next researcher wants to mention Wahl or Firth and their very public resignations from RT to criticize the organisation, I implore them to go and see who those two are working for now.

In this Only When Russia Does It, Its Bad school of analysis, there is an interesting section on The Socialization of RT Journalists in other words, telling employees what you would like them to do in return for receiving a salary.

Then theres this classic misrepresentation: British, inexperienced journalists were treated like stars. Our participants stated that they were pampered with money, makeup artists, and private cars when they joined RT in its early days.

Lets unpack that pampering, shall we, to show how things can be twisted? They were given money, because it was a job. They were given access to a makeup department because they were going on television. They were given a lift to work because their shift started at 4.30am. And guess what? They had to find their own way home during daylight hours afterwards. Hows that for pampering?

Our respondents who witnessed the launch of RT in Moscow argued that hiring British journalists was part of a long-term plan to replace them with Russian journalists later.

It wasnt. They had to be replaced because the vast majority of the British journalists left after the first year for their own reasons. Many couldnt have trained a penguin to swim.

What about this insight about the inner workings: After journalists write a script, they need to get it approved by their editor. Most of our respondents who were based in the Moscow office said that the Russian editor would approve the script and the British editor would check the script to ensure it was professionally styled. So, erm, Oxford, heres a secret: sub-editors and editors are pretty universal across all nationalities of media.

The findings state that Socializing Russian journalists was not as necessary. Russian journalists at RT have a particularly strong sense of nationalism. Again, this is totally misrepresenting their view. What youll probably find is that these are Russian journalists who speak English, watch the way Russia is talked about in the English-speaking media and get pretty angry about it because it doesnt reflect their reality. From a Russian point of view, it looks very much like theyre the victim of disinformation. This is a key point that no one on either side, frankly seems willing to understand.

So, here are Oxfords three key accusations about RTs mission:

Across our interviews, our respondents agreed that the goals of the channel since 2008 have been and still are as follows. First, to push the idea that Western countries have as many problems as Russia

Second, to encourage conspiracy theories about media institutions in the West in order to discredit and delegitimize them.

Third, to create controversy and to make people criticize the channel, because it suggests that the channel is important an approach that would particularly help RT managers get more funding from the government.

On the first point, Western countries are not exactly hitting home runs at the moment, are they?

On the second holy shit, hows that for hypocrisy in a report that was literally written to discredit a media institution?

And on the third, it appears the channel is so important that Oxford University the best university in the world, were told is writing a report about it.

Ill finish by attempting to give my opinion on the one piece of geopolitics Im willing to put my name to. This report claims that The goal of the channel shifted when the Russia-Georgia conflict took place in 2008. Our respondents who witnessed this shift said that this conflict led the Russian government to realize that it could weaponize the channel to serve its political interests.

This misses the point completely about what, in my view, happened. Whatever else happened during that war, to this day, hardly anyone knows that Georgia fired the first shots during the South Ossetia conflict because thats not the narrative that was presented by CNN or the BBC, and their ilk. What Moscow realized was that it was the foreign mainstream media being weaponized. Somehow, it had to work much harder to get its view out into the world, and it must have worked, because people are writing hit pieces like this and calling it scholarly.

What I conclude from reading The Organizational Behavior of RT is that the academics over at Oxford should spend some time in other news organisations too. Theyll be in for a shock.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

See the rest here:

Oxford Universitys scholarly RT hit piece has no room for the mundane reality of how the worlds news organisations work - RT

Schools in England told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups – The Guardian

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.

Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an extreme political stance and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the measures effectively outlawed reference in schools to key events in British history, and that it symbolised growing authoritarianism within the governing Conservative party.

The guidance, part of lengthy guidelines for implementing the statutory curriculum, said: Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not extreme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the organisation.

It listed examples of what were described as extreme political stances, such as a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections; opposition to freedom of speech; the use of racist, including antisemitic, language; the endorsement of illegal activity; and a failure to condemn illegal activities done in support of their cause.

McDonnell said: On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.

This is another step in the culture war and this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace.

Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism.

He added: Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well, you dont have to. Boris Johnsons government has just instructed schools to do exactly that.

Barrister Jessica Simor QC suggested that the government has on occasion not complied with the guidance itself, after it admitted the new Brexit bill would break international law (endorsement of illegal activity) and continued selling arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen following a court ruling that it was unlawful.

Tariq Ali, the writer and activist, said although the new guidance was a sign of moral and political bankruptcy, the advent of the internet meant such measures were futile.

Leaving aside the stupidity, these things dont work, he said. People will read what they want to read. Trying to enhance a version of the Prevent strategy, which is already in place, is quite scandalous and shocking.

If you put things on a banned list, lots of young people can access them via the internet and read them. Banning them from schools will not work at all, aside from the fact its a sign of moral and political bankruptcy.

