The Pitfalls of Facebook Merging Messenger, Instagram, and …

In an effort led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has plans to rearchitect WhatsApp, Instagram direct messages, and Facebook Messenger so that messages can travel across any of the platforms. The New York Times first reported the move Friday, noting also that Zuckerberg wants the initiative to "incorporate end-to-end encryption." Melding those infrastructures would be a massive task regardless, but designing the scheme to universally preserve end-to-end encryptionin a way that users understandposes a whole additional set of critical challenges.

As things stand now, WhatsApp chats are end-to-end encrypted by default, while Facebook Messenger only offers the feature if you turn on "Secret Conversations." Instagram does not currently offer any form of end-to-end encryption for its chats. WhatsApp's move to add default encryption for all users was a watershed moment in 2016, bringing the protection to a billion people by flipping one switch.

Facebook is still in the early planning stages of homogenizing its messaging platforms, a move that could increase the ease and number of secured chats online by a staggering order of magnitude. But cryptographers and privacy advocates have already raised a number of obvious hurdles the company faces in doing so. End-to-end encrypted chat protocols ensure that data is only decrypted and intelligible on the devices of the sender and recipient. At least, that's the idea. In practice, it can be difficult to use the protection effectively if it's enabled for some chats and not for others and can turn on and off within a chat at different times. In attempting to unify its chat services, Facebook will need to find a way to help users easily understand and control end-to-end encryption as the ecosystem becomes more porous.

"The big problem I see is that only WhatsApp has default end-to-end encryption," says Matthew Green, a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins. "So if the goal is to allow cross-app traffic, and its not required to be encrypted, then what happens? There are a whole range of outcomes here."

WhatsApp users, for example, can assume that all of their chats are end-to-end encrypted, but what will happen in Facebook's newly homogenized platform if an Instagram user messages a WhatsApp user? It's unclear what sort of defaults Facebook will impose, and how it will let users know whether their chats are encrypted.

Facebook can also glean more data from unencrypted chats and introduce monetizable experiences like bots into them. The company has had a notoriously hard time earning revenue off of WhatsApp's 1.5 billion users, in part because of end-to-end encryption.

"We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement on Friday. "We're working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work."

Facebook emphasizes that this gradual process will allow it to work out all the kinks before debuting a monolithic chat structure. But encryption's not the only area of concern. Privacy advocates are concerned about the potential creation of a unified identity for people across all three services, so that messages go to the right place. Such a setup could be convenient in many ways, but it could also have complicated ramifications.

In 2016, WhatsApp started sharing user phone numbers and other analytics with Facebook, perforating what had previously been a red line between the two services. WhatsApp still lets users make an account with only a phone number, while Facebook requires your legal name under its controversial "real name" policy. The company maintains this rule to prevent confusion and fraud, but its rigidity has caused problems for users who have other safety and security reasons for avoiding their legal or given name, such as being transgender.

"If the goal is to allow cross-app traffic, and its not required to be encrypted, then what happens?"

Matthew Green, Johns Hopkins University

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Thursday evening, Zuckerberg wrote that, "Theres no question that we collect some information for adsbut that information is generally important for security and operating our services as well." An indelible identity across Facebook's brands could have security benefits like enabling stronger anti-fraud protections. But it could also unlock an even richer and more nuanced user data trove for Facebook to mine, and potentially make it harder to use one or more of the services without tying those profiles to a central identity.

"The obvious identity issue is usernames. I'm one thing on Facebook and another on Instagram," says Jim Fenton, an independent identity privacy and security consultant. "In some ways, having the three linked more closely together would be good because it would make it more transparent that they are connected. But there are some Instagram and WhatsApp users who don't want to use Facebook. This might be seen as a way to try to push more people in."

Such a change to how chat works on the three brands isn't just a potentially massive shift for usersit also seems to have stirred deep controversy within Facebook itself, and may have contributed to the departure last year of WhatsApp cofounders Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

End-to-end encryption is also difficult to implement correctly, because any oversight or bug can undermine the whole scheme. For example, both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger currently use the open-source Signal protocol (used in the Signal encrypted messaging app), but the implementations are different, because one service has the encryption on by default and the other doesn't. Melding these different approaches could create opportunities for error.

"Theres a world where Facebook Messenger and Instagram get upgraded to the default encryption of WhatsApp, but that probably isn't happening," Johns Hopkins' Green says. "Its too technically challenging and would cost Facebook access to lots of data."

And while end-to-end encryption can't solve every privacy issue for everyone all the time anyway, it's harder to know how to take advantage of it safely when a service doesn't offer it consistently, and creates potential privacy issues when it centralizes identities.

"I think they can work this out," Fenton says. "The bigger problem in my opinion is user confusion."

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The Pitfalls of Facebook Merging Messenger, Instagram, and ...

Revelations | Courage Snowden

Documents revealed by Edward Snowden and pertaining to the National Security Agency (NSA), US surveillance programs and US Intelligence Community partners abroad have been released and reported on since 5 June 2013. Below is a list of the revelations, with links to documents and relevant articles, with the most recent ones at the top.

A number of SIDToday articles from 2006 give an indication of NSA operations against Iranian targets operating in Iraq. A particular concern was Iranian support of Shia militias, including supplying weapons and materials for explosives. Economic reporting revealed Iranian purchasing of US microprocessors used in improvised explosive devices. At the same time, the US was intensely concerned to locate and kill the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which was eventually achieved when a courier was located in a Baghdad internet cafe. Audio fingerprinting techniques developed in the search for al-Zarqawi were used in other situations

Source documents:Economic Reporting Strives to Interdict the Flow of Improvised Explosive Device ComponentsEmbedded with USSOCOM: NSA Reps Provide Direct Analytic SupportDeployment of New System Improves Access to Iranian CommunicationsNSA/CSS Georgia Contributes to Capture of Iraqi Terrorist LeaderInstant-Gratification SIGINTOpen Source Signals Analysis: Not Your Grandfathers SIGINT!Intercepted: Letter for Zarqawi from al-Qaida Senior LeadersCatch of the Day: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and FriendsAl-Zawahiri Speaks Yet Again!Al-Zawahiri: At It Again!Public Enemy No. 1 Speaks!VoiceMatch: A New Offering at NCSNuclear Sleuthing Can SIGINT Help?SCS Baghdad Teams With Brits to Help Free Hostages

Related article:328 NSA Documents Reveal Vast Network of Iranian Agents, Details of a Key Intelligence Coup, and a Fervor for Voice-Matching Technology, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper, Henrik Moltke, Micah Lee, 15 August 2015 in the Intercept

A series of articles from the NSAs internal SIDToday give an indication of concerns at the agency in 2006. The agency was fielding an unprecedented number of Freedom of Information requests, in response to James Risen and Eric Lichtblaus NYT article about warantlesss wiretapping, to frustration from the staff tasked with dealing with them. The agency was also responding to the growth of online call services, where those using US numbers might be based elsewhere. A series of articles encouraged employees to write more effectively for the larger audience produced new intelligence sharing within the intelligence community and federal government.

Source documents:New CNO Capability Poised to Help Counter IEDs, Geolocate TerroristsSID Around the World: Living in Thailand A Singles PerspectiveSID Around the World: Misawa and TokyoSID Around the World: Jumping Into Yorkshires Village Life with Both FeetSID Around the World: Walking the Streets of TurkeySID Around the World: A Glimpse of UtahSID Around the World: Sugar Grove, West VirginiaSID Around the World: Life in Central Maryland?? (repost)What Is a FOIA Request? And Why Is S02L3 Always Bugging Us?Exploiting US/UK/CAN Phone Numbers In Compliance with USSID-18 Policy

Related article328 NSA Documents Reveal Vast Network of Iranian Agents, Details of a Key Intelligence Coup, and a Fervor for Voice-Matching Technology, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper, Henrik Moltke, Micah Lee, 15 August 2015 in the Intercept

Long-term NSA employee and self-styled SIGINT curmudgeon Rahe Clancy was given a regular spot in internal newsletter SIDToday to voice his complaints. His column, which started in 2005 and ran through to Clancys retirement in 2006, was supportive of the agencys core activities but critical of what he saw as the increasing corporatisation of the agency and, in particular, the proliferation of management jargon in internal communications. Clancys was one of a number of regular columns that ran in SIDToday, which included the SIGINT Philospher and Ask Zelda! described in previous releases from the archive.

