Disinformation » Spying

LAPD To Crack Down On Use Of Unmanned Drones By Real Estate Agents

JacobSloan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:55:42 +0000

In a nightmarish scenario from the future, technology ostensibly created to spy on our “enemies” is now being turned against us by the most nefarious of forces — real estate brokers. The Los Angeles Times reveals:

The Los Angeles Police Department is warning real estate agents not to use images of properties taken from unmanned aircraft, saying the flying drones pose a potential safety hazard and could violate federal aviation policy.

The warning was issued this week after officers saw a television news report showing a basketball-sized object with multiple rotors hovering over an expansive Westside residence.

Real estate agents have been posting aerial photos and video of homes for sale in the Los Angeles area, according to the LAPD. The pictures have been taken from several hundred feet off the ground in the city’s crowded airspace — an altitude at which police helicopters often fly.

Iran Calls Video Games Part Of CIA Plot

Good German — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:33:33 +0000

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati

Robert Mackey writes for the New York Times:

According to Iranian state television, a former United States marine who was convicted of spying on Iran and sentenced to death on Monday was also involved in a nefarious plot to brainwash the youth of the Middle East using an unlikely tool: video games.

In a video report broadcast last month, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the former marine of Iranian descent who was arrested during a visit to Tehran in August, allegedly confessed to a career in American intelligence that included a stint at a video game company in New York that was “a cover for the C.I.A.”

According to an English translation of the report published by The Tehran Times, an Iranian state-run newspaper, about one-third of the way through the report, Mr. Hekmati said he had worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, after he left the Marine Corps in 2005. Then, according to the newspaper’s somewhat oddly worded translation, Mr. Hekmati said in Persian:

After Darpa, I was recruited by Kuma Games Company, a computer games company which received money from C.I.A. to design and make special films and computer games to change the public opinion’s mindset in the Middle East and distribute them among Middle East residents free of charge. The goal of Kuma Games was to convince the people of the world and Iraq that what the U.S. does in Iraq and other countries is good and acceptable.

He reportedly added: “The head of Kuma called me and said, ‘I have received your resume from Darpa, and we have a program in which you can help us.’ ” Kuma, Mr. Hekmati explained, “was also a cover for the C.I.A. and only the chief of company knows that you’re working with the agency.”*

(After the verdict against Mr. Hekmati was reported on Monday, his family, along with the White House and the State Department, flatly denied that he was a spy.)…

DARPA Spy Satellite To Track Objects In Real Time

aaroncynic — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:24:54 +0000

Via DARPA website

Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:

Now that unmanned surveillance and attack drones hovering over foreign and friendly skies the world over has become almost commonplace, the Pentagon is looking to add another eye in the sky for big brother. The Defense Department’s research arm DARPA, is developing a satellite that would capture real time imagery from space. Project MOIRE (Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation) would fit spy satellites with camera lenses nearly 60 feet wide. DARPA argues that because there aren’t enough drones or other aircraft providing real time imagery and current satellites only take still photos, such a project bridges a national security gap.

According to Universe Today, each MOIRE satellite would cost $500 million and would cover an area of more than 100 km by 100 km. DARPA hopes the device would be able to track a vehicle moving up to 60mph, which would require a resolution so fine it would be able to see objects a mere 10 feet long in a single pixel.

Read the full post at Diatribe Media.

Connecticut’s Cold War Secret

majestic — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:19:26 +0000

AP via Fox News:

For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized “cleanroom” where the equipment was stored.

They spoke in code.

Few knew the true identity of “the customer” they met in a smoke-filled, wood-paneled conference room where the phone lines were scrambled. When they traveled, they sometimes used false names.

At one point in the 1970s there were more than 1,000 people in the Danbury area working on The Secret. And though they worked long hours under intense deadlines, sometimes missing family holidays and anniversaries, they could tell no one — not even their wives and children — what they did.

They were engineers, scientists, draftsmen and inventors — “real cloak-and-dagger guys,” says Fred Marra, 78, with a hearty laugh…

[continues at AP via Fox News]

Insect Cyborgs May Be The Spies And First Responders Of The Future

JacobSloan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:29 +0000

Airborne bugs equipped with sensors, microphones, and cameras will one day go wherever people cannot. Science Daily reports:

Research conducted at the University of Michigan College of Engineering may lead to the use of insects to monitor hazardous situations before sending in humans.