He added: How could both young and old people not read anti-capitalist analysis after 2008, or now with the virus going on and recessions looming all over the western world.

It is understood that the DfE is clear that schools should not work with agencies that take extreme positions, including promoting non-democratic political systems, and that teachers should be politically impartial.

Minister for school standards Nick Gibb said: Our new relationships, sex and health education (RHSE) guidance and training resources equip all schools to provide comprehensive teaching in these areas in an age-appropriate way.

These materials should give schools the confidence to construct a curriculum that reflects diversity of views and backgrounds, whilst fostering all pupils respect for others, understanding of healthy relationships, and ability to look after their own wellbeing.

It comes after counter-terrorism police earlier this year placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent programme. However, the south-east division of Counter Terrorism Policing later recalled the document.

The headline of this article was corrected on 27 September 2020 because the DfE guidance applies only to schools in England, not those across the UK as an earlier version said. It was further amended on 28 September 2020 to clarify that schools were told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups; as opposed to being told not to use anti-capitalist material as stated in an earlier version.

Original post:

Schools in England told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups - The Guardian

Labour: Gavin Williamson must ‘end Invisible Man act’ over university Covid issues – LBC

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

28 September 2020, 23:53

Labour has told Gavin Williamson to end his "Invisible Man act" over the issues facing students following a spike in coronavirus cases at universities.

The opposition party's demand comes as the education secretary prepares to face MPs on Tuesday regarding the uptick in Covid-19 cases on UK campuses.

Mr Williamson is due to answer an urgent question in the Commons after thousands of students were forced to self-isolate at universities including Glasgow, Manchester Metropolitan and Edinburgh Napier.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green said: "After days of silence, this statement is a chance for the education secretary to end his Invisible Man act and begin to get to grips with the situation.

"None of this was unforeseeable. Labour and others have warned that campuses would need access to testing.

"But - just as with the exams fiasco over the summer - the education secretary has created chaos through his incompetence and failure to act.

"Gavin Williamson must set out what he is doing to resolve these problems and put young people and parents' minds at rest."

Read more: Student hell - Anger grows with thousands trapped in vile conditions

Watch: 'Universities can't stop students going home' - consumer rights expert

According to university statements and local reports this month, roughly 30 UK institutions have seen confirmed Covid-19 cases. While on Monday, the University of Exeter asked students not to meet indoors with anyone who is not part of their household for the next 14 days.

The Labour Party accused Mr Williamson of not making any public appearances throughout the higher education saga and highlighted how he had not tweeted since 10 September - more than two weeks ago.

On Monday, the South Staffordshire MP took to Instagram to post about a litter pick in his constituency that he had taken part in, rather than the situation at the UK's universities.

The statement from Ms Green and the mounting issues in higher education come just weeks after the education secretary was urged to resign over his handling of the A-Level exam results fiasco.

Explained: Are students shut in halls allowed to go home?

Exclusive: MMU student reveals 'vile' conditions at Uni halls during lockdown

Labour is also demanding that the former chief whip sets out what steps he took over the summer to ensure that students would be able to return to university safely.

The opposition party also wants clarity that "every student will be able to safely return home to be with their families at Christmas after access to testing" as ministers put out mixed messages on the matter over the weekend.

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling said on Sunday there were "no plans" to keep students in university over Christmas. However, culture secretary Oliver Dowden said it would only be possible for young people to visit their families at the end of the term if the country follows existing guidance.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has also refused to rule out banning students from returning home for the festive period.

Labour has also called for guarantees from Mr Williamson that all students who are required to self-isolate will be able to access their education remotely and wants him to declare what mental health support will be put in place for those who have to stay indoors.

The party will also ask the secretary of state "what his message is for parents and those students who have not yet moved to campus" given the current situation across the UK, along with what help will be provided to students' unions to allow them to continue to provide pastoral support to students on and off campus.

Listen & subscribe: Global Player | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify

Labour: Gavin Williamson must 'end Invisible Man act' over university Covid issues - LBC

Solidarity and resistance: How renters are fighting against unjust evictions – DiEM25

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

The fight for housing security, a basic human right of which many in our country have been robbed, has rapidly become a fight over the shape of civil society more generally, with fault lines appearing across the political spectrum.

As the right seeks to wage a culture war over anything from the Last Night of the Proms, to the ethics of snitching on your neighbours, the left are at the vanguard of the tenants rights movement, directly resisting evictions and shifting the tenor of public debate around housing more generally.

The ban on evictions which was introduced in March, at the height of the first wave of COVID-19 was a vital piece of legislation that not only protected thousands of people from homelessness, but made the concept of a lockdown actually workable, alongside the tragically temporary end of rough sleeping. As remarked by The Guardian, it was a cruelly poetic twist of fate that the end of the eviction ban should fall on the day in which the grim double act of Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance addressed the UK warning of 50,000 new cases per day by mid-October.