Source documents:The Regruntlement of a SIGINT CollectorOpinion Piece: The SIGINT Curmudgeons Last Shot!SIGINT Curmudgeon Excited By SCO-FESTCan You Cut the Mustard as a SCO?Letters to the Editor: Views on the Corporatization of NSA

Related article:Before Snowden, an NSA Spy tried to incite change from the inside. He called himself the curmudgeon of signals intelligence, by Peter Maas, 15 August 2018 in the Intercept

A sequence of posts from the NSAs internal newsletter SIDToday shows how the agency monitors environmental change, as the issue rises up the list of security threats to the United States. Particular focuses are disputes over natural resources like fish stocks and water scarcity, and the response to natural disasters. Previous revelations have shown how the agency has surveiled climate conferences.

Source documents:Japan, Eternal Land of the Rising SunAn Intern Learns That Customers Do Value SIGINTPersistence and Collaboration Thwart Criminals on the High SeasOne Fish, Two Fish, My Fish, Your Fish!A Growing Security Challenge: Competition for WaterDid You Know that NSA Has an Arctic Presence?New GLAIVE (HF Collection System) Course Is AccreditedResponsibility 3B: Implications of Technology & Geopolitical TrendsNSA Hosts Successful Climate Change Day in Advance of UN ConferenceSINIO Seminar: Fire and Ice: A Discussion on Climate Change

Related article:The NSAs Role in a Climate-Changed World: spying on nonprofits, fishing boats, and the North Pole, by Alleen Brown and Miriam Pensack, 15 August 2018 in the InterceptNSA spied against UN climate negotiations, by Sebastian Gjerding, Henrik Moltke, Anton Geist and Laura Poitras, 30 January 2014 in Information

An NSA document from March 2006 reveals that the agency had infiltrated virtual private networks (VPNs) used by organisations including Al Jazeera, Iraqs Ministries of Defence and the Interior, Iran Air and Aeroflot and the private SABRE and Galileo computer systems that facilitate travel transactions like booking airline tickets and are used by hundreds of airlines around the world. In 2006, the ability to exploit VPNs was held closely within NSA but a tool called VIVIDDREAM was made available to analysts that would let them know whether a particular VPN was vulnerable, without giving them information about how the exploit worked. That the NSA had access to Al Jazeeras internal communications and Aeroflot reservation records was reported by Der Spiegel in 2013, but the means of that access has not been published until now. VPN protocols and implementation vary and security researchers have a number of suggestions about how the agency might have secured this access.

Source documents:Efforts Against Virtual Private Networks Bear FruitGiving Answers, Keeping Secrets

Related articles:NSA Spied on Al Jazeera Communications, 31 August 2013 in Der SpiegelNSA cracked open encrypted networks of Russian airlines, Al Jazeera, and other high potential targets, by Micah Lee, 15 August 2018 in the Intercept

AT&T facilities in eight US cities are actively involved in intercepting internet traffic; this is the source of data the NSA refers to as FAIRVIEW. NSA considers AT&T as a trusted partner with an extreme willingness to help, valuable not just for its access to US traffic it assists other American companies with bandwidth but for its partnerships with international providers. AT&T refers to the eight sites as Service Node Routing Complexes; they were set up following the internet boom of the mid to late 90s; the companys cooperation with NSA allows the US agency privileged access to the common backbone technology that transports internet traffic worldwide. Documents outline how FIARVIEW traffic is integrated into other key NSA systems like MAINWAY, MARINA and XKEYSCORE.

Source documents:Changes to Handling of FAA-702 CollectionFAIRVIEW HomeSSO FAIRVIEW OverviewSSO dictionary FAIRVIEWFull One End Foreign (1EF) Interim Status Update

Relevant article:The Wiretap Rooms: The NSAs Hidden Spy Hubs In Eight U.S. Cities, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke, 25 June 2018 in the The Intercept

A newly published document from Snowden archive is the first to ever emerge publicly from Japans extremely secretive Directorate for Signals Intelligence, which has at least 6 facilities and employs around 1700 people. The document discusses the operations of the Tachiarai base southwest of Tokyo which in 2012-13 was collecting hundreds of thousands of internet records for the purpose of detecting potential cyberattacks. The Japanese went to NSA for advice on handling the enormous amounts of information they were collecting, despite the MALLARD operation having a questionable status in Japanese law. Another document reveals that the Directorate intended to collect information about Tor users in order to de-anonymise them.

Source documents:DFS SIGINT-enabled CyberCurrent State of and Proposed Future Cooperation with JapanProtocol note for Japan visitWhats NSAs Reputation Among Third Parties?

Related articles:The Untold Story of Japans Secret Spy Agency, by Ryan Gallagher, 19 May 2018 in the Intercept , 19 May 2018, NHK (video)

A collection of internal NSA memos from March 2013 cite an information source codenamed MONKEYROCKET, which has helped NSA analysts to track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins. MONKEYROCKET, which is described in the documents as a non-Western Internet anonymization service, appears to have been a fake VPN-like service planted by the NSA as a device for observing the online activities of internet users in the Middle East. The documents indicate that data obtained about bitcoin users could be accessed through the NSAs main search interface, XKeyScore.

Source documents:OAKSTAR Weekly Update 8 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 15 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 22 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 29 March 2013OAKSTAR Weekly Update 5 April 2013SSO Corporate Portfolio OverviewMONKEYROCKET Achieves Initial Operational CapabilityEntries From Sample SSO AccessesSSO dictionary MONKEYROCKETOAKSTAR Travel Handbook

Related article:The NSA Worked To track Down Bitcoin Users, Snowden Documents Reveal, by Sam Biddle, 20 March 2018 in the Intercept

Documents from the Snowden archive show how British surveillance activities intensified after the bombings of 7 July 2005, with the collaboration of NSA. GCHQ focused on locating closed loops of burner phones. A Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement of the previous year, the Alice Springs Resolution, intended to enable unfettered access to metadata repositories among our five agencies, was fulfilled in the wake of the terrorist attack. Later, NSA would criticise Australia and New Zealand for not making enough use of the arrangement.

Source documents:MHS Lends a Hand in the Aftermath of the London BombingsCT Staff and Augmentees Focus on Bombings in BritainThe London Bombings an Insiders ViewContact ChainingGraph theory in the operational environment Sensitive Metadata Analytic Collaboration (SMAC) Concept of OperationsThe Alice Springs ResolutionTransnational DNI Training

Related article:How Londons 7/7 Bombings Led to Unprecedented Surveillance Tactics, by Ryan Gallagher, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

Documents from the Snowden archive show how intelligence sharing works among the 18 members of the SIGINT Seniors network. The original nine members of the SIGINT seniors Europe group were brought together in 1982 and the alliance expanded after 2001. The alliance has worked together on monitoring major sporting events, counterterrorism operations and the development of new shared tools and techniques.

Source documents:SIGINT Partnership Agrees to Greater SharingLinguistic Resource Sharing in Asia Pacific Takes Step ForwardNSAs Changing Counterterrorism Relationship With IndiaSIGINT Seniors Pacific Successes Highlighted at ConferenceCounterterrorism Analytic Working Group Meets in MadridGlobal Collaboration Environment (GCE)GOOOOAAAALLLL!!! World Cup Report From SUSLAGWhos Who in Afghanistan?SIGINT Seniors Making History in a Good Way

Related article:The Powerful Global Spy Alliance You Never Knew Existed, by Ryan Gallagher, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

A sigint station run by Norways Intelligence Service in association with the NSA, codenamed VICTORYGARDEN, captured records of phone calls and emails between Norwegian citizens and their contacts abroad, in contravention of Norwegain law. The problem came to the attention of Norways oversight committee in 2014 but has continued unabated since. A sequence of newly-released documents shows a close and developing relationship between Norwegian intelligence and the NSA, which has been shielded from democratic oversight.

