Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Daniel Ellsberg is widely quoted for his praise of the way whistleblower Edward Snowden handled his blockbuster leaks about NSA surveillance:

"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material—and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago."

Indeed, government spying on ordinary citizens has leaped into the forefront of conversation the past couple of weeks. That’s entirely due to Snowden’s efforts and the journalism of Glenn Greenwald and others. The examination of US surveillance practices has gone viral.

Here’s a great New Yorker cover. Click here for a link to some of their stories on the subject.

by Larry Geller

Even if you have no US passport, but if you have a driver’s license or perhaps a state ID in Hawaii, your photo is likely available to federal agents using face recognition software.

A Washington Post article (State photo-ID databases become troves for police, Washington Post, 6/16/2013) indicates that Hawaii stores 912,000 face images in total.

These are images of ordinary people, not criminals. FBI emails obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation demonstrate that Hawaii was building (and by now may have completed) a full-blown facial recognition system—with your face likely included.

A Memorandum of Understanding and the other EFF documents are appended to this post—eight documents in total. The MOU was signed (if I am deciphering the handwritten date properly) by state Attorney General David Louie on November 20, 2011. The software is provided free of charge by the FBI—see: FBI To Give Facial Recognition Software to Law-Enforcement Agencies (Slate, 8/23/2012).

Right now, the system probably won’t help law enforcement, except for instances where they have really good “mug shot” quality images (see this article, for example). But that’s exactly what they have from your driver’s license photo, all they need is better images from police and federal agencies looking for someone. Until they get it right, your image may be selected in error.

The system didn’t work after the Boston Marathon bombing:

BOSTON -- The FBI on Thursday released images of two men who are suspects in the bombings at the finish line area of the Boston Marathon.

The agency, leading the investigation of the bombings that killed three people and injured 170, made public both photographs and video of the men, who were seen in the vicinity of the attack.
…
It may also be running the pictures through other state, local and foreign databases, some of which contain more than 200 million images, said Jim Albers, senior vice president at MorphoTrust USA. MorphoTrust  supplies facial recognition software to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and various intelligence agencies.

“I believe facial recognition will play a major role in finding these people,” he said.

[Los Angeles Times, FBI releases images of two suspects in Boston Marathon bombings, 4/18/2013]

But wait: 

Speaking to the Washington Post, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis explained:

"The technology came up empty even though both Tsarnaevs' images exist in official databases: Dzhokhar had a Massachusetts driver's license; the brothers had legally immigrated; and Tamerlan had been the subject of some FBI investigation."

[Gizmodo, Boston Police: Facial Recognition Didn’t Help Search For Bombers, 4/22/13]

Should we be concerned? Yes. In view of revelations leaked these past days by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, what is being assembled by government is a vast, digital dossier that can be queried rapidly, for example, after a face match is made. Despite Obama administration assertions to date, it doesn’t appear that the NSA spy data prevented any terrorist incidents in this country, and it isn’t clear that the FBI facial recognition database can make use of crime images either. But that does not stop the government from collecting all this information.

From an EFF webpage:

Facial recognition takes the risks inherent in other biometrics to a new level...[it] allows for covert, remote, and mass capture and identification of images, and the photos that may end up in a database include not just a person’s face but also what she is wearing, what she might be carrying, and who she is associated with.

Although a map on the Washington Post website seems to indicate that the database is not accessible to law enforcement in Hawaii, it is not clear whether that would include the FBI, for example, especially in view of the MOU signed between the FBI and the state.  These days, it would be hard to accept as truth assurances from law enforcement that they do not access personal data, anyway.

Who maintains face recognition databases? From the Washington Post story:

A single private contractor, MorphoTrust USA, which is based in a suburban Boston office park but is owned by French industrial conglomerate Safran, dominates the field of government facial-recognition technology systems. Its software operates in systems for the State Department, the FBI and the Defense Department. Most facial-recognition systems installed in driver’s-license registries use the company’s technology, it says.

[Washington Post, State photo-ID databases become troves for police, 6/16/2013]

MorphoTrust, which is the same company mentioned in the Boston bombing article above, is in Hawaii. They operate the TSA ID database here, a Google search discovered. Not that this proves that they have given image database access to state or federal agencies, but the technology is here.

What about Hawaii’s right of privacy?

Nationwide, over 200 million people are in the facial recognition database. But focusing on Hawaii, what protections might we have? Probably none, but I do wish to note this provision in our state constitution:

Article. I, §§ 6 & 7

Section 6: Right To Privacy
The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. The legislature shall take affirmative steps to implement this right. [Add Const Con 1978 and election Nov 7, 1978]

Section 7: Searches, Seizures and Invasion of Privacy
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches, seizures and invasions of privacy shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized or the communications sought to be intercepted. [Am Const Con 1968 and election Nov 5, 1968; ren and am Const Con 1978 and election Nov 7, 1978]

See related: Are Hawaii’s spy contractors in violation of the state constitution? (6/13/2013

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For the record, here is the Hawaii MOU and emails from the EFF website. To download requires a ScribD login, or locate the emails yourself on the EFF website with this search:

Hawaii MOU NGI Face-recognition

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email01

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email02

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email03

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email04

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email05

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email06

 

Hawaii NGI Face-recognition Email07

“Protected health information, or PHI, is highly protected under federal law, but the latest ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services allows agencies to trade the information to verify that Obamacare applicants are getting the minimum amount of health insurance coverage they need from the health "exchanges."

The ruling, explained on pages 72-73 of the book-thick guidance, does not mention any requirement that applicants first OK the release of their PHI.”

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by Larry Geller

Kiss your health secrets goodbye, they are about to embark on a long, uncertain journey.

See: Obamacare will share personal health info with federal, state agencies (Washington Examiner, 6/17/2013).

Officials said the swapping of information is simply meant to help figure the best insurance coverage of Obamacare users.

Oh, sure. For some reason they are asking us to trust them this time.

“The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is developing regulations to open the country’s skies to drones by 2015. The agency estimates that 30,000 drones will be hovering above towns within seven years. The vast majority of U.S. drones will probably be used for agriculture, according to the AUVSI [Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International] report.”

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by Larry Geller

Welcome to the brave new world of surveillance.

That buzz on your phone? Maybe the kid next door tapping your line. NSA spying doesn’t make a sound.