This means that the already overworked courts face an enormous backlog of eviction cases to deal with. Many tenants are unaware of their legal rights in the face of eviction, which calls the already shoddy ethics behind the entire eviction process into question and robs many judges of the chance to grant discretion in housing cases.

It seems absolutely perverse and reckless for the government to once again urge everyone to work from home if they can, but simultaneously work to undermine housing security for thousands of people. A Conservative election pledge last year was the abolition of no fault evictions, but the government has instead decided that those falling into arrears due to the pandemic should stop carping on and get a higher income or a more secure job. Meanwhile, Conservative generosity towards private renters has extended as far as a Christmas truce, banning evictions in the run up to Christmas taking a leaf out of the Ebenezer Scrooge school of housing policy. Ultimately, the Christmas truce is an admission that the Tories and their landlord friends have been waging a class war against private renters for years.

Labour MP Zara Sultana has called for urgent measures to protect renters, highlighting the fact that 300,000 private renters have fallen into arrears during the pandemic, a figure that is highly likely to rise when the furlough scheme ends, currently propping up at least 5 million jobs. Sultana urged the government to extend the evictions ban for another year, cancel rent arrears and scrap no fault evictions. A coalition of organisations including Shelter, Crisis and Generation Rent have also urged the government to extend the eviction ban and offer a short-term package of emergency grants and loans to help renters who have lost income due to the pandemic.

The rights of tenants and renters facing eviction have been picked up by Momentum as part of a widespread resistance campaign against residential evictions and a shift towards community-based action. Calls from John McDonnell MP for a Marshall Plan-style social housing recovery plan to build 100,000 council homes would go a long way towards elevating many out of precarious, expensive private rented accommodation, and would also create hundreds of thousands of jobs in construction and other industries.

Meanwhile, facing stiff competition for the title of Worst Landlord in the Country is John Christodoulou, the billionaire owner of Somerford Grove in Hackney. After campaigning for a rent reduction during the pandemic, residents were subjected to surveillance, harassment and threatened with legal action. The tenants, with the support of Generation Rent, the London Renters Union and Momentum now face immediate eviction, but to put it more accurately, they are now directly resisting their own eviction.

While the billionaire Christodoulou outright refuses to even meet with the tenants, the government and even the shadow cabinet have also neglected their duty of care and protection for renters. Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Thangam Debbonaire MP was incredibly dismissive when asked why she opposed forgiving private rent debt, bizarrely claiming that it would benefit the rich.

There have been a number of victories in the UK for tenant activists to celebrate this year, such as the Peoples Empowerment Alliance for Custom House (Peach) winning a 60% rent reduction and the right to live in council-managed properties. After four years of grassroots struggle, hundreds of families won the right to live in safe, secure and affordable accommodation. The London Renters Union have also been incredibly active in the capital, mobilising hundreds of members from disparate communities to resist evictions, preventing dozens of unlawful evictions over the summer. Acorn, a community-based union of tenants, workers and residents are also providing eviction resistance training for members as well as supporting direct action by members to resist evictions and win compensation from negligent landlords.

As we move into an uncertain future in which tenants are no longer protected by the eviction ban, it is likely that these unions and organisations will serve as a vanguard for many on the left who no longer see their views represented by the Labour leadership, but feel empowered to take matters into their own hands.

In the US, the situation of private renters is fraught, with up to 40 million facing eviction without a further stimulus package. Ominously, an Uber for evictions has been launched in the States, Civvl, who are anything but civil, call evictions the FASTEST GROWING MONEY MAKING GIG DUE TO COVID-19. However, in a demonstration of how tenant activism can have incredible outcomes, protestors across the US were able to secure an additional 4 month moratorium against evictions, buying time for an election and stimulus plan to be pushed through what will hopefully be a Democratic majority Congress. In Spain, the left wing Podemos coalition have frozen evictions until six months after the end of the current state of emergency. Other countries with more authoritarian governments have not seen this kind of support, for instance, thousands in Brazil have been evicted by force, and slums in Kenya were brutally demolished leaving their residents homeless during the pandemic.

If their complete rejection of a building safety bill based on the recommendations of the Grenfell fire public enquiry is anything to go on, the Conservatives simply do not care about private renters. In the face of this neglect, community-led organisations and unions are fighting in the streets to secure safe, affordable and secure housing, demonstrating solidarity with their neighbours and standing up to heartless landlords. The fight will be long and difficult, but in the words of Vijay Prashad, as long as you are resisting, you are not defeated.

Photo Source: London Renters Union on Twitter.

Read Benjamin James Davies article Britains COVID-19 Housing Crisis.

