Surveillance

Muslims File Suit Over Terror Watch List

August 16, 2014 CAIR, www.cair.com Resist! Muslims, Surveillance, Terrorism

On Thursday, August 14, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) will hold a news conference to announce the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of several Muslims challenging their placement in the government's Terrorist Screening Database - a watch list of "known or suspected terrorists" - without due process. The lawsuit will be filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit. "The federal government has unjustly and disproportionately targeted American Muslims by routinely adding their names to the Terrorist Screening Database without affording them their rights to due process," said CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri. "The lawsuit will challenge the government's broad and unchecked power to secretly label individuals as 'known or suspected terrorists' without concrete facts, but based on only a vague standard of 'reasonable suspicion.'" CAIR-MI's lawsuit challenges the widespread government practice of placing names on watch lists without providing individuals with any notice of the factual basis for their placement and without offering a meaningful opportunity to contest the designation.

Communal Lands: Theater Of Operations For Counterinsurgency

August 12, 2014 Renata Bessi, Santiago Navarro F. and Translated Miriam Taylor, www.truth-out.org Create! Indigenous Rights, Mexico, Mining, School of Americas, Surveillance, Violence

In 2006, a team of geographers from the University of Kansas carried out a series of mapping projects of communal lands in southern Mexico's Northern Sierra Mountains. Coordinated by Peter Herlihy and Geoffrey B. Demarest, a US lieutenant colonel, the objective was to achieve strategic military and geopolitical goals of particular interest for the United States. The objective was to incorporate indigenous territories into the transnational corporate model of private property, either by force or through agreements. Demarest's essential argument is that peace cannot exist without private property. "The Bowman Expeditions are taking places with the counterinsurgency logic of the United States, and we reported them in 2009. These expeditions were part of research regarding the geographic information that indigenous communities in the Sierra Juarez possess. The researchers hid the fact that they were being financed by the Pentagon. And we believe that this research was a type of pilot project to practice how they would undertake research in other parts of the world in relation to indigenous towns and their communal lands," said Aldo Gonzales Rojas in an interview with Truthout. A director for the Secretary of Indigenous Affairs in the state of Oaxaca, Rojas ensures that indigenous laws are being instituted and applied correctly in the state.

1974 New Mexico Campaign Warned Of Surveillance State

August 9, 2014 Peter Katel, www.newmexicomercury.com Educate! New Mexico, Privacy, Surveillance

Back when digital metadata – digital anything – was purely theoretical, along with smartphones, the Web, and computers smaller than refrigerators, when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were still in college and Edward Snowden hadn’t been born, a crew of community organizers put up a bunch of billboards in Albuquerque. Each sign bore only one image: a giant eye. After the billboards went up along heavily trafficked roadways in New Mexico’s biggest city, still something of a Route 66 way-station at the time, New Mexico TV and radio stations started carrying public-service spots warning that everyone was under observation. This is hardly news today, but the billboards and broadcast warnings date from 1974. The anti-surveillance activists were community organizers based in Santa Fe – then still a lefty-bohemian hub - who got interested in the topic because they worried about government agencies and corporations systematically scooping up data on individuals. Capabilities for doing so were, by today’s lights, almost comically primitive. Way ahead of their time – too far ahead, in fact - the Santa Fe crew founded the anti-mass surveillance movement.

Snowden Gets Permission To Stay In Russia

August 7, 2014 AP, www.AP.org Educate! Edward Snowden, Russia, Surveillance

Former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden, who is wanted by the U.S. for leaking details about once-secret surveillance programs, has been granted permission to stay in Russia for three more years, his lawyer said Thursday. Snowden last year was granted temporary asylum of one year in Russia, but that expired on Aug. 1. His lawyer, Analtoly Kucherena, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Snowden now has been granted residency for three more years, but that he had not been granted political asylum. That status, which would allow him to stay in Russia permanently, must be decided by a separate procedure, Kucherena said, without specifying if Snowden is seeking it. He faces espionage charges in the U.S. that carry a sentence of up to 30 years, but Russia has no extradition treaty with Washington. Snowden was stranded in a Moscow airport last year en route from Hong Kong to Cuba, shortly after he released extensive documentation about National Security Agency's surveillance programs. He reportedly spent a month in the airport before receiving the temporary asylum, but was seen only at one tightly restricted meeting with human rights representatives. Since receiving the temporary asylum, his whereabouts have not been made public. The case has been a significant contributor to the tensions between Russia and the U.S.

