Prince told investors the UP Phone is built by engineers with deep experience in lawful interception, surveillance, and spoofing capabilities.

While taking various privacy and security enhancements from open source projects, Unplugged president Ryan Paterson told MIT Technology Review via email, Unplugged's proprietary operating system developed their own "enhancements" including "based on knowledge not available to the public (zero-days) and others." A zero-day vulnerability is an unknown security weakness that can be attacked via exploit that can sell for millions of dollars.

Unpluggeds day-to-day technology operations are run by Eran Karpen, a former employee of CommuniTake, the Israeli startup that gave rise to the now infamous hacker-for-hire firm NSO Group. There, Karpen built the IntactPhone, which the company called a military-grade mobile device. Hes also a veteran of Israels Unit 8200, an agency that conducts cyber espionage and is the countrys equivalent of the NSA.

But anyone with that experience should be able to see through Princes claim that the UP Phone is impossible to surveil.

When I worked in US intelligence, we [penetrated] a number of phone companies overseas, says Liska. We were inside those phone companies. We could easily track people based on where they connected to the towers. So when you talk about being impenetrable, thats wrong.

This is a phone, and the way that phones work is they triangulate to cell towers, and there is always latitude and longitude for exactly where youre sitting, he adds. Nothing you do to the phone is going to change that.

The UP Phones operating system, called LibertOS, is a proprietary version of Googles Android, according to an Unplugged spokesperson. It's running on an unclear mix of hardware that a company spokesperson says they've designed on their own. Even just maintaining a unique Android forka version of the operating system that departs from the original, like a fork in the roadis a difficult endeavor that can cost massive money and resources, experts warn. For a small startup, that can be an insurmountable challenge.

There's such a high volume of vulnerabilities that Android is disclosing and patching on an ongoing basis that you really do need to stay on top of all of those, says Richardson. Keeping all the software and hardware compatible with every new version of Android is something that very few companies other than tech giants can effectively do. To deal with that, some niche phones simply dont adopt new Android versionsa cheaper but more dangerous road.

Read the rest here:
Erik Prince wants to sell you a secure smartphone thats too good to be true - MIT Technology Review

On Thursday, US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Department of Justice (DoJ) to submit a redacted version of the affidavit used to secure the search warrant for the August 8 FBI raid on Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The judge gave the DoJ until noon on August 25 to submit its proposed redacted document, saying he would either accept it or amend it, while giving the Justice Department the opportunity to appeal his proposal. Reinhart said he was inclined to release a redacted version of the document to the public after a considered, careful process.

The affidavit lays out a detailed evidentiary basis, citing witnesses and informants, for the claim stated in the warrant that there is probable cause to prosecute Trump for violating several statutes dealing with national security. One of these is the 1917 Espionage Act, which was used to jail socialist leader Eugene Debs for speaking out against the US entry into World War I, to convict and execute the Rosenbergs, to prosecute anti-war and anti-government spying whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, and to seek the extradition and life imprisonment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

In an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, FBI agents seized 27 boxes of documents, including 11 sets of classified documents, some marked top secret. Trump had improperly removed the documents from the White House upon leaving office on January 20, 2021, and had failed to turn them over to the FBI in defiance of a subpoena issued in June.

According to the property receipt of materials seized from Trumps residence, unveiled last week along with the warrant, the documents include some of the most sensitive information in the possession of the American military-intelligence establishment. These may include signals intelligenceintercepted electronic communications, such as emails and phone calls of foreign leaders.

The Washington Post reported last week that the seized documents include information on nuclear weapons.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week asked Judge Reinhart, who had approved the search warrant, to unseal the warrant and the property receipt to counter inflammatory claims by Trump and his fascistic Republican allies that the raid was a politically motivated and unconstitutional attack aimed at blocking him from running for reelection in 2024.

Trump sought to use the silence of the Biden White House on the raid to go on the offensive, inciting fascist militia elements to carry out armed protests and call for the murder of Justice Department officials and FBI agents. On Thursday, in advance of the hearing on the affidavit, it was revealed that Judge Reinhart is among those officials who have received death threats.

The raid and the aggressive criminal investigation of Trump on national security grounds mark the most serious action taken against the fascist ex-president to date. The events of the past two weeks have brought the crisis of the US political system to a new and unprecedented stage.

At the same time, they stand in sharp contrast to the halting and ambivalent conduct by the Biden administration of the investigation into the conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election and retain Trump in power on the basis of a de facto dictatorship.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote on August 15 in Trump, state secrets and the crisis of the American state:

However, these events expose what the real priorities of the ruling class are. The state cannot tolerate Trumps disruption of its war effort. The Democrats appeal is to the military and repressive state apparatus, as it has been since Trumps election. Bidens strategy has always been to appeal to the military brass and to save his colleagues in the Republican Party through an alliance based on imperialist bellicosity and bipartisanship

Its primary aim is to forge ruling class unity to prosecute the war and crush opposition from below, with no surprises from the unpredictable Trump.

