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.
A study of German companies found that industrial spying is all but rampant and the spying involves companies in Germany and around the world.
The spying involved companies in China, Russia, the United States and elsewhere, said the study conducted by Corporate Trust, a security firm.
The study said nearly half of German companies report they have had company secrets stolen and 20 percent indicated they knew information was being hacked, but they did not know who was doing the spying.
The Local.de reported Monday the spying included some cloak and dagger strategies, including spies from the United States who used “special listening devices.”
The study of 600 firms said German companies would lose $5.5 billion in 2012 as a result of industrial spying.
Nearly 60 percent of the trade in industrial secrets is perpetrated by a member of a company’s own staff, but about half of the companies said they do not employ any specific strategy when staff members travel abroad.
Have you ever had a computer or phone get stolen and you want nothing more than to track down who took it? We did just that with the help of tracking software.
âIt was an iPhone 4S. Brand new, $250 phone, $50 case,â said David Dyer, who had left his iPhone in the back of a taxi.
Less than five minutes later he said he called the cab company, but they said it was gone.
âI think the guy, as soon as he let me out, sees my phone in the backseat and just takes it and pockets it,â Dyer said.
Itâs not just taxis â the LAPD reports that cellphone thefts have increased 32 percent in some areas and that thefts of laptops and tablet computers are also on the rise.
Dyer said that he tried to call his phone, but it was already turned off leaving no way to track it down.
âI think itâs long gone. Thereâs nothing I can do,â Dyer said.
While he never got his phone back, we wanted to see if there was a way to track down stolen cellphones or computers, so we purchased some tablet computers and installed security software.
âHow it works is all these smart devices have the ability to track themselves,â said Con Mallon with Symantec.
He said that with anti-theft software, we should not only be able to find it, but also turn on the camera to see who is using it.
So we went to LAX where hundreds of cabs pick up passengers every day. With a hidden camera, our undercover producers hailed a taxi.
When we got out we purposely left the computer in the back seat. Then we called the cab company minutes later to see if we would get it back.
The first three were returned by the drivers after we called.
The fourth cab was one from United Independent Taxi. When we got out we left the computer visible on the backseat; then called their dispatcher.
âI just took one of your cabs from LAX to my hotel here in El Segundo and I canât seem to find my tablet,â our undercover producer said.
They said they would get a message to the driver.
âIf he finds the tablet in the back seat, youâll give him my number to call me back is that rightâ our producer confirmed?
Later that day they called back and left this message on our voicemail â âThe driver did call back and no tablet was found, OK? Thank you.â
So we turned on the anti-theft software, which works when the computer connects to Wi-Fi.
The next day it traced the tablet to a location in North Hollywood.
We clicked on the sneak peak function, using the camera to take pictures. We captured pictures of what appeared to be a young girl using the computer and then what looked to be a teenage boy.
When we went to the address on the map, we found the same taxi we took at LAX parked a few doors away.
With a hidden camera we watched as the same driver, who picked us up at LAX, came out to his cab along with the same girl and boy that we saw in the pictures.
The software led us right to them.
Later I showed him a similar computer.
âDid you find this in the back of your cab,â I asked?
âNo,â he replied.
âYou never found one of these,â I pressed?
âNo,â he said.
Then I showed him the pictures.
âThatâs your child isnât it,â I asked?
âYeah,â he said.
âWe had a tracking device in the tablet. It came from your house. Your child was on it
Maybe,â I questioned?
He claimed he never found it and said his son may have found it in the cab.
âEvery day when I come in, my son cleans my car. I donât know. They found it, something inside the car, I donât know,â he said.
He went inside his house and less than two minutes later was able to find our computer, which he claimed he knew nothing about.
âMy wife telling me that my son tell her that when they washing the car they found it somewhere in here,â the driver said.
âThey found it back there? How did it end up back there? It was on the seat,â I asked?
âI donât know,â he said.
But we ended up getting our tablet back.
âThis alone makes me feel like justice is served,â Dyer said.
Something he could not do, but we did with the help of modern technology tracking it to inside the cab driverâs house.
”I FROZE, I didn’t know what to do, I felt trapped ⊠I needed to get out to try to feel safe.”
This was how a female sailor on board HMAS Parramatta yesterday described her shock on January 2 this year when, drying herself after a shower, she glimpsed a mirror allegedly angled towards her from beneath the adjacent shower stall.
It was just after 7am and the ship was anchored off Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told a navy court-martial in Sydney yesterday that as she had made her way into the bathroom she noticed Lieutenant James (”Jim”) McLaren shaving himself at a sink nearby.
At the time, they were the only occupants of the area which the navy calls the ”showers and heads”. She and Lieutenant McLaren had exchanged brief ”good mornings” before they both entered separate but adjoining shower stalls.
She had turned the water off after two or three minutes and was bent over, drying her lower legs, when she saw the mirror, which she testified was ”in the palm of a hand”, pointing in her direction.
She fled the cubicles and ran into Lieutenant Christopher Andersen, the ship’s medical officer, who had come in to use the sinks.
”She was in an acute distressed state,” Lieutenant Andersen told the hearing yesterday. ”She looked so distressed that I thought she had witnessed something quite terrible or catastrophic.”
”She said ‘Jim, Jim!’ ⊠I thought he had committed suicide.”
Lieutenant McLaren is facing two charges before a military court presided over by Judge Advocate Jennifer Woodward.
He is charged with committing an act of indecency without consent, and as an alternative with acting in a manner likely to prejudice naval discipline.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Under cross examination by defending counsel, Major J. Lo Schiavo, the woman told the hearing she and Lieutenant McLaren had kissed in March last year after a social evening with other crew, but she had rebuffed his requests to pursue a relationship.
The case continues today.
In December, Lieutenant Commander John Alan Jones was convicted of seven charges of acts of indecency for repeatedly spanking a sailor on her bare bottom.
Los Angeles police recently arrested Alejandro Gamiz, 27, on suspicion of burglary and the surreptitious filming of unsuspecting women. The maintenance worker at a North Hollywood Sears is accused of placing hidden cameras in the store’s fitting rooms and bathrooms.
Gamiz worked for the retailer for three years, and reportedly placed up to 60 cameras behind store walls. When a loss prevention employee recently noticed something suspicious during a routine inspection, the company notified the Los Angeles Police Department.
Sears has searched the store and investigators have since seized security footage, according to the official LAPD blog. Gamiz is also cooperating. Police, however, are not seeking to identify any of the victims at this time.
They may eventually want to, though. Sears caters to the entire family and sells clothing and other items to teenagers and children. If Alejandro Gamiz installed hidden cameras outside all women’s bathrooms and fitting rooms, chances are he recorded at least one underage individual. Depending on what the minor was doing on tape, he could arguably be liable for the creation and possession of child pornography.
Sexual activity is not a requirement for child pornography. The images only need be sufficiently sexually suggestive.
Such a charge would carry a significantly harsher punishment than the secret filming of undressed women. It would also give prosecutors the leverage needed to negotiate a longer sentence, should Gamiz choose to accept a plea deal. And given the extent and duration of his alleged crimes, prosecutors will likely want to put Alejandro Gamiz behind bars for as long as possible.