“Through energy scavenging, we could potentially power cameras, microphones and other sensors and communications equipment that an insect could carry aboard a tiny backpack,” Professor Khalil Najafi said. “We could then send these ‘bugged’ bugs into dangerous or enclosed environments where we would not want humans to go.”

The principal idea is to harvest the insect’s biological energy from either its body heat or movements. The device converts the kinetic energy from wing movements of the insect into electricity, thus prolonging the battery life. The battery can be used to power small sensors implanted on the insect (such as a small camera, a microphone or a gas sensor) in order to gather vital information from hazardous environments.

The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property, and is seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.

Undercover Police Spied On Occupy Los Angeles In Search Of ‘Extremists’

JacobSloan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:02:39 +0000

No word on how much fun undercover officers did or didn’t have during their infiltration of Occupy Los Angeles in search of terrorists. Reuters reports:

Undercover police officers infiltrated Occupy LA’s tent city last month to spy on people they suspected of stockpiling human waste and crude weapons for resisting an eventual eviction, police and city government sources said.

Authorities also used security cameras mounted outside City Hall, where the camp was located, and monitored publicly available Internet chatter and video on social-networking sites such as Twitter, sources said.

They insisted that covert surveillance of the camp was aimed not at anti-Wall Street activists exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression but at those they considered anti-government extremists bent on violence. Civil liberties advocates said they were troubled by law enforcement’s infiltration of peaceful demonstrations, although the LAPD’s undercover efforts were not unique.

In the end, nearly 300 Los Angeles demonstrators were arrested the night police raided their encampment, nearly all for defying orders to leave but with little violence.

The City Attorney’s Office has so far filed formal charges against seven people arrested before the raid and accused of violations ranging from weapons possession, battery, assault with a deadly weapon and lewd conduct.

But police said a key concern about the eviction stemmed from some individuals in the camp identified as belonging to or affiliated with radical organizations such as Sovereign Citizens, which the FBI classifies as an “extremist anti-government group,” and the Black Riders Liberation Party, deemed a “domestic terrorist group” by the LAPD.

WikiLeaks Releases Spyware Firm Videos That Show How to Hack Email, Skype, WiFi

HAL9000 — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:54:45 +0000

Kim Zetter writes on WIRED’s Threat Level:

What better way to sell your wares than to produce a marketing video showing exactly how your product works? Even if that product is spyware, marketed to oppressive regimes.

WikiLeaks, as part of its Spy Files trove of documents, released on Thursday a series of videos from Gamma International, a UK-based firm that markets the Finfisher spyware.

The video shows how the company’s product can be used to sniff WiFi networks from a hotel lobby, hack computers and cell phones, or intercept Skype communications and siphon encryption passwords.

Britain’s GCHQ Recruiting Spies With Online Puzzle

majestic — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:31:38 +0000

Think you’ve got the chops to be a spy? John Burns reveals a way to apply in the New York Times:

According to traffic on Twitter, Facebook and scores of other Web sites, at least 50 people have solved the puzzle since it was posted unobtrusively last month. To all but practiced cryptographers, it looks baffling: a rectangular display of 160 letters and numbers, grouped in twos in blue against a black background, under the overline, “Can you crack it?” Beneath it, a digital clock ticks down the seconds left until the competition closes.

The agency that posted the puzzle at www.canyoucrackit.co.uk is one of the oldest, and, espionage experts say, most successful eavesdropping organizations anywhere, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, located in a vast doughnut-shaped building surrounded by huge satellite dishes in parkland near Cheltenham, 120 miles west of London.

Helped by a hand-in-glove relationship with its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, which provides access to data downloaded from a pervasive network of American spy satellites, GCHQ can hack into phone calls, e-mails and computers virtually anywhere in the world. With language experts speaking everything from Amharic to Kazakh and 70 tongues besides, it has played a crucial role in cracking some of the biggest terror plots against the West in recent years.

Once decrypted, the agency’s online puzzle, through a process experts call steganography, yields a hidden message in the form of a keyword. Those who enter the keyword are led to a Web address, where they are greeted with a congratulatory note. It is signed by a group calling itself Cyber Security Specialists, a newly formed unit within the British agency that is responsible for combating the cyberespionage threat that British officials have listed alongside terrorism, organized crime, and drug and weapons smuggling among the nation’s biggest security threats.