The parties to Thursdays hearing were the Justice Department, represented by top counterintelligence official Jay Bratt, and lawyers for a group of media outlets that had called on Judge Reinhart to unseal the affidavit in the interests of transparency and intense public interest in the actions taken against Trump. Media groups that joined the suit included The New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, several Florida-based newspapers, the Associated Press, the three major broadcast networks and CNN. Judicial Watch, a right-wing watchdog organization, was also a party.

Trump had called for the release of the affidavit with no redactions in a post on his Truth Social platform, but his lawyers did not submit a brief for the hearing, although the judge had invited them to do so. One of his lawyers, Christina Bobb, was in the courtroom but only as an observer.

The Washington Post and other media have reported that Trumps aides are divided over the possible release of the document, since they have no knowledge of the facts and evidence it might contain. And while Trump and some of his Republican allies continue to post inflammatory statements denouncing the raid as a witch-hunt, others in the GOP have sought to discourage verbal or physical attacks on the FBI. Noticeably absent from the vicinity of the courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday were pro-Trump militia types who have demonstrated elsewhere since the August 8 raid.

Last Monday, the Justice Department submitted a brief for the hearing arguing against unsealing the affidavit on the grounds that it would impede its investigation and subject witnesses and informants cited in the document to harassment, intimidation and possible violence on the part of Trump supporters. In that connection, it noted the attempted breach last week of an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, by an armed Trump zealot and various press reports of threats of violence in retaliation for the raid.

The DoJ further argued that unsealing the affidavit would compromise national security and highly sensitive classified information, as well as grand jury proceedings that by law are sealed. It said that it was prepared, if so ordered by the judge, to propose redactions but argued that these would have to be so extensive as to render the resulting document of little or no use to the public.

It also noted, citing many legal precedents, that it is highly unusual to unseal an affidavit in a criminal investigation before an indictment has been issued and charges have been laid, which is the case in the current probe into Trumps mishandling of government documents.

Significantly, the DoJ brief said that unsealing the affidavit would chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as other high-profile investigations. [Emphasis added.] The reference to other investigations was an oblique but pointed allusion to the Justice Departments separate investigation into Trumps January 6 coup conspiracy.

In that connection, it is worth pointing out that one day before Thursdays hearing, the New York Times reported for the first time the fact that the Justice Department had issued a subpoena last May to the National Archives for all of the documents it had provided in August 2021 to the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6. These include records from the files of Trumps top aides, his daily schedule and phone logs, and a draft text of his speech at the Ellipse that preceded the attack on the US Capitol.

more on this topic

Trump and the danger of fascism in America

The fascist insurrection in Washington DC is a turning point in the political history of the United States.

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Judge orders DoJ to produce redacted version of affidavit in state secrets investigation of Trump - WSWS

If you want to keep your conversations secure, you cant do much better than the secure messaging app Signal. Thanks to Signals end-to-end encryption, no onenot even Signalcan listen to your calls or read your messages.

You dont have to adjust any settings to get a high level of security from Signalthose features are built-in. However, you can make a few tweaks to get even more out of the app. Well show you how to use Signal and offer some tips and tricks youll want to try.

Signal has a lot going for it.

With Signal, you can make voice calls, video calls, group calls, and SMS/text messages all with end-to-end encryption. People like Edward Snowden and Elon Musk rely on Signal (instead of other messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Facebook Messenger) to keep their messages out of the hands of hackers.

Get Signal for Android devices from the Google Play Store. iPhone or iPad users should visit the Apple app store to install Signal. Or visit signal.org/install from your phones browser.

Once youve installed the Signal app, youll be prompted to register with your phone number. Youll verify via a text message verification code, create a PIN, and fill out your profile. Feel free to use a nickname!

After youve installed the encrypted messaging app on your phone, consider using Signals desktop app, too. Signal desktop apps are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you choose to use the desktop or iPad apps, youll link to them with your phone app.

In the top right corner of Signal on Androidor by tapping your profile icon in the top-left cornertap Settings > Linked Devices. On iOS, tap Signal Settings > Link New Device. Then use the app of your choice to scan the QR code on the desktop app.

Tap Settings > Privacy to access options, including:

Disappearing message options are under Settings > Privacy, as well. When you enable the Default timer for new chats, all new chats you start will disappear after the recipient has seen them.

On Android, go to Settings > Privacy, and under App security, toggle on Screen lock to apply Androids screen lock or fingerprint to open the Signal app.

Verify the session with a safety number to confirm that no third party is intercepting your conversation. Open a conversation and tap the name of the person youre communicating with. From there, tap View safety number. Ask your contact to do the same.

You can either compare the safety numbers you see to make sure they match the numbers your contact sees, or, if youre in the same place as your conversational partner, you can scan the QR code on their phone.

Signal users on iPhones who use Signal for voice calls might want to disable syncing their call history to the iCloud. Verify that syncing is disabled by going to Signal Settings > Privacy > Show Calls in Recents and making sure youve chosen the Disabled option.

To create a group chat, tap the pencil icon and then tap New group. Select group members from your contact list. Then tap the arrow icon to proceed. Give the group a name and tap Create. Invite more friends to the group by tapping Invite friends. You can choose an admin to approve new members and enable and share a link to the group chat. Share the link via Signal, another messaging app, or a QR code.

