The Government on Friday denied reports of bugging devices being discovered in some offices in South Block including that of the Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony. The offices of Prime Minister, Defence Minister and External Affairs Minister are all located in the South Block.
“Routine checks are conducted in the offices of Defence Minister and other officers in South Block. Nothing has been found in these checks,” the statement said.
This follows reports that the Defence Ministry had detected alleged bugging in the office of Mr Antony and sought a probe. The reports claimed that the Intelligence Bureau was being asked to conduct the probe.
The latest incident was said to have been brought to the notice of authorities by two Army personnel manning the phone lines in South Block after which IB was asked to conduct a probe.
This is not the first time that reports have surfaced about bugging devices being allegedly discovered in the corridors of power in Delhi. Last year, there were reports of alleged bugging devices being found in the office of the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.
If you have a Mac Pro system and have updated to Apple’s recently released OS X 10.7.4 update, you may find an apparent warning window appear whenever you reboot your system. The warning looks like a standard information dialog box window that contains a picture of a Mac Pro system from the side, but the rest of the window contains no information of value.
Instead of a hint at what the warning could be about, the window simply states “keyApplicationTitle” in the area where the referenced application name might be, “keyWarningOptimalInfo” where the information or warning description text might be, and instead of an OK button the only button in the window contains the text “keyOKButton.”
(Credit: VicB01 / Apple Discussions)
This window appears at boot-up for some Mac Pro users who have upgraded to OS X 10.7.4.
These components are clearly the code structure that Apple uses to insert the appropriate text strings into the window, but it appears either a syntax error or some similar oversight has caused the string association to misfire, and instead put the object titles into the window. Clicking the OK button seems to close the window with no apparent change to the system; however, the intent of the warning is lost to those who are experiencing it.
This error is reminiscent of the one that appeared with the previous OS X 10.7.3 update, where users were finding interface elements being replaced with odd green and pink patterns, with red question marks and orange “CUI” text. While not as widespread as the one in OS X 10.7.3, this one evokes similar confusion in its that users cannot figure out what their systems are trying to tell them.
Simple tests like booting to Safe Mode show no change in the behavior of this error, so those who experience it can either tolerate it or try reinstalling the OS X 10.7.4 Combo update, and perform simple maintenance procedures like running a permissions fix on the boot drive, or at the very worst reinstalling OS X followed by again applying the combo updater, though these steps are not guaranteed to work.
Hopefully Apple will clarify the situation soon, but until then Mac Pro users with this issue may have to dismiss the bizarre warning window every time they boot their systems.
A search of several Mexican lawmakers’ offices turned up recording equipment, leading legislators to believe they have been spied on for years, a congressman said Wednesday.
Congressman Armando Rios said security personnel found microphones and other devices that seemed to have been installed years ago.
“Some of the equipment has newer technology, but other devices are from a long time ago, which leads us to believe they were installed years ago,” said Rios, a member of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
Rios said the offices of key committees and of several lawmakers from different political parties were bugged.
“What is at stake is the vulnerability of the legislature, of one of the powers of the union,” Rios said.
Congress president Guadalupe Acosta, also of the PRD, on Tuesday filed a complaint with federal prosecutors, who opened an investigation.
Acosta wouldn’t identify the lawmakers who were being spied on or who he thinks was behind the espionage. Rios blamed the government of President Felipe Calderon, who belongs to the conservative National Action Party, or PAN.
Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire denied Rios’ accusations and said the government has done nothing illegal.
Mexico’s main intelligence agency allegedly spied on the government’s political opponents during the 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
After PAN candidate Vicente Fox won the 2000 presidential election, he announced that the agency, the Center for National Security and Investigation, would no longer spy on political opponents. But in 2008, under Calderon, the agency hired a private company to monitor the activities of legislators.
Legislators complained they were being spied on but the government said it was simply collecting public information.
Several secretly recorded telephone conversations of government officials or politicians have been made public in Mexico in the last few years.
In 2006, the former governor of Puebla state, Mario Marin, was implicated in a revenge plot against a journalist after Mexican news media released a recorded telephone conversation. In it, he allegedly speaks with a businessman about punishing Lydia Cacho, who had written a book that accuses one of their acquaintances of being a child molester.
In 2010, a radio station broadcast a telephone conversation between then federal lawmaker Cesar Godoy and alleged drug trafficker Servando Gomez, known as “La Tuta.” In it, Godoy and Gomez express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter.
Shortly after the recording was released, Godoy, who is now a fugitive, was charged with aiding drug trafficking and money laundering.
Brazil may have been banned from bond work – but not from high-stakes politics. As vice president of field operations for the campaign of the former pizza- company chief executive and top-tier Republican White House wannabe, aides said the operative from northeastern Pennsylvania is part of Cain’s inner circle of five top aides. Another member of that circle, press aide J.D. Gordon, said Brazil is “essential.”