Source documents:Life as a TLO in OsloSIGINT Development Working Group Meets in Oslo, NorwayNorway Gets FORNSAT Collection Capability On Par With NSAsNorwegian-US Conference Held at Ft Meade and ColoradoNSAs intelligence relationship with NorwayCanyondust Coverage RegionsManaging the Challenge

Related articles:Norway Used NSA Technology for Potentially Illegal Spying, by Henrik Moltke, 1 March 2018 in the InterceptAntennene som samler inn data om norske borgere, by yvind Bye Skille, 1 March 2018, NRK

Posts from the NSAs internal SIDToday newsletter describe how agency analysts posted to Iraq in 2004, ostensibly to help locate weapons of mass destruction, would locate pornographic material on seized hard drives, which was then used to humiliate and break down detainees. Other accounts suggest this was done as a matter of policy. Further SIDToday articles describe the agencys monitoring of referendum-fixing in Mubaraks Egypt, intelligence gathering on the Israeli and Palestine positions during negotiations at Camp David in 2000 and a reluctance to recruit Americans of Arab descent to work as language specialists. Published documents also document the emerging relationship between NSA and its counterpart in the Czech Republic, the agencys concerted action against a European group called the Anti-Imperialist Camp and how progress was made in monitoring mobile telephony and Skype calls.

Source documents:NSAer Investigates Computers Seized in Raids in IraqWhat SIGINT Revealed About the Egyptian ElectionNow Youre Speaking My Language: NSAs Linguistic Resources (Part I)Can Motor City Manufacture Some Arabic Language Assistance for NSA?Is NSA Going Deaf? What Is Golf Cart Reporting? An Interview With REDACTEDTerrorism or Political Action? The Anti-Imperialist Camp Crosses the LineUS, Czech and Japanese All at the Same TableCzech Mates?GSM Temporary Selectors Breakthroughs in Automated IdentificationA Tough Targeting Challenge: SkypeLetter to the Editor: About SkypeLetter to the Editor: More Comments on Social Network Analysis

Related article:NSA Used Porn to Break Down Detainees in Iraq and Other Revelations From 297 Snowden Documents, by Margot Williams, Talya Cooper and Micah Lee, 1 March 2018 in the Intercept

NSA and associated US government agencies have put significant investment into the development of voice identification technology, which has the potential to become a general biometric means of identifying people as consumer devices using voice recognition become more prevalent. Internal NSA newsletters give some indication of how this technology developed, including the use of bulk voice recordings from Iraq and Afghanistan, and attempts to overcome the strategies surveillance subjects adopted to frustrate it.

Source documents:Technology That Identifies People by the Sound of Their Voices Human Language Technology in Your Future For Media Mining the Future Is Now!RT10 Initiative OverviewVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of January 2008 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of December 2010 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of March 2009 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of October 2008 meetingVoice/Fax User Group Minutes of September 2008 meetingInnov8 VoiceAnalytics Experiment Profile Letters to the Editor: Still More on Tool DevelopmentTips for a Successful Quick Reaction Capabiity NSA Georgia Opens New Audio-Forensics LabNew RT-RG Overview Video Available on NSANet Alert: Voice Masking Is Discovered in SIGINTAlvin, Simon, and Al Qaeda? Finding Modified Voice in SIGINT Traffic SIGINTers Use Human Language Technology to Great Advantage, Isolate Conversation About Threat to US Come to SIDs Identity Intelligence (I2) Day Conference and See Your Target in a Whole New Light!How Is Human Language Technology Progressing?CTIC: Its Not Just Another Pretty Space

Related article:Finding Your Voice, by Ava Kofman, 19 January 2018 in the Intercept

PRISM reports in the Snowden Archive show that criminal defendants were subjected to Section 702 PRISM reporting, obtained without a warrant, that was not revealed in court. Other documents in the archive show how often 702 reporting us used in counterterrorism cases, raising concerns about the prevalence of parallel construction in the US criminal justice system. In some cases, NSA analysts claimed credit for convictions in internal newsletters.

Source documents:Special Source Operations Weekly 25 April 2013Teaming with the FBI in the Global War on TerrorismTransnational DNI training PINWALERe: Ehsanul Sadequee FISA RequestLife as the SID Liaison to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in NYCThe Saudi Assassination Plot How It Was Thwarted2009: A Watershed Year in the Fight Against TerrorismPerseverance Pays Off: Eight-Year SIGINT Effort Culminates in Arrest of Elusive Colombian TerroristClassification guide for FISA, the Protect America Act and the FISA Amendments Act

Related article:NSA Secretly Helped Convict Defendants in U.S. Courts, Classified Documents Reveal, by Trevor Aaronson, 30 November 2017 in the Intercept

Reports produced by US intelligence on potential Cuban and Russian links to the assassination of President Kennedy were kept classified for decades, according to documents in the Snowden archive. A classification guide published in 2000 states that NSAs 1960s attempts to intercept the communications of Cuban diplomats and agents are still to be regarded top secret. A separate classification guide relating to the Cuban missile crisis gives a similar designation to information about NSA targeting of Soviet general staff communications.

Source documents:JFK Assassination Records Classification/Declassification Guide Number: 385-00Classification Guide Title/Number: Cuban Missile Crisis, 10-18

Related article:NSA Concealed Records on JFK Assassination for Decades, by Miriam Pensack, 25 October 2017 in the Intercept

A single slide from an NSA PRISM presentation claims that Saudi Prince Salman bin Sultan ordered Syrian rebels to light up Damascus in March 2013, to mark the second anniversary of the Syrian revolution. The slide claims that almost all information on [Syrian] opposition plans and operations that reaches the NSA is acquired via PRISM.

Source document:PRISM FAA Reporting Highlight

Related article:NSA Document Says Saudi Prince Directly Ordered Coordinated Attack By Syrian Rebels On Damascus, by Murtaza Hussein, 24 October 2017 in the Intercept

A GCHQ document from 2009-2010 explains the PHANTOM PARROT tool, which enables the search of data downloaded from phones seized during border stops, often unbeknownst to their owners, which has then been sent to GCGQ for inclusion in a central database (LUCKY STRIKE), where it is integrated with financial data. The previous UK Independent Reviewer of Terorrism Legislation stated on several occasions that the current system is not subject to sufficient safeguards.

Source documents:PHANTOM PARROTFININT Tasking

Related article:Airport Police Demanded An Activists Passwords. He Refused. Now He Faces Prison In The UK, by Ryan Gallagher, 23 September 2017 in the Intercept

A 2011 report from CSEC describes how a group of hackers codenamed MAKERS MARK, who were believed to be associated with Russia regularly compromised really well designed systems for obscuring their identity by logging into personal accounts. Operatives were even infected with commercial malware. These errors allowed CSEC to attribute MAKERS MARK attacks to Russia.

Source document:Hackers are Humans too: Cyber leads to CI leads

Related article:White House Says Russias Hackers Are Too Good To Be Caught But NSA Partner Called Them Morons, by Sam Biddle, 2 August 2017 in the Intercept

Thirteen previously-unpublished documents from the Snowden archive document the NSAs evolving relationship with its Japanese counterpart, the G2 Annex. While Japan houses and part-funds three NSA bases on its territory and shares access to tools like XKEYSCORE, the US agency also spies on the Japanese government and institutions. NSA programmes housed in Japan include GHOSTHUNTER, which identifies locations of internet users in the Middle East and North Africa and is used to facilitate drone strikes.

Revealed documents:Whats NSAs Reputation Among Third Parties? What are the Japanese Like as SIGINTers?Charlie Meals Opens New Engineering Support Facility in JapanNSA SIGINT Site Relocated in Japan: The Story Behind the MoveBack in Time: The KAL-007 ShootdownRequest for ADET SIGDEV Materials to be Used for Training the Japanese Directorate for SIGINT PersonnelSpecial-Delivery SIGINT: How NSA Got Reports to US Negotiators In Time for Them To Be of ValueUS, Japan Now Exchanging Collection From Reconnaissance MissionsShift to Software Demodulation in Misawa Expands Collection, Saves MoneyNSA Liaison in Tokyo Opens New OfficeCROSSHAIR Foreign Partners Filling HF/DF Gaps for the USThe International Security Issues Build-OutNSA Assistance to Japanese Directorate for SIGINT in Developing Capabilities to Provide SIGINT Support to CNDNSA High Frequency (HF) Collaboration efforts with Japan

Related articles:Japan Made Secret Deals With The Nsa That Expanded Global Surveillance, by Ryan Gallagher, 24 April 2017 in the InterceptJapan monitored in the United States: Snowden unpublished file shock, by Akira Ikegami, Shinichi Takeda and Izumi Tanaka, 24 April 2017 in NHK CloseupNZ spied on Japan as part of anti-whaling push: Snowden document, 26 April 2017 in the New Zealand Herald

A post from the internal NSA newsletter SIDToday describes the role the agency plays in security arrangements for domestic events, primarily the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which have been designated as National Special Security Events (NSSEs). Other NSSEs include the Salt Lake City Olympics. The Republican National Convention in 2004 was greeted by large scale protest and over one thousand arrests, which were later ruled to be unlawful. It is not known whether the NSA was tasked with monitoring domestic protest.

