Global articles on espionage, spying, bugs, and other interesting topics.

NZ's spying 'damaging relations with our Pacific neighbours'

New Zealand’s relationships with its Pacific neighbours have been damaged by the latest revelations that the GCSB has been spying on Cabinet Ministers and top level Government officials in the Solomon Islands, the Green Party said today.

“Our relationships with Pacific countries are hugely important and the Government now needs to fix the damage it’s done by spying,” said Green Party security and intelligence spokesperson Kennedy Graham.

“When it first became known that the GCSB was spying on the Pacific, our Government said that it wouldn’t damage our relationships with our neighbours. That’s now clearly untrue, with a former chief of staff to the Solomon Islands Prime Minister saying he is ‘shocked’.

“This clearly has nothing to do with terrorism, because the spying targets were mostly senior officials within the Solomon Islands government, including the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.

“Serious questions need to be answered around why the GCSB took such an interest in the Solomon Islands. Is it because of the PACER Plus trade deal being negotiated?

“We need to be sure that the New Zealand Government didn’t use spying to gain an unfair advantage in trade negotiations, in a similar way to how it has played hardball when negotiating trade deals with other Pacific nations such as Tonga and Samoa.

“It is also disturbing that the GCSB spied on anti-corruption campaigners in the Solomon Islands, who rely on confidential sources to do their important work.

“Pacific countries are our friends and neighbours. Spying on friends is not the Kiwi way,” Dr Graham said.

A Brief History of the CIA's Unpunished Spying on the Senate

This is the story of John Brennan’s CIA spying on Congress and getting away with it.  

Last March, Senator Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA of spying on the Senate intelligence committee as it labored to finalize its report on the torture of prisoners. “I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution,” she said. “I have asked for an apology and a recognition that this CIA search of computers used by its oversight committee was inappropriate. I have received neither.”

CIA Director John Brennan denied the charge. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that. That’s just beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we’d do.” It would be months before his denial was publicly proved false. “An internal investigation by the C.I.A. has found that its officers penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its damning report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program,” The New York Times reported. “The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information.”

The Senate intelligence committee expressed appropriate outraged at these anti-democratic machinations:

A statement issued Thursday morning by a C.I.A. spokesman said that John O. Brennan, the agency’s director, had apologized to Ms. Feinstein and the committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and would set up an internal accountability board to review the issue. The statement said that the board, which will be led by a former Democratic senator, Evan Bayh of Indiana, could recommend “potential disciplinary measures” and “steps to address systemic issues.” But anger among lawmakers grew throughout the day. Leaving a nearly three-hour briefing about the report in a Senate conference room, members of both parties called for the C.I.A. officers to be held accountable, and some said they had lost confidence in Mr. Brennan’s leadership. “This is a serious situation and there are serious violations,” said Mr. Chambliss, generally a staunch ally of the intelligence community. He called for the C.I.A. employees to be “dealt with very harshly.”

Late last week, that internal “accountability board” announced the results of its review. If you’ve followed the impunity with which the CIA has broken U.S. laws throughout its history, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that no one is going to be “dealt with very harshly” after all. “A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency’s search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.’s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode,” The New York Times reports. “The panel will make that recommendation after the five C.I.A. officials who were singled out by the agency’s inspector general this year for improperly ordering and carrying out the computer searches staunchly defended their actions, saying that they were lawful and in some cases done at the behest of John O. Brennan.”

Done at the behest of Brennan, who once feigned ignorance about the actions in question, going so far as to declare them beyond the scope of reason! “While effectively rejecting the most significant conclusions of the inspector general’s report,” the story continues, “the panel, appointed by Mr. Brennan and composed of three C.I.A. officers and two members from outside the agency, is still expected to criticize agency missteps that contributed to the fight with Congress.” Who’d have guessed that a panel appointed by Brennan to look into malfeasance presided over and in some cases ordered by Brennan would decide that neither Brennan nor any of the people Brennan leads should be held accountable?

Brennan and the CIA have behaved indefensibly. But substantial blame belongs to the overseers who’ve permitted them to do so with impunity, including figures in the Obama administration right up to the president and Senate intelligence committee members who, for all their bluster, have yet to react to CIA misbehavior in a way that actually disincentivizes similar malfeasance in the future. President Obama should fire John Brennan, as has previously been suggested by Senator Mark Udall, Trevor Timm, Dan Froomkin, and Andrew Sullivan. And the Senate intelligence committee should act toward the CIA like their predecessors on the Church Committee. Instead, the CIA is asked to investigate its own malfeasance and issue reports suggesting what, if anything, should be done.