Choose a wallpaper or theme for a chat by tapping More (3 dots) > Conversation/Group settings > Chat color & wallpaper. From there, you can choose a chat color and wallpaper. For wallpapers, you can choose a Signal preset or select a photo.

Android users can add GIFs and stickers to chats by tapping the GIF button to the left of the message field.

iPhone users can add a sticker by tapping the button to the right of the message field. To add a GIF, iPhone users should tap the plus icon and then tap GIF.

In the Signal desktop application, select File > Create/Upload Sticker Pack. You can add up to 200 stickers to create a custom sticker pack. Then, anyone to whom you send a sticker from the pack you made (or anyone you share the link with) can view the sticker pack.

Select a conversation and tap the plus icon next to the message field. From there, tap Gallery to choose an image from your camera roll. To send a different kind of file, tap File and browse to the file you want to send. Tap the Send icon to send the file. You can also send a contact or a location.

Signal lets you blur portions of the image when you send photos or videos, like faces or other sensitive areas.

Sending a note to yourself is like sending a message to anyone else. First, tap the pencil icon to begin a new message. Then, scroll to or search for Note to self in the contacts list. If you enable any linked devices, your notes will be synced across all of them.

You can use Signal to make in-app payments to a contact, but youll need to activate the payments feature first. Go to Settings > Payments and tap the Activate payments button. This feature uses MobileCoin, which Signal describes as a new privacy-focused digital currency. Learn more about Signals in-app payments and MobileCoin.

Some countries have blocked Signal. If you have an Android phone, you can use a proxy. Go to Settings > Data and storage > Use proxy. Then, toggle on the feature and enter a proxy address.

Signal recommends finding proxy addresses using one of these methods:

These basic tips should help you set up and use Signal quickly. Do you use Signal every day? What are your impressions?

More:
How to Use the Signal App: Tips & Tricks - Online Tech Tips

Did you see the tweet by Gen. Michael Hayden, the former CIA director? I wish to associate myself with these two comments by friends of mine:

Yes, imagine. Imagine that powerful elites like Gen. Hayden, who also ran the National Security Agency, and who have access to information about every single one of us (if you haven't read Edward Snowden, you need to inform yourself), think that their fellow Americans who belong to the conservative political party are a greater threat to this country than Islamic extremist terrorists, Communist fanatics like North Korea's regime, Putin's Russia, the Iran of the ayatollahs, or any other political bad guys. Gen. Hayden thinks Republicans are worse. As bad as Nazis: here's what he tweeted about the Trump administration's policy of temporarily separating children from the lawbreaking immigrant parents at the border:

Think about that. You don't have to have supported the Trump Administration's policy to understand that it was in another moral galaxy from freaking Auschwitz! But Gen. Hayden, the man who was America's top spy, now thinks Republicans are the most dangerous people on the planet.

It is impossible to believe that he is alone among his class and in his professional milieu in holding that opinion.

Are there any institutions left in this country that are trustworthy, and that the average American can have confidence won't be weaponized and used against him and his family? All those people who came to America from Communist countries seeking freedom, and who are now speaking out, saying that America is turning into a version of what they left behind (this is what my book Live Not By Lies is about) -- they see it. They see what the ruling class, what the Cathedral, is doing. Do you?

See, this is why though I don't trust Donald Trump as far as I could throw him, and why I wish he would go away, I cannot trust the narrative of US Government agencies when it comes to him. Even if they're telling the truth, they simply cannot be believed on the face of it.

You want to talk about nihilism? Five former CIA directors -- including Gen. Hayden -- and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, all signed a public letter prior to the 2020 election, saying that stories about Hunter Biden's laptop were probably Russian disinformation. They lied. They lied to get Joe Biden elected. And they must have known they were lying. You don't rise to that level of the spy services by being an idiot.

Why do we believe a damn thing elites like Michael Hayden say about anything? Do they have any idea how much they discredit core American institutions? Hannah Arendt said a widespread loss of faith in a nation's institutions is a precursor to totalitarianism. If, God forbid, it ever happens in this country, remember the role that Gen. Hayden and his elite professional class played in getting us there.

UPDATE:

Subscribe Today Get weekly emails in your inbox

UPDATE.2: Ah, don't forget the woke CIA recruitment ads. 'Memba this one?

See the rest here:
Ruling Class Turns On Conservative Americans - The American Conservative

If you are asking around for a privacy first instant messenger recommendation, you would hear the name Signal a lot. Signal is an open source end-to-end encrypted messaging app, recommended by the likes of Elon Musk and Edward Snowden. Alas! nothing is yet so safe on the internet as Signal users recently suffered from a phishing attack.

More specifically, current and former employees recently reported receiving text messages purporting to be from our IT department. Typical text bodies suggested that the employees passwords had expired, or that their schedule had changed, and that they needed to log in to a URL the attacker controls. The URLs used words including Twilio, Okta, and SSO to try and trick users to click on a link taking them to a landing page that impersonated Twilios sign-in page.

Twilio Blog on the Recent Attack

Signal uses a third party company, Twilio, for phone number verification services. Twilios customer support console was apparently maliciously accessed through a sophisticated social engineering attack. The attackers were able to steal employee credentials, and used it to access the support console.