Do you want to be informed of DiEM25's actions? Sign up here

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Craig Murray: Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange HearingDay 12 – Consortium News

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

Former British diplomat Craig Murray was in the public gallery at Old Bailey for Julian Assanges hearing and here is his report on Wednesdays events.

By Craig MurrayCraigMurray.org.uk

On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday.

This brought the closest the defence have come to a protest, with the defence pointing out they have still not addressed the new superseding indictment, and that the judge refused their request for an adjournment before witness hearings started, to give them time to do so.

Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence also pointed out that there had been numerous witnesses whose evidence had to be taken into account, and the written closing submissions had to be physically prepared with reference to the transcripts and other supporting evidence from the trial.

Baraitser countered that the defence had given her 200 pages of opening argument and she did not see that much more could be needed.

Edward Fitzgerald QC in dated photo. (YouTube)

Fitzgerald, who is an old-fashioned gentleman in the very nicest sense of those words, struggled to express his puzzlement that all of the evidence since opening arguments could be dismissed as unnecessary and of no effect.

I fear that all over London a very hard rain is now falling on those who for a lifetime have worked within institutions of liberal democracy that at least broadly and usually used to operate within the governance of their own professed principles. It has been clear to me from Day No. 1 that I am watching a charade unfold.

It is not in the least a shock to me that Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.

I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.

(CC0 1.0)

The plan of the U.S. government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus, we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.

Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadow banning from Twitter and Facebook as now.

Normally about 50 percent of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40 percent from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3 percent from Twitter and 9 percent from Facebook. That is a fall from 90 percent to 12 percent.

In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day. To be plain that is very much less than my normal daily traffic from them just in ordinary times. It is the insidious nature of this censorship that is especially sinister people believe they have successfully shared my articles on Twitter and Facebook, while those corporations hide from them that in fact it went into nobodys timeline. My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.

The U.S. government responded to Baraitsers pronouncement enthusiastically with the suggestion that closing arguments did not ought to be heard AT ALL. They ought merely to be submitted in writing, perhaps a week after final witnesses.

Baraitser appeared eager to agree with this.

Noam Chomsky. (Duncan Rawlinson)

Let me add that two days ago I noticed that the defence really had missed an important moment to stand up to her, when the direction of her railroading became evident. It appears that because of the ground the defence already conceded at that stage, Noam Chomsky is one of the witnesses from whom we now will not hear.

I am afraid I am not going to give you a substantive account of Wednesdays witnesses. I have decided that the intimate details of Julians medical history and condition ought not to be subject to further public curiosity. I know I cannot call back what others have published and the court is going to consider press requests for the entire medical records before it. But I have to do what I believe is right.

I will say that for the defence, Dr. Quinton Deeley appeared.

Dr. Quinton Deeley

Deeley is senior lecturer in social behaviour and neurodevelopment at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (IOPPN), Kings College London and consultant neuropsychiatrist in the National Autism Unit. He is co-author of the Royal College Report on the Management of Autism.

Deeley, after overseeing the standard test and extensive consultation with Julian Assange and tracing of history, had made a clear diagnosis which encompassed Aspergers. He described Julian as high-functioning autistic. There followed the usual disgraceful display by James Lewis QC, attempting to pick apart the diagnosis trait by trait, and employing such tactics as well, you are not looking me in the eye, so does that make you autistic? He really did. I am not making this up.

I should say more about Lewis, who is a strange character. Privately very affable, he adopts a tasteless and impolite aggression in cross-examination that looks very unusual indeed. He adopts peculiar postures. After asking aggressive questions, he strikes poses of theatrical pugilism. For example, he puts arms akimbo, thrusts out his chin, and bounces himself up on his feet to the extent that his heels actually leave the floor, while looking round at the courtroom in apparent triumph, his gaze pausing to fix that of the judge occasionally. These gestures almost always involve throwing back one or both front panels of his jacket.

I think this is some kind of unconscious alpha male signaling in progress, and all these psychiatrists around might link it to his lack of height. It is display behaviour but not really very successful. Lewis has grown a full set during lockdown and he appears strikingly like a chorus matelot in a small-town production of HMS Pinafore.

Dr. QuintonDeeley. (Kings College)

There is a large part of me that wants to give details of the cross-examination because Deeley handled Lewis superbly, giving calm and reasoned replies and not conceding anything to Lewis clumsy attempts to dismantle his diagnosis.

Lewis effectively argued Julians achievements would be impossible with autism while Deeley differed. But there is no way to do retell it without going into the discussion of medical detail I do not wish to give. I will however tell you that Julians father John Shipton told me that Julian has long known he has Aspergers and will cheerfully say so.

The second psychiatrist on Wednesday, Dr. Seena Fazel, professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Oxford, was the first prosecution witness we have heard from. He struck me as an honest and conscientious man and made reasonable points, well. There was a great deal of common ground between Fazel and the defence psychiatrists, and I think it is fair to say that his major point was that Julians future medical state would depend greatly on the conditions he was held in with regard to isolation, and on hope or despair dependent on his future prospects.