“So you did it,” says the congratulatory message. “Now this is where it gets interesting. Could you use your skills and ingenuity to combat terrorism and cyberthreats? As one of our experts, you’ll help protect our nation’s security and the lives of thousands.” Those interested are then invited to submit a formal job application, leading to interviews for a total of 35 jobs next spring…

[continues in the New York Times]

Carrier IQ: The Rootkit Tracking Everything You Do On Your Phone

JacobSloan — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:06:36 +0000

If you use an Android or Blackberry phone, likely it houses a piece of hidden software which logs the content of your text messages, web searches, and other activities, and transmits the information back to company headquarters. Lifehacker reports on the unfolding Carrier IQ scandal:

Android developer Trevor Eckhart last week released information and started an uproar about a widespread rootkit, called Carrier IQ, that’s capable of logging everything you do and comes preinstalled on a ton of smartphones-including various Androids, Nokia phones, and BlackBerrys.

Last week, 25-year old Eckhart discovered a hidden application on some mobile phones that had the ability to log anything and everything on your device—from location to web searches to the content of your text messages. The program is called Carrier IQ, and unlike the

German Government Spyware Transforms Citizen’s Computers Into ‘Big Brother’-Type Surveillance Devices

HAL9000 — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:50:06 +0000

Discovered by the Chaos Computer Club, reports GlobalPost:

The use of so-called “Trojan horse” software by authorities in a number of German states came to light after the Computer Chaos Club, a hacker group, published details of their examination of spyware planted on a laptop in Bavaria.

It found that the software — developed by a private company called DigiTask for the Bavarian police — was capable of much more than just monitoring internet phone calls. It could take screenshots, remotely add files and control a computer’s microphone or webcam to monitor the person’s home. However, the authorities insist that they did not deploy these functions. Investigations are ongoing.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with British computer security firm Sophos, which also analyzed the software, said that the spyware could “automatically update itself over the internet, so new functionality can be added. It can be used to install new software onto the computer, so people could actually alter the contents of a suspect’s hard drive.”

The scandal has led politicians and security experts to look at whether the country’s already stringent privacy laws need firming up.

Facebook Tracks You Even After Logging Out

JacobSloan — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:12:52 +0000

Sometimes you’re being followed when you think you’re alone. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

An Australian technologist has caused a global stir after discovering Facebook tracks the websites its users visit even when they are logged out of the social networking site.

In alarming new revelations, Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic conducted tests, which revealed that when you log out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify you.

Whenever you visit a web page that contains a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending details of your movements back to Facebook, Cubrilovic says.

“Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit,” Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.

He backed up his claims with detailed technical information. His post was picked up by technology news sites around the world but Facebook has yet to provide a response to Fairfax Media and others.

Stephen Collins, spokesman for the online users’ lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said he did not believe Cubrilovic’s revelations would see people turn away from the site in droves but he hoped users became more engaged with the issue.

Media Roots Radio: Spying, Fear & Self-Censorship, Building Up Your Community

Abby Martin — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:23:36 +0000

Via Media Roots:

This discussion covers U.S. imperialism: wars, costs, media and government propaganda; the culture of fear, self-censorship and the erosion of privacy in the US; information as power and how communication is an important tool to strengthen and build communities.

The above timeline is interactive. Scroll through it to find out more about the show’s music and to resources mentioned during the broadcast. To see a larger version of the timeline with clickable resources go to the soundcloud link below the player. If you would like to directly download the podcast click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display. To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.

For more information go to www.MediaRoots.org

Assange: Facebook, Google, Yahoo Are Spying Tools For U.S. Intelligence

majestic — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:40:33 +0000

Julian Assange says Facebook, Google and Yahoo are spying tools for U.S. intelligence:

Did A Sex Tape Create an Al-Qaeda Spy?

bluemana — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:53:32 +0000

Adam Rawnsley asks on the always intriguing WIRED’s Danger Room:

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the spying book: Tempt a guy with sex; record him in a compromising position, and then blackmail him into working for you. According to a new file released by WikiLeaks, that’s exactly what happened to one inmate there. But be wary of this espionage tale. As with a lot of Gitmo detainee accounts, the detainee’s history of trying to please interrogators and his experience being tortured make it difficult to say for sure what really happened.