Revealed documents:NSA Provides Un-conventional Support

Related article:NSA kept watch over Democratic and Republican conventions, Snowden documents reveal, by Ryan Gallagher, 24 April 2017 in the Intercept

An NSA-US Navy report in the Snowden archive shed light on the extent of US defence information compromised when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet in 2001. The 117-page report, prepared three months after the incident largely vindicates the planes crew for their attempts to destroy the signals intelligence and cryptographic material on board before its emergency landing and criticises the lack of institutional preparation for such an incident.

Revealed documents:EP-3E Collision: Cryptologic Damage Assessment and Incident Review

Related article:Burn After Reading: Snowden Documents Reveal Scope of Secrets Exposed to China in 2001 Spy Plane Incident, by Kim Zetter, 10 April 2017 in the Intercept

A page from the NSAs internal WikiInfo, on Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, suggests that in 2005 the agency identified an attack on Politkovskayas email account depplying malicious malware which is not in the public domain. The NSA concluded that Russias FSB was probably responsible. Politkovskaya was assassinated in 2006.

Revealed document:Anna Politkovskaya

Related article:Top-Secret Snowden Document Reveals what the NSA Knew about Previous Russian Hacking, by Sam Biddle, 29 December 2016 in the Intercept

A GCHQ presentation from 2012 discusses the Southwinds system, which intercepts mobile phone activity from commercial aircraft at cruising altitude. As of 2012, the programme was restricted to those regions covered by UK satellite communications provider Inmarsat: Europe, Africa and the Middle East and was capable of updating phone position data every two minutes. Air France and Air Mexico flights were discussed as specific targets as early as 2005, based on possible terrorist threats to these airlines. GCHQ noted that Aeroflot was carrying out its own surveillance of calls made on board its aircraft.

Source documents:SIGINT Analysts: In-flight GSM Is No JokeIn-Flight GSMTHIEVING MAGPIE Using on-board GSM/GPRS to track targetsHOMING PIGEON

Related articles:Les compagnies ariennes dont Air France vises par les services secrets amricains et britanniques, by Jacques Follorou, 7 December 2016 in le MondeAmerican and British Spy Agencies Targeted In-flight Mobile Phone Use, by Jacques Follorou, 7 December 2016 in the Intercept

Details from documents in the Snowden archive, together with architectural plan, public records and interviews with former AT&T employees suggest that an AT&T communications hub at 33 Thomas Street in lower Manhattan is also an NSA surveillance site codenamed TITANPOINTE. AT&T is referred to in several documents as LITHIUM, the partner who visits to TITANPOINTE must be coordinated with. The agency claims to have access to foreign gateway switches at the building, which it refers to as RIMROCK access, as well as to satellite communications as part of a system called SKIDROWE. The facility is also referred to in the Snowden archive as a BLARNEY core site.

Revealed documents:Blarney Program TDY Handbook FAIRVIEW TDY HandbookFAIRVIEW Dataflow DiagramsSpecial Source Operations: Corporate Partner AccessDNI Processing of RINGBILL AccessSSO Web > (U) BlarneySKIDROWE Low Speed DNI Processing Solution Replacing WEALTHYCLUSTER2

Related articles:Titanpointe: The NSAs Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain View, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrick Moltke, 16 November 2016 in the InterceptLook Inside the Windowless New York Skyscraper Linked to the NSA, by Ryan Gallagher and Henrick Moltke, 19 November 2016 in the Intercept

In a cache of documents revealed to the Intercept, New Zealand based company Endace are revealed as a supplier to GCHQ and other intelligence agencies, including Moroccos DGST which has been singled out by Amnesty and others for human rights abuses. The company supplies equipment that allows telecoms providers to make their systems intercept capable and analysis of previously-released documents from the Snowden archive suggests that Endace-supplied equipment played a critical role in enabling the agency to dramatically expand its surveillance of undersea cables between 2009 and 2012.

Revealed documents:Access: The VisionSupporting Internet OperationsMobile Apps Checkpoint meeting Archives

Related article:Private Eyes: The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance, by Ryan Gallagher and Nicky Hager, 23 October 2016 in the Intercept

A draft NSA malware manual confirms that SECONDDATE which appears in the ShadowBrokers initial release was created by the Agency. SECONDDATE, which intercepts web requests and redirects them to an NSA server, is part of the system codenamed TURBINE. That, and the NSA server (FOXACID) has been described in previously published documents from the Snowden archive.

Revealed documents:FOXACID SOP for Operational Management of FOXACID InfrastructureWireless LAN/CNE Tool Training Course and EvaluationIntroduction to WLAN / 802.11 Active CNE OperationsIntroduction to BADDECISIONFOXACIDSIGINT Development Support II Program Management ReviewDGO Enables Endpoint Implants via QUANTUMTHEORYQUANTUMTHEORY success at SARATOGAExpeditionary Access Operations: NSAs Close Access Network Exploitation Program

Related article:The NSA Leak is Real, Snowden Documents Confirm, by Sam Biddle, 19 August 2016 in the Intercept

Articles from the NSAs internal newsletter SIDToday show how the NSAs capabilities have at times been frustrated by the adoption of relatively low-tech strategies. In late 2003, insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq had caused issues for the agency with their use of high powered cordless phones, which could be used to denotate IEDs as well as for communication. Later disclosures by other whistleblowers shed light on some of the tools governments are employing in response to this issue.

Source documents:High Powered Cordless Phones in the Af/Pak Border Area: Is UBL Talking?HPCP Conference Aids CollaborationRegister for the Worldwide HPCP Conference, 27-31 October

Related articles:Iraqi Insurgents Stymied the NSA and Other Highlights from 263 Internal Agency Reports, by Margot Williams and Micah Lee, 10 August 2016 in the InterceptThe Secret History of Iraqs Invisible War, by Noah Shachtman, 14 June 2011 in WiredA Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone, by Jeremy Scahill and Margot Williams, 17 December 2015 in the Intercept

A post from the internal NSA newsletter SIDToday dated 6 November 2003 describes how the agency shared intercepted material from international NGOs and treaty monitoring organisations working in the health sector with the DIAs Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. The DIA unit was tasked with producing intelligence for the military in support of force health protection, particularly in the field of epidemiology. The collaboration allowed the NSA to analyse the impact of Chinas SARS outbreak on governance, local media, the economy and the readiness of the Peoples Liberation Army. Further documents from the Snowden archive show the range of the NSAs ambitions in accessing and utilising medical data.

Source document:DIA Swimming Upstream in the SIGINT SystemInteragency SARS Conference May 20thSpecial Source Operations Weekly 18 April 2013A New Approach to Uncovering WMD ProgramsFY 2013 Congressional Budget Justifiation

Related article:How the U.S. Spies on Medical Nonprofits and Health Defenses Worldwide, by Jenna McLaughlin, 10 August 2016 in the Intercept

Amidst the controversy about the hacking of Democratic Party networks, which US authorities have linked to the Russian government, previously published documents in the Snowden archive illustrate the extent to which the US own signal intelligence agency has breached electronic systems in other countries where elections are ongoing, with targets including successive Mexican Presidents. The US is making large investments into its offensive cyberwarfare capability.

Source documents:Intelligently filtering your data: Brazil and Mexico case studiesComputer-Network Exploitation Successes South of the Border

Related articles:Commentary: The worlds best cyber army doesnt belong to Russia, by James Bamford, 9 August 2016, ReutersFresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican Presidents Email, by Jens Glsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark, 20 October 2013 in Der SpiegelExclusive: Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare, by James Bamford and Tim De Chant, 8 January 2015, PBS Nova

GCHQs JTRIG unit used a link shortener in an attempt to influence online activists at the time of the 2009 Iranian presidential elections and the Arab Spring. GCHQ set up a free link-shortening service called lurl.me (codenamed DEADPOOL), which the agency classed as one of its shaping and honeypots tools, and used this to target activists from the Middle East. The same technique was used in an attempt to identify members of Anonymous. An examination of previously-published documents from the Snowden archive allows the likely objectives and methods used in this campaign to be understood, including the limitations of GCHQs capacity.