“This is an old and tired story,” said Gordon of Brazil’s ties to the Philadelphia probe. He said he had discussed inquiries from the Daily News with Brazil yesterday. “He was never accused of anything and never targeted.”
Gordon said the 2006 finding by the National Association of Security Dealers that prevented him from associating with its member firms was not important because Brazil never was a registered securities dealer – precisely the reason that the industry watchdog group was probing his work for two mid-Atlantic bond firms.
Brazil’s murky background is sure to add volume to complaints about the quality of Cain’s campaign staff, which has been reeling in recent days from its handling of sexual-harassment allegations, as well as from Cain’s seeming lack of knowledge of foreign-policy issues, including a disastrous, fumbling answer to a question about Libya. Cain, who had been leading in some national polls, has now fallen behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in new surveys.
Brazil’s story is colorful. Until three years ago, the now-aide to a tea-party favorite was a Democrat, known for his ties to the family of that party’s stalwart Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state.
The scandal involving the wiretapping of several Slovak journalists by military intelligence agents has cost Defense Minister Ľubomír Galko his job.
But as more information behind the secret monitoring program of the Military Defense Intelligence (VOS) has unfolded, government officials have learned that one of the journalists monitored on Galko’s watch was also wiretapped when the ministry was controlled by a nominee of the Smer party in 2007.
It has also emerged that the recent VOS operation involved wiretapping the head of TV news channel TA3 and two senior Defense Ministry employees, according to leaked documents obtained by Slovak media outlets.
“The whole story of wiretapping which is being uncovered today was also going on under previous governments,” said Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, who Nov. 22 asked President Ivan Gašparovič to dismiss Galko. “It is high time to reach an agreement and [start] an initiative over control mechanisms for the intelligence services.”
The prime minister will serve as Galko’s replacement until new elections are held in March 2012.
Radičová in her response also said it is now obvious that the “intelligence services have been doing everything possible – except what they were originally supposed to do and what their main role should be.”
The Pravda and Nový Čas dailies reported Nov. 21 that three reporters from Pravda’s domestic political department – editor Patrícia Poprocká and reporters Peter Kováč and Vanda Vavrová – as well as the head of TV news channel TA3, Michal Gučík, had been wiretapped by the VOS. The alleged wiretapping ended after the fall of the government in October, according to Pravda.
Galko’s Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) has continued to back him. He argues that the wiretaps were performed legally and were intended to uncover criminal activity.
In Slovakia, military intelligence activities are performed by two organizations operating under the Defense Ministry: the Military Defense Intelligence (VOS), which conducts counterintelligence, and the Military Intelligence Service.
The request to apply what are known as “information technical devices” to bug journalists was signed by the head of the VOS, Pavol Brychta, and the wiretapping, which was reportedly intended to monitor the so-called “contact base” of three journalists, was approved by a judge. Brychta confirmed these details to the parliamentary committee for the oversight of military intelligence Nov. 22.
Brychta told the committee the journalists in question had participated in the leaking of sensitive information from the Defense Ministry, according to Peter Žiga, the Smer MP who leads the committee.
Opposition Smer party leader and former Prime Minister Robert Fico called the wiretapping program an assault on democracy and the foundations of the state, and suggested Galko had confirmed in live coverage that the information published by the media was genuine.
“It is one of the most serious abuses of power, to an extent that we don’t dare to dream of,” Fico told reporters Nov. 24.
It was later revealed that Smer-nominated former Defense Minister Jaroslav Baška admitted the VOS had also monitored at least one journalist during Fico’s government. In a media statement, Baška objected to comparisons made between the present affair and the wiretapping of Poprocká by the VOS in 2007, when the department was led by František Kašický, another Smer nominee, and Baška, who was deputy minister at the time. Poprocká, one of the Pravda reporters allegedly monitored by the VOS this year, was bugged in 2007 under Kašický when she worked as editor of the Žurnál weekly.
The VOS under Galko also used suspected leaks of classified information from the ministry as its justification for wiretapping journalists. Only a few days before the scandal broke, the Defense Ministry had filed a criminal complaint over suspicions that fraud had occurred during the government’s conclusion of a contract to buy a mobile communication system, MOKYS, which had cost Slovakia several billion Slovak crowns.
Just days after filing the complaint, Slovak newspaper editorial offices received anonymous information about the purchase of military trucks and military emergency vehicles. According to Galko, two of these newspapers, Pravda and Nový Čas, had “published stories about alleged illegal wiretapping of journalists by the military counterintelligence.”
Galko also said that on the one hand he understands the emotions and outrage of journalists, but “on the other hand, if there is suspicion that a crime has been committed, I am personally convinced there is no difference between a politician, or a minister for that matter, an employee, a businessman, a regular person or a journalist.”
Radičová said the Justice Ministry will review the decisions of the judges who approved the wiretaps, but added that the media did publish confidential information and violated the law by doing so.
Former general prosecutor Dobroslav Trnka has been tapped to lead the government probe into the affair.
Beata Balogová can be reached at news [at] praguepost [dot] com
