Surveillance

'I assumed I was a target of MI5, but I didn't have secrets & wasn't too worried' – K. Livingstone

Britain's conservative newspapers are obsessed by claims of Russian intelligence interfering in UK and US elections and Skripal allegations, but they have no interest in exposing the illegal activities of MI5 and MI6.

The Undercover Research Group worked with the Guardian newspaper to expose the fact that in the last 50 years 124 organisations have been infiltrated and spied on even though many of these were anti-war and anti-racist activists, environmentalists or animal rights groups – a total of 144 spies targeted them. Whilst I would expect our intelligence services to infiltrate terrorist groups planning to bomb and kill, it's hard to see what threat people campaigning for equal rights posed to Britain.

A total of 24 agents infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party, a small Trotskyist group with a couple of thousand members, even though London's police recorded that the SWP did "not have a recorded propensity for violence," the Guardian wrote.

Surveillance

Persistent problems with Persistent Surveillance

The executive summary of the Police Foundation's report on the collaboration between the Baltimore Police Department and an Ohio company that flew hundreds of hours of reconnaissance flights over the city, recording everything that went on in 32-square-mile grids at one-second intervals during an eight-month period last year, calls the pilot effort promising and dismisses concerns about the secrecy with which it was carried out as overblown. We wonder whether the person who wrote the executive summary actually read the report because it leads to precisely the opposite conclusion.

Surveillance

Pentagon Issues First Update To Domestic Surveillance Guidelines In 35 Years, Not All Of It Good

Cody Poplin at Lawfare points out that the Defense Department has just issued an update on rules governing its intelligence collection activities -- the first major update in over 30 years. These would directly affect the NSA, which operates under the Defense Department.

The most significant alteration appears to be to retention periods for US persons data. While everything is still assumed to be lawful under Executive Order 12333 and DoD Directive 5240.1, the point at which a record is deemed to be "collected" -- starting the clock on the retention period -- has changed.

Under the new rules, “collection” occurs “upon receipt,” whereas the previous manual defined “collection” as occurring when the information was “officially accept[ed] … for use.” The change ensures that all protections governing even the incidental collection of U.S. personal information (USPI) applies upon receipt of that information. The clock starts to run as soon as information is collected, meaning that collected information must be promptly evaluated to determine the proper retention period.

Surveillance

The Cold War Spy Plane Fighting ISIS

The U.S. Air Force has quietly offered a rare glimpse of one of the more secretive warplanes involved in the war on ISIS.

On Aug. 6, Air Forces Central Command—the flying branch’s headquarters overseeing operations in the Middle East—released a video of a black-painted U-2 spy plane taking off and landing at what the command described as an “undisclosed location” on July 14.

The iconic spy plane’s mission, according to command, was to “support of Operation Inherent Resolve,” America’s campaign against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria.

That undisclosed location is almost certainly Al Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates, where since at least 2002 the U.S. Air Force has stationed some of its most powerful aircraft for missions over Afghanistan and the Middle East. Commercial satellite imagery has confirmed the U-2’s presence at Al Dhafra. In 2005, a U-2 crashed at the sprawling Emirati base while landing after a spy flight over Afghanistan. Tragically, the pilot died.

Surveillance

Surveillance: 'It's a Rich Industry With Lots of Options for Dictators'

Activists from Privacy International have released a searchable database containing information about more than 500 surveillance companies. The database, called the Surveillance Industry Index, includes brochures and export data of all those companies. Radio Sputnik discussed the issue with Matthew Rice, Privacy International Advocacy Officer.

The idea behind this initiative is to give people a better understanding of the surveillance industry and its products.

“We want the public to be more engaged and more aware of this kind of product. The kind of staff that you’ll be able to gather includes malware, all kinds of monitoring equipment picking up mobile phones in the area and monitoring stations capable of monitoring whole nations,” he said.

Surveillance

Spies targeted 20 VIPs in ‘unjustified’ surveillance operations

British security services spied on high-profile figures in operations that were not justified, according to previously top secret information released on the second day of a court hearing on surveillance powers.

The revelations show that between 2009 and 2013, three spies conducted searches into VIPs that were “not operationally justifiable.”

The disclosed report found another 17 searches, carried out by five intelligence operatives, “may not have been operationally justifiable.”

Civil liberties campaign group Privacy International said it is a matter of “serious concern” that the unidentified high-profile persons were not notified of the surveillance.

Surveillance

US 'spy plane' makes emergency landing in Russia after 'problem with its landing gear'

A United States 'spy plane' has made an emergency landing in eastern Russia, it has emerged today.

The surveillance Boeing OC-135B aircraft was flying a mission over Siberia as allowed under the Treaty on Open Skies when it reported a problem with its landing gear.

The unarmed plane made an emergency landing at Khabarovsk airport, but a military source in Russia has questioned whether the technical glitch was genuine.