The Times reports:

Mr. Brennan has enraged senators by refusing to answer questions posed by the Intelligence Committee about who at the C.I.A. authorized the computer intrusion. Doing so, he said, could compromise the accountability board’s investigation.

“What did he know? When did he know it? What did he order?” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is a member of the Intelligence Committee, said in an interview last week. “They haven’t answered those basic questions.”

Senator Levin, you’re a member of a coequal branch. You’ve flagged outrageous behavior among those you’re charged with overseeing. What are you going to do about it?

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-unpunished-spying-on-the-senate/384003/

• Politics Government
• Government
• John Brennan
• Senate intelligence committee

Listening devices found in Oslo, prompting spying investigation

OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegian police are investigating a possible spying operation by a foreign power after electronic devices designed to intercept telephone conversations were discovered near government buildings.

In its own two-month investigation, the daily newspaper Aftenposten detected signals from several surveillance devices that had been placed near the prime minister’s offices, the central bank, parliament and major company headquarters.

“We can’t exclude the possibility that this is coming from foreign state agencies,” said Siv Alsen, spokeswoman for the police’s intelligence unit, which will carry out the investigation.

Aftenposten said the devices were able to attract mobile phone signals and record conversations.

“If correct, such surveillance is completely unacceptable,” Justice Minister Anders Anundsen said in a statement. “We must make every effort to identify who or what is behind it, and how comprehensive it is.”

Norway, a U.S. ally and a founding member of NATO, has had its share of diplomatic conflicts in recent years.

Its ties with China have been virtually frozen since 2010 when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Norway has also followed the European Union’s sanctions against Russia this year.

Norway’s military also patrols vast parts of the Arctic, monitoring commercial and military activity.

(Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg; Writing by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

• Politics Government
• electronic devices

Syria and China apparently worst for cyber spying

Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam are flagrantly spying online, media watchdog RSF said, urging controls on the export of Internet surveillance tools to regimes clamping down on dissent.

Tuesday’s report entitled “Enemies of the Internet” also singled out five companies — Gamma, Trovicor, Hacking Team, Amesys and Blue Coat — that it branded “digital era mercenaries,” who were helping oppressive governments.

Syria’s estimated five million Internet users are subject to rampant state spying, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, Journalists without Borders) said in the report, which coincides with the World Day Against Cyber-Censorship.

Noting that 22 journalists and 18 Internet users had been jailed, it said the network was controlled by two entities including the Syrian Computer Society (SCG) founded by President Bashar al-Assad.

The SCG, it said, controlled Syria’s 3G infrastructure, while the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE) controlled the majority of the fixed connections.

“When the government orders the blocking of a word, of an URL, or of a site, STE transmits the order to service providers,” it said, publishing a leaked 1999 bid invitation from STE to install a national Internet system in Syria.

The requirements include recording of online and offline activities, copying of all e-mail exchanges from within Syria, and the ability to detect, intercept and block any encrypted data.

Damascus beefed up its monitoring in 2011 “adding new technologies to its cyber-arsenal” including proxy Blue Coat servers, RSF said.

Iran meanwhile is in the process of creating a home-grown Internet system, citing a series of cyber attacks on its nuclear installations, RSF said.

“Applications and services such as email, search engines and social networks are proposed to be developed under government control,” to allow for “large-scale surveillance and the systematic elimination of dissent.”

Twenty Internet users were jailed and one had been killed in the past year, it said, warning against the use of Iranian virtual private networks as it “will be like throwing yourself into the lion’s jaws.”

But in terms of sheer numbers, the “Chinese Communist Party runs one of the world’s biggest digital empires, if not the biggest,” RSF said, adding that individuals and companies have to rent their broadband access from the Chinese state or a government-controlled company.

“The tools put in place to filter and monitor the Internet are collectively known as the Great Firewall of China. Begun in 2003, it allows for access to foreign sites to be filtered,” it said, and to block feeds and content deemed undesirable.

“The Chinese cyber-dissident Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyang have had policemen stationed at the foot of their apartment building for months,” it said.

“China jails more people involved in news and information than any other country. Today 30 journalists and 69 netizens are in prison.”

Bahrain, which with an Internet penetration of 77 percent is one of the most connected states in the Middle East, has seen a dramatic increase in surveillance and news blackouts in the past three years, RSF said.

