FOI request for FBI use of data secretly collected from smart phones: denied!

December 13, 2011 — xanthippa

A while back, I  posted about CarrierIQ and its ‘rootkit of all evil’.

In it are links which demonstrate how CarrierIQ has embedded code into smart phones which runs in the background and is not easily accessible to the phone’s user (with no notification to the user that it is running, much less choices to ‘opt out’).  This code records everything the phone is used for and reports this information back to CarrierIQ – even if the user is not in any contract with the company, or has indeed ever heard of its existence.  This information contains:

  • GPS information
  • incoming and outgoing phone calls
  • details of internet access and use, including encrypted data (like passwords)
  • all keystroke information

In another post, I have written about INDECT:  the EU’s proposed regime of continuous surveillance of member states’ citizenry for the purpose of identifying ‘unusual behaviour’, which would then be brought to the attention of police for ‘follow up’.  ‘Unusual behaviour’ would include (but not be limited to):

  • lingering too long in public areas
  • abnormal transit system use
  • internet habits that include visiting potentially ‘antisocial websites’
  • associating with ‘antisocial elements’
  • abnormal shopping habits

(In that post, I also provide a link to an article about CarrierIQ’s attempt to silence the researcher who first published information about its surveillance practices.)

The potential for abuse is so strong, it is difficult to overstate it…it seems that, increasingly, legislation is being drafted and passed all around the world not to safeguard against it, but to take advantage of it.

Here is an analysis (by a lawyer) of SOPA, just one such proposed pieces of legislation (in the USA) and the ways in which it breaches the constitution.

But if you are still not convinced that police agencies are warrantlessly accessing vast amounts of private data collected about citizens without their permission or knowledge, here is another piece of information you should consider:

‘A recent FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ” was met with a telling denial. In it, the FBI stated it did have responsive documents – but they were exempt under a provision that covers materials that, if disclosed, might reasonably interfere with an ongoing investigation.’

Indeed.

Our constitutions were written with the specific purpose of protecting the civil rights of citizens from their governments.  Most of us have forgotten this:  and our governments are increasingly passing laws which circumvent (if not directly breech) our unalienable rights which all written constitutions (starting with the Magna Carta) are but imperfect expressions of.

We need to wake up and oppose this passive tolerance of the increasingly corrupt and oppressive surveillance society – before it is too late!

H/T:  Tyr

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

US government abandons due process as it censors a polular blog for over a year

December 8, 2011 — xanthippa

This is truly astonishing – and why SOPA and similar such nonsense must be opposed by all pro-free-speech people!!!

‘Imagine if the US government, with no notice or warning, raided a small but popular magazine’s offices over a Thanksgiving weekend, seized the company’s printing presses, and told the world that the magazine was a criminal enterprise with a giant banner on their building. Then imagine that it never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the magazine’s lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just handing everything back to the magazine and pretending nothing happened. I expect most people would be outraged. I expect that nearly all of you would say that’s a classic case of prior restraint, a massive First Amendment violation, and exactly the kind of thing that does not, or should not, happen in the United States.

But, in a story that’s been in the making for over a year, and which we’re exposing to the public for the first time now, this is exactly the scenario that has played out over the past year — with the only difference being that, rather than “a printing press” and a “magazine,” the story involved “a domain” and a “blog.”‘

Read the full story at TechDirt – and weep, because this is not the only such case.

Then get ready to fight against oppression of free speech under ALL its guises!

Posted in freedoms, opression, technology. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Video of the December 3rd 2011 Caledonia arrests

December 7, 2011 — xanthippa

Read the comentary at Voice Of Canada.

This video raises a number of things that I have been wondering about.

For example, the uniformed police officers do not display their badge numbers, making it impossible to identify them.  Is this legal?  If so, should it remain so?

Another question:  what recourse does a population have if a police force either refuses to enforce the laws of the land or enforces illegal orders?

In my never-humble-opinion, the only way an organizational corruption of this scale can be tackled is by holding the individuals within the organization personally responsible for their actions, including holding them personally responsible for following illegal orders to the maximum level the law permits.  Yes, this would mean legal action against individual police officers – if not criminal, then civil – even if these police officers are nice individuals.  Still, if they follow an illegal order, they must be accountable for this breech of law.