Here Lewis was keen to paint an Elysian picture. As ever, he fell back on the affidavit of U.S. Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who described the holiday camp that is the ADX maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where the prosecution say Julian will probably be incarcerated on conviction.

You will recall this is the jail that was described as a living hell and a fate worse than death by its own warden.

Lewis invited Fazel to agree this regime would not cause medical problems for Julian, and to his credit Fazel, despite being a prosecution witness, declined to be used in this way, saying that it would be necessary to find out how many of Krombergs claims were true in practice, and what was the quality of this provision. Fazel was unwilling to buy in to lies about this notorious facility.

Lewis was disingenuous because he knows, and the prosecution have conceded, that if convicted Julian would most likely be kept in H block at the ADX ( administrative maximum) under Special Administrative Measures. If he had read on a few paragraphs in Krombergs affidavit he would have come to the regime Julian would actually be held under:

So, let us be clear about this. U.S. Attorney General William Barr decides who is subjected to this regime and when it may be ameliorated.

For at least the first 12 months you are in solitary confinement locked in your cell, and allowed out only three times a week just to shower. You are permitted no visits and two phone calls a month.

After 12 months this can be ameliorated and we will hear evidence this is rare to allow three phone calls a month, and brief release from the cell five times a week to exercise, still in absolute isolation. We have heard evidence this exercise period is usually around 3 a.m. After an indeterminate number of years, you may, or may not, be allowed to meet another human being.

Behind Baraitsers chilly disdain, behind Lewis theatrical postures, this hell on Earth is what these people are planning to do to Julian. They are calmly discussing how definitely it will kill him, in full knowledge that it is death in life in any event.

I sit in the public gallery, perched 8 feet above them all, watching the interaction of the characters in this masque, as the lawyers pile up their bundles of papers or stare into their laptops, as Lewis and Fitzgerald exchange pleasantries, as the friendly clerks try to make the IT systems work, and my mind swims in horrified disbelief. They are discussing a fate for my friend as horrible as that of the thousands who over 500 years were dragged from this very spot and strung up outside. They are all chatting and working away as though we were a normal part of civilized society.

Then I go back to my hotel room, type it all up and post it. The governments who are destroying Julian have, through their agencies, pushed the huge corporations who now control the major internet traffic gateways, to ensure my pained and grieving account is seen by very few. My screams of pain and horror are deadened by thick padded walls. We are all locked in.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.

Theauthorscoverage of the Assange trial is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going aregratefully received.

This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those ofConsortium News.

Please Contributeto Consortium News25th Anniversary Fall Fund Drive

Donate securely with

Click on Return to PayPal here.

Or securely by credit card or check by clicking the red button:

View post:

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Craig Murray: Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange HearingDay 12 - Consortium News

Assange case: former security firm staff allowed to give anonymous evidence – The Guardian

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

Former employees of a security firm accused of spying on Julian Assange at Ecuadors embassy in the UK will be allowed to give evidence to his extradition case anonymously after claiming they would be at risk of kidnapping or poisoning.

Anonymity was granted to two former employees of UC Global after a hearing at the Old Bailey in London was told they feared that its director and owner, David Morales, or others connected to him in the US, could seek to harm them.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser said she would permit their identities to remain anonymous out of respect for a Spanish court that had done the same as part of a case in which they are involved.

Hearing a submission for anonymity from the WikiLeaks founders legal team on Tuesday, she asked if the witnesses required protection from the director of UC Global, or from the American state, or from whom do you think?

Mark Summers QC responded that they required protection mainly from Morales, but also from those associated with him. He said that Morales, who had been detained in Spain and subsequently bailed, had military training and that a firearm with the serial numbers removed had been found at one of his addresses.

James Lewis QC, acting for the US government, did not contest the submission for anonymity but said that checks would be carried out on the witnesses, whose evidence would be read into the record. He added that the US case was likely to be that their evidence was wholly irrelevant.

In allegations first reported by El Pais, the Spanish defence and private security company provided security for the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange lived for seven years until April 2019. According to a complaint lodged by Assange in Spain, the company handed over audio and video of meetings he held with his lawyers and supporters inside the embassy to the CIA, breaching privacy laws and legal privilege.

Earlier in Tuesdays hearing, a lawyer for Abu Hamza, the radical Muslim cleric serving a life sentence in the US for terrorism offences, told the court that Assange would almost certainly end up in the extreme conditions of a notorious supermax jail if sent to the US.

The lawyer, Lindsay Lewis, accused US authorities of going back on assurances that she said had been given to courts in the UK and Europe before Hamza was extradited from Britain in 2012.