Vietnam’s network is shoddy in quality but under tight state control. Thirty-one Internet users are in prison and Internet cafes are tightly monitored with users obliged to show identity documents before using them.

RSF called for a ban on the sale of surveillance hardware and software to countries that flout basic fundamental rights and crack down on any opposition.

“The private sector cannot be expected to police itself. Legislators must intervene,” it said.

“The European Union and the United States have already banned the export of surveillance technology to Iran and Syria. This praiseworthy initiative should not be an isolated one.”

File photo shows an Iranian youth using a computer at an internet cafe in Iran’s Hamadan province. Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam are flagrantly spying online, media watchdog RSF said.

Graphic on a report about online spying compiled by Reporters Sans Frontiers, alleging that Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam are the worst state offenders for using Internet surveillance to crackdown on dissent.

Image taken on October 11, 2010 shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attending a press conference at al-Shaab palace in Damascus. Media watchdog RSF said Syria’s network was controlled by two entities, including the Syrian Computer Society founded by Assad.

Image provided by Zeng Jinyan shows her husband, Chinese dissident Hu Jia, at their home in Beijing on June 27, 2011. “The Chinese cyber-dissident Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyang have had policemen stationed at the foot of their apartment building for months,” an RSF report said.

Image taken on January 15, 2013 shows a man reading the news on his laptop at a coffee shop in Hanoi, Vietnam. Vietnam’s network is shoddy in quality but under tight state control.

Meet the Last Man Standing in the HP Spying Scandal

October 2006: Bryan Wagner, right, stands next to Matthew DePante and Ronald DeLia, in a San Jose, California, courtroom. Photo: AP/Paul Sakuma

The final chapter in the pretexting scandal that rocked Hewlett-Packard, once one of Silicon Valley’s most esteemed companies, is drawing to a close.

Bryan Wagner is getting set to be sentenced in federal court in San Jose, California. He’s the low-level private investigator who was charged with pretending to be a Wall Street Journal reporter in order to obtain telephone records. This sort of illegal false identify scheme is known as pretexting.

His sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 1, but after nearly six years of delays, it’s likely to be put off yet again. The reason? Wagner pleaded guilty so long ago that the Probation Office’s pre-sentence report is now out of date, and the judge has ordered an update.

HP was once considered the gold standard of high technology companies, but the pretexting scandal shadowed the tech giant’s precipitous fall from grace. In fact, HP seems to have done nothing but stumble since the incident, which stemmed from HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s ill-advised efforts to stop boardroom leaks to journalists. The company has cycled through two CEOs since the scandal — Mark Hurd and Leo Apotheker — and it continues to see its business prospects shrink. Last month, HP said it planned to lay off nearly 30,000 employees over the next two years.

Although Dunn did at one point face criminal prosecution, the charges against her were eventually dropped. She died last year. No HP executive has been convicted of any criminal activity in the case.

The company did pay a $14.5 million fine to the state of California, but that’s a “pretty light” punishment, given the wrongdoing, says Terry Gross, a San Francisco attorney who represented reporters who were victims of the pretexting. “HP is an incredibly wealthy company,” he says. “$14.5 million is almost nothing to it.”

The wheels of justice have also moved pretty slowly. The case has switched prosecutors in the years since the California Attorney General, and then ultimately the U.S. Department of Justice took an interest in the matter.

Although the scandal captured the national spotlight for a time and even prompted a Congressional investigation, “It has ended with less a bang than a whimper,” said one person familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Wagner pleaded guilty to conspiracy and aggravated identity theft charges nearly six years ago, but his sentencing has been postponed as the court has finished up cases against the two men who hired him: Joseph DePante and his son Mathew DePante. They were sentenced in July to three years of probation and six months of electronic monitoring.

The DePantes pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, but with the aggravated identity theft count, Wagner is facing a tougher go of things. Aggravated identity theft comes with a minimum two-year prison sentence.

Representatives from the DePantes’ company, Action Research Group, faxed Wagner and others the social security numbers of the pretexting victims and then Wagner and a business associate Cassandra Selvage actually called up the telephone companies to obtain phone records, according to Joseph and Matthew Depante’s plea agreements.

Action Research Group grossed between $20,000 and $30,000 in the scheme, the plea agreements state.

In 2006, after learning that he could be the subject of a criminal investigation, Wagner allegedly took his a hammer to his computer and “destroyed,” his hard drive, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Through his lawyer, Federal Public Defender Cynthia Lie, Wagner declined to comment for this story. Spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Justice did not return messages seeking comment for this story.