That buzz in the sky above you? Certainly not an agricultural drone if you live in town (the pull-quote above is ambiguous as to whether the ag drones are additional to the 30,000 town drones).

Maybe that flock of drones above you has come to observe your neighbor sunbathing on her roof. Drone bait.

As more drones take to the skies, they are expected to help the economy soar and with them will come engineering jobs. The global market for drones will grow to US $11.4 billion in 2022 from $6.6 billion this year, according to Teal Group Corp. of Fairfax, Va., which analyzes the industry. Several aerospace and defense companies, major employers of engineers, stand to gain from broad deployment of UAVs for commercial use.
…
But drones are not without controversy. Privacy advocates and those worried about government intrusion have often looked at drones with weary eyes. According to an article in The Guardian, concerns in Europe are growing that the drones could “have profound consequences for civil liberties."

[The Institute (IEEE), Friendly Drones, 6/13/2013]

The IEEE article is a good, short, kid-glove introduction to the coming plague of private, commercial and local government droning. But keep in mind that this is the organization that just turned its mail system over to Google, thereby potentially compromising its members’ message security.

Here are some more links to Guardian articles on drones.

Related:

State Surveillance Drone Has Never Left The Ground (Hawaii Reporter, 4/10/2012)

An information request related to drones was filed with the HPD, but the requester did not, apparently, take advantage of Hawaii’s UIPA laws requiring a timely response, and the website indicates no responsive documents were received over a considerable interval of time.

Be the first on your block to control the world: DIY Drones

I was just kidding. These folks are not:

Here’s a fundraising page for DIY Weaponized Drones, and they’re close achieving their target.

Our goal is to have a working prototype of the Panopticopter ready for testing by the end of summer. Can you help us get there?

For $1000 or more support, they’ll give you one of their drones fully assembled.

by Larry Geller

If asked what we all received from our Founding Fathers, most people would say something like “our democratic form of government.” But that’s not what they gave us. Although it was not taught in public school history class, we would have to question the democracy claim simply because those Founding Fathers were slave owners. But there is more than just that.

What was developed in 1776 (and in the French Revolution that followed) was a model of federalism that was envied and adopted by countries around the world. Our form of government subsequently developed to represent an ideal of constitutional democracy that also leads the world. This did take time, though, and not all countries interested in federalism embraced democracy (e.g., Imperial Germany). It was simply a great way to set up a national state and fit into the world of nations.

In its original incarnation in early American republican thought about political liberty, order, consent and obligation, federalism was not associated with democracy at all. Indeed, as integral to a republican form of government, it was firmly contradistinguished from democracy, which was equated with mob rule, popular tyranny and the ignorance of the masses.
…
As the USA progressed so impressively in socio-economic and technological terms in the late nineteenth century so did the reputation of federalism not only as an innovative means of state and nation building but also as the archetype of a new form of territorial state and government whose philosophical foundations were anchored in the concept of civitas or res publico. The new republic gradually came to symbolise the ideal of liberal democratic constitutional government with popular sovereignty vested in the written constitution.

[Federal democracies/edited by Michael Burgess and Alain-G. Gagnon, Routledge series in federal studies, p. 2,3]

Ah, we mustn’t forget the Constitution. Truth is, we don’t seem to remember the Constitution enough. At any level of government, from local up to Congress and the President, laws are passed that violate the Constitution. Government may act in a way later judged to have been unconstitutional by a court. Police act blatantly and knowingly in violation of constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights and are happy to let the city pay the court-ordered settlements later (or in actuality, we taxpayers are made to pay). Typically, the violators suffer no consequences whatsoever. One could be forgiven for believing that the Constitution is just a piece of paper.

There is the myth and the reality around what the Founding Fathers set up as our government and about what the Constitution itself means. Much like Bible studies, different people can interpret both the document and the creation of it in different ways. It’s not uncommon to hear accusations that one court or another is making “new law” or creating a new interpretation of the Constitution not intended by its framers.

Strident representations about the meaning or intent of the Constitution or the role of government depend on the malleability of the mythology. Myths aside, certainly, we are “ruled” by a constitution for only as long as we agree to be bound by it. If we choose to escape from its tenets, we can either physically remove ourselves to another jurisdiction (flee to Canada, for example), change the mythology, or tear it up and write a new one, as happens over and over in countries in the process of overthrowing tyrannical leadership around the world. If we agree to be ruled by it, there’s still wiggle room in the mythology. Is mandates are up for debate since we don’t, in actuality, consider its words to be binding. Selecting a convenient myth reflects a strategy to have our own way despite the words on paper.

So are we truly “ruled” by the Constitution? Do our democratically-elected leaders represent us or rule over us? Democracy, as we know it in this country, involves electing representatives of the people, who continue to represent their constituents while in office and who are sworn to uphold the Constitution. “Representing” us is quite different from “ruling over us.” If we elected politicians to rule over us, it would simply be a variation on the divine right of kings, except secularized. This leads to several possible threads of discussion, however.

For example, again in this country, do politicians represent us or the corporations that control their purse strings and subsidize their re-election? And can an “imperial” president and militarized police be said to represent us or do they truly rule over us? What about their oath to adhere to the Constitution when they seemingly don’t even understand what it means?

It’s a mistake, I think, to put one’s faith in cable TV talking heads for an understanding of how government works today in fact, and also a mistake to confuse with reality their interpretation of what the Founding Fathers intended. There are few scholars on late night cable TV. Any head can talk.

A mythology can by distorted to suit a particular purpose or to advance an ideology or an ambition, for example. Myths are convenient that way. Invoking the intent of our Founding Fathers is to invoke a particular founding mythology. Over time, mythology can overtake and overcome history, as it does in religion.

It’s Fathers Day. We can give a lot of credit to the fathers of our country, but at the same time, dispel the myths that are constantly being touted by political interests. It does our Founders no disservice when we choose to be realistic about constitutional law and political practice in this country at this time. They had nothing to do with the way government is carried out in their name. Often, the law and the practice deviate considerably. What they gave us is a foundation on which to build our own democracy, and it’s up to us to either do that—or not. Which path are we on?