Assange is fighting extradition to the US on charges relating to leaks of classified documents allegedly exposing US war crimes and abuse. He could face a prison sentence of up to 175 years if convicted on all charges and be moved to the supermax administrative maximum facility near Florence, Colorado.

It is currently holding Abu Hamza, an Egyptian-born former imam at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, who was born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa.

The 62-year-old had suffered serious psychological consequences from enforced isolation in the US, Lewis told the Old Bailey. The US lawyer represented Hamza during his New York terrorism trial and has been called by Assanges defence team.

I would note he was almost never out of his cell except for legal visits, she said, adding that calls and communications to his family were also sporadic.

There was no reason to believe that the conditions US authorities could impose on Assange would be any less arbitrary, oppressive or difficult to challenge, Lewis said.

Her evidence follows a week of testimony by medical experts who referred to Assanges history of depression and what was said to be a high risk of him taking his life if extradited.

I think he would be unlikely to get anywhere near the care or accommodation he has had in the UK, said Lewis, giving evidence via videolink.

Another witness called by the Assange legal team, a former warden at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York, said there would have to be a severe change in Assanges medical status for him to get out of the prison in Florence.

Cross-examining, Clair Dobbin, for the US government, said it was only a possibility that Assange would be subject to what are known as Sams (special administrative measures).

Oversee apps with these 3 application security testing tools – TechTarget

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

Automated application security testing tools are critical as software applications come with a broad attack surface for cybercriminals to potentially exploit. With over a quarter of them having one or more serious vulnerabilities, applications are easy targets. The consequences of an attack can be devasting for both the application owner and its users, exposing both to financial loss and reputational damage. Even when security is built into the design and development stages of an application, vulnerabilities can still creep in. However, in modern continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) environments, where time is critical and manual code reviews and traditional test plans are time-consuming, IT admins often struggle to comprehensively oversee large, complex applications.

Automated application security testing tools can help developers identify software defects early in the CI/CD pipeline -- when they are easiest to detect, cheaper to resolve and overall less likely to disrupt the next development cycle.

Various laws and standards, such as PCI DSS, HIPAA and NIST 800-53, mandate or require the use of application security testing tools to address risk management requirements. The recent GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act have also dramatically increased the amount of potential fines for organizations that don't take the appropriate steps to safeguard data.

The latest crop of application security testing tools enables software development teams to regularly check their code base to catch and fix bugs and vulnerabilities throughout the development, deployment, upgrade and maintenance of an application, greatly reducing the risk of a security incident. Commercial and open source application security testing tools and services are widely available, and although they will incur some initial costs, companies will ultimately spend fewer resources to remediate vulnerabilities and possible security incidents.

Application security testing tools can also free developers from tedious work, improving overall productivity. Modern tools incorporated into a developer's integrated development environment (IDE) enable the option to scan smaller sections of code more frequently, providing immediate feedback on potential issues. Application security testing tools not only find vulnerabilities, but also potential weaknesses in the code and its execution, halting the build process, if necessary, until admins remediate the problem and verify resolution. These tools offer repeatable tests that scale well and generate metrics to show how many issues admins detect and fix; track improvements in each developer's code; and track security issues so they don't get overlooked or ignored.

There are three main types of app security testing tools:

Mobile application security testing tools for mobile apps and application security testing as a service (ASTaaS) are two other options teams should consider depending on the nature of their environment. Also, as every project will include some third-party and open source components, a software composition analysis (SCA) tool is important in order to meet compliance regulations as it identifies components and libraries used in an application and checks for vulnerabilities.

No single application security testing tool will uncover every type of security issue. So, admins must plan for a combination of tools in the long run but should attempt to integrate tools as early as possible into the software development process. By automating the search for coding flaws, fixing security defects can become a routine, everyday task similar to fixing functional defects. SAST, along with an SCA tool, is the most common starting point for initial code analysis and will help fix the most common weaknesses and ensure code adheres to coding standards, particularly when the application is written in-house or the team has access to the source code.

Not all security issues are detectable during the software development phase, however, particularly if the source code is unavailable. Many issues only come to light when the application is in use, hence the need for DAST scanners, which crawl a running application before scanning it. This lets the scanner find all exposed input and access points within the application, which are then subsequently tested for a range of vulnerabilities by the scanner. Assessing how the interaction of different components affects security is an important part of reducing an application's attack surface.

The drawback with DAST is that admins must run the tests at a later stage in the software development lifecycle (SDLC), making it more costly to fix the vulnerabilities they discover. IAST tools generally run on the application server, functioning as an agent providing real-time detection of security issues by analyzing traffic and execution flow from within the application. The results can usually feed directly into an issue tracking tool.

The big advantages IAST has over SAST is that its false positive rate is normally a lot lower and it can handle third-party vulnerability detection to identify problems caused by external or open source components. IAST tools can operate during development, quality assurance and even in production as there is little effect on overall performance.