Source documents:JTRIG Tools and TechniquesCyber Offensive Session: Pushing the Boundaries and Action Against HactivismBehavioural Science Support for JTRIGS Effects and Online HUMINT Operations

Related article:British Spies Used a URL Shortener to Honeypot Arab Spring Dissidents, by Mustafa al-Bassam, 29 July 2016 in Vice Motherboard

Whistleblower concerns about the extent of information gathering by the Five Eyes making drawing intelligence insights more difficult are borne out by a 2010 document prepared by Britains intelligence services for the Cabinet office and the Treasury. Documents from GCHQs National Technical Assistance Centre show that a very small percentage of communications intercepted under the agencys targeted operations are ever analysed by a human being.

Revealed documents:The Digint ProgrammeDigint imbalanceArtemis DGO and DOC SpecialCommunications Capability Development ProgrammeMILKWHITE Enrichment Services (MES) ProgrammeMobile Apps Checkpoint meeting ArchivesPRESTON ArchitecturePRESTON Business ProcessesThe National Technical Assistance Centre

Related article:Facing Data Deluge, Secret U.K. Spying Report Warned of Intelligence Failure, by Ryan Gallagher, 7 June 2016 in the InterceptEdward Snowden leaks reveal secret Scottish spy system, by Michael Gray, 11 June 2016 in Commonspace

An investigation shows that the electronic communications of UK parliamentarians are being collected by GCHQ as a matter of course. An unpublished GCHQ document from the Snowden archive confirms that the agency is able to scan the content of parliamentary emails for keywords via the MessageLabs spam filters used in MPs inboxes. In 2014 after Edward Snowdens revelations brought mass surveillance to widespread public attention the UK parliamentary estate moved its internal email and office software to Microsoft 364, so the digital output of parliamentarians is constantly moving between the UK, Netherlands and Ireland. A Computer Weekly study has found that around 65% of parliamentary email headers are routed internationally.

Source documents:Intrusion Analysis / JeACSSO HIGHLIGHT Microsoft Skydrive Collection Now Part of PRISM Standard Stored Communications Collection

Related article:MPs private emails are routinely accessed by GCHQ, by Duncan Campbell and Bill Goodwin, 1 June 2016 in Computer Weekly

Eric Fair, an interrogator who worked for a US military contractor in Iraq and former NSA employee, authored several articles about his experiences in internal agency newsletter SIDToday. Later, in his memoir, Fair reflected on how he had felt obliged to mask his moral qualms about his experience at Abu Ghraib and in Falluja for the consumption of his new colleagues. There is a strong contrast between the tone of Fairs SIDToday articles and his later writing for a general audience.

Source documents:From SIGINT to HUMINT to SIGINT (through HUMINT) part 1From SIGINT to HUMINT to SIGINT (through HUMINT) part 2

Related article:The Secret NSA Diary of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator, by Cora Currier, 11 May 2016 in the Intercept

Continued here:
Revelations | Courage Snowden

Edward Snowden: A Timeline – NBC News

June 21, 1983: Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, N.C. He spends his early life there before moving with his parents, Lonnie, a Coast Guard officer, and Elizabeth, known as Wendy, to Maryland.

1991-1998: Snowden attends public schools in Anne Arundel County, south of Baltimore, before dropping out of high school in his sophomore year.

1999-2001: During this period, the New York Times reports, he developed a fascination with computers and technology and socialized with a tight circle of friends who were similarly enamored of the Internet and Japanese anime culture. He also registered on the Ars Technica website, a hacking and technology forum, and over a two-year period posted as The One True Hooha or just Hooha about role-playing video games. After his parents divorce in 2001, Snowden lived with his mother in Ellicott City, Md.

On the left is the avatar posted beside Edward Snowden's biography in 2002, when he worked as a webmaster and editor for a website devoted to Japanese anime art that he started with friends in Maryland. On the right, Snowden put clothespins on his chest while working at the site in 2002. katiebair.com via Reuters file

2002-2004: After attending a local community college off and on, Snowden passes a General Educational Development test to receive a high school equivalency credential. In March 2004, he enlists in an Army Reserve Special Forces training program to fight to help free people from oppression in Iraq, he later tells Britains Guardian newspaper. But he says he broke his legs in a training accident, and Army records show he was discharged in September. He then lands a job as a security guard at the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, which has a close relationship with the National Security Agency, according to the Times.

2006: Snowden is hired by the CIA as a technical/IT expert and receives a top-secret clearance.

2007-2009: Snowden is posted to Geneva, Switzerland, under diplomatic cover as an IT and cyber security expert for the CIA, a position that gives him access to a wide array of classified documents. He later tells the Guardian that during this period he became disillusioned about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

Late 2009-March 2012: Snowdens supervisor at the CIA placed a critical assessment of his behavior and work habits in his personnel file and voiced the suspicion that he had tried to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access, the New York Times reports after he is identified as the leaker, quoting two unnamed senior American officials. Snowden leaves the CIA soon after his supervisors criticism and begins work as a NSA contractor assigned by Dell -- one of 854,000 contractors with top-secret clearance working for the federal government. Over the next several years, he switches between assignments with the NSA and CIA for Dell, including a stint at a NSA facility in Japan that lasts until March 2012.

A real estate sign stands in front of a home in Waipahu, Hawaii, on June 9, 2013, where Edward Snowden lived with his girlfriend. Anita Hofschneider / AP file

March 2012: Snowden moves to Hawaii to work at a NSA facility there as a Dell employee. He moves into a blue-and-white house in Waipahu, where he is joined by his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, a 28-year-old performance artist. He donates $250 to the Republican presidential campaign of libertarian Ron Paul, campaign records show, followed by a second contribution of the same amount two months later.

Dec. 1, 2012: Snowden reaches out to Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer and columnist for The Guardian.

Jan. 2013: Snowden reaches out to Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker.

March 2013: He seeks a new contractor job with Booz Allen Hamilton at the same NSA facility in Hawaii. He later tells the South China Morning Post that he did so to get additional access to classified documents he intends to leak.

Booz Allen Hamilton headquarters in McLean, Va. MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA

May 2013: Snowden begins sending some documents to Poitras, Greenwald and to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post. He tells his NSA supervisor that he needs to take some time off to undergo treatment for epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with the previous year, according to the Guardian. He tells his girlfriend he will be away for a few weeks, but is vague about the reason.

May 20, 2013: Snowden arrives in Hong Kong from Hawaii.

June 2, 2013: Greenwald and Poitras arrive in Hong Kong.

June 5, 2013: First revelations arising from the documents provided by Snowden are published in a Guardian article about the NSAs collection of domestic email and telephone metadata from Verizon as part of what is later revealed to be an even broader collection effort.

June 6, 2013: The Guardian and the Washington Post each publish an article about the NSA program PRISM, which forces biggest US internet companies to hand over data on domestic users.

Follow NBC News Investigations on Twitter and Facebook.

June 8, 2013: The Guardian publishes NSA slides on Boundless Informant, which shows NSA collected nearly 3 billion pieces of intelligence inside the U.S. in February 2013 alone.

June 9, 2013: The Guardian reveals Edward Snowden as the source of the NSA leaks.

June 11, 2013: Snowden is fired by Booz Allen Hamilton. In a statement, the company says, News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm.

Glenn Greenwald, right, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Hong Kong about his working relationship with Edward Snowden on June 10, 2013. Vincent Yu / AP file

June 14, 2013: The U.S. Justice Department charges Snowden with theft, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person the latter two charges violations of the 1917 Espionage Act. The criminal complaint is initially filed under seal in the Eastern District of Virginia, and unsealed a week later.

June 23, 2013: Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Ecuador, with a planned stopover in Russia. But he is stranded at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow after U.S. authorities rescind his passport. He spends the next month living in limbo in the airports transit center.

Aug. 1, 2013: He is granted temporary asylum by Russian authorities as they consider his application for permanent political asylum.

Aug. 1, 2013: The Guardian publishes an article detailing NSA funding for British intelligence because U.K. can collect data that would illegal for NSA to do, based on documents provided by Snowden.