Despite the evolution of our democratic institutions, one thing that’s still absent is any mechanism to enforce adherence to the Constitution in government. Individuals or those in positions of authority may feel that they can disregard the civil rights of others, for example, in practice, there are few consequences for their deeds. If one commits a criminal act, going to prison is a possibility, but if police falsely detain hundred of demonstrators, there are no consequences. Observing this, one might reasonably conclude that the Constitution is really just a piece of paper, but another interpretation is that the police in question simply do not agree to be ruled by it. Nevermind that they swore to do so in the past.

For me, I accept that democracy needs to evolve. We do have the federal form of government in place that the Founding Fathers willed to us, but building a truly representative government that follows the scripture, excuse me, words, of the Constitution, is still a work in progress. We’ve been given a great but incomplete gift, so we need to keep working on it.

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Writing this from Hawaii while checking the Guardian newspaper’s app on my smartphone every so often was a bit surreal. Hawaii was annexed unconstitutionally, but annexed nevertheless. Nevermind how that piece of paper seemingly dictates annexation shall be carried out.

Nevermind that I’ve recently written about the lawsuit in New York challenging approximately five million unconstitutional stop-and-frisks on the part of the NYPD.

Never mind the lawsuit here in Honolulu that was needed to enjoin the HPD from unconstitutionally seizing and destroying property off the streets and perhaps even from private property. 

Nevermind that our federal government is spying on us in ways that ought to be unconstitutional.

Never mind torture and indefinite detention.

Really, which way are we headed? I better check the app again to see.

“In a response to questions from Civil Beat about the ruling, the DOE said that it is reviewing the appellate decision and that the department intends to comply with all federal requirements.”

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by Larry Geller

This case validates the rights of students with disabilities not only in Hawaii but in every state in the 9th Circuit. Attorney Keith Peck has done thousands of students a service with his persistence in this case.

There’s nothing at all funny about the DOE trying to deprive yet another special needs student of the education that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees. Nothing. The DOE has ruined the lives of countless students and their families since ‘way before the Felix lawsuit was filed in 1993.

But the pull-quote above, the last line in yesterday’s Civil Beat article Court Ruling: Hawaii DOE Failed Autistic Student (Civil Beat, 6/13/2013) brought a tear to my eye.

The DOE has so blatantly failed to comply with federal court orders that the Felix Consent Decree ran for more than a decade, and before and during that action the DOE was found in contempt of court several times—for not complying with orders of the court.

Central to this case was whether the DOE can hold an IEP ( Individualized Education Program) meeting without the parent present. Speaking generally, the school district is required to make every reasonable effort to accommodate parents’ schedules so that they may attend. The consequences for holding a meeting without the parent present, which the DOE still does when it can, are that the school often unilaterally changes the student’s program to the school’s advantage. If the parent is aware enough, this will result in due process hearings and even court cases (such as this one)—which the DOE most often loses. When they lose, taxpayers pay attorneys fees and court costs, but the student has often lost an irreplaceable chunk of education.

When the DOE is taken to court, it is represented by a deputy attorney general. In some states, the AG represents the people, but in Hawaii, it is the attorney for the state agencies, so the AG’s office ends up defending DOE wrongdoing. It could, of course, have advised the DOE beforehand what the requirements of federal law are. If the AG would do that, then I suspect a majority of DOE due process hearings and court cases could be avoided.

Reading the “breaking news” article on the same case in the Star-Advertiser earlier brought an illustrative case to mind. My memory of what transpired in 2001-2002 is no longer perfect, but fortunately there are documents available.

Reading this Order Imposing Sanctions one could question the quality of the deputy AGs representing the DOE and their supervision. Basically, the court had ordered that several school officials and a service provider be present in court for a hearing. They were not present.

The court found the defendants (Paul LeMahieu named for the DOE) in contempt, and additionally, the deputy was sanctioned $1500 by the court.

What the order does not say, and what I have to rely on memory for, was that at the time of the hearing, the DOE was holding an IEP meeting without the parents. So the school officials were at the IEP meeting while the parents were in court.

That takes a lot of nerve, but clearly, the DOE thought it was ok to hold that meeting.

I obtained a partial transcript from a hearing in that same case at the time (transcripts are expensive!) which illustrates the quality of representation that was provided by the deputy AG. Draw your own conclusions (as the court later did). I should say that this may be an extreme. Sadly, competent representation runs up bigger bills when the case finally wraps up, which is something of a paradox… if you’re a taxpayer.

You’d think that the DOE would carefully instruct its staff on the conduct of IEPs, but it has also been a pattern that violations will be repeated over and over again (heck, there are only so many ways to violate the law…). In fact, a parent can take the DOE to a due process hearing and win, but the same violation will be committed later with another student.

So we will have to see if, indeed, the DOE follows through with it’s “intention” to “comply with all federal requirements.” That would be very refreshing (and save taxpayers bundles of money).

Meanwhile, again, Mr. Peck has done a service for all special ed students in the 9th Circuit.

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Related:

Three Hawaii special education cases were heard in the 9th Circuit on Wednesday in Honolulu. A good writeup can be found at this link. Two of the three were consolidated, and the third heard separately. They involved the so-called “age-out” issue, and how long the DOE is required to provide supports to students with disabilities. It’s a bit complicated.

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Download 12-15079 9th Cct Order 20130613 special ed case from Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

As Rachel Maddow pointed out on one of her programs this week, the NSA goes through scandals every few years but doesn’t stop what it is doing.

Read the Wikipedia article on the Church Committee, for example, or google for info on it.

The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.

The “mail cover” operation the Committee discovered has not been eliminated, but enhanced, for example.

How would we know if they stop spying on our phone calls, emails, etc.? Well, one way would be if they tear down their godzilla-byte storage facility in Utah and sell all of those disk drives on eBay.

Short of that, they’re not going to stop. Why should they? Neither Congress nor any president nor the courts are going to make the NSA unplug their Prisms from the fiber-optic lines, fire the employees now doing the spying, cancel the thousands (?) of independent contracts, and convert the land under their data facility to farming organic wheat. This is not going to happen.

As long as that facility stays open, it will be used.

As long as the American people are willing to accept lies, the government will spy on them. Spying on the public can only take place when the public accepts being lied to.

[Speaking of phone calls and emails, the recent NSA response is that they are not listening in to phone calls, only recording “metadata.” Actually, one of the leaked slides does list VOIP, which is one flavor of phone service, adopted by many businesses and individuals to reduce their phone bill by using their data line to carry telephone calls. If either side is using VOIP technology, then the phone call has been captured onto one of the Utah disks (or elsewhere). The leaked Prism slide points directly to the word “VoIP.”]