Of course, these are easy words to type and there is a world of difference between writing this and actually doing something about it.  Still, one ought to gather as much information first…

So, if you are knowledgable on this topic, please, comment and educate me on the laws, rules and procedures – and any other options legally available.  It would be much appreciated.

Because to my way of thinking, this is not a ‘native/non-native’ issue:  this is a policing issue and equality before the law issue!

 

UPDATE:  Here is a comment posted by Mark Vandermaas, which, in my neve-humble-opinion, is important enough to bump it into the ‘body’ of the post:

The scary part of Caledonia is that all the organizations, gov’t and NGO, that should have been pro-active in protecting the rights of the innocent were unwilling or unable to help: Human Rights Commission; Ombudsman (wanted to help, but not allowed to get involved in police issues); the Opposition (oh, how we tried); the Federal govt (not only wouldn’t they help Harper annointed Fantino as PC candidate!); the OCCPS (old agency for Police Services Act complaints); Haldimand’s Police Services Board; Haldimand Council (other than former Mayor Trainer); Cdn Civil Liberties Association (repeatedly begged them for help to no avail).

It would be hard to list here everything we tried, but some of the key things that worked well were:

1. Dr. King’s methods of peacefully confronting injustice and forcing them to violate your rights (techniques that he learned from Gandhi to influence the media and the conscience of the nation. When one protests with dignity and is willing to be verbally abused and assaulted without retaliating there is very little defence to this approach. Using it we actually caused the union radicals, anarchists, anti-Israel groups and native militants to curb their violence and aggression because – as one of them said at an anarchist’s conference, we were making THEM look like the racists by applying Dr. King’s methods. Just as King did not demonize whites, we did not demonize native people as a group (the thugs would disagree, of course). We tried our best to ensure people knew that the thugs didn’t speak for the good people of 6N.

2. Civil Lawsuits to a degree. I say that because while there were some important court victories such as the $20M Caledonia Class Action, the Brown-Chatwell settlements and some victories achieved by us via the small claim and superior courts, the fact is that racial policing is still practiced and the gov’t, 6N and the OPP have never apologized or ammended their policies.

3. Private Prosecutions under the CCofC. You know, of course, that Gary M, despite not being a lawyer, convinced the courts to charge 5 individual police officers for offences such as Mischief, Influencing Municipal Official and Obstructing Justice, and even won a case at the Court of Appeal. This has reigned in their abuses quite effectively, but apparently, they still have more to learn.

We’ve tried just about everything during the last 5 years. in the end, it’s not one magic bullet. It’s ordinary people taking advantage of every opportunity when presented and, as Gary says, ‘withstanding the test of time’ (while you’re being vilified, assaulted, and arrested). And…don’t wait for anyone to come to help. But, that’s the wonderful thing! A small group of committed people with no money, no power and no connections really can make a huge difference.

Having said all this, there were some good people who did help and paid a price for doing so. At risk of leaving someone out and inadvertently insulting them, I won’t try to list them. But one guy who doesn’t get enough credit is lawyer John Findlay of the Class Action, a lawyer who represents us in several cases including one where he helped mediate a solution whereby the OPP union finally admitted in writing they had no evidence we were inciting hate and violence. Couldn’t have done it without him.

Sorry to go on so long. Thks for listening.

Readers who want to know more should visit the Caledonia: No More Nightmares page at http://www.HelplessByBlatchford.ca which has videos and notes from our 2011 presentation of the same name in Ottawa – where you and I met. Thanks for being there, and thks for the coverage.

Mark Vandermaas
Editor, VoiceofCanada
Founder, Caledonia Victimis Project

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Have you heard about INDECT?

December 5, 2011 — xanthippa

If you haven’t heard about INDECT ( Intelligent Information System Supporting Observation, Searching and Detection for Security of Citizens in Urban Environment), you are not alone – especially if you are on this side of the pond.

Or you might have heard of it and dismissed it as some sort of a paranoid conspiracy theory…which is exactly what some, including Wikipedia, imply it to be.