Twilio initially claimed that 125 of their customers were affected by the phishing attack. But Signal in a recent follow-up claimed that approximately 1,900 of their users were affected. For the 1900 users, their phone numbers could have been potentially revealed as being tied to a signal account, and even the SMS verification codes used for that registration.

Signal also revealed that among the 1900 phone numbers, the attackers explicitly searched for three numbers, with one of user accounts being re-registered. Thankfully, that is the full extent of the recent phishing attack, and the attackers didnt have any access to any message history, profile information, or contact lists.

Signal is meanwhile notifying all the potentially affected users directly through SMS. For everyone else, Signal highly recommends turning on registration lock from their signal account.

Excerpt from:
Signal Reveals Over 1900 Users Were Affected in a Recent Phishing Attack - Appuals

Donald Trumps week from hell has turned red hot. On Friday, reports emerged that he was under suspicion of having violated the Espionage Act, removing or destroying records and obstructing an investigation. Separate inventory receipts reflect that FBI agents hauled-off a trove of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trumps Palm Beach domicile and club.

Specifically, agents found four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents. Whether any of this pertains to US nuclear capabilities remains a mystery.

On Thursday night, the Washington Post had reported that the FBI searched for nuclear documents and other items, sources say even worse. For his part, Trump denied the search related to nuclear weapons, and branded those allegations a hoax.

Earlier on Thursday, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, told reporters that the buck stopped with him. At the same time, the Department of Justice also moved to unseal the search warrant and inventory list.

Absent objection by Trump, the justice department asked the court to make public both the search warrant and the inventory. Late Thursday, the former president acceded to the departments gambit. Release the documents now!, Trump announced on Truth Social.

Nukes and the pungent whiff of espionage possibly committed by the ex-president now waft through the air. Jay Bratt signed the Department of Justice filing. He heads the departments counterintelligence and export control office.

Once upon a time, Trump contemplated pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Both men were charged under the Espionage Act.

In his book on the Trump presidency, Rage, Bob Woodward quoted Trump as saying: We have stuff that you havent even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. Theres nobody what we have is incredible.

As an act of deflection, Trump also attacked the 44th president: I continue to ask, what happened to the 33mn pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama.

Earlier in the week, Trump declared that the FBI had defiled his safe-space. On cue, members of his family, the Republican party and right-wing media trashed the feds and the Biden administration. On Thursday night, they went momentarily silent.

Until then, they did their best to paint the former guy as a victim. Senator Rand Paul raised the specter of planted evidence. Rudy Giuliani vowed that if Trump were re-elected, the feds would swoop down on the Bidens. One Trump-fundraising blast read: Remember, they were never after President Trump. They have always been after YOU.

This is the same crowd that continued to demand six years after the 2016 election that Hillary Clinton be locked-up. Said differently, law and order means whatever they choose it to mean, like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. Neither more nor less.

On that score, the FBI field office in Cincinnati came under attack by Ricky Walter Shiffer just before Garlands announcement. Law enforcement later confirmed that they had killed him. Shiffer was at the Capitol on January 6. In death, he had finally caught up with Ashli Babbitt. For the record, Shiffer and Babbitt were veterans.

The blow-up over Mar-a-Lago has helped Trump regain his sway over the Republican party. With the notable exception of Sen Tim Scott of South Carolina, senior Republicans have again prostrated themselves: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Mitch McConnell, Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio. The band is back.

Yet all this comes at a steep-cost to their ambitions. The anticipated red-wave in the upcoming midterms may have crested. The Republican party underperformed in Minnesotas recent special congressional election. Now, the party stands to lose its natural advantage on national security issues.

Beyond that, the latest Fox News poll reports that the Democrats have tied the Republican party on the generic House ballot, at 41% all. Just months ago, the Republicans held a seven-point lead. Meanwhile, the public disapproves of the supreme court overturning Roe v Wade by a greater than a three-two margin.

White women without four-year degrees disapprove even more strongly (60-35) than those who are college graduates (54-44). Suburban women give the end of Roe a deep thumbs-down, 65-33. The raging culture war and Trumps antics may even enable Nancy Pelosi to continue wielding the speakers gavel in January 2023.

This fall Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. Whether he will be under indictment is the open question.

Go here to see the original:
The Republican party has reason to fear the midterms - The Guardian

WikiLeaks continues as one of the worlds most remarkable organisations, despite numerous attempts to shut it down.

Its founder, Julian Assange, is gaoled in the United Kingdom's Belmarsh Prison as a political prisoner and faces extradition to the Medes-in-wait. Assange has not murdered anyone but he is hounded as if he has.

WikiLeaks ignited widespread courage to shine a light on cursed darkness.

To quote playwright Bertolt Brecht from his Threepenny Opera:

The wickedness of the world is so great, you have to keep running so your legs wont be stolen from under you!

Yet there are those prepared to challenge the wicked.

WikiLeaks exposed the killers and their keepers from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrikes in which air-to-ground attacks deploying U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters killed innocent civilians and journalists. Three years after this horrific incident, the world was aware of its inherent right to know when WikiLeaks released 39 minutes of classified footage of the slaughter of 18 innocents.