Oct. 2, 2013: At a Senate hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tells lawmakers that Snowdens leaks have aided Americas enemies and done great damage to its allies. Peoples lives are at risk here because of data that Mr. Snowden purloined, he says.

Oct. 14, 2013: The Washington Post reports on documents revealing that the NSA collects over 250 million email inbox views and contact lists a year from online services like Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook. The documents, provided by Snowden, show the agency collects the data in bulk from massive fiber optic cables that carry most of the world's telephone and Internet traffic.

Dec. 16, 2013: U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rules that the NSAs gathering of data on all telephone calls made in the United States appears to violate the Constitutions protection against unreasonable searches. But Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, puts his ruling on hold to allow the government to appeal.

Dec. 27, 2013: Another federal judge, U.S. District Judge William Pauley III in Manhattan, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, reaches an opposite conclusion, ruling that the NSAs collection of phone data is legal.

Jan. 17, 2014: In a speech on government mass surveillance revealed by Snowden,President Barack Obama orders Attorney General Eric Holder to study possible reforms of the program. But he also defends NSA employees and attempts to assure Americans they are "not abusing (their) authorities to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails."

Jan. 27, 2014 -- Based on Snowden documents, NBC News reports that British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter.

Feb. 7, 2014 -- NBC News reports, based on Snowden documents, that British spies have developed dirty tricks for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into honey traps.

March 6, 2014: The Pentagon might need to spend billions to overcome the damage done to military security by Snowden's leaks of intelligence documents, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells members of Congress at a hearing on the defense budget.

March 10, 2014: In a teleconference appearance from Moscow, Snowden tells a crowd at the South by Southwest music and technology festival in Austin, Texas, that the NSA and its counterparts are "setting fire to the future of the Internet," and urges technologists in attendance to help us fix this.

April 17, 2014: Snowden appears via webcam on Russian television to ask President Vladimir Putin about whether Russia conducts mass surveillance of civilians. The softball setup Putin replied with a resounding "no," adding that he is against spying on his people was generally seen as a PR stunt. But in a subsequent opinion column in The Guardian, Snowden defends his line of questioning and notes that Putin was evasive in his response.

May 21, 2014: NBC News Brian Williams interviews Snowden in Moscow. Key pieces of the interview will be broadcast in a one-hour Prime Time special on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central.

Link:
Edward Snowden: A Timeline - NBC News

Julian Assange issues urgent legal challenge against US …

By Mike Head 24 January 2019

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose web site is continuing to expose war crimes, coup plots and mass surveillance by Washington and its allies, has made a new legal bid to block a concerted operation to extradite him to the US, where he could be imprisoned for life, or even sentenced to death.

Under intense pressure from the Trump administration, Ecuadors President Lenn Moreno has for months ramped up efforts to repudiate the political asylum that Ecuador gave Assange in 2012 to protect him from US extradition, and force or coerce him to leave its London embassy.

Assanges legal team yesterday announced an urgent application to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), based in Washington, to direct the Trump administration to unseal the charges it has secretly filed against Assange. The application also asks the IACHR to compel Ecuador to cease its intensive spying activities against Assange, stop the isolation imposed on him inside the embassy since last March and protect him from US extradition.

The lawyers media statement said the 1,172-page application seeks precautionary measures from the IACHR, which monitors compliance of the US and Ecuador with their binding legal obligations. The IAHCR, an organ of the Organization of American States (OAS), is meant to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere, but the Trump administration has boycotted its hearings.

The US government has refused to reveal details of the charges against Assange, despite sources in the US Department of Justice confirming to the Associated Press that Assange has been charged under seal. The revelation that the US has initiated a prosecution against Mr. Assange has shocked the international community, the legal submission states. The US government is required to provide information as to the criminal charges in full.

The submission reveals that US prosecutors have in the past few months formally approached people in the US, Germany and Iceland and pressed them to testify against Assange in return for immunity from prosecution. Those approached are associated with WikiLeaks joint publications with other media about US diplomatic interventions, torture and indefinite detention at Americas Guantanamo Bay prison camp and war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The statement notes: The joint publication effort between WikiLeaks, The New York Times, McClatchy, The Guardian, The Telegraph, the UKs Channel 4, Al Jazeera, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pas, The Hindu, and Reuters, among others, won numerous journalistic awards and created the collaborative model subsequently used for other large disclosures such as the Panama Papers.

Many of these media organisations have since turned on Assange, propagating US intelligence-fed slanders against him and WikiLeaksranging from false accusations of sexual misconduct to involvement in a supposed conspiracy between Donald Trump and Russian authorities to steal the US presidency from the Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton, in 2016.

The statement warns that the operation against Assange sets a precedent to be used against other media outlets. It states: The [Trump] administration has been plagued by leaks of classified information in its first two years, and is clearly intent on using the prosecution of Julian Assange as an icebreaker to set a dangerous precedent that would enable the prosecution of most serious media organisations, such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, AP, CNN and NBC which routinely obtain and publish information from classified sources.

The application by Assanges lawyers identifies a raft of legal obligations that the US and Ecuador are flouting in their treatment of Mr. Assange. Former Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzn, the international coordinator of Assanges legal team, said the violations undermine the right to asylum from political persecution.

The media statement points to the real motives behind the drive to silence Assange and WikiLeakstheir ongoing publication of incriminating documents exposing US-led global spying and internet hacking operations.

The lawyers document Trump administration attempts to pressure Ecuador to hand over Assange, notably recent serious overt threats against Ecuador made by senior US political figures, unlike the more veiled threats made in the past. These threats have significantly increased since WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 documents from the CIAthe largest leak of CIA classified information in history, which the US government claims were provided by a young CIA officer, Joshua Schulte.

The statement reports that specialized security services contracted by Ecuador have spied on Assange and his visitors, acting as an informant to the US authorities, specifically the FBI. This followed the 2017 declaration by CIA director Mike Pompeo, now the secretary of state, that WikiLeaks is a non-state hostile intelligence service.

The application denounces Ecuadors interference with his access to his lawyers, affecting his right to a legal defence. It demands the suspension of Ecuadors so-called special protocol that blocks Assanges communications with the outside world and a guarantee that his rights as an asylee will be respected in full.

The statement notes that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention last month urged all states to implement its 2016 call to set Assange free, adding: It is time that Mr. Assange, who has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest, recovers his freedom.

The escalating threat to Assange was underscored by a report yesterday in the Guardian that if he were to walk out on to the street, Assange is likely to face contempt of court charges for fleeing British justice. This points to the British government plotting to detain Assange for months while US extradition proceedings are conducted. Previously, the only British charge against Assange was said be a relatively minor offence of skipping bail.

American prosecutors have investigated Assange since at least 2010, when a grand jury hearing was opened under the Obama administration into WikiLeaks publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables. Special prosecutor Robert Muellers probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election has intensified these operations, under the cover of investigating WikiLeaks publication of documents that exposed aspects of Clintons Wall Street-backed campaign.

Earlier this month, with Ecuadors agreement, US investigators began questioning former London embassy diplomatic staff about Assanges visitors. The US Department of Justice issued international subpoenas, supposedly probing a thoroughly discredited Guardian report that Trumps former 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort held secret talks in the embassy with Assange.

Ecuadorian President Moreno recently launched a pseudo-legal special examination of Assanges asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship to provide a cover for his government to repudiate its protection obligations. His government has increasingly aligned itself with the Trump administration, to which it has desperately appealed for support for an International Monetary Fund bailout because of Ecuadors deepening debts, which have been fuelled by falling global oil prices and the rapacious dictates of the financial markets.

These developments underline the importance of demonstrations called by the Socialist Equality Party in Sydney and Melbourne in March as part of the World Socialist Web Sites international campaign for the defence of Assange and internet freedom. Assange remains an Australian citizen. The SEP will fight to mobilise the working class around the demand that the Australian government use its diplomatic powers to secure his safe passage to Australia, if he so chooses, with an unconditional guarantee against extradition to the US.

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Defend Julian Assange against US charges![17 November 2018]

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Julian Assange issues urgent legal challenge against US ...

Julian Assange pushes back against U.S. government, wants to …

Welcome toTheNational Today newsletter, which takes a closer look at what's happening around some of the day's most notable stories. Sign up hereand it will be delivered directly to your inbox Monday to Friday.

