"US tech companies blasted for Web policies" by Alan Cowelland Mark Scott | New York Times November 05, 2014
LONDON — One of Britain’s highest-ranking intelligence officials Tuesday castigated US companies that dominate the Internet for providing the “command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals” and challenged the companies to find a better balance between privacy and security.
The statements were made by Robert Hannigan, the newly appointed director of GCHQ, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency.
They were among the most pointed in a campaign by intelligence services in Britain and the United States against pressure to rein in their digital surveillance following disclosures by the former US contractor Edward J. Snowden.
Don't worry. I'm almost done here so.... blogging ran its course just as protest did. Now get on with destroying yourselves, please, and be quick about it. I wanna move on.
Following those leaks, technology companies have grown increasingly reluctant to comply with government surveillance programs.
Yeah, whatever. If that's the narrative, fine.
That, along with the increased use of sophisticated encryption products and regulation around the world intended to bolster the privacy rights of individuals, has led to intelligence officials asserting that the reaction to the leaks by Snowden is harming national security by allowing terrorist groups to communicate freely for recruitment, fund-raising, and planning.
Pffft!
You have to remember, ALL -- and I MEAN ALL -- the "terrorist" entities and boogeymen are CREATIONS of WESTERN or ALLIED COUNTRY INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES!
It's all self-serving, self-generated, false-flagging fraud to advance the agenda. Just look who is trying to benefit.
Hannigan, in an opinion article Tuesday in the Financial Times, singled out the Islamic State as one “whose members have grown up on the Internet” and are “exploiting the power of the Web to create a jihadi threat with near-global reach.”
Related: The Terrorists Among Us
Yeah, they are down in D.C. and the surrounding suburbs.
In a speech two weeks ago, the director of the FBI, James B. Comey, said that the “post-Snowden pendulum” had “gone too far.” On Monday, Admiral Michael S. Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, took a less confrontational approach, telling an audience of students and faculty members at Stanford University that “a fundamentally strong Internet is in the best interest of the US.”
They just want control of everything, or at least the ability to collect it all.
Increasingly encrypted products and services are “a challenge,” Rogers said. “And we’ll deal with it.”
But he also pushed for better sharing of information between the intelligence community and private technology companies. Legislation that would set up a formal information-sharing system has stalled in Congress in the face of objections from the private sector.
How many do you need for crying out loud?
“It is unrealistic to expect the private sector to withstand the actions of nation states,” Rogers said. “I think it is also unrealistic to expect the government to deal with this all by itself. ”
All the money spent, all the data collected, all the monitoring, and for what?
Technology companies, which harvest customer data for commercial uses, reacted cautiously Tuesday, generally seeking to avoid any role that would make them agents of government intelligence gathering.
I'm so glad I'm being "harvested," aren't you?
“It’s such a slippery slope with these types of requests,” said Stefan Weitz, director of search at Microsoft. “If you say yes to one request, more will inevitably start to come in. At what point do you stop?”
I agree with that last point.
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Can I at least consult a lawyer?
"UK spies can target lawyer-client communications" by Jill Lawless | Associated Press November 07, 2014
Somehow all that seems to fit together.
LONDON — British spies are allowed to intercept communications between lawyers and their clients, which are generally protected by strict rules of confidentiality, according to previously secret documents published Thursday.
As part of an ongoing legal action, the MI5, MI6, and GCHQ intelligence services have disclosed their guidelines for snooping on lawyers. All three allow lawyers’ communications to be intercepted in some circumstances. Rules for GCHQ staff say ‘‘you may, in principle, target the communications of lawyers’’ but adds ‘‘you must give careful consideration to necessity and proportionality.’’
The information was disclosed in court papers after a request from lawyers for two Libyan men who accuse British spies of complicity in their detention and rendition to their homeland a decade ago.
Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi have brought a case to Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The men say British spies infringed their right to a fair trial by intercepting privileged communications.
The intelligence agencies say their guidelines prevent their lawyers from seeing material about cases in which they are involved.
Kangaroos can hop pretty far seeing as they show up in British courthouses.
But legal charity Reprieve, which represents the Libyans, said those procedures were only put in place recently and are too lax.
Saadi and his family accepted $3.5 million from the British government in 2012 to settle a claim that the UK approved his 2004 rendition to Libya, where he was imprisoned and tortured. The lawsuit by Belhaj is continuing.
I was wondering why the Libyans were so angry.
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What's next, needing a license from government to exercise free speech?