On 5 April 2010, WikiLeaks released classified U.S. military footage of the slaying of people in an Iraqi suburb. The civilians included two news staff from Reuters. There was no threat from them but soon they were dead.

It is said that no lie lives forever, but it is not my general experience that truth prevails. The tenet of a sane society should be no lie is so grand it can be got away with.

In the first airstrike by the Apache crew, they fired on ten Iraqi civilians. Two were Reuters journalists: Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Seven were killed, including Noor-Eldeen in that first airstrike. Chmagh lay injured.

Saleh Matasher Tomal was driving by and instead of exclusively valuing his own life, he stopped to help the injured Chmagh. Tomal had his children with him. In a second airstrike, Chmagh and Tomal and three others were murdered. Two of Tomals children were critically injured.

The Apache flew over injured Chmagh who was crawling, fighting to live. The gunner declared his disappointment that Chmagh had no weapon. When Tomal approached Chmagh in his van, he had been driving his children to school: nine-year-old Sajad and six-year-old Doaha. The children survived and would later insist their father wanted to help the injured man to hospital.

Despite Chmagh being unarmed, an Apache crew member kept repeating, Let me engage Come on Let me engage Light em all up, come on, fire.

Without permission, they fired, killing Chmagh and Tomal. The children were injured and the van burned.

The Apache strikes did not stop. It did not matter there were no signs of any threat. The Apache crew were huddled safely within the most advanced technology. They could see every detail on the ground. They fired, they killed.

In the panic, those on the ground who were able fled to a nearby building. A third airstrike fired AGM-114 Hellfire missiles into the building. Reuters was denied the right to view the footage of the incident but three years later, WikiLeaks let the whole world see it.

The moral force of WikiLeaks is bent on the truth in a world overflowing with lies.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere with more than 80% of the Haitian population living in abject poverty. The life expectancy of Haitians is 64 years. Around 61% of the population is literate and one child in five attends secondary school. Around 35% of Haitians lacked access to safe water.

In November 2010, WikiLeaks released 1,918 documents from 2003 to 2010 ending six weeks after the 12 January 2010 earthquake which further devastated Haitian life. The documents were among the most disturbing I read of the files published by WikiLeaks on how the USA controlled policymaking in Haiti.

The cables begin nearly a year before a coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. Ren Prval took over. Prval negotiated an oil buying deal with Venezuelan oil company PetroCaribe. The U.S. called in two major oil companies to do the dirty on the Haitian people. American oil companies operating in Haiti were to refuse to transport PetroCaribe oil.

In one cable, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, recommended

[the U.S.] convey our discontent with Prevals actions at the highest possible level when he next visits Washington.

This followed Prevals visit to Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez to craft an energy agreement that would have brought electricity to millions of Haitian homes.

When Preval took office in 2004, Chvez was prepared to provide oil to beleaguered Haiti at below cost, with Haiti paying 60% upfront to Venezuela and the remainder payable at only one per cent interest over 25 years. Washington sabotaged this deal. Haitians suffered.

It gets worse. Haitis minimum wage during Prevals time was 24 cents hourly. Preval went for an increase by 37 cents to 61 cents. Washington saw this as a 150% wage rise. The U.S. instead backed exploitative major brand American manufacturers. These companies wanted profit margins on the back of Haitian slave wages.

Two major manufacturers lobbied Washington to harass the Haitians to cap the wage rise to an additional seven cents an hour. Ambassador Sanderson pressured Preval to drop the 31 cents hourly increase for the textile industry workers. Sanderson argued to Preval to keep daily pay to less than $3. Preval had been pushing for at least $5 per day.

American Embassy to Haiti deputy chief David Lindwall wrote of Prevals $5 a day plea as appeasing the unemployed and underpaid masses. One of the American companies was paying nearly 3,200 Haitians $2 a day to sew T-shirts. The companys annual turnover from Haitian-manufactured T-shirts was $4 billion in sales with a profit of $220 million. The increase to $5 a day in wages would have only cost the company $1.5 million from their $220 million profit.

WikiLeaks continues hounded and Julian Assanges mortal coil is pursued by the Medes.

The Syrian cables tell how the U.S. assisted in igniting the Syrian bloodbath. In 2010, WikiLeaks released 251,287 classified U.S. State Department cables. Some of these cables were from as far back as 2006. A 13 December 2006 cable written by William Roebuck at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus provided destabilising strategies.

Roebuck focused on how to create conflict:

We believe Bashars weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists.

There may be actions, statements and signals that the U.S. Government can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising.

Publicly, the U.S. favoured economic reforms in Syria but privately would seek to undermine the potential of these reforms. Publicly, the U.S. was opposed to the threat posed by Islamist extremists but considered them an opportunity to destabilise Syria in private.

In other cables, Roebuck advised the U.S. Government on how to divide the Shia and Sunnis:

There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytising and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business.

These cables were sent to the White House to the Secretary of State. At the time, the George W Bush administration publicly denounced the Sunni and Shia sectarian violence in Iraq, but Roebuck advised a similar predicament should be ignited in Syria. Roebuck would be trusted with subsequent posts in Iraq and Libya.