A team's development philosophy will also influence the choice of tools. SAST tools fit well into a Waterfall SDLC, as do DAST tools, whereas an Agile or CI/CD environment is better suited to IAST tools as they have a smaller time effect on the development cycle. One important, but often overlooked, feature is reporting. Tools that produce reports that all stakeholders can sufficiently comprehend will help project managers communicate risk and overall security posture. If resources and skill limitations make on-premises options a challenge, buyers should consider ASTaaS to hand off testing to a cloud service.

Any application security testing tool obviously needs to support whatever coding languages an application uses and integrate into the development pipeline, into the target platform -- such as mobile or web -- and with existing IDEs. If the development team doesn't include a security specialist or have the support of a dedicated security team, then they must pay extra attention to a potential tool's ease of setup and configuration as developers won't want to lose time in the setup process.

The size and geographic distribution of the development team, along with budget, will determine which features are necessary in an application security testing tool. Large teams located in different offices or countries will need a tool that can coordinate the management and reporting of all the different application security testing tools running in each location. If the team has less-experienced developers or if past projects contained a high number of bugs and weak coding practices, then e-learning functionality can improve the quality of code going forward.

Buyers should always ask to see a demo and take advantage of free trials to compare them against open source products and to ensure the features and capabilities are worth the investment. It's always possible to complement commercial tools with open source tools if the budget is limited.

Checkmarx provides a full range of tools from SAST, IAST, SCA and just-in-time training to educate developers on specific challenges. It comes with a range of implementation options, from private cloud to on-premises systems, all on a centralized platform to manage each tool. According to company case studies, customers have found setup to be straightforward, particularly combining automated scans with code collaboration tools, such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps. Its mobile application security testing platform supports more than 22 coding and scripting languages and their frameworks, with zero configuration necessary to scan any language.

Companies choose Checkmarx over other options because of its ease of integration and ability to run automated scans on more than 100 different applications. One particular banking client also utilized its integration with Jira to assign vulnerability remediation to the relevant developer. Another client reduced development cycle times by scanning only new or altered code instead of running a full scan of the entire database, no longer requiring a dedicated engineer to write rules to automate the false positive elimination process.

Synopsys offers a full range of tools from SAST to IAST, including a plugin that integrates security analysis into IDEs, such as IntelliJ, Eclipse or Visual Studio. This plugin enables developers to correct security flaws in their code as they write without having to switch back and forth between tools. It also provides remediation guidance with context-sensitive e-learning lessons specific to any common weakness enumerations identified in a developer's code, helping avoid similar mistakes in the future. This is a great way to improve security awareness and coding skills of a development team.

The Synopsys Black Duck SCA tool maps open source and third-party components to known vulnerabilities, monitors for new vulnerabilities, and enforces component use and security policies. Its IAST tool, Seeker, monitors web application interactions in the background during normal testing, reporting any vulnerabilities, as well as the relevant code. According to Gartner Peer Insights, users say it requires little configuration, making it easy for developers and testers to run checks on a regular basis. One company, according to a Flowbird case study, required to meet PCI DSS Section 6 regulations turned to Seeker to understand how data flows through its payment systems and identify vulnerabilities in relation to their impact on sensitive data, resulting in improved security, less time spent on security testing, and improved communication between security and R&D.

Veracode provides a scalable, cloud-based service for application security and software testing. Its platforms enable end-to-end automated web testing and mobile app testing. As an on-demand SaaS system, it enables teams to more easily control costs, with users only paying for services needed. Veracode also offers penetration testing to manually test web, mobile, desktop, back-end and IoT applications to identify vulnerabilities automated testing can't find.

Veracode also offers Security Labs, which teaches secure coding practices through interactive web apps based on modern threats that developers often exploit and patch. The labs-based approach to developer enablement can speed up flaw resolution and help developers avoid flaws altogether, improving skills and overall awareness of secure coding practices. A free version, Security Labs Community Edition, is also available to any developer worldwide.

Other notable vendors include the following:

The right application security testing tools can decrease time to market, while cutting the costs of development, maintenance and remediation. While monitoring and protecting the production environment are still essential, by preventing vulnerabilities from making it through to the end product, application security testing tools greatly reduce the chances of a security breach -- and the often dire consequences that follow.

Go here to see the original:

Oversee apps with these 3 application security testing tools - TechTarget

Managing competing demands of development velocity and application security – Intelligent CIO ME

Posted on September 29, 2020 by admin

Software tools are constantly offering new ways of working which enable organisations to compete. Patrick Carey, Director of Product Marketing at Synopsys, says that as the shape of software development continues to evolve, so too must the mechanisms to secure it.