It should be pointed out that the current spy revelations should not be new to us. Just as examples, James Bamford’s Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency was written in 2001.  From a review:

Body of Secrets takes the reader into a world few have ever seen. It is a world where computer systems are measured by the acre.
…
And he addresses the issue of Echelon, the worldwide NSA operation that, many charge, is illegally eavesdropping on innocent citizens. Finally, he takes his readers on the first tour of the NSA's hidden, city-size complex, nicknamed Crypto City, and introduces them to the unique men and women who occupy that shadowy land.

A PBS Nova documentary, Spy Factory, aired in 2009 and is based on a book with that title, also by James Bamford.

Another book on the NSA is Matthew M. Aid’s The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, published in 2009.

In Big Brother NSA & its Little Brother: National Security Agency's Global Surveillance Network, Terry L. Cook wrote in 1999 not only about NSA’s underground data center in Fort Meade, Maryland, but about a kind of satellite system in Brussels, Belgium (according to a review).

Does anyone really think the NSA is going to unplug all of this? Of course, I’d like to be wrong, but it’s a safe bet that the spying will continue. Europeans and other countries would all have to pull the plug on us, and my guess is that they’re quite happy to have some “intel” shared with them by US spy agencies, so would never do that.

“But it is American civil liberties that are primarily in the spotlight now. Ever since 9/11, the US has allowed the war on terror to frame a new domestic authoritarianism that is strikingly at odds with America's passionate sense of its own freedom. This week's revelations have stunned millions of Americans whose justified outrage against 9/11 surely never led them to expect such routine and unrestrained surveillance on such a massive scale. US politicians have a poor post-9/11 record of confronting such powers. Even now, it is possible that many will look the other way. But this is an existential challenge to American freedom. That it has been so relentlessly prosecuted by a leader who once promised to stand up against such authority, makes the challenge more pressing, not less.”—Guardian (UK) Weekly

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by Larry Geller

The Fox News crowd may never come around to this point of view (although you never know…). More likely, they will continue to pound away on the character of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden. That’s an easy path to take and likely to be popular with their audience. As always, Americans appear to be divided by things like which news they watch on TV.

The tweets I follow, and the blogs I read, are more in line with the pull-quote above.

Probably the number of Guardian readers among Fox News viewers is close to zero percent. Even if they read this or other Guardian articles, they would likely not be moved. From the few conversations I’ve had with Foxers, I’ve learned that they supposedly don’t care if their communications are monitored, and they think they must give up privacy in order to be safe from terrorist bombs (I no longer even ask them how well that seems to be working, keeping in mind the Boston Marathon bombing) (ok, other situations might have been prevented, but no evidence has been presented that this is the case).

Few Americans believe that they live in a police state; indeed many would be outraged at the suggestion. Yet the everyday fact that the police have the right to monitor the communications of all its citizens – in secret – is a classic hallmark of a state that fears freedom as well as championing it. Ironically, the Guardian's revelations were published 69 years to the day since US and British soldiers launched the D-day invasion of Europe. The young Americans who fought their way up the Normandy beaches rightly believed they were helping free the world from a tyranny. They did not think that they were making it safe for their own rulers to take such sweeping powers as these over their descendants.

[The Guardian Weekly, Civil liberties: American freedom on the line: The fact that police have the right to monitor the communications of all its citizens – in secret – is a classic hallmark of a state that fears freedom, 6/6/2013 (link to the editorial in the Guardian newspaper)]

Note the reference to “their own rulers.” When I see that phrase or similar, it reminds me that we in the USA (and apparently the British) have not yet excised the archetype of the King, ruling by divine right, from our concept of democratic government. We are supposed to have representatives, not rulers. In truth, our leaders behave like rulers. It is apparent in the current instance that many in the Obama administration and even in Congress think they have the divine right to monitor and control us, even unto indefinite detention and torture of ordinary citizens, even as monarchs old and new exercise their power over their subjects.

At least the phrase was used explicitly in the British newspaper. Here, we simply delude ourselves that we are in charge of our own government.

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The Guardian

The Guardian is a fine world paper. When we lived in Japan, the Manchester Guardian was delivered by air to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, where it was stacked in a heap with other newspapers from around the world. That was our “Internet” in the day. Our Twitter, by the way, was the AFP or one of the other wire service teletypes, or one could listen to “breaking news” dispatches from far-flung news bureaus via shortwave.

Although the Wikipedia states that the name “Manchester Guardian” lasted until 1959, I distinctly remember it up to the 1990s when copies were available at the UH bookstore in Manoa. Perhaps I am remembering incorrectly.

I do remember it was always a good read, a literary read, and an authoritative read. Just like we thought as kids when facing the dauntingly heavy copies of the Sunday New York Times on the dining room table. Only, the language was “high-class” in the Guardian.  It still is.

From the Wikipedia:

Founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor in Manchester, the 11 members of the first Little Circle excluding William Cowdroy, Jnr. of the Manchester Gazette decided to advance their liberalist agenda. They helped then cotton merchant John Edward Taylor form the Manchester Guardian, which he edited for the rest of his life and they all wrote for. With backing from the non-conformist Little Circle group of local businessmen.
…
The Guardian has changed format and design over the years, moving from broadsheet to Berliner. It has become an international media organisation with affiliations to other national papers with similar aims. The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, contains articles from The Guardian and its sister Sunday paper The Observer, as well as reports, features, and book reviews from The Washington Post and articles translated from Le Monde. Other projects include GuardianFilm, the current editorial director of which is Maggie O'Kane.
…
One notable scoop was the breaking of the News International phone hacking scandal in 2011, particularly with the revelation of the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone. The investigation brought about the closure of one of the highest circulation newspapers in the world, the News of the World

They have a great “breaking news” app for the Android phone, check it out.

by Larry Geller

Booz Allen Hamilton is likely not the only government contractor operating in the state that is participating in the eavesdropping activities revealed this past week by one of its employees, Edward Snowden. Booze is reported to employ 350 people on the island, and there are numerous smaller companies involved in intelligence work. Indeed, in Hawaii, military intelligence contracting appears to be a bit of a cottage industry.