ACLU: US Has Illegal Muslim Blacklist

August 7, 2014 Matt Reynolds, www.courthousenews.com Resist! ACLU, Muslim, Surveillance, Terrorism

The United States violates its own immigration laws through an under-the-radar "blacklist" that denies citizenship, green cards and political asylum to thousands of people, including innocent people placed on a terrorist watch list, longtime legal-resident Muslims claim in Federal Court. Lead plaintiff Reem Muhanna, et al. claim that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has consistently denied their applications for citizenship and lawful permanent residence after secretly blacklisting them as "'national security concerns,'" though they pose no threat to the United States. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on July 31 against the USCIS, the Department of Homeland Security, and a slew of their national and regional officers. The plaintiffs claim that the Citizenship and Immigration Service uses obscure rules, under a program known as the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), to delay or deny applications. "Under this unfair and unconstitutional program, the government has blacklisted their applications without telling them why and barred them from upgrading their immigration status in violation of the immigration laws," ACLU attorney Jennie Pasquarella said in a statement. The plaintiffs ask the court to order Uncle Sam to judicially settle their applications for citizenship and permanent residence, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The executive branch of the government does not have the authority to set rules on citizenship and permanent residence, the plaintiffs say.

Another Snowden-Style NSA Leaker

August 7, 2014 Ben Mathis-Lilley, www.slate.com Educate! Edward Snowden, Privacy, Surveillance, Terrorism

The U.S. government believes that a new Edward Snowden–style leaker is giving national security documents to journalists affiliated with Snowden confidante Glenn Greenwald, a suspicion that Greenwald has hinted at confirming. From CNN: Proof of the newest leak comes from national security documents that formed the basis of a news story published Tuesday by the Intercept, the news site launched by Glenn Greenwald, who also published Snowden's leaks. The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration. The article cites documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013, which is after Snowden flew to Russia to avoid U.S. criminal charges. (It's not clear why the government believes there's "a" new leaker as opposed to multiple new leakers.)

The U.S. Is A Key Party To Every Israeli Attack

August 5, 2014 Glenn Greenwald, www.firstlook.org Educate! Israel, NSA, Palestine, Surveillance, usa

The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel’s military assaults – such as the one on Gaza. Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC. The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives. Beyond their own surveillance programs, the American and British surveillance agencies rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets. The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the U.S. government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters.

Israel Eavesdropped On John Kerry In Mideast Talks

August 4, 2014 Der Spiegel, www.spiegel.de Educate! Israel, John Kerry, Palestine, Surveillance

SPIEGEL has learned from reliable sources that Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations. In addition to the Israelis, at least one other intelligence service also listened in as Kerry mediated last year between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, several intelligence service sources told SPIEGEL. Revelations of the eavesdropping could further damage already tense relations between the US government and Israel. During the peak stage of peace talks last year, Kerry spoke regularly with high-ranking negotiating partners in the Middle East. At the time, some of these calls were not made on encrypted equipment, but instead on normal telephones, with the conversations transmitted by satellite. Intelligence agencies intercepted some of those calls. The government in Jerusalem then used the information obtained in international negotiations aiming to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East. In the current Gaza conflict, the Israelis have massively criticized Kerry, with a few ministers indirectly calling on him to withdraw from peace talks. Both the US State Department and the Israeli authorities declined to comment.

John Brennan: It’s About The Lying

August 2, 2014 Dan Froomkin, www.firstlook.org Educate! Barack Obama, CIA, Congress, Lying, Surveillance

I don’t want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity — to its overseers, no less. But given everything else that’s been going on lately, the single biggest — and arguably most constructive — thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it. “As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in March. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.” Earlier, he had castigated “some members of the Senate” for making “spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.” He called for an end to “outbursts that do a disservice to the important relationship that needs to be maintained between intelligence officials and Congressional overseers.” And what compelled Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to make a dramatic floor speech in the first place, bringing everything out in the open, was that Brennan had responded to her initial concerns not by acknowledging the CIA’s misconduct — but by firing back with an allegation of criminal activity by her own staff.

CIA Director John Brennan Lied. Fire Him

August 2, 2014 Trevor Timm, www.theguardian.com Organize! CIA, Congress, Surveillance

As reports emerged Thursday that an internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general found that the CIA “improperly” spied on US Senate staffers when researching the CIA’s dark history of torture, it was hard to conclude anything but the obvious: John Brennan blatantly lied to the American public. Again. “The facts will come out,” Brennan told NBC News in March after Senator Dianne Feinstein issued a blistering condemnation of the CIA on the Senate floor, accusing his agency of hacking into the computers used by her intelligence committee’s staffers. “Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate,” he said. After the CIA inspector general’s report completely contradicted Brennan’s statements, it now appears Brennan was forced to privately apologize to intelligence committee chairs in a “tense” meeting earlier this week. Other Senators on Thursday pushed for Brennan to publicly apologize and called for an independent investigation. Sen. Ron Wyden said it well: .@CIA broke into Senate computer files. Then tried to have Senate staff prosecuted. Absolutely unacceptable in a democracy. — Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014 But the director of the CIA – and the architect of America’s drone program, who will be all but defending torture for the next several weeks – should do more than that. Apologies aren’t enough: John Brennan should resign.