The first software development team I worked on operated on the follow mantra:

Meaning, dont worry about performance optimisations until your code actually does what its supposed to do, and dont worry about code maintainability until after you know it both works and performs well. Users generally have no idea how maintainable the code is, but theydoknow if the application is broken or slow. So more often than not, wed never get around to refactoring the code at least not until the code debt started to impact application reliability and performance.

Today, that developer mantra has two additional lines:

As with application performance and reliability, delivering an application on time is easily quantified and observed. Everybody knows when you miss a deadline something thats easy to do when your release cycles are measured in weeks, days, or even hours the security of an application isnt so easily observed or quantified, at least not until theres a security breach.

It should come as no surprise, then, that nearly half of the respondents to themodern application development security survey, conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), state that their organisations regularly push vulnerable code to production. Its also not surprising that for over half of those teams, tight delivery schedules and critical deadlines are the main contributing factor. In the presence of a deadline, what can be measured is whats going to get done, and what cant be (or at least isnt) measured often doesnt get done.

However, we dont have time to do it doesnt really cut it when it comes to application security. This is demonstrated by the 60% of respondents who reported that their applications have sufferedOWASP Top 10exploits during the past 12 months. The competing demands of short release cycles and improved application security are a real challenge for development and security teams.

It doesnt have to be this way, and other findings in the survey point to opportunities that teams have to both maintain development velocityandimprove application security. Here are just a few:

Reject silver bullets

Gone are the days of security teams simply running DAST andpenetration testsat the end of development. A consistent trend shown in the report is that teams are leveraging multiple types of security testing tools across theSDLCto address different forms of risk in both proprietary and open source code.

Integrate and automate

Software development is increasingly automated andapplication security testingneeds to be too. Over half the respondents indicated that their security controls are highly integrated into their DevOps processes, with another 38% saying they are heading down that same path.

Train the team

Most developers lack sufficient application security knowledge to ensure their code isnt vulnerable. Survey respondents indicated that developer knowledge is a challenge, as is consistent training. Without sufficient software security training, developers struggle to address the findings of application security tests. An effective way to remedy this is to provide just-in-time security training delivered through the integrated development environment (IDE).

Keep score

If what gets measured gets done, then its important to measure the progress of both your AppSec testing and security training programmes. This includes tracking the introduction and mitigation of security bugs as well as improvements to both of these metrics over time, i.e. who is writing secure code and who isnt and are they improving?

We must also recognise that there can be too much of a good thing in terms of security tooling. ESG reported over a year ago that organisations, on average run 25 to 49 security tools from up to 10 different vendors. Some of these are monitoring tools for IT infrastructure, such as network, endpoint, wireless, identities and so on. But it applies to software development as well.

Analysts likeForresterand451 Researchhave reported on security tool sprawl in the past year, noting that as many as 40% of organisations admit that their development teams are so overwhelmed by security alerts that they cant respond to at least 25% of them. Indeed, when security alerts are so constant, they become background noise and are ignored the exact opposite of the intent.

It shouldnt be this way. The right combination of tools that run the right tests at the right time can help security keep pace with development, which has moved into hyperdrive over the past few years. And still, there is a persistent perception that if some tools improve your security, more will improve it even more. Unfortunately, it could be just the opposite. If you pile too many tools on your development team, especially if you cant coordinate them on a single platform, your developers are more likely to ignore critical alerts.

Too many tools can even expand your attack surface if they dont communicate securely or arent updated regularly. So what can you do?

Take an inventory of your security tools

Eliminate tool sprawl by taking a rigorous inventory and evaluating it. Know what you have and what its intended to do. Its of great importance also to make sure your tools are properly configured, deployed and are up to date.And then evaluate: are they doing what theyre supposed to? Is any tool doing the same thing that another tool might be doing better? If a security tool is inferior or redundant, get rid of it. Security clutter is the last thing you want.

Make sure tools complement one another

Be sure your tools can work together. It doesnt matter that a single tool is considered best in class if it cant play nice with all the others. Your tools need to integrate with one other and into your workflow, which makes it easier to embed security into the SDLC from start to finish. As the experts say, the best way to encourage developers to add Sec to DevOps is to make the secure way the easier way.

Integrate tools into your workflow

The way to make security easier, and combat security tool overload in the process, is to integrate your security tools into a single platform with a dashboard that flags bugs and other potential defects as you go. Its far better than forcing developers to return to code they wrote weeks ago to deal with problems you discovered today.

High velocity development is the future, theres no denying it. And while security must keep up with methodologies such as DevOps, it must be carried out in a way that enables development teams to build security into their existing processes. As the shape of software development continues to evolve, so too must the mechanisms to secure it and that doesnt simply mean an overabundance of security tooling.

Facebook Twitter LinkedInEmailWhatsApp

Read the original here:

Managing competing demands of development velocity and application security - Intelligent CIO ME