Booz Allen Hamilton's Hawaii office is not on a military base or US Government facility. Although many of their employees may work in a US Government location, such as the large NSA facility on Navy property near Wahiawa, they are located in downtown Honolulu. As such, it would appear that the company is governed by Hawaii law.

Hawaii is one of a handful of states that has a strong right of privacy guaranteed by its state constitution. Here are the sections relating to privacy. I have added my own emphasis:

 Article. I, §§ 6 & 7

Section 6: Right To Privacy
The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. The legislature shall take affirmative steps to implement this right. [Add Const Con 1978 and election Nov 7, 1978]

Section 7: Searches, Seizures and Invasion of Privacy
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches, seizures and invasions of privacy shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized or the communications sought to be intercepted. [Am Const Con 1968 and election Nov 5, 1968; ren and am Const Con 1978 and election Nov 7, 1978]

The state constitution seems clear—without probable cause, no communications may be intercepted.

So I ask this question: Are Booz or other contractors operating within the state collecting data or intercepting communications of Hawaii citizens, and if so, is that in violation of the state constitution?

by Larry Geller

Whistleblowing has been in the news primarily due to the stunning releases by Wikileaks, and of course the extralegal persecution of its founder, Julian Assange—and now it’s been given a big boost as leaker Edward Snowden continues to make headlines with his revelations of US government spying on its own citizens.

Wikileaks is not, and has not been, the only website publishing leaks. In fact, there are quite a number of them, and software is available for anyone who wants to create their own website for any purpose.

A little googling came up with many hits. Especially convenient is this “Leak Site Directory” wiki. Here’s the table of contents from that website just by way of illustration, with links intact (note that some of the sites may no longer exist, I haven’t checked them out—my point is simply to illustrate that leaking is much more popular than one would think).

• 1.1 WikiLeaks-Like Whistle blowing Sites
• 1.2 New Concept Leak Sites
• 1.3 Political Denunciation / Tip Off websites
• 1.4 Established Leak Sites
• 1.5 Mainstream Media Whistle blowing Sites
• 1.6 Environmental Protection Whistle blowing sites
• 1.7 National Security or Serious Crime anonymous tip off / whistleblower sites
• 1.8 Privacy Commissioners etc.
• 1.9 Tax Whistleblowing
• 1.10 Financial Whistle Blowing
• 1.11 Whistle Blowing for Censorship and Net Neutrality
• 1.12 Leak friendly websites
• 1.13 Public, USA FOIA and/or historical document release sites
• 1.14 Misc

There is software available to set up your own leak site (the wiki lists others as well). What appears to be much more difficult is to get publicity for it, once it is set up.

Also difficult is dealing with questions such as how to vet submitted leaks. Are they genuine? Or might the leak be simply, for example, a vendetta perpetrated by a disgruntled former (possibly fired) employee?

With a little study, it’s not difficult to learn how potential leakers can use anonymous communication methods to send data to your leak site. Some leak sites post suggestions or provide a mechanism to protect those who would like to submit information. Remember, thanks to Hawaii Senator Clayton Hee, the state no longer has a journalist’s shield law, so leakers have to protect their own anonymity.

Meanwhile, Disappeared News has long welcomed leaks, and many come in each year, mostly about questionable behavior of our state and local lawmakers. It seems people might become unhappy about one thing or another and have no place to turn in a state with weak enforcement of ethics laws or even of common standards of conduct. Heck, this isn’t Chicago (yet), but it’s amazing what some people will do, given even a brief and limited taste of power.

Meanwhile, anyone can submit anonymous comments to this blog, or you can send email to leak [at] disappearednews.com.

Or, if you set up your own leak site, let me know about it.

“Snowden also claimed that the US had been hacking Hong Kong and China since 2009. He [said] that the US had hacked hundreds of targets in Hong Kong – including public officials, a university, businesses and students in the city – and on the mainland. In his interview [with the South China Morning Post,], Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate “the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries’ .”

---

by Larry Geller

For the latest, see: Snowden revelations on NSA strain US-China relations, says Beijing (The Guardian (UK), 6/12/2013). There’s too much to snip on the subject of US-China relations, have a look at the Guardian and the link in the pull-quote.

Snowden is talking, and the world is listening. China was listening today, and the South China Morning Post, often used to decode government opinion, interviewed him and published a series of articles. A snip from the interview on their website:

“We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” he said.

“Last week the American government happily operated in the shadows with no respect for the consent of the governed, but no longer. Every level of society is demanding accountability and oversight.”

Snowden said he was releasing the information to demonstrate “the hypocrisy of the US government when it claims that it does not target civilian infrastructure, unlike its adversaries”.

“Not only does it do so, but it is so afraid of this being known that it is willing to use any means, such as diplomatic intimidation, to prevent this information from becoming public.”

[South China Morning Post (English), Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years, 6/13/2013]

I jokingly said in a previous article that Snowden had better beware of drones overhead. Great minds think alike. This is from the NSA spying segment of Monday’s Colbert Report:

For sure, at least some in the US government must be wondering how to silence Snowden.

The Guardian has an Android app that offers breaking news. It’s one of the best all around, and does pay attention to events in the US. These days I find myself nervously tapping it every so often just to see what’s new in this ongoing story.

by Larry Geller

As a member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), I have an ieee.org email that has been set up for me. I personally make little use of it, but no doubt others do. Recently, the IEEE “upgraded” their service by turning it over to Google. In doing so, have they (and other organizations that may have similarly switched to Google) placed sensitive corporate, government and individual technical data at risk?

Everything Gmail and perhaps everything Google, as we have just learned, is now on file with the NSA. One AP news article noted that altogether 4.9 million government workers, including more than 1 million contractors, have access to the data the NSA is storing. It's impossible to protect the IEEE emails under these circumstances.

With potentially 4.9 million pairs of eyes able to look at this data, no one can say for certain or calculate the odds that some of it has already been compromised and perhaps sold for personal gain.

According to their website:

IEEE.org serves technical professionals and students who are looking to both foster working relationships and gain access to the latest technical research…

Imagine that Company A is conducting research at an undisclosed laboratory, and an engineer communicates via this Gmail-based system with Company B, also part of the project, that a certain patent for (say) a drone guidance system has been approved. Soon, on a computer monitor in a darkened, air-conditioned room someplace in Honolulu, the message is flagged because it contains the word “drone.” At that point, one is relying entirely on the honesty of that person (and who knows how many others) not to jump on and profit from the information revealed. Since location data may be included, the secret laboratory is secret no longer.