In another cable, Roebuck advised:

Encourage rumours and signals of external plotting. The regime is intensely sensitive to rumours about coup-plotting and restlessness in the security services and military.

Regional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be encouraged to meet with (exiled figures like) Khaddam (former vice president) and Rifat Asad as a way of sending such signals, with appropriate leaking of the meetings afterwards. This again touches on this insular regimes paranoia and increases the possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction.

Bashar keeps unveiling a steady stream of initiatives on economic reform and it is certainly possible he believes this issue is his legacy to Syria these steps have brought back Syrian expats to invest.

Finding ways to publicly call into question Bashars reform efforts pointing, for example to the use of reform to disguise cronyism would embarrass Bashar and undercut these efforts to shore up his legitimacy.

Publicise Syrian efforts against extremist groups in a way that suggests weakness, signs of instability and uncontrolled blowback. The Syrian Governments argument (usually used after terror attacks in Syria) that it, too, is a victim of terrorism should be used against it to give greater prominence to increasing signs of instability within Syria.

Roebuck was the U.S.s top diplomat in Syria. WikiLeaks' offence to the powerful is to expose their crimes, brutality, inhumanity, slaughter of human life, narratives contrived to bring on civil strife, human suffering and misery, a climate of death.

WikiLeaks published the Iraqi War Logs, revealing thousands of reports of the most abominable, degrading, injurious abuse and torture by Iraqi Security Forces and American personnel. The Geneva Conventions their pursuit of humaneness were sidelined by barbaric behaviours. America sold anger as the excuse. So now, anger, hate and inhumanity become permissible. Prisoners were hung from ceiling hooks holes in their legs with electric drills. They were sexually abused, urinated upon and relentlessly bashed.

WikiLeaks revealed the Frago 242 order. In 2004, the Frago directive instructed no allegations of abuse were to be investigated. Ten years earlier, the United States signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

The George W Bush administration publicly insisted there were no official counts of Afghan and Iraqi casualties. WikiLeaks published the War Logs which exposed between 2004 and 2009 that 70% of deaths were of civilians.

The Barack Obama administration imprisoned more whistleblowers than all previous Washington administrations combined. There is an endlessness of laws made by governments to imprison and punish people into silence. In this context, stands by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden must be realised as genuinely heroic.

Gerry Georgatos is a suicide prevention and poverty researcher with an experiential focus on social justice. You can follow Gerry on Twitter @GerryGeorgatos.

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Despite resistance, WikiLeaks continues its fight for the truth - Independent Australia

The government has awarded a contract to a multinational weaponry and defence firm to support policing and other authorities in their monitoring of UK citizens internet records.

But the company concerned is no stranger to mass surveillance. Moreover, private companies have been aiding state surveillance for years. Not forgetting, too, the widespread surveillance thats conducted by multi government agencies.

Public Technology reports that the National Communications Data Service (NCDS) has awarded a 2m contract to BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. NCDS comes within the Home Offices counter-terror operations. BAE will provide a means for law-enforcement agencies to search and, ultimately, gain access to data on individuals internet connection records (ICR).

The publication explains:

While an ICR does not provide a full browsing history including individual webpages, it contains information on all sites visited or apps accessed by a user, as well as details of the device used and the time and date of the visit. A users IP address and their customer account information with the telecoms provider in question is also embedded in the records.

According to a November 2019 procurement notice, NCDS utilises what it calls Agile Data Retention and Disclosure Services (ARDS), which comes under the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism.

ARDS is essentially:

Read on...

the ability to identify and locate subjects of interest and determine what, how and when they are communicating through the acquisition and exploitation of CD [communication data] and intercepted data.

The procurement notice adds that ARDS:

has obligations under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 [IPA, aka Snoopers Charter] and the Communications Data Code of Practice whilst the [Telecommunication Operators] have obligations that are mandated via the data retention notice, Investigatory Powers Act and the IPA Code of Practice.

In May 2022, Public Technology reported that a filtering tool to enable policing authorities to search for information would be migrated into a datacentre storage provided to NCDS by Amazon Web Services.

However, BAE also has its own track record of spying on campaigners and activists.

In May 2021, The Canary reported how freelancer Paul Mercer was exposed in 2007 for his ops on Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). His contract was via private surveillance firm Global Open (GO). Mercer also worked as a security consultant for LigneDeux Associates, which was financed by BAE to provide information on threats.

Corporate spy Martin Hogbin infiltrated CAAT. He worked for Evelyn le Chne and her company Threat Response International (TRI), which was contracted by BAE. Consequently, BAE was able to build a collection of files on activists. Hogbin was outed as a spy in 2003 while still employed as campaigns coordinator at CAAT.

Canary editor Emily Apple was a close friend of Hogbin. She commented:

Martin was one of my closest friends for years. He was even supposed to be my sons secular godfather. All the time he was spying for BAE.

The lengths BAE was prepared to go to spy on anti-arms trade campaigners is staggering. The fact the government is now prepared to award it massive surveillance contracts is both mind-blowing and deeply concerning. Putting a company that abused mine and many other activists privacy rights for so many years in charge of monitoring all our internet communications should ring alarm bells.

It also shows why we all need to resist the increasingly levels of state and corporate surveillance into our lives and take whatever steps we can to protect ourselves from this intrusion.

