Chris Soghoian thinks the law would be difficult to operate effectively without the co-operation of the United States which is the home to many of the social media and email companies which would be the target of surveillance: “Because Google has an office in the UK, the British government can bully Google.
“However, consumers are increasingly using services which are based outside the UK (often American companies) that have no UK presence. As such, without the assistance of the US government, this proposed wiretapping law is simply not going to be effective.
“We Americans seem to believe in a double standard – our government wants unfettered access to the private data of everyone else in the world, but at the same time, we’ll scream bloody murder if any foreign government gets access to the data of US citizens or our government.
“And to be honest, as long as everyone in the world relies on services provided by American internet companies, this double standard will continue.”
Cost
And Professor Peter Sommer from the London School of Economics told Channel 4 News he thinks the proposals do not appear too different from those presented by the last Labour government which were abandoned after intense opposition.
He says there could be a problem defining what is “content” and what is “communication”. Broadly, the information after the back slash of ‘http:/’ counts as content, with all that precedes classed as “communication”.
“This content / communication issue means that for example, an internet service provider would have to write filtering code for each webmail page – eg hotmail – so that only the communication rather than the content is visible. I think this would prove to be quite expensive to do.”
He also thinks the plans appear to be an expensive move which web users could quite easily circumvent: “There are at least four ways you can do that: 1. You can buy a SIM for your tablet or phone, using cash and then use your phone on that which would not be traceable to you. 2. You could use an internet cafe – even if they take your name there, what level of accuracy can you expect from a place where they charge 50p / hour? 3. You could use an unsecured wi-fi connection 4. Increasingly websites are using encryption by default – ‘https’ – they then have the same high level of encryption you get on e-commerce and bank sites.
“There are rumours this protocol can be cracked now but it would still be costly to do.”
Until the plans are published, no-one can say what will be their impact but the responses to the initial idea will no doubt help shape whatever eventually appears when the queen speaks next month.
The visitors from Wellington are adamant it was the former at their final training session on Friday, suspecting a Glory spy of filming their penalty practice.
Phoenix strength and conditioning coach Lee Taylor – who goes by the nickname ‘Pitbull’ – approached a man on a bank reclining directly behind the goal being used for a penalty taking session at the University of Western Australia’s playing fields.
Accused by Taylor of using his phone to film their penalty session, the suspect claimed he was in fact filming an athletics training routine that was being run concurrently.
The Phoenix, who started mixing up the direction of their penalty shots, were not convinced.
“A little bit cheeky, apparently he’s got a camera and he’s filming our penalties so we might have to switch our penalty takers,” said Phoenix captain Andrew Durante.
“But finals football, these things come into it and there’s all kinds of little shenanigans going on. We’re as prepared as we can be.”
Quipped coach Ricki Herbert: “What a great story it will be if we win on penalties.”
The third-ranked Glory host the fourth-ranked Phoenix in the A-League minor semifinal at nib Stadium on Saturday night, with the winner advancing to a preliminary final against either Central Coast or Brisbane.
As a sudden-death game, the result will be settled from the penalty spot should the scores be locked at the end of regulation and then extra time.
The Phoenix beat Perth on penalties in an elimination final in Wellington two years ago.
Greens leader Bob Brown is outraged at reports that ASIO is spying on mining protesters and says such action is a misuse of the spy agency’s resources.
The revelations were reported in Fairfax newspapers this morning and are based on a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism that was reportedly rejected because it involved “an intelligence agency document”.
Senator Brown says Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson should release the documents in question.
“So the public can see just how much he is complicit in having ASIO spy instead of on people threatening this country, on people who have a right to democratically express their opinion,” he said.
Senator Brown says spying on protesters is not on.
“It’s totally outrageous, what’s more that the Minister, Martin Ferguson – a Labor minister at that – is complicit in having ASIO spy on farmers, eco-tourism venturers, wine-growers, the people who are really wanting to protect their lands from this rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industries in farm lands and community precincts around Australia – it is just not on,” he said.
The Fairfax report raises concerns from security officials that anti-coal activists pose a greater threat to energy security than terrorists.
Athol Yates from the Australian Homeland Security Research Centre says that is not the case.
“The simple answer to that is absolutely not unless they are engaged in very destructive behaviour,” he said.
“In the case of most coal protests, it is much more about raising a political awareness of the issue and the costs that are incurred by their behaviour really relate to the delay in coal production or coal transport.”
‘Not much impact’
But he says depending on the way the activities of environmental activists are defined, surveillance by ASIO may be justified.
“If they are classed as a terrorist risk, then it is justified. The question is on what basis is that assessment made?” he said.
“If there is concern that they are going to be involved in physical destruction or inflicting physical harm upon people, then they would be totally justified in surveilling them.”
Cam Walker from environment group Friends of the Earth was involved in an occupation of the coal conveyor belts at Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley in 2009.
He says he is not surprised by the news that ASIO is involved in the surveillance of activists.
But he says protesters have never had much of an impact on energy production.
“There has never been any significant impact on energy supply. There is no essential services argument here. This is really about silencing dissent,” he said.
“The primary focus of direct action has been against the state government, it has been against infrastructure but has not intended to shut down the systems.