On the other hand, WikiLeaks takes it deadly seriously.  As does European Digital Rights (EDRI).

If you happen to be unaware that items like phones send constant streams of information about you – including installing a hidden keylogger – back to corporations you may have no commercial relationship with, here is an article with a video that shows, step-by-step, how this is being done. (Yes, when this information was first published, CarrierIQ tried to shut the source up with threats of lawsuits.)

And just to help you relax when you bring home a new video-game console…consider their enhanced sensory abilities (lip-reading, facial expression analysis to measure emotional states, enhanced speech recognition) in conjunction with the ‘back doors’ being built in to so many of our digital devices.

But, I digress…

The EU is planning to gather information about its citizens from ‘open sources’ (social media, chat-rooms, blogs) as well as public surveillance systems (like CCTV cameras to the GPS devices that they wish to legislate to be mandatory in every vehicle in order to ‘monitor traffic patterns’), their surfing habits, their shopping habits (remember all those ‘loyalty cards’?), to all other policing methods.  Then they plan to run this mass of data through some algorithms which will analyze the language used by specific citizens with their public behaviours (say, like sitting in a public place for longer than ‘normal’) and online preferences, cross-reference it all and come up with ‘automated dossiers’ which will alert police officers to go check out specific citizens deemed to have ‘abnormal behaviour’.

All this is to be done by an arms-lenght (translation:  completely unaccountable) agency which is as transparent as tar, overseen by a police-agency dominated board.  As this agency is an EU creature, all the member states would be compelled to give it full access to citizen information, from financial to DNA databases.

Of course, we know this is the direction our society is moving in – but I suspect most of us have not been aware of the degree to which this has already been happening and just how lacking we are in any privacy rights.

Perhaps we ought to pay more attention…

H/T:  HackerNews

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Daniel Hannan: Political Arrest in Croatia?

December 3, 2011 — xanthippa
Posted in corruption, opression, politics. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Pat Condell: The Gathering Storm

December 3, 2011 — xanthippa
Posted in atheism, freedoms, opression, politics. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

xda-developers: The Rootkit of All Evil – CIQ

November 18, 2011 — xanthippa

Do you have a smart phone?

Then you might want to read this article at xda-developers about CIQ (CarrierIQ), which proclaims on their own website:

“…we give Wireless Carriers and Handset Manufacturers unprecedented insight into their customers’ mobile experience.”

 

‘Unprecedented’ is right!

It is understandable that any business would like to have a deep insight into their customers’ needs and desires in order to serve them better: satisfying customers is good for business.

However, customers also have a right to – and most have at least some expectation of – privacy.

The problem arises when customers are not even aware of the volume and detail of information about them that their mobile devices routinely report to their carriers: this lopsided information level makes any meaningful discussion about privacy vs data-mining virtually meaningless.

From the article:

“This [CIQ software] is given root like rights over the device, which means that it can do everything it pleases and you will have nothing to say about it.”

“…Because of all the metrics that could be obtained via the different triggers, that same network admin will not just know that you got a dropped call at 5 pm in California, but he/she will also know where in California you were located, what you were doing with your phone at that given time, how many times you accessed your apps until that time, and even what you have typed in your device (no, this last one is not an exaggeration, this thing can act as a key logger as well). Scared already? If not, here is a snippet of some…”

“…what kind of permissible purpose is out there that can allow a company to legally place a key logger on something and use it when you are not even getting service out of them?”

 

And, of course, we know no person or corporation would ever abuse any information they get access to!

Read the full article and weep.

H/T:  CodeSlinger

 

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Informed Canadians Oppose Online Spying

October 28, 2011 — xanthippa

Do you think it is a good idea for police to be allowed to listen to phone calls without getting a warrant first?

That is exactly what the Harper Conservatives are proposing to imbed into our Criminal Code.

We should all oppose this – especially as more of use use VOIP and as our cars and smart meters are constantly recording bucketloads of information about us.

