military industrial complex

Newly leaked NSA program sees ‘nearly everything’ you do

"The Guardian, which obtained slides of a NSA employee presentation, claims that the program is the 'widest-reaching' intelligence system. According to Snowden's files on X-Keyscore, NSA employees can, with just a few clicks, obtain everything from phone numbers to e-mail addresses. The agency also can see e-mail content, full Internet activity, browser history, and an IP address. According to the files and Snowden, the NSA can essentially see everything a person is doing on the Internet without the need for a warrant. Debate rages over whether such information is accessible and is being used in any negative ways by the U.S. government." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNewly leaked NSA program sees ‘nearly everything’ you do

Michael Hastings: my friend and his enemies

"When Michael spoke to an annual gathering of military reporters in November 2010, he got few congratulations for writing unquestionably the most consequential piece of war reporting that year, and a lot of hostility instead. Michael could give it right back. His journalist critics were hopelessly compromised Washington pseudo-reporters, he railed, slavishly devoted to the access he considered himself to scorn. It was in this manner that Michael and his critics would forever talk past each other. But Michael didn't start it; they started it. And Michael had thick skin for someone so relentlessly vilified as arrogant." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMichael Hastings: my friend and his enemies

Snowden Is No Traitor: 55% to 34%

"In a massive shift in attitudes, voters say 45 – 40 percent of the government’s anti-terrorism efforts go too far in restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a January 14, 2010 survey, when voters said 63 – 25 percent that such activities didn’t go far enough. Almost every party, gender, income, education, age and income group regards Snowden as a whistle-blower rather than a traitor. The lone exception is black voters, with 43 percent calling him a traitor and 42 percent calling him a whistle-blower. There is a gender gap on counter-terrorism efforts as men say 54 – 34 percent they have gone too far and women say 47 – 36 percent they have not gone far enough." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden Is No Traitor: 55% to 34%

Manning Show Trial Exposes the Fraud of Representative Democracy

"The U.S. government fears an informed American people, and an informed world public opinion, far more than it ever feared al Qaeda. What we’ve called 'representative democracy,' since the rise of universal suffrage in the West a century or so ago, has been an elaborate exercise in securing the outcome desired by ruling elites — preserving an intersecting alliance of corporate and state oligarchies — while maintaining the fiction of popular rule. Manning committed the one unforgivable sin in a sham representative democracy: He let the 'sovereign' people in on what 'their' government is really doing, and whose interests it’s really serving." Continue reading →

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What we know thanks to Bradley Mannning’s leaks to WikiLeaks

"Bradley Manning, a 25-year-old US private, downloaded more than 700,000 classified documents from US military servers and passed them to WikiLeaks. The Guardian was one of several news organisations to publish a series of stories based on the contents of the files. Below are 10 of the most revelatory." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhat we know thanks to Bradley Mannning’s leaks to WikiLeaks

The Bradley Manning verdict is still bad news for the press

"The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself. We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the unaccountable." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Bradley Manning verdict is still bad news for the press

Statement by Julian Assange on Verdict in Bradley Manning Court-Martial

"Today Bradley Manning, a whistleblower, was convicted by a military court at Fort Meade of 19 offences for supplying the press with information, including five counts of ’espionage’. He now faces a maximum sentence of 136 years. The ’aiding the enemy’ charge has fallen away. It was only included, it seems, to make calling journalism ’espionage’ seem reasonable. It is not. Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosures have exposed war crimes, sparked revolutions, and induced democratic reform. He is the quintessential whistleblower. This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingStatement by Julian Assange on Verdict in Bradley Manning Court-Martial

BGPSEC: More Internet Control In The Name Of “Security”

"BGPSEC is a control that, once fully implemented, would allow the federal government to instantly revoke an ISPs right to advertise specific IP addresses, effectively shutting off all services that exist on those addresses. BGP is a key component of the Internet infrastructure, existing barely above the physical cables and fibers that carry data. BGPSEC provides much more sweeping control over who and what can exist on the Internet. BGPSEC combined with the DNS system which is already managed by the government means a giant step forward for Big Brother. ARIN has already begun offering the capability as a free 'service'." Continue reading →

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The routing security battles intensify

"In essence, what is now being debated in SIDR is whether routing – one of the last areas in which Internet operations is distributed and autonomous – will become rigidified and centralized by what one participant in the debate calls 'slamming a hierarchical PKI into a distributed routing system.' RPKI is being advocated by US government-funded contractors and US government agencies such as the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The engineers leading the revolt against BGPSEC in its current incarnation, on the other hand, are coming from operators – i.e., the people who actually have to run things." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe routing security battles intensify

Paul Rosenberg: The Internet Is Being Slaughtered in the Back Room

"US government-funded contractors and US government agencies (like the National Institute of Standards & Technology) are the big pushers. Many people who actually run things are complaining about BGPSEC. These complaints, however, will either be ignored, or will be used to write still more proposals, with more contractors being hired to address the problems. At the base of it all, however, are engineers – smart guys – who are willing to do whatever they are asked, so long as they get a paycheck. They are forging electronic chains for humanity, and passing it all off as 'a harmless piece of software,' or, 'a systems design.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPaul Rosenberg: The Internet Is Being Slaughtered in the Back Room