“It has been intended to apply political and public pressure so I think the essential services that is shutting down the grid argument is an entire furphy that has been run by people with their own political agenda.”
Mr Ferguson was not available for comment this morning.
ASIO says it cannot confirm whether it has conducted surveillance of anti-coal protesters, but it says it does not target particular groups or individuals unless there is a security-related reason to do so.
TAIPEI, April 27, 2012 (AFP) – Taiwan’s top court has rejected an appeal by an ex-general sentenced to life in prison for spying for China, the toughest punishment meted out in an espionage case in decades, officials said Friday.
The supreme court made the final decision Thursday on the case of former major general Lo Hsien-che, who is also the highest-ranking official ever to be convicted of spying in Taiwan, defence officials said.
Lo, who was born in 1959, reportedly started working for China in 2004 and was suspected of handing over information relating to a project that gave the Taiwanese military some access to US intelligence systems.
According to Taiwanese media reports, he fell for a honey trap set by a female Chinese agent while stationed in Thailand and received about $1 million from China for his services.
The defence ministry did not specify what type of intelligence Lo gathered for Beijing or how much money he pocketed.
Taiwan and China have spied on each other ever since they split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. Beijing still regards the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.
Since 2008, when Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan’s president on a Beijing-friendly platform, the two sides have seen significant progress. He was reelected in January for a final four-year term.
But Ma has said Taiwan should strengthen its defences against Chinese espionage following a string of spy scandals showing intelligence gathering has continued despite warming ties.
Three targeted Americans: a career government intelligence official, a filmmaker and a hacker. None of these U.S. citizens was charged with a crime, but they have been tracked, surveilled, detained â sometimes at gunpoint â and interrogated, with no access to a lawyer. Each remains resolute in standing up to the increasing government crackdown on dissent.
The intelligence official: William Binney worked for almost 40 years at the secretive National Security , the U.S. spy agency that dwarfs the CIA. As technical director of the NSAâs World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, Binney told me, he was tasked to âsee how we could solve collection, analysis and reporting on military and geopolitical issues all around the world, every country in the world.â
Throughout the 1990s, the NSA developed a massive eavesdropping system code-named ThinThread, which, Binney says, maintained crucial protections on the privacy of U.S. citizens demanded by the U.S. Constitution. He recalled, âAfter 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA,â as massive domestic spying became the norm. He resigned on Oct. 31, 2001.
Along with several other NSA officials, Binney reported his concerns to Congress and to the Department of Defense. Then, in 2007, as then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was being questioned on Capitol Hill about the very domestic spying to which Binney objected, a dozen FBI agents charged into his house, guns drawn. They forced aside his son and found Binney, a diabetic amputee, in the shower. They pointed their guns at his head, then led him to his back porch and interrogated him.
Three others were raided that morning. Binney called the FBI raid âretribution and intimidation so we didnât go to the Judiciary Committee in the Senate and tell them, âWell, hereâs what Gonzales didnât tell you, OK.âââ Binney was never charged with any crime.
The filmmaker: Laura Poitras is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, whose recent films include âMy Country, My Country,â about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and âThe Oath,â which was filmed in Yemen. Since 2006, Poitras has been detained and questioned at airports at least 40 times. She has had her computer and reporterâs notebooks confiscated and presumably copied, without a warrant. The most recent time, April 5, she took notes during her detention. The agents told her to stop, as they considered her pen a weapon.
She told me: âI feel like I canât talk about the work that I do in my home, in my place of work, on my telephone, and sometimes in my country. So the chilling effect is huge. Itâs enormous.â
The hacker: Jacob Appelbaum works as a computer security researcher for the nonprofit organization the Tor Project (torproject.org), which is a free software package that allows people to browse the Internet anonymously, evading government surveillance. Tor was actually created by the U.S. Navy, and is now developed and maintained by Appelbaum and his colleagues. Tor is used by dissidents around the world to communicate over the Internet. Tor also serves as the main way that the controversial WikiLeaks website protects those who release documents to it. Appelbaum has volunteered for WikiLeaks, leading to intense U.S. government surveillance.
Appelbaum spoke in place of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, at a conference called Hackers on Planet Earth, or HOPE, as people feared Assange would be arrested. He started his talk by saying: âHello to all my friends and fans in domestic and international surveillance. Iâm here today because I believe that we can make a better world.â He has been detained at least a dozen times at airports: âI was put into a special room, where they frisked me, put me up against the wall. ⊠Another one held my wrists. ⊠They implied that if I didnât make a deal with them, that Iâd be sexually assaulted in prison. ⊠They took my cellphones, they took my laptop. They wanted, essentially, to ask me questions about the Iraq War, the Afghan War, what I thought politically.â
I asked Binney if he felt that the NSA has copies of every email sent in the U.S. He replied, âI believe they have most of them, yes.â
Binney said two senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, have expressed concern, but have not spoken out, as, Binney says, they would lose their seats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Meanwhile, the House on Thursday approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. Proponents of Internet freedom are fighting the bill, which they say will legalize what the NSA is secretly doing already.
Members of Congress, fond of quoting the countryâs founders, should recall these words of Benjamin Franklin before voting on CISPA: âThey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.â
Amy Goodman is the host of âDemocracy Now!,â a daily international TV/radio news hour. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