Abd Al Rahim Abdul Raza Janko told interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that his journey into an al-Qaida guest house began with blackmail while he was studying Islamic law and Arabic literature in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He claimed Prince Fisal Sudid Qasmi invited him to hang out with his college friends at a local hotel. When he arrived, he said a raging sex party was already in progress and he promptly took part in it. Weeks later, Janko said Qasmi confronted him with a videotape of the party, threatening to send it to a television station or his family if he didn’t agree to spy for the UAE. The confrontation, according to Janko, kicked off an odyssey that began with him snooping on Filipino classmates’ plans to smuggle fighters back home and ended with him heading to Afghanistan in early 2000 to spy on al-Qaida.

The CIA’s Six Oldest Secret Documents

majestic — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:48:14 +0000

Don’t get too excited, but the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has decided to unveil what it terms “the United States Government’s six oldest classified documents, dating from 1917 and 1918.” They mostly have to do with secret ink formulae and while the processes may have been a big deal a century ago, your local spy store will have cooler stuff today.

Here’s what the Agency has to say:

These documents, which describe secret writing techniques and are housed at the National Archives, are believed to be the only remaining classified documents from the World War I era. Documents describing secret writing fall under the CIA’s purview to declassify.

“These documents remained classified for nearly a century until recent advancements in technology made it possible to release them,” CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said. “When historical information is no longer sensitive, we take seriously our responsibility to share it with the American people.”

One document outlines the chemicals and techniques necessary for developing certain types of secret writing ink and a method for opening sealed letters without detection. Another memorandum dated June 14, 1918 – written in French – reveals the formula used for German secret ink.

“The CIA recognizes the importance of opening these historical documents to the public,” said Joseph Lambert, the Agency’s Director of Information Management Services. “In fiscal year 2010 alone, the Agency declassified and released over 1.1 million pages of documents.”

The documents will be available on CIA.gov and in the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST) at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. CREST currently houses over 10 million pages of declassified Agency documents. Since 1995, the Agency has released over 30 million pages as a result of Executive Orders, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Privacy Act, and mandatory declassification reviews.

Here are links to the documents:

Secret writing document one
Secret writing document two
Secret writing document three
Secret writing document four
Secret writing document five
Secret writing document six

Government To Declassify Historical Images From Spy Satellites

JacobSloan — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:46:54 +0000

The public will at last get a glimpse at our government’s secretive, Cold War-era version of Google Earth. Secrecy News reports:

Millions of feet of film of historical imagery from intelligence satellites may be declassified this year, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) said.

“The NGA is anticipating the potential declassification of significant amounts of film-based imagery… in 2011,” according to an NGA announcement that solicited contractor interest in converting the declassified film into digital format.

For planning purposes, the NGA told potential contractors to assume the need to digitize “approximately 4 million linear feet of film up to approximately 7 inches in width.” The imagery is “stored on 500 foot spools, with many frames up to several feet in length.” A nominal start date of October 1, 2011 was specified for the digitization project.

The declassification of historical intelligence satellite imagery has been largely dormant for many years. President Clinton’s 1995 executive order 12951 promised a periodic review of classified imagery “with the objective of making available to the public as much imagery as possible consistent with the interests of national defense and foreign policy.” In particular, a review of obsolete film-return systems, such as the KH-8 GAMBIT and the KH-9 HEXAGON, was to be completed within five years. This was not done, or produced no results if it was done.

U.S. Military Using Fake Social Media Identities To Spread Propaganda

majestic — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:42:38 +0000

The Guardian’s Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain report that the United States military’s “sock puppet” software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as “sock puppets” – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries”.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: “The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US.”

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to “address US audiences” with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter…

[continues in the Guardian]

U.S. Developing Hummingbird Drones

majestic — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:54:32 +0000

Nano Air Vehicle developed by AeroVironment

Next time a cute little bird hovers outside your window, it might be spying on you for the U.S. Government. Julie Watson reports on some quite realistic working prototypes currently being tested, for AP:

You’ll never look at hummingbirds the same again.

The Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into the development of tiny drones inspired by biology, each equipped with video and audio equipment that can record sights and sounds.