Julian Assange is trying to force the Trump administration to open up a "secret" court file and reveal if he is facing charges in the U.S.

Lawyers for the Wikileaks founder have filed a 1,172 page "urgent" submission with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a Washington, D.C.-based tribunal that monitors state abuses in the Americas.

The 47-year-old Australian, who has been living inside the cramped confines of Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012, is trying short-circuit any attempt to extradite him to the United States.

It is believed that he has been under investigation in Virginia since 2010, presumably in relation to his website's publication of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic and military cables about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prison at Guantanamo Bay and other sensitive topics.

Last November, a federal prosecutor appeared to have mistakenly confirmed that criminal charges have been filed against Assange, but their exact nature has yet to be revealed.

Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election has been looking into Wikileaks' role in disclosing hacked Democratic Party emails, and allegations of contact and possible coordination between the website and several high-ranking members of Trump's campaign.

Today's filing claims that American authorities have been approaching people in the U.S., Germany and Iceland who have worked with Assange and offering them immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony about the cable leaks.

The submission also alleges that U.S. intelligence authorities have been working with their Ecuadorian counterparts to monitor Assange's electronic communications and his conversations with visitors to the London embassy.

Assange was originally offered refuge in the diplomatic outpost as he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning in connection with a sexual assault investigation that has since been abandoned.

But tensions with his host have grown over the past six years.

Earlier this month, a commentator from a far-right U.S. website published an account of a visit with Assange. It claimed he is living in conditions "akin to a Stasi-era dissident," describing a "forest of menacingly Orwellian black cameras" and saying that they were forced to pass notes to avoid eavesdroppers.

The Ecuadorian government has denied the substance of the report, along with claims that the heat has been turned off in Assange's room and that he is being forced to sleep on the floor.

Last fall, Assange did file a lawsuit in an Ecuadorian court seeking to overturn restrictions on his internet use and visitors, and contesting demands that he clean his room and take better care of his pet cat. (The suit was dismissed.)

Assange and his backers remain sensitive about how the Wikileaks founder is portrayed in the media.

In early January, several outlets were sent a 5,000-word email that advised reporters not to repeat 140 "false and defamatory" statements about Assange and the website. They ran the gamut from claims that he has ties to Russia, to reports that he bleaches his hair or suffers from poor personal hygiene.

The document, which was labelled "Confidential legal communication. Not for publication," was promptly leaked.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have answered the call of opposition leaders to take to the streets in an effort to force President Nicolas Maduro from office.

At least four people have been killed in the day of protests, which coincides with the 61st anniversary of the fall of the country's military dictatorship.

The police and army response has done little to dampen the demonstrations.

Here is aviewof the massive crowds in downtown Caracas.

And protests are going on in other cities and towns across the country, as well.

Here, a crowd gathers outside the cathedral in Baquisimeto, Venezuela's fourth-largest city, to express their defiance in song.

And the size of the march in Barinas, in west-central Venezuela, also appears huge.

The government put down an uprising by national guardsmen on Monday, but the opposition is urging the rest of the military to revolt and overthrow Maduro, who was sworn in for a second term earlier this month.

More than a dozen countries, including Canada, say that the election was illegitimate.

This afternoon, opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself presidentand was promptly recognized as the country's interim leader by the Trump administration.

How Maduro and his military backers will react remains the big question.

Not sleeping? It could be your daily habits, writes producer Perlita Stroh.

Canadians aren't getting as much sleep as we want, this much we know. In fact, almost 60 per cent of us say we aren't getting the recommended eight hours a night.

The question is, why aren't we getting enough sleep?

The answer, according to some health experts, has more to do with our own behaviour than we like to admit.

"We are sometimes unrealistic when it comes to sleep," says Dr. Danielle Martin, a physician and vice-president at Women's College Hospital in Toronto. "We think we can act however we want during our days and expect our nights to be perfectly restful, and that's unrealistic."

Martin points to things like drinking alcohol excessively, consuming too much caffeine, exercising late into the night, and using electronics right before bed as some of the reasons we aren't getting enough sleep.

Experts agree that creating healthy "sleep hygiene," a consistent sleep routine, goes a long way towards helping with the problem.

"Simple things, like keeping a dark room and a comfortable temperature in your bedroom, can help so much with sleep," says Dr. Samir Sinha, with Sinai Health Services and University Health Network.

Another thing doctors are now urging is that all Canadians, and particularly seniors, steer clear of prescription and over-the-counter sleeping pills. They say the risks associated with their use outweigh the benefits. Plus, the fact that they keep a person sedated long after they wake up in the morning can be dangerous.

In a special discussion on The National tonight, doctors Martin and Sinha will join Dr. Shelly Weiss, neurologist and sleep specialist at The Hospital for Sick Children, to talk about sleep and how we can get more of it.

- Perlita Stroh

And in case you missed it, here's Duncan McCue's story on sleep apnea, how it can affect you health, and why so many Canadians go undiagnosed:

A Hall pass for a late, great Blue Jay.

"I know this has angered China, but we have a system of extradition treaty, a system of rules of law, which are above the government. The government cannot change these things, and as I said, I think Ms. Meng has quite a strong case."

- John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, expresses some regret about the Meng Wanzhou case in an interview with Chinese-language media.

Jan. 23, 2006: Paul Martin concedes defeat, announces resignation

Paul Martin worked tirelessly for nearly two decades to become prime minister. But his time in office was comparatively brief two years and 56 days. Here, on the night he lost to Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the Liberal leader reflects on his time in public life and announces that he's ready to move on.

Sign up hereand have The National Today newsletter delivered directly to your inbox Monday to Friday.

Please send your ideas, news tips, rants, and compliments tothenationaltoday@cbc.ca.

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Julian Assange pushes back against U.S. government, wants to ...

Chelsea Manning Tweets Out a Suicide Note and Shocking Photo …

The convicted leaker of government secrets andlongshot candidate for US Senateis safe after a photo on her Twitter account apparently showed the 30-year-old woman standing on the edge of an upper-story window ledge.

The photo was posted to her Twitter account late Sunday with the words: Im sorry. It was sent shortly after a separate tweet that said:

im not really cut out for this worldi tried adapting to this world out here but i failed youi couldnt do this anymore,

among other things. The tweets did not make clear where the photo was taken, and Mannings friends declined to say. The alarming tweets were deleted after about 10 minutes, followed by a message on her account saying Manning was OK and asking people to

please give her some space.

Manning, who twice tried to kill herself while in a US military lockup, and she also has been quoted that her publicity and cult status has been hard on her and she has found it really intimidating and overwhelming.

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Chelsea Manning Tweets Out a Suicide Note and Shocking Photo ...

Julian Assange launches legal challenge against Trump …

Julian Assange, the fugitive WikiLeaks founder whose diplomatic sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy appears increasingly precarious, is launching a legal challenge against the Trump administration.

Lawyers for the Australian activist have filed an urgent application to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) aimed at forcing the hand of US prosecutors, requiring them to unseal any secret charges against him.

The legal move is an attempt to prevent Assanges extradition to the US at a time that a new Ecuadorian government has been making his stay in the central London apartment increasingly inhospitable.

He has been staying in the Knightsbridge flat, which houses the embassy, since 2012 when he fled extradition proceedings at the UKs supreme court. Swedish prosecutors have since dropped their request to extradite him to Stockholm over a rape investigation.

If he were to walk out on to the street, Assange is likely to face contempt of court charges for fleeing British justice. His chief fear, however, is that once arrested, the US authorities would begin fresh extradition proceedings against him alleging security offences.

It is believed American prosecutors have been investigating Assange since at least 2011, when a grand jury hearing was opened into the whistleblowing websites publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables, in conjunction with a number of international newspapers including the Guardian.

The IACHR monitors human rights in the Americas and hears appeals on individual cases. The Trump administration, however, has boycotted its recent hearings.

The 1,172-page submission by Assanges lawyers calls on the US to unseal any secret charges against him and urges Ecuador to cease its espionage activities against him.

Baltasar Garzn, the prominent Spanish judge who has pursued dictators, terrorists and drug barons, is the international coordinator of Assanges legal team. He has said the case involves the right to access and impart information freely that has been put in jeopardy.