Under the treaty, signatories are allowed to overfly the skies of each other gathering information about military forces and activities of concern to them.
The American military aircraft had left after a stopover in Ulan-Ude, in the Republic of Buryatia, and was due to fly north to Yakutsk, capital of Siberia's diamond-rich Sakha Republic.
Instead, after take-off the crew noticed the problem and the Boeing went east and made a landing 1,660 miles away in Khabarovsk.

Surveillance

Council using covert listening devices to ‘spy on residents’

COUNCIL workers have used undercover tactics to spy on residents to find out if they are breaking the law.

Listening devices hidden in suitcases have been used as well as covert cameras to snoop on blue badge cheats, nuisance neighbours and illegal money lenders.

Surveillance techniques were deployed under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Scotland Act (RIPSA).

The controversial legislation was introduced in 2000 to make sure that the surveillance of people involved in serious crimes such as terrorism was properly regulated during investigations.

Surveillance

U.S. OKs Russian Overflights Despite Worries About Intrusive Surveillance

The United States has authorized a Russian surveillance jet to overfly U.S. territory as part of an international treaty, closing a dispute that had elicited vocal criticism from some lawmakers over the technology being used by the Russians.

The decision, made by an interagency government group, focused on the scope of the Open Skies Treaty, a 14-year-old agreement that aims to increase transparency and international security by allowing member nations to fly over each other's territory and monitor military installations or other objects.

The final decision to authorize the Russian flights was made after consultations in Moscow that wrapped up June 28, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the process.

Surveillance

To MI5 with love

SPOOKS, ministers and civil-rights picketers all agree on one thing: Britain’s barnacled surveillance laws need updating. Surprisingly, they have found other things to agree on, too. The publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill on November 4th was approached with trepidation: an earlier version, the so-called “snoopers’ charter” of 2012, produced screaming rows in government, and eventually foundered. This time there is consensus: rules for how much internet data spies, police and councils can collect from the public and what they can do with the information are to be set down more explicitly than ever before.

Surveillance

INTELLIGENCE FILE: Monitoring the boycotters

A senior Israeli military source revealed recently that a special unit inside the Research Division of Military Intelligence has been assigned to monitor the activities of the BDS movement.

The unit was created as a result of lessons learned from the Mavi Marmara incident.
In May 2010 a fleet of six boats organized by pro-Palestinian groups sailed from Turkish ports in a concerted effort to lift the siege of Gaza. While the activists with various nationalities aboard five boats surrendered to the demands of the Israel Navy and stopped their voyage, the Mavi Marmara crew and passengers refused to obey the order. 

Surveillance

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY PREPARING TO UNLEASH SURVEILLANCE ROBOTS ACROSS AMERICA

The bulletin went out Friday and warned that unmanned aircraft systems or drones could be used in the U.S. to advance terrorist and criminal activities. Law enforcement sources say, “emerging adversary use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems present detection and disruption challenges.”

According to federal officials, “The rising trend in UAS incidents within the National Airspace System will continue, as UAS gain wider appeal with recreational users and commercial applications.”

Surveillance

Even the Former Director of the NSA Hates the FBI’s Push for New Surveillance Powers

The head of the FBI has spent the last several months in something of a panic, warning anyone who will listen that terrorists are “going dark”—using encrypted communications to hide from the FBI—and insisting that the bureau needs some kind of electronic back door to get access to those chats.

Surveillance

Two MI5 surveillance operations in Northern Ireland blocked, ISC reveals

MI5 was twice refused warrants to carry out covert surveillance by Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland secretary, it has been revealed.

The watchdog that oversees the running of MI5, the intelligence services commissioner (ISC), said the cabinet minister denied a request for two surveillance operations.

Surveillance

Intelligence Agencies Need to Knock Off the Fearmongering

Parts of the U.S. Patriot Act expired on Sunday. You may not have noticed, but the terrorists did. At least that's what CIA Director John Brennan said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I think terrorist elements have watched very carefully what has happened here in the United States," Brennan warned.

Surveillance 

Bill to limit surveillance powers clears Senate hurdle

The Senate advanced a sweeping remake of U.S. surveillance powers Tuesday, two days after an internal split among Republicans caused the legal authority for key counterterrorism programs to temporarily expire.
By a vote of 83 to 14, the measure cleared a crucial procedural hurdle, as senators acted to close debate on the USA Freedom Act, a House-passed bill that would end the National Security Agency’s practice of collecting troves of call data from telephone companies. It would instead mandate a six-month transition to a system in which the data would remain in private hands but could be searched on a case-by-case basis under a court order.

Surveillance

How The Soviet Union Tracked People With "Spy Dust"

The US started hearing about a substance that could be used to track the movements of any person who touches, or walks across, a contaminated surface. in 1963. It wasn’t until 1984 that they got a sample of the stuff. A defecting agent revealed that powder containing both luminol and a substance called nitrophenyl pentadien (NPPD) had been applied to doorknobs, the floor mats of cars, and other surfaces that Americans living in Moscow had touched. They would then track or smear the substance over every surface they subsequently touched.