They could be used to spy, but also to locate people inside earthquake-crumpled buildings and detect hazardous chemical leaks.

The smaller, the better.

Besides the hummingbird, engineers in the growing unmanned aircraft industry are working on drones that look like insects and the helicopter-like maple leaf seed.

Researchers are even exploring ways to implant surveillance and other equipment into an insect as it is undergoing metamorphosis. They want to be able to control the creature.

The devices could end up being used by police officers and firefighters.

Their potential use outside of battle zones, however, is raising questions about privacy and the dangers of the winged creatures buzzing around in the same skies as aircraft…

[continues at AP]

Dewey Clarridge’s Private C.I.A.

majestic — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 14:16:56 +0000

A fascinating profile of Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, once (and in his own mind always) a CIA spy, by Mark Mazzetti in the New York Times:

Duane R. Clarridge parted company with the Central Intelligence Agency more than two decades ago, but from poolside at his home near San Diego, he still runs a network of spies.

Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class.

Hatching schemes that are something of a cross between a Graham Greene novel and Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy,” Mr. Clarridge has sought to discredit Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Kandahar power broker who has long been on the C.I.A. payroll, and planned to set spies on his half brother, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in hopes of collecting beard trimmings or other DNA samples that might prove Mr. Clarridge’s suspicions that the Afghan leader was a heroin addict, associates say.

Mr. Clarridge, 78, who was indicted on charges of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal and later pardoned, is described by those who have worked with him as driven by the conviction that Washington is bloated with bureaucrats and lawyers who impede American troops in fighting adversaries and that leaders are overly reliant on mercurial allies.

His dispatches — an amalgam of fact, rumor, analysis and uncorroborated reports — have been sent to military officials who, until last spring at least, found some credible enough to be used in planning strikes against militants in Afghanistan. They are also fed to conservative commentators, including Oliver L. North, a compatriot from the Iran-contra days and now a Fox News analyst, and Brad Thor, an author of military thrillers and a frequent guest of Glenn Beck.

For all of the can-you-top-this qualities to Mr. Clarridge’s operation, it is a startling demonstration of how private citizens can exploit the chaos of combat zones and rivalries inside the American government to carry out their own agenda.

It also shows how the outsourcing of military and intelligence operations has spawned legally murky clandestine operations that can be at cross-purposes with America’s foreign policy goals. Despite Mr. Clarridge’s keen interest in undermining Afghanistan’s ruling family, President Obama’s administration appears resigned to working with President Karzai and his half brother, who is widely suspected of having ties to drug traffickers…

[continues in the New York Times]

Russian Spy Anna Chapman Reveals ‘The Secrets of the World’ On TV

majestic — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:02:40 +0000

Remember Anna Chapman, the sleeper spy and Internet sensation? Now that she’s safely back in Russia, in addition to becoming a Maxim Mag cover girl, appearing in movies and generally being a contemporary Moscow “It Girl,” she has, of course, garnered her own TV show, debuting tonight on Ren-TV. The producers of the show told AP that Anna will “use all her talents to solve the world’s most complicated mysteries.” Ren-TV’s website, in dodgy translation, describes the show as follows:

This is the only TV project, which has agreed to Anna Chapman. Viewers will be able to see her only on REN TV. “The mysterious woman is the most mysterious program” – so says the project director of the Documentary and journalistic program Mikhail TUKMACHEV.

The program “Secrets of the world and Anna Chapman is dedicated to the most puzzling phenomena of modern times. It is no coincidence that the leading program has become the most mysterious woman of our time. Only on REN TV, it will use their talents to reveal the most intricate hoaxes.

The creators of the program say: this format – the pilot. Intriguing new genre. The program is filmed at a completely new hardware, which Russian television in the creation of television programs have not worked.

“While it is safe to say only that all the materials in this program will be exclusive and in contemporary Russian television can only appear on REN TV. Due to the fact that Ren-TV – a very special channel “, – adds Michael TUKMACHEV.

What exactly will the new documentary series, while kept in the strictest confidence. On this you can learn just by looking first edition of the program. But for sure – the first time Chapman reveals all the secrets …

Saudi Arabia Captures Israeli ‘Spy Vulture’

imkaan — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:26:26 +0000

Via the Telegraph:

The large bird, which was carrying a GPS transmitter and a tag bearing the identification code R65 from Tel Aviv University, strayed into rural Saudi Arabian territory at some point last week, according to a report in the Israeli daily Ma’ariv.

Residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be linked to a “Zionist plot” and swiftly alerted security services.

The bird has since been placed under arrest. The accusations went viral, according to the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the “Zionists” had trained the birds for espionage.

The incident comes amid growing paranoia among Israel’s neighbours over the nation’s growing military might.

Several weeks ago an Egyptian official reportedly claimed that a shark that attacked tourists off the coastal resort of Sharm el Sheikh was also acting on behalf of the Israeli spy service.

The Impending Police State

Abby Martin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:40:56 +0000

Via Media Roots:

In George Orwell’s 1984, Britain is depicted as a totalitarian police state that is ruled by the Party, or Big Brother — an enigmatic, ubiquitous elite that controls society through heavy surveillance, nationalist propaganda and historical revisionism.

The concept seems like a far-fetched portrayal of a Democratic nation’s demise into totalitarianism, but in America’s “post 9/11” climate of fear, the United States government has been building a comprehensive grid of surveillance and control that bears frightening similarities to Orwell’s fictional narrative.

The glaring difference between the two is that Orwell’s dystopian society is overtly totalitarian. America, conversely, operates under a “soft fascism” – an insidious, systematic method of preventative action and corporate top-down control over society’s media, economy and politics – while maintaining the necessary illusion of personal choice and freedom. A populous with little to no concept of their subjugation makes them the perfect subjects to rule.

Many Americans might not feel the government’s hand or Big Brother’s watchful eye directly in their lives. However, with the use of GPS, cell phones and the Internet, every move we make can be tracked, cataloged and divied into demographics that are used to increase corporate advertising efficiency and to create a “chilling effect” throughout our culture, stifling dissent and diminishing activism.

During times of war, governments are notorious for capitalizing on their ability to suppress dissent and manipulate the masses. In the wake of 9/11 hysteria, the Bush administration enacted several controversial pieces of legislation that severely curtailed Americans’ freedoms under the pretext of “security” and “protection”. With the help of a consistently compliant and unquestioning media, his administration also instituted a legal framework to circumvent citizens’ civil liberties and target their free speech. Bush’s cabinet adopted Orwellian rhetoric and Nazi style propaganda to litigate sweeping measures that further eradicated liberty: The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act’s (USA Patriot Act) warrantless domestic wiretapping, and the Homegrown Terrorism Act & Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act’s criminalization of thought and peaceful activism.

Read full article about the impending police state here.

Government Needs Warrant To Secretly Read Emails, Court Rules

JacobSloan — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:15:02 +0000

I’m confused — you’re telling me that the Constitution doesn’t grant the government the right to peruse our emails as desired? Via Gizmodo:

The government must obtain a court warrant to require internet service providers to turn over stored e-mail to the authorities, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first time an appellate court said Americans had that Fourth Amendment protection.

“The government may not compel a commercial ISP to turn over the contents of a subscriber’s e-mails without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause” (.pdf), the appeals court ruled. The decision—one stop short of the Supreme Court—covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Kevin Bankston, a privacy attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, applauded the decision.

“I expect e-mail providers across the country will comply with this,” he said in a telephone interview.

The legal brouhaha centered on Steven Warshak, founder of an Ohio herbal-supplement company that marketed male-enhancement tablets. As part of a fraud investigation, the government obtained thousands of his e-mails from his ISP without a warrant.

He appealed his 25-year conviction on those and other grounds, and the circuit court tossed his sentence on issues unrelated to the court’s language concerning e-mail privacy.

At issue in Warshak’s e-mail flap was a 1986 law that allows the government to obtain a suspect’s e-mail from an internet service provider or webmail provider without a probable-cause warrant, once it’s been stored for 180 days or more. The appeals court said Tuesday that this part of the Stored Communications Act is unconstitutional.

“The Fourth Amendment must keep pace with the inexorable march of technological progress, or its guarantees will wither and perish,” the court ruled.

The Stored Communications Act was enacted at a time when e-mail generally wasn’t stored on servers at all, but instead passed through them briefly on their way to the recipient’s inbox. In today’s reality, e-mail can, and is, being stored on servers forever. A consortium of businesses, including Google and Microsoft, recently asked Congress to update the law and require probable cause to obtain any e-mail.

