Speaking via videoconference to an audience at Uruguay’s University of the Republic, Assange pointed to Latin America’s dependency on hardware and traffic handling by the United States as a source of vulnerability to monitoring by overzealous intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and FBI. The world-famous whistleblower has been living in Ecuador’s London embassy for the past year under the auspices of political asylum.“The penetration of the internet in all facets of society, substituting traditional mail and telephone and even physical interaction between individuals has placed in the hands of the US information provided by telecoms for the majority of humanity,” said the author of“Criptopunks,”his latest book to be published.Assange pointed to the growing prevalence of social networking and products offered by companies such as Google as another potential concern for Latin Americans.“The countries of Latin America are uploading profiles of their citizens, unknowingly, in computer systems within huge servers in California, controlled by Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others. These are directly or indirectly controlled by mechanisms, both legal or otherwise, via intelligence services of the United States and peripheral organizations,” he said.The remarks made by Assange to his audience in Montevideo, were published widely by many Spanish-language newspapers in the region, and included what seemed to be a veiled jab at recent revelations that the US Department of Justice had conducted widespread phone surveillance on the Associated Press.The government of the US “has not demonstrated scruples in following its own laws in intercepting these [phone] lines to spy even on its own citizens,” remarked Assange.He added that in the US there “did not exist” laws that impeded the US from “spying on citizens of foreign countries.”The US National Security Agency “receives and processes” millions of communications, according to Assange, and the agency boasts a budget “greater than the FBI and the CIA combined.”Assange warned the audience in Montevideo that, with the use of Google, Facebook and other new trends, there’s a massive privacy threat, to an extent that would have only been the stuff of science fiction not long ago. … Read More
U.S. Military Grants Itself the Authority to Deploy Troops in American Cities Without Presidential or Local Approval
In a move that makes clear the direction that our country is increasingly heading towards, the Department of Defense has published an update to a US code that outlines military power during civil unrest. … Read More
‘Iraqi scenario repeating in Libya’
A car bomb has exploded in a crowded area outside a hospital in Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, with the blast claiming at least 15 lives. Henningsen, from the 21st Century Wire website, believes that US strategy for the Middle East region is the main reason behind the disintegration of the countries there. When asked about Syria, he says one only has to look at Libya and Iraq to picture what would happen in the event of Bashar Assad’s fall.RT: There have been a string of attacks in Libya over the past month – Is there anything the government there can do to improve the security situation?Patrick Henningsen: It looks very similar to the situation we’ve grown used to seeing in Iraq what we’re seeing now in Libya. Just by the nature of this car bombing where there’s a crowded hospital area designed to create the most casualties and also attacks on police stations. There’s a sort of strategy of instability that we’ve seen in Iraq over the years. So, looking at Iraq how long the stability took to achieve there and it’s not safe there a decade onwards. I think we’re looking at the same situation here in Libya. RT: Armed mobs recently surrounded government ministries in Tripoli. Is there a danger that radical groups could seize power by force?PH: Yes, this is always a danger in Libya. And one of the reasons this is the case is because there’s been a heavy amount of activity by Western intelligence agencies during the battle for Libya and after. And, of course, that culminated with what we saw in Benghazi last fall. The US had tried to eliminate some of the potential leaderships in the anti-temporary Libyan government, which are pro-Gaddafi militias, basically. And that radicalized some of those groups over the last two years. It’s a recipe for chaos in Libya. It’s really sad because Libya has got a huge challenge in order to have some semblance of law, order and government in that country right now. RT: The attack on the French embassy in Tripoli last month was seen as a reprisal for the French intervention in Mali. Do you think that operation has contributed to instability in Libya?PH: Yes, that’s also possible. The whole North African region is awash with various Islamist radical groups. And I’m sorry to say that this is a US administration that has allied itself with the Islamists and now they’re having trouble taming the monster that they’ve created. They used the Islamist groups in order to archive victory in Libya. And also they’re doing the exact same strategy in Syria. So, looking into Syria, if you want to have any indication what it might look like if NATO and Washington and London and Paris are successful in toppling the [Bashar] Assad regime – we’ll get what’s happening in Lydia now. Look at the destabilization, Islamist groups splintering, running amok, basically, it’s a terrorist playground right now in Libya. And you’ll see the exact same thing if they topple the Assad government in Syria. … Read More
$140mn down the drain: MI5 reportedly scraps failed IT project
The new digital records management (RM) system was supposed to allow for search queries and returns of various MI5 data and records, from intelligence reports to older paper archives. The RM was intended to replace the existing system, which the agency has deemed outdated and unfit in light of the threats the country currently faces.The new RM was supposed to go online by time the Summer Olympics began in London last year, in order to help the UK’s intelligence agencies identify possible terrorist threats to the games. But in July 2012, only weeks before the event, MI5 fired the IT consulting firm responsible for the system’s development, as it had failed to meet deadlines.Then-director of MI5 Sir Jonathan Evans said the system would be implemented at a later date, and the agency hired new IT consultants to finish the job.But according to the Independent, the project failed to play out, and earlier this year Evans decided to scrap it altogether and restart from scratch with a new generation of IT specialists. The newspaper reported that the abandonment of years of progress means the loss of about £90 million pounds (about $140 million). The UK’s Home Office would not comment on either the fate of the project or the reported loss figure.In 2012, when the RM’s troubles were first revealed, some British media estimated the cost of the project to be considerably lower; the Daily Mail believed the program’s cost to be about £1 million (over $1.5 million). … Read More
New bill aims to legalize cell phone unlocking, fix the DMCA
Unlike jailbreaking, which has remained legal since 2010, a DMCA exemption allowing cellphone unlocking was effectively banned in an update to the act late last year. The controversial decision pushed forward by the Librarian of Congress sparked responses from consumer advocacy groups and government agencies alike. Both the EFF and… … Read More
India launches national surveillance system, monitors Internet, calls, texts
Last month, India's government deployed what is known as the “Central Monitoring System”. The several-million dollar surveillance initiative gives Indian government agencies unprecedented power to silently monitor communications, not the least of which include Internet activity, text messaging and phone calls. India Times has the full story. … Read More
America Is Embracing The Secret Police Culture Of The Nazis
In many ways we have already surpassed the secret police culture. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union never had facial recognition cameras, “enhanced pat-downs”, automated license plate scanners, voice recognition software, mobile backscatter vans or drones in the skies. … Read More