The Trump administration is refusing to reveal details of charges against Assange despite the fact that sources in the US Department of Justice have confirmed to the media that they exist under seal.

The revelation that the US has initiated a prosecution against Mr Assange has shocked the international community, the legal submission to the IACHR states. The US government is required to provide information as to the criminal charges that are imputed to Mr Assange in full.

The application alleges that US prosecutors have begun approaching people in the US, Germany and Iceland and pressed them to testify against Assange in return for immunity from prosecution.

Those approached, it is said, include people associated with WikiLeaks joint publications with other media about US diplomacy, Guantnamo Bay and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assanges lawyers say the Trump administration has pressurised Ecuador to hand over Assange, making increasingly overt threats. In December, the New York Times reported that Ecuadors new president, Lenin Moreno tried to negotiate handing over Mr Assange to the US. in exchange for debt relief.

The application also highlights what it says are espionage operations against Assange in the London embassy.

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Julian Assange launches legal challenge against Trump ...

Edward Snowden Bio, Age, Education, Dead, Net Worth …

Edward Snowden is an American computer professional and a former National Security Agency subcontractor. In 2013, he made headlines when he leaked top-secret information about NSA surveillance activities. Similarly, he is also known to be an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency ofU.S.A.Edward Snowden collected top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices that he found disturbing and leaked them. After that newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked. Many of them detailing the monitoring of American citizens while many groups called him a hero. However, he continued to speak about his works and found asylum in Russia.

Edward Snowden a.k.a Edward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21st, 1983in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the U.S.A. As of 2019, his age is 36 years old. He holds an American nationality and belongs to white ethnicity group. Edward was influenced by Japanese and Chinese culture and learned Japanese and Chinese along with Chinese martial arts. Similarly, at the age of 20, he adopted Buddhism as his religion.

Recalling about his educational qualification, he attended classes at Anne Arundel Community College. However, he did not finish his undergraduate degree and went on to attempt a masters degree at the University of Liverpool.

Many people still do not know that he comes from a family that has served the United States. His grandfather served in the U.S Coast Guard as a rear admiral, went on to be a senior official with the FBI and later to work in the Pentagon in 2001. Similarly, his father also served as an officer in the Coast Guard. Talking about his mother is also aclerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Edwardsolder sister served as a lawyer at Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. Since a kid, he was quite sure about the fact thathe will serve the federal government as the rest of his family.

Growing up, Edward Snowden had an IQ test score of 145 on twice occasions. His mind was sharp and his I.Q. was well over 145 which makes him one of the rarest of human beings who possess high-level intelligence.

Edward Snowden enlisted in the Army Reserveas a Special Forces candidate in May 2004. However, he was discharged after four months for unknown reasons. But he provedhis in-depth knowledge and love for computers. This acquired the Central Intelligence Agency to acquire his services in 2006. Similarly, a year later transferred to Genevawhere a job was given as a network security technician under a diplomatic cover.Following asupposition of breaking into the top classified documents. He was fired from the agency.

Edward Snowden left the CIA and worked as a private contractor for technology giants like Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton and also the NSA in 2009. However, he started several interviews with a various journalist. He also able to reveal some vital information on NSA (notably secret surveillance programs) that have been put in place by the agency to gather information and breach peoples privacy.

Edward Snowden began talking when he gathered information on the NSA activities. He requested a medical leave of absence and moved to Hong Kong where he started to talk to reporters and journalists.

Edward Snowden has accumulated a huge amount of sum through his professional career. However, he has not revealed his current salary. His estimated net worth to be around$8.6 Million. He earns much from his job and able to maintain a luxurious lifestyle.

Talking about her personal life, Edward Snowden is an unmarried man. But he is in a relationship with his long-time girlfriendLindsay Mills. They met through a dating website. Her girlfriend is popular as a loyalgirlfriendbecause she supports himin everystepof his life.

The lovebird dated each other almost for eight years. The couple setfor theirweddingbeforeSnowdenleaked theinformation. According to many authorized sources that the couple had broken their relationship after the incident though they shared a great bonding. They are living together to be in Russia.

There were reports that Snowden was dead killed by a group among a whole lot of reasons and information as regarding his death. But he released a funny twitter post waving that entire rumor proving it not. He simply said in his post that the reports of his death are greatly worse than in reality. Interesting guy! He is currently living in Russia.

Edward Snowden stands at the height of 5 feet/ 180cm with body weight 75kg/ 165Ibs. Similarly, he has light brown hair color with green eyes color. Edward is not active on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But his girlfriend is active on social networking siteslikeInstagramandTwitter.

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Edward Snowden Bio, Age, Education, Dead, Net Worth ...

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Mar 31, 2017 - continues the Vault 7 series with Marble 676 source code files for the CIA's secret anti-forensic Marble Framework. Marble is used to hamper forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA.

Marble does this by hiding ("obfuscating") text fragments used in CIA malware from visual inspection. This is the digital equivallent of a specalized CIA tool to place covers over the english language text on U.S. produced weapons systems before giving them to insurgents secretly backed by the CIA.

Nov 29, 2016 - WikiLeaks publishes in searchable format more than 60 thousand emails from private intelligence firm HBGary. The publication today marks the early release of US political prisoner Barrett Brown, who was detained in 2012 and sentenced to 63 months in prison in connection with his journalism on Stratfor and HBGary.

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Edward Snowden Hits Out At CIA Director Gina Haspel: ‘You Can …

Whistleblower Edward Snowden hit out at Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel on Thursday, questioning how the CIA chief was able to get "promoted" despite overseeing the country's torture program.

Speaking at a conference on "National Security Whistleblowing and Government Secrecy"in London, U.K. via videolink, the National Security agency whistleblower, who fled to Russia from the U.S. in 2013, said America's "culture of impunity" has "corrupted not just our system of intelligence, but really, our system of government."

Read more: Under government shutdown, transparency takes a major hit

Snowden, who copied and leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013, exposing a number of global surveillance programs run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, said Americans should question how Haspel could get promoted to the top job in the CIA.

"People just want to get ahead... They want to be the best," Snowden said. "So what does it tell them when they see that you can literally torture people and you will be promoted rather than prosecuted?"

It was a concern shared by many Democrats and watchdog groups after President Donald Trump decided to nominate Haspel for the top CIA job.

The 30-year CIA veteran faced strong criticism and questioning from Democrats during her Senate confirmation hearing last May, with senators grilling Haspel over her role in enforcing an interrogation program that saw detainees tortured under the George W. Bush administration.

Specifically, Haspel was involved in the CIA's rendition, detention and interrogation program, which saw suspected terrorists sent to foreign countries where they were interrogated and in some cases, tortured, a practice billed in the wake of 9/11 as"enhanced interrogation."

While much of Haspel's role in the program is considered classified information, she reportedly led a CIA "black site" in Thailand in 2002, overseeing a program that saw detainees interrogated and also played a role in seeing videotaped evidence of interrogations destroyed.

Ultimately, Haspel was confirmed by the Senate, becoming the first female director of the CIA, in a 54-45 vote.Democratic critics maintained, however, that it was not right for the U.S. to promote someone who had helped supervise a site where torture was allowed under the government's watch.

Democratic Alabama Senator Doug Jones, who opposed Haspel, said it was "just hard to get over" her involvement in the brutal torture program.

Snowden said he still struggles with the fact that so many people in government roles "stay silent" when they encounter information withheld from the public that could be in the public's best interest to know.

"One of the challenges," he said, is "living with the knowledge that people continue to sit at those desks as you did, they see what you saw and they stay silent.

"So you really start questioning, how serious is this? Am I crazy?" he said.

Under the Trump administration, however, Snowden said he believed many potential whistleblowers could face even greater fears coming forward due the president's vow to crack down on "leakers."

While the U.S. leader's predecessor, Barack Obama, oversaw his own crackdown on whistleblowers, Trump, Snowden said, "very much wants to break that record."

"I absolutely dont think that the Trump White House is going to do any better," the whistleblower added.

Edward Snowden speaks remotely WIRED25 Festival: WIRED Celebrates 25th Anniversary Day 2 on October 14, 2018 in San Francisco, California. The whistleblower has said he doesn't understand how CIA Director Gina Haspel was 'promoted rather than prosecuted.' Phillip Faraone/Getty

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Edward Snowden Hits Out At CIA Director Gina Haspel: 'You Can ...