Graham Greene And Other Great Authors Were British Spies

JacobSloan — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:38:14 +0000

Among the eyebrow-raising tidbits in the first authorized book on the history of the MI6 (Britain’s secret service) is the acknowledgment that the United Kingdom used some of its most celebrated authors as spies, among them Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham. The reason being that they could visit exotic places without suspicion, and write reports filled with pithy witticisms, the Guardian reports:

The authors Graham Greene, Arthur Ransome, Somerset Maugham, Compton Mackenzie and Malcolm Muggeridge, and the philosopher AJ “Freddie” Ayer, all worked for MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service admitted for the first time today . They are among the many exotic characters who agreed to spy for Britain, mainly during wartime, who appear in a the first authorized history of MI6.

Greene, Mackenzie, Muggeridge and others who have written about their secret work make it clear they were reluctant spies approached by MI6 because of their access and knowledge of exotic parts of the world.

British Intelligence Used “Bodily Fluids” as Invisible Ink

bluemana — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 05:21:34 +0000

In case you missed this one, brings a whole new light to “Bond, James Bond” … Note the name of the person of charge of this operation in the article below. Via the Telegraph:

A diary entry belonging to a senior member of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has revealed that during the First World War it was discovered that the bodily fluid could act as an effective invisible ink.

In June 1915, Walter Kirke, deputy head of military intelligence at GHQ France, wrote in his diary that Mansfield Cumming, the first chief (or C) of the SIS was “making enquiries for invisible inks at the London University”.

In October he noted that he “heard from C that the best invisible ink is semen”, which did not react to the main methods of detection. Furthermore it had the advantage of being readily available.

A member of staff close to “C”, Frank Stagg, said that he would never forget his bosses’ delight when the Deputy Chief Censor said one day that one of his staff had found out that “semen would not react to iodine vapour”.

Stagg noted that “we thought we had solved a great problem”. However, the discovery also led to some further problems, with the agent who had identified the novel use having to be moved from his department after becoming the butt of jokes.

FBI Wants Its GPS Back After Device Is Found By Student

voxmagi — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 21:47:47 +0000

Afterwards, agents told him not to worry … because he’s “boring”… but apparently he was just interesting enough to merit between 3 to 6 months of observation … and a GPS tracker under his car. From Kim Zetter at Wired. Enjoy the article … and consider its ramifications.

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.

It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.

The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.

Pentagon Tries To Stop Book By Buying All Copies

majestic — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:36:10 +0000

Thanks to Isaac Hils for this. As publishers, this story definitely appeals to us at disinformation: Authors with books the Pentagon wants to stop, take note! From the Guardian:

It’s every author’s dream – to write a book that’s so sensationally popular it’s impossible to find a copy in the shops, even as it keeps climbing up the bestseller lists.

And so it is for Anthony Shaffer, thanks to the Pentagon’s desire to buy up all 10,000 copies of the first printing of his new book, Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan — and The Path to Victory. And then pulp them.

The US defence department is scrambling to dispose of what threatens to be a highly embarrassing expose by the former intelligence officer of secret operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of how the US military top brass missed the opportunity to win the war against the Taliban.

The department of defence is in talks with St Martin’s Press to purchase the entire first print run on the grounds of national security.

The publisher is content to sell the books but the two sides are in a grinding dispute over what should appear in a censored version and when it should be released.

Now St Martin’s Press says it will put the partly redacted manuscript on sale next week whether or not the defence department likes it – and there doesn’t appear much the authorities can do.

The army had cleared the book by Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, about “black ops” in the Afghan war when he was based at Bagram in 2003, for publication after relatively minor changes.

But when the intelligence services and defence department officials saw it they were alarmed.

They said it contained highly classified material including the names of American intelligence agents and accounts of clandestine operations, and demanded the book be withdrawn on the grounds it “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security”…

[continues at the Guardian]

Apple Patenting Technology To Spy On Device Users

JacobSloan — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:45:01 +0000

Your iPod might be looking and listening right back at you — Apple is patenting creepy spyware that would “fight theft” and product misuse by enabling Apple devices to take photos of users, record users’ voices, and even detect and record users’ heartbeats, and transfer the data back to Apple. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Essentially, Apple’s patent provides for a device to investigate a user’s identity, ostensibly to determine if and when that user is “unauthorized,” or, in other words, stolen. More specifically, the technology would allow Apple to record the voice of the device’s user, take a photo of the device’s user’s current location or even detect and record the heartbeat of the device’s user.