The NCDS contract isnt the only government surveillance work undertaken by BAE. According to a CAAT report,A very British problem: The Evolution of Britains Militarised Policing Industrial Complex, BAE is a:

Top UK arms company, now expanded into policing, security and surveillance technology.

This includes the Home Office Biometrics programme that:

the government is attempting to merge the National DNA Database (which holds the DNA profiles of subjects in criminal cases), IDENT1, and IABS into a single, centralised platform. UK arms company BAE Systems, US company Leidos, and Indian multinational Mastek have all been involved in its The Home Office implementation.

The report notes that, if successful:

the initiative will increase the surveillance powers of the British state by enabling more government agencies access to biometric data.

Meanwhile, via ETI, its Danish subsidiary, BAE has:

exported a system known as Evident, which allows governments to conduct mass surveillance of their citizens communications. Capable of analysing millions of peoples electronic communications, Evident can be used to pinpoint a persons location based on their mobile phone data and intercept their internet traffic.

Of course, surveillance projects involving government-corporate collaboration are not new.

For example, in November 2014 Channel 4 News found evidence that GCHQ was working closely with Cable and Wireless (subsequently taken over by Vodaphone) on monitoring internet traffic. This was done via GCHQs Mastering The Internet project:

Other telecom firms, including BT, partnered with GCHQ via the Tempora system, which stores the collected data in a buffer to enable retrospective analysis.

However, thats only part of the story.

The Investigatory Powers Commissioners Office (IPCO) provides examples of surveillance covered by the IPA. These powers ensure that the UK is among the most surveilled countries in the world.

IPCO also reveals there are more than 600 public authorities that can utilise covert investigatory powers via theRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

Wider investigatory powers include the use of covert human intelligence sources [CHIS]. The Canary reported that there are extensive bodies who can authorise CHIS agents to infiltrate or act as informants. They can include: victims, witnesses, suspects, colleagues such as local and field intelligence officers, community sources including community and race advisers, local councillors, religious leaders and members of the community.

CHIS was legalised in 2021 through the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act. That legislation potentially sets citizen against citizen, in that anyone can be authorised to be an intelligence source (spy).

In 2015 the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruledthat British intelligence services had in retrospect acted unlawfully in accessing millions of peoples personal communications.

In that same year the Interception of Communication Commissioners Office published a report that revealed how 19 police forces in Britain, over a three year period, made more than 600 applications to uncover 242 confidential sources and 82 journalists (mainly national newspapers). The report ruled that the police contravened Article 8 (right to privacy) of the European Convention on Human Rights and gave no consideration to journalists rights under Article 10 (freedom of expression).

In 2016, the IPT ruled that MI5, MI6, and GCHQ had been collecting data without supervision or safeguards. In 2018, there was another setback for the government when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that though UK surveillance operations were not illegal, they violated the right to privacy as there wasnt enough oversight for how data was collected.

The IPA was an attempt to legalise some of these illegal practices. Bernard Keenan, a lecturer in law at Birkbeck, University of London summarised how the UK state deals with these legal challenges:

Everything that was revealed by Snowden,GCHQ, Tempora, Upstream None of those capacities have diminished. Whats happened is that the law now makes transparent a large amount of what the authorities were doing anyway. But the mass surveillance regime has not changed at the best, you can say that the oversight regime has been enhanced.

The BAE contract is further proof that government departments and policing agencies are happy to continue spying on its citizens by collaborating with a private company that has a history of surveillance of political activists.

We need to resist this extensive intrusion into our lives. To some extent citizens can protect themselves from state and private online surveillance by following this advice from Edward Snowden.

If we dont, the alternative is total surveillance and an all-powerful, all-seeing state.

Featured image via Pixabay / Gerd Altmann cropped 770403 pixels

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Government pays arms firm that spied on activists to snoop on all our internet records - The Canary

Like all nations, Australia has a right to a military presence in the South China Sea. But how and why it exercises that right have become key policy questions.

Should Australia risk kinetic conflict with China with aerial intelligence probes along its coast and possible freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) challenging its maritime claims, all in support of the US strategy to contain China? If so, why?

Prominent Australian analyst Rory Medcalf hassummarizedAustralias interests in the South China Sea as rules, balance and lifelines. He says Australias military is there because Australia is a major trading nation, a regional maritime player in international law, a middle power that benefits from the protection of norms and international law, a partner to its Asian neighbors, and an ally of the US.

Lets examine these reasons and assess whether any of them alone or or even together are sufficient to justify the risk of political, economic and military conflict with China.

First of all, only about 20% of Australias exports pass through the South China Sea, not two-thirds, as its Defense Department White Paperhas it. While still a large chunk, most of this is destined for China and is unlikely to be interrupted by Beijing in peacetime.Further, there is an alternative route available between eastern Australia and Japan and South Korea that passes to the east of the Philippines.

More important, China has not threatened freedom of commercial navigation. The idea that it does or might is the result of clever US conflation of the freedom of commercial navigation with the freedom for its military assets to threaten and spy.