Senator Calls For John Brennan To Resign

August 1, 2014 Igor Bobic, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! CIA, Congress, Privacy, Surveillance

Following reports that Central Intelligence Agency employees improperly accessed computers used by U.S. Senate staff to investigate the agency, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) on Thursday called for the resignation of John Brennan as CIA director. "After being briefed on the CIA Inspector General report today, I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan," Udall said in a statement. "The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences." According to a CIA Inspector General’s Office report first obtained by McClatchy, agency employees in 2009 hacked Senate computers being used to compile a report on the agency’s infamous detention and interrogation program -- a move that some critics have characterized as a significant breach of the separation of powers. Brennan has apologized to Senate intelligence committee leaders, including Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who took the floor earlier this year to excoriate the agency for skirting the law and attempting to intimidate Congress.

CIA Admits It Spied On Senate Committee

August 1, 2014 Johnathan S. Landay and Ali Watkins, www.mcclatchydc.com Educate! CIA, Congress, Privacy, Surveillance

An internal CIA investigation confirmed allegations that agency personnel improperly intruded into a protected database used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff to compile a scathing report on the agency’s detention and interrogation program, prompting bipartisan outrage and at least two calls for spy chief John Brennan to resign. “This is very, very serious, and I will tell you, as a member of the committee, someone who has great respect for the CIA, I am extremely disappointed in the actions of the agents of the CIA who carried out this breach of the committee’s computers,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee’s vice chairman. The rare display of bipartisan fury followed a three-hour private briefing by Inspector General David Buckley. His investigation revealed that five CIA employees, two lawyers and three information technology specialists improperly accessed or “caused access” to a database that only committee staff were permitted to use. Buckley’s inquiry also determined that a CIA crimes report to the Justice Department alleging that the panel staff removed classified documents from a top-secret facility without authorization was based on “inaccurate information,” according to a summary of the findings prepared for the Senate and House intelligence committees and released by the CIA.

Privacy Groups Urge Stopping Facebook From Collecting Data

July 30, 2014 Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, www.tacd.org Resist! Facebook, Privacy, Surveillance

TACD calls on regulators to stop Facebook collecting web browsing data TACD has written to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to urge them to take action and halt a recently announced change in Facebook’s business practices. Facebook announced in June 2014 that it plans to increase the amount of data that it collects from users. The company is planning to collect more information about the web browsing activities of Internet users for the purposes of targeted advertising. Facebook already installs cookies and pixel tags on users’ computers to track browsing activity on Facebook.com and Facebook apps, however the proposed change would meant that those cookies and pixel tags will also track users’ browsing activity on any website that includes a few lines of Facebook code. TACD is calling on regulators to require Facebook to suspend this change in policy and determine whether it complies with current U.S. and EU law.

The Constitutional Nightmare Of The Terror Watch List

July 25, 2014 Conor Friedersdorf, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Civil Liberties, Law, NSA, Surveillance, Terrorism

At long last, Americans know more about how people end up on a terrorist watchlist—though still not much. Early on in a just-leaked 166-page U.S. government guide to officially declaring someone a terrorist or suspected terrorist, a passage acknowledges that "watchlisting is not an exact science." The whole enterprise has "inherent limitations," in part because "analytic judgments may differ regarding whether subjective criteria have been met," the document states. "Given these realities, the U.S. government's watchlisting process attempts to safeguard the American people from a TERRORIST attack while safeguarding privacy, civil rights and civil liberties." Despite this explicit, official recognition of the system's inherent dangers, the Bush and Obama administrations both conspicuously failed to incorporate basic safeguards to protect innocent U.S. citizens and foreigners from inclusion. Their gross negligence stems from disregard for longstanding legal norms and protections and from unwarranted faith in the federal bureaucracy. This hubris is at direct odds with the logic of checks and balances within the American system that go back to the founding of the country. Consider the features of the U.S. system that have traditionally distinguished us from repressive regimes where innocents are wrongfully labeled enemies of the state, or from Franz Kafka's stories:

Obama Humiliates Muslim Guests At White House Ramadan Event

July 24, 2014 Max Blumenthal, www.alternet.org Educate! Gaza, Israel, Muslims, Palestine, Racism, Surveillance

At the annual White House Iftar dinner commemorating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, President Barack Obama endorsed Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip and defended government spying on Muslim-Americans. Alongside dozens of Muslim-American community activists and Muslim diplomats, the White House welcomed Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, an outspoken advocate of Israel's settlement enterprise who has claimed Muslim and Arab culture is endemically violent. . . . Obama launched into a defense of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. . . Obama was unusually candid with those seated at his table. They confronted him on the issue of domestic spying, . . . Obama attempted to remind them that the spying had begun under his predecessor, Bush, but defended the practice nonetheless, denying that the NSA had violated any laws.

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