This patented device enables Apple to secretly collect, store and potentially use sensitive biometric information about you. This is dangerous in two ways: First, it is far more than what is needed just to protect you against a lost or stolen phone. It’s extremely privacy-invasive and it puts you at great risk if Apple’s data on you are compromised. But it’s not only the biometric data that are a concern. Second, Apple’s technology includes various types of usage monitoring — also very privacy-invasive. This patented process could be used to retaliate against you if you jailbreak or tinker with your device in ways that Apple views as “unauthorized” even if it is perfectly legal under copyright law.

The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets

majestic — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:38:40 +0000

A Wall Street Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers:

Hidden inside Ashley Hayes-Beaty’s computer, a tiny file helps gather personal details about her, all to be put up for sale for a tenth of a penny.

The file consists of a single code— 4c812db292272995e5416a323e79bd37—that secretly identifies her as a 26-year-old female in Nashville, Tenn.

The code knows that her favorite movies include “The Princess Bride,” “50 First Dates” and “10 Things I Hate About You.” It knows she enjoys the “Sex and the City” series. It knows she browses entertainment news and likes to take quizzes.

“Well, I like to think I have some mystery left to me, but apparently not!” Ms. Hayes-Beaty said when told what that snippet of code reveals about her. “The profile is eerily correct.”

Ms. Hayes-Beaty is being monitored by Lotame Solutions Inc., a New York company that uses sophisticated software called a “beacon” to capture what people are typing on a website—their comments on movies, say, or their interest in parenting and pregnancy. Lotame packages that data into profiles about individuals, without determining a person’s name, and sells the profiles to companies seeking customers. Ms. Hayes-Beaty’s tastes can be sold wholesale (a batch of movie lovers is $1 per thousand) or customized (26-year-old Southern fans of “50 First Dates”).

“We can segment it all the way down to one person,” says Eric Porres, Lotame’s chief marketing officer.

One of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found, is the business of spying on Internet users…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

Are The Drones Spying On ‘Them’ … Or ‘Us’?

majestic — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:07:22 +0000

Nat Hentoff suggests that those friendly drones may not be quite so confidence-inspiring as our government would have us believe, at WorldNetDaily:

In May of last year, David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus from 2006 to 2008, co-authored a strategic analysis (”Death from Above, Outrage Down Below,” New York Times, May 17, 2009). He emphasized that the “public outrage” among Pakistan’s civilians caused by our drone attacks “is hardly limited to the region in which they take place.”

Extensively reported by the news media, “the persistence of these attacks on Pakistani territory offends people’s deepest sensibilities, alienates them from their government, and contributes to Pakistan’s instability.”

A year later, in Foreign Policy in Focus (fpif.org, May 19), Conn Hallinan, reporting on the increase in drone strikes in Pakistan, notes that the continuing controversy over the actual number of corollary civilian deaths “is a sharply debated issue.” Neither President Obama, who authorizes them, nor the CIA, which does the actual killing, directly gives us the numbers. As for the Pakistani government’s figures, Hallinan continues:

“The word ‘civilian’ is a slippery one, because no one knows exactly what criteria the United States uses to distinguish a ‘militant’ from a civilian. Is someone with a gun a ‘militant?’ Since large numbers of males in the frontier regions of Pakistan carry guns, that definition would target a huge number of people.”

I mentioned this life-ending ambiguity in drone strikes to a person who claims to be concerned with human-rights abuses. Shrugging, she said: “I don’t have to worry about that. The drones aren’t coming here; and since they’re pilotless, there are no American casualties. So I’m all for their use.”

But drones are indeed in our skies.

Constitutionalist John Whitehead – who is also a careful master researcher – points out (”Drones Over America: Tyranny at Home,” Rutherford.org, June 28), that “unbeknownst to most Americans, remote-controlled pilotless aircraft have been employed domestically for years now. They were first used as a national security tool for patrolling America’s borders, and then as a means of monitoring citizens.”…

[continues t WorldNetDaily]