At the time the change to Gmail was announced, I had reservations about giving up the security of the prior system, and determined never to send anything critical via the IEEE mail system. But the new revelations mean that technical data on which corporate profits or national security depend may in fact be compromised simply because it is, practically speaking, impossible to police 4.9 million workers each of whom could be a potential leaker.

All professionals should be concerned.

For a full transcript of this section of today’s Democracy Now program, click the link. For full screen, click the thingy at the lower right.

More Intrusive Than Eavesdropping? NSA Collection of Metadata Hands Gov’t Sweeping Personal Info

 

 

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

“The problem is that the diocese makes it seem like the abused have an illness in need of therapy when in actuality they are victims of a crime in need of justice. What these people really need is an attorney who will take their case to court…”

---

by Larry Geller

The pull-quote is from a well-written op-ed in today’s Star-Advertiser by Marilyn Wong: Victims of church sexual abuse need criminal lawyers, not therapy (Star-Advertiser p.A15, 6/12/2013). Check it out if you have or can find a copy of the paper.

Directing victims to go to the diocese for help is like sending the sheep back to the wolves. The diocese had the chance years ago to help victims, but did not act because, at the time, the statute of limitations protected the church. Instead, people claiming abuse were vilified, accused of seeking money, and told that the limitations had expired on their cases. Now that the two-year window has been opened, the church is scurrying to connect with the victims.

For more on the ad, see: Roman Catholic Diocese ad is a disservice to victims of sexual abuse (6/4/2013).

Click here for more related articles from Disappeared News.

[These signs on private property were seized by City & County crews, were damaged, and have not been returned. Photo by Choon James.]

By H. Doug Matsuoka

This is really crazy. I've been writing about how the City has been using Bill 54 (ordinance 11-029) to seize hundreds of signs from deOccupy Honolulu and I know sometimes the reaction is "yeah sure sure whatever" because deOccupy Honolulu is often painted as a fringe group.

But this video made by Choon James shows how City crews swooped into Hauula and tore down protest signs James had on her own private property. And they used Bill 54 to do it. Which is completely illegal because Bill 54 is about storing property on public property. Well, that doesn't seem to matter to the civil authorities at Thomas Square for deOccupy Honolulu, and it doesn't matter in Hauula either, I guess.
Read more »

by Larry Geller

Composed while doing the lunch dishes:

 

Mary had a lot of data
She was an NSA spy for real.
So everywhere that Mary went,
her computer helped her steal.
It sucked up data from every source,
which she thought was against the rules.
That made her bosses laugh and say,
Our laws are only for fools.

 

Little Miss Muffet, her smartphone beside her,
tucked into her curds and whey.
When along came that spider, but how did he find ‘er?
Booze Allen gave her position away.

 

Little Jack Horner
sat in the corner,
Earphones clamped on his head.
He turned the drone left
He turned the drone right
With his joystick he killed them all dead.

by Larry Geller

The new peer-reviewed long-term pig feeding study just published raises important concerns about possible health impacts of consuming genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy. There have been very few animal feeding studies of GE food to date, and extremely few that lasted longer than 90 days. This new study looked at pigs fed GE corn and soy under commercial production conditions over a 22.7 week period. Compared to a control group that was fed conventional corn and soy, the GE-fed pigs showed significant increases in severe stomach inflammation and thickening of the uterus. The study in online here:  http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf.
…
The study found that the uteri of GE-fed pigs was significantly larger (weighed 25 percent more) than those of non-GE-fed pigs. In addition, the rate of severe stomach inflammation was more than 2.5-fold higher, on average, for GE-fed pigs compared to non-GE-fed pigs (32 percent vs. 12 percent, respectively).  Indeed, for male pigs, the rate of severe stomach inflammation was four times higher for GE-fed males to non-GE fed males, and for females, the rate was more than 2-fold higher.

[Consumers Union, Consumers Union statement on new long term study of feeding GE grains to pigs, 6/11/2013]

Consumers Union quoted the authors of the study who indicate that there should be long-term animal studies to identify potential toxicological and reproductive effects of GM crops.

by Larry Geller

The NSA phone spying, revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post in their coverage of the Edward Snowden leaks, has snared the records of the ACLU, a Verizon customer. They have filed a lawsuit challenging the NSA spying

In the past, lawsuits similar to this have failed because plaintiffs could not prove that their communications had been monitored. The publication of a top-secret FISA Court order could change that.

The lawsuit, according to an ACLU press release, argues that the NSA program violates their First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment.

"This dragnet program is surely one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. "It is the equivalent of requiring every American to file a daily report with the government of every location they visited, every person they talked to on the phone, the time of each call, and the length of every conversation. The program goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy."

The lawsuit argues that the government's blanket seizure of and ability to search the ACLU's phone records compromises sensitive information about its work, undermining the organization's ability to engage in legitimate communications with clients, journalists, advocacy partners, and others.

"The crux of the government's justification for the program is the chilling logic that it can collect everyone's data now and ask questions later," said Alex Abdo, a staff attorney for the ACLU's National Security Project. "The Constitution does not permit the suspicionless surveillance of every person in the country."

Snowden’s leak can provide the missing link in this and similar cases: it resolves the issue of “standing.” Again, according to the ACLU:

The ACLU's 2008 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act, which authorized the so-called "warrantless wiretapping program," was dismissed 5-4 by the Supreme Court in February on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been monitored. ACLU attorneys working on today's complaint said they do not expect the issue of standing to be a problem in this case because of the FISA Court order revealed last week.

The ACLU said that yesterday, it and Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic filed a motion with the FISA Court, requesting that it to publish its opinions on the meaning, scope, and constitutionality of Patriot Act Section 215.

A copy of ACLU v. Clapper is posted below.

Download 13-Cv-3994 ACLU v. Clapper Complaint from Disappeared News

 

 

 

“In March, Wired magazine reported that the NSA is building a $2 billion data center in Utah. Its purpose is to intercept, decipher, analyze and store the world's communications from satellites and underground and undersea cables of international, foreign and domestic networks.”—CSO

---

by Larry Geller

The NSA can build its huge bunker in Utah to intercept the world’s communications traffic only because the US is the center, or “hub” for much of that traffic and so has access to it.