China doesconsider some of these latter activities to be violations of the duty proscribed in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to pay due regard to its rights and interests in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The US has not ratified UNCLOS yet enforces its own interpretations thereof.Does Australia really want to risk military conflict with China over this US-conflated and politicized principle?

Medcalf says Australia is a middle power and an ally of the US.But that is the problem. Australia is a middle poweronlyand is risking the ire of a great power China on behalf of its ally the US.

Would Australia be doing this on its own if it werent an ally of the US?If not, why is it sticking its neck out?Shouldnt Australias focus be on monitoring and defending its waters and adjacent approaches rather than collecting intelligence along Chinas coast?

Where Medcalfs reasoning goes off the rails is the implication that Australia is there to demonstrate its support of norms and international law.

First of all, its ally the US that it is supporting and assisting in the South China Sea has not ratified the constitution of the oceans UNCLOS that it is using to justify its presence.

Moreover, Australia is hardly a shining example of conformance with international order.It also violates UNCLOS with its EEZ claim on the Heard and McDonald rocks andits mandatory requirement of pilotagefor foreign vessels passing through the Torres Strait.But most embarrassing for Australia in this regard is its behavior regarding its maritime boundary dispute with Timor-Leste.

Yet in an epitome of hypocrisy, Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Steven Robinson joined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken inurging adherence to UNCLOS:Respect for international laws, including UNCLOS, is fundamental to peace, prosperity and stability in the region.

While that remark was clearly aimed at China, this applies to the US and Australia as well.

Finally, Medcalf cites Australias partnership with its Asian neighbors. After the recentdangerous incidentbetween Chinese and Australian warplanes near the China-held Paracel Islands, the Australian Defense Department said it has for decades undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region.

The original excuse for the presence of Australian ISR (intelligence,surveillanceand reconnaissance) aircraft over the South China Sea was theFive Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA).But this has morphed from a pact to protect Malaysia and Singapore after the British withdrawal from the region to one of support for the US effort to contain China.

Moreover, this 1971 Cold War agreement among Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore provides only for consultation in the event or threat of an armed attack on any party. There is no specific commitment to intervene militarily.

The enforcement of a states EEZ rights is not mentioned, although I suppose the state can ask for assistance in doing so. The FPDA has an Integrated Air Defense Systemfor Malaysia and Singapore based in Butterworth, Malaysia, under Australias command. While most exercises take place off the coasts of Malaysia and Singapore, some have extended into the South China Sea. However, MalaysiasEEZ claim stops well short of Chinas coast.

Indeed, the FPDA does not justify Australias intelligence-collection flights along Chinas coast. Moreover, Australian Poseidon P-8salso operateover the South China Sea from Singapore, Brunei, Manila and Darwin. These flights may be undertaken under the controversialFive Eyes(FVEY) pact. This is an alliance among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US that focuses on sharing of signals intelligence.

It originated as an anti-Soviet effort but has greatly expanded its remit. Edward Snowden has described FVEY as a supra-national organization that does not answer to known laws of its own countries. Its member states even spy on one anothers citizens to get around domestic prohibitions on such by the members own governments.

If this is the justification for the Australian ISR probes of Chinas defenses, Canberra may wish to reconsider whether it wants to continue to serve as a US proxy in this endeavor.

It is true that AUKUS the agreement to supply nuclear-submarine and underwater-drone technology to Australia will eventually make Australia a recognized player and merge its navy with that of the US in operations in the South China Sea.

But that is as a participant in the US strategy to contain China.This is not at the request of the regional countries. Indeed, some are quite opposed to AUKUS as they see it as the beginning of a renewed arms race.

The next step for Australia may be to undertake FONOPs against Chinas claims, eitherunilaterallyorwith the US. Despite strong US pressure, Australia has so far declined to do so. It has good reasons. Doing so could well trigger conflict. This would be the ultimate of supporting an ally sacrificing itself and its people for it.

But the Australian people may not know that their government is risking their welfare to support the US containment strategy.It is one thing to support allies in a war.But it is quite another to help it provoke a war in which it will be one of the first victims.

Australian Defense Secretary Richard Marles hasdeclared,Our national interest lies in the East China Sea and the South China Sea in what are the rules of the road the global rules-based order. He said Australia wouldcontinueits ISR probes in the South China Sea. It seems that Australia is bent on poking China in the eye regardless of the consequences.

Perhaps it should consider how it would react if Chinese ISR planes were operating off its coast, probing its defenses and dropping sonobuoys to detect its submarine. As an indication, in May, then-defense minister Peter Duttoncalledthe presence of a Chinese intelligence-collection ship in its EEZ off Exmouth Naval Base an aggressive act.

The situation is becoming increasingly dangerous.There was hope that the new Labor administration under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would take a more rational, longer-term view 0n relations with China.But it has already earned Chinas anger by publicly criticizing Beijings response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosis recent visit to Taiwan.

Indeed, this serious situation raises fundamental questions for the Albanese government. How far should Australia go on behalf of the US in this game of military chicken in the South China Sea?

Australia may be sleepwalking into kinetic conflict with China in the South China Sea. The government should be clear and honest with its people as to the risks Australia faces and why it is taking them in a sea so far from its shores.

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Why is Australia risking conflict with China? - Asia Times