The government didn’t always have access to email correspondence. The earliest commercially available email systems (e.g., GE’s Quick-comm service) ran on private networks and charged significant fees of their users. When free Internet services became available, those services predictably died. Traffic on the private networks was encrypted and secure. Emails on the Internet can apparently be read easily by your neighborhood government spy (or teenage hacker…).

The NSA is able to collect vast amounts of data on Internet use because it has the ability to tap into the world’s Internet traffic directly (the fiber-optic cables) and via domestic connections into the systems controlled by Google, Facebook, Apple and others.

Suppose the Internet became regional, with local control.

If the government is gathering huge amounts of information from Internet companies then it could play into the arguments of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia that U.S. control over the Internet should go to the United Nations.

[CSO, NSA snooping bolsters opponents of U.S. Internet control, 6/7/2013]

There has already been a struggle to wrest control of the Internet from the US, but mainly in terms of assigning the top-level domains. An international conference held in December in Dubai failed to establish international control over the Internet. ICANN is the organization that controls those domains, and it operates under a government contract.

Countries have interfered with the Internet by cutting it off entirely (most recently Syria) or imposing strict censorship on traffic (e.g., China). But suppose there were European or Mid-East data centers that the US could not tap into?

No doubt wrongdoers completely understand that they mustn’t plot their activities using Gmail. They know that if their cell phones are powered on, someone in the US knows where they are. So they avoid using the systems that the NSA is tracking. Those whose data does get recorded and analyzed are overwhelmingly ordinary citizens—of this and other countries. The NSA computers are filled with ordinary people’s data, including details of their love-lives, their financial transactions, and which movies they’ve ordered tickets to see.

The recent leaks by Edward Snowden may revive pressure to move to more local control of data flows to prevent US spying. Do other countries care whether we record their citizen’s private data? Perhaps not so much. But Putin may care that his own phone calls are on file someplace in Utah.

A Google search (bless their evil hearts) reveals that there is some talk of this. Of course, the USA is aware of it (heck, all they have to do is check the NSA computers for details) and will not easily relinquish any aspect of network control.

A pre-Dubai article in Vanity Fair delved into the struggle for international control of the Internet. A snip:

The U.S. and most of its allies basically want to keep Internet governance the way it is: run by a small group of technical nonprofit and volunteer organizations, most of them based in the United States.

On the other side will be representatives from countries where governments want to place restrictions on how people use the Internet. These include Russia, China, Brazil, India, Iran, and a host of others. All of them have implemented or experimented with more intrusive monitoring of online activities than the U.S. is publicly known to practice. A number of countries have openly called for the creation of a “new global body” to oversee online policy. At the very least, they’d like to give the United Nations a great deal more control over the Internet.

[Vanity Fair, World War 3.0, 5/2012]

Now that we know—and other countries know—that the US has been using its position and technical/economic might to spy on overseas communications, Vanity Fair’s “World War 3.0” could conceivably be revived.

Russia, one of the countries unsatisfied with US control over the Internet, seems keenly interested in the NSA spying revelations. Breaking news is that Putin would consider granting leaker Edward Snowden asylum if he requested it. See: NSA leaks: Russia 'would consider' Edward Snowden asylum claim – live (The Guardian (UK), 6/11/2013).

by Larry Geller

A majority of Americans – 56% – say the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism, though a substantial minority – 41% – say it is unacceptable. And while the public is more evenly divided over the government’s monitoring of email and other online activities to prevent possible terrorism, these views are largely unchanged since 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
…
The public is divided over the government’s monitoring of internet activity in order to prevent possible terrorism: 45% say the government should be able to “monitor everyone’s email and other online activities if officials say this might prevent future terrorist attacks.” About as many (52%) say the government should not able to do this.

[Pew Research Center, Majority Views NSA Phone Tracking as Acceptable Anti-terror Tactic, 6/10/2013]

To understand the survey, you have to click and read the article in full.

“Regimes of all kinds: be careful with parks.  Be aware that humans are also of, by and for nature.  Parks are domesticated nature, nothing dangerous, yet nature.   Don’t pour asphalt, do not “develop”. And be extra careful with trees.  Not only are they live organisms and like everything organic entitled to a natural death, not for replanting or saw killings; they are also silent witnesses to history, a part of our lives and that of our predecessors, like old  buildings.”

---

Turkey Getting Stuck Again?

10 June 2013

by Johan Galtung, 10 June 2013 – TRANSCEND Media Service

From Istanbul

Turkey did the impossible, moving almost without violence from a military secular dictatorship to a civilian Sunni majority democracy.  Turkey got unstuck.  Sarkar’s circulation of elites at work: military elites, then religious-intellectuals, then business, then ordinary people–and once again the military.  Second cycle.

Big Business would knock at the door, as it did in the Thatcher-Reagan revolution of the mid-1980s. Hence, not surprising that a big mall was one of the projects, together with an opera, a mosque and a monument from the Ottoman period for the Taksim square-Gezi Park project.  Every element a gift for Istanbul’s 14 million.  But, at the expense of a park, green nature, lungs, in that part of Istanbul.

Whether it escalated from this point to an extra-parliamentary confrontation between the winners (Justice and Development Party-AKP) and losers (Republican People’s Party-CHP) of the last two elections–the losers carrying much of the infelicitous past–or the other way round, or both, can be and is debated.

Other processes are going on.  Syria.  Rather than the policy of zero problems with neighbors that has functioned so well, the AKP takes a stand for the opposition, against the Alevite regime.  Not without reasons, but regime change is better done through FAFE, fair and free elections, well monitored.  Violence stimulates military takeovers, not democracy.  And the AKP chooses as name for the third Bosporus bridge Yavuz (The Ferocious) Sultan Selim I–reported to have killed 45,000 Alevis; adopting Sunni Islam.  A strong stand.  Necessary?

The Taksim square protests spread all over Turkey.  Very violent police reactions, some of it denounced by Erdögan, the prime minister.  There are flames, violence to property, teargas, and people dancing in the streets all over.  The Arab Spring has gone Turkish?  Yes and no; what happens in Turkey calls above all for Turkish causes.  So let us return to the square-park, well knowing there is more going on.

Regimes of all kinds: be careful with parks.  Be aware that humans are also of, by and for nature.  Parks are domesticated nature, nothing dangerous, yet nature.   Don’t pour asphalt, do not “develop”. And be extra careful with trees.  Not only are they live organisms and like everything organic entitled to a natural death, not for replanting or saw killings; they are also silent witnesses to history, a part of our lives and that of our predecessors, like old  buildings.  Care, care–”develop” and like in Osaka there will be bitter regrets.

The conflict can be phrased in terms of government action against people, or as modernity-development against history-nature.  There are deep commitments and good arguments on both sides; and unresolved conflict leading to massive violence, verbal, physical.

Can peace studies help in the Gezi case?  Let us put the formula

                    Equity x Harmony

      Peace = —————–

                     Trauma x Conflict

at work, but backwards, starting with conflict resolution.  A both-and is called for; it is hard to believe that Istanbul cannot have both the park and the projects, even if not all at one place.  Example: put the mall under the park-square, like in Alcoy-Spain, with residences, the opera and the mosque elsewhere; the monument to history maybe there. An alternative worked out from the very beginning (the May 27 demo) would have communicated better than critique leaving to polarization, even if less attractive to aggressive minds.  Peace is constructive.

Regimes of all kinds: be careful with history.  Centennials of glory and trauma are coming up.  There is Gelibolu, aka Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal’s brilliant 20th century victory over a 19th century relic, Winston Churchill, and the Aussies and others (half a million killed in eight months!) he sacrificed.  Kemal Atatürk’s Turkey emerged, like everything organic, evolving.  There is much to celebrate in what emerged and in what declined, and much to regret.  Focus on both.

Harmony: what is called for is empathy with all parties.  No need to demonize, much need to empathize; not for or against, only to know.  For one who the last 60 years has had dialogues with all kinds of conflict parties to all kinds of conflicts, one basic experience is etched on the mind: all parties have some perfectly legitimate goals.  Know them; chances are that some solution will come up.

Cooperation for mutual and equal benefit: in a conflict this is often known as debate, negotiating for some compromise.  There is a better approach: dialogue, searching together for something new.  As has been pointed out so often during this conflict: democracy is not only about multi-party elections every four years, but also about transparency and ongoing dialogue.  Nobody has a monopoly on truth; if a government backed by a majority thinks so, democracy becomes majority dictatorship.  Watch how those clever Swiss do it, coalition governments in permanent dialogue benefiting from good ideas right, left or middle.  For seven hundred years, into the eighth century.

It is not good enough for a president to say that the message has arrived, his reaction and the reaction to that reaction matters.  It is not good enough for a prime minister to refuse dialogue, nor for a foreign minister to deplore the damage to Turkey’s image abroad. The problem is how to move on, solving the conflict with a respect for the past sensitive to the victims of the expanding Ottoman Empire, fearful of a repetition.  And sensitive to the martyrs of the May 1, 1977 Taksim square demonstrations, making the square sacred to many.

The AKP has moved Turkey politically into leadership position and economically toward a mixed public-private economy and welfare state.  The distance to becoming a victim of one’s own success, refusing dialogue, is short as history bears countless witnesses to.  Opt for dialogue in all directions, searching for solutions as the way out.

And Turkey will become unstuck– again.

__________________________

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

 
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 United States License.

by Larry Geller

Because Snowden is now in Hong Kong, it’s unclear what the United States can do to him. But watch for officials to tar Snowden—he’ll be called unpatriotic, unprofessional, treasonous, a liar, grandiose, and worse. As in the Bradley Manning case, though, the more badly Snowden is depicted, the more rickety the government’s case for surveillance becomes. After all, they hired him. They gave him unrestricted access to their systems, from court orders to PowerPoint presentations depicting the crown jewels of their surveillance infrastructure.

[Slate, If the NSA Trusted Edward Snowden With Our Data, Why Should We Trust the NSA?, 6/9/2013]

Check out the article to see why the writers think Snowden should not have been given access to secret data at all.

But with regard to the snip above:

1) Who says we trust the NSA? One real risk is that information about any of us can proliferate. Just wait until someone “loses” a laptop with three million dossiers on it, for example. That person could be anyone from a local defense contractor, to the NSA itself, back down to a local police agency, since the government shares its data.

2) Who says Snowden is really in Hong Kong? Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn’t.

Snowden probably is the whistleblower and he probably is in Hong Kong, but maybe not. Misdirection would be as good a strategy for the leaker as for a stage magician.

by Larry Geller

How was the source of the ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg found so quickly? Sit down, you’re not going to like this.

 

FBI agents were able to track the letters using a Postal Service program called "Mail Isolation Control and Tracking" that "photographs and captures an image of every mail piece that is processed" through the USPS. Using those images, investigators were able to determine that the letters were sent from the New Boston, TX area (where the couple lives) before being transported to Shreveport, LA for processing.

[Gawker.com, The FBI Is Spying On You Too Snail Mailers, So Maybe Don't Mail Ricin]

So if this article is accurate, then somewhere in the gargantuan government data cloud can be found not only your Gmail and your email but your snail mail as well. At least, the “meta-data” of that snail mail, to use a word that has suddenly entered the popular parlance.

by Larry Geller

The Guardian and Washington Post stories have certainly aroused public awareness of the extent to which we are being spied upon. Will this be a mere flash in the pan, will we return to idle complacency?

In the meantime, here is an article posted Friday on non-NSA government spying. For details, please see the full article:

In February 2010, Tom Jiunta and a small group of residents in northeastern Pennsylvania formed the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition (GDAC), an environmental organization opposed to hydraulic fracturing in the region.
…
News of the surveillance broke in September 2010 when the director of the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security, James Powers, mistakenly sent an email to an anti-drilling activist he believed was sympathetic to the industry, warning her not to post the bulletins online. The activist was Virginia Cody, a retired Air Force officer. In his email to Cody, Powers wrote:

“We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas stakeholders while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies.”

The tri-weekly bulletins featured a wide range of supposed threats to the state’s infrastructure. It included warnings about Al-Qaeda affiliated groups, pro-life activists and Tea Party protesters. The bulletins also included information about when and where groups like GDAC would be meeting, upcoming protests and anti-fracking activists’ internal strategy. The raw data was followed by a threat assessment—low, moderate, severe or critical—and a brief analysis.

[EcoWatch, We’re Being Watched: How Corporations and Law Enforcement Are Spying on Environmentalists, 6/7/2013]