Arm yourself – get informed!!!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

The Fourniers will set another Canadian legal precedent

October 12, 2011 — xanthippa

It is the nature of laws – at least, in free societies – to be passed in response to new developments in society.  That is why, in the common law tradition, legal precedents affect not only how old laws are applied but also how new laws evolve.

This creates a feedback mechanism:  the laws affect how the rules of society evolve, the rules of society affect how the laws evolve.

Currently, the courts are trying to interpret the existing laws to accommodate the changes due to our ‘communications revolution’.  Since more and more of our public and private communication as well as our public and private information is online, the impact these ruling will have over the coming decades is truly profound.

This makes Connie and Mark Fournier’s ongoing legal battles very important to all of us:  if you are reading this on a computer, then the rulings in their legal battles will affect the rules under which you live your life.  And not just in Canada – the world is fast becoming one electronic family and slowly but surely, internet-affecting legal precedents set in one Western country reverberate in the whole world.

That is why I have started to document the Fourniers’ legal journey – even though I have no legal training and my understanding of what is being said in court is imperfect.  But, if I document it to the best of my ability, perhaps others who are more knowledgable will be able to comment  on what I have witnessed and explain it better to all of us!

Last week, the Fourniers were in Federal court in Ottawa – charged with copyright infringement by Richard Warman.

To my mind, some of the things the Fourniers are charged with are difficult to understand – but one of them is very clear and will very likely set the legal precedent for Canada on a very hot topic: ‘inline linking’.  The legal precedent on copyright issues regarding the insertion of an inline web link has been ruled by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, clarifying that inserting them does not violate US copyright laws.  For search engines, anyway…

There has not been a comparable ruling in Canada – yet.

Richard Warman has brought a lawsuit against the Fourniers for violating his copyright in 3 separate ways.

One – and, perhaps most important regarding the abovementioned legal precedent – is for having permitted the insertion of an ‘inline-link’ on the Free Dominion forum they operate which linked to a picture of Richard Warman, on his own website.

In other words, the picture was always posted only on Richard Warman’s own personal website and he had full control over it.  An inline-link was posted on Free Dominion which would show the reader Richard Warman’s picture from Richard Warman’s site.  The picture was, at all times, on Mr. Warman’s server and under his complete control – he could have, at any time, blocked inline-linking to the picture…yet he chose to permit inline-links to the picture to function.

Inserting the inline-link on Free Dominion, according to Mr. Warman’s claim, constitutes displaying his image without permission and thus infringes on his copyright.

Therefore, the ruling on this will have important implications for internet use in Canada, perhaps further.  Should the ruling go against the Fourniers, then any time anyone inserts a hot-link when they comment on something on a blog or site you control, you could be liable for copyright infringement.

The other two counts of copyright infringment Mr. Warman is suing the Fourniers for are regarding words, not images, and words which were posted on the Free Dominion site and not words that were simply linked to.

Jonathan Kay had written an article for National Post in which documented how, at various court hearings, it was revealed that Mr. Warman appears to have made some highly inflammatory racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant comments (specifically targeting Senator Anne Cools) on a white supremacist website/forum.  (I myself have heard the same assertions during the ‘Vigna v Levant’ defamation hearing, where Mr. Levant had clarified that to the best of his knowledge, it was not Mr. Vigna but rather Mr. Warman who was the card-carrying member of a neo-nazi organization and the author of this most vile hate speech directed against our first black female Senator.)

This newspaper article was re-printed (with credit – but it was not stated during the hearing if fully or partially) on the Free Dominion forum.

Mr. Warman sued the National Post for publishing that article and the National Post and he reached an out-of-court settlement with them.  As part of this settlement, Mr. Warman got the copyright of the article.

Once he owned the rights to the article, Mr. Warman’s lawyers contacted the Fourniers and demanded that they remove the article from their website.  This they complied with immediately, as was confirmed by Mr. Warman’s lawyers.

Despite this, at some subsequent time, the Fourniers were contacted by Mr. Warman’s lawyers and were requested to pay some sum of money to Mr. Warman to avoid a lawsuit for having posted the article in the first place.  The Fourniers believed that they had complied with the request to remove the offensive material in a timely manner and therefore did not think they were obligated to pay any money as well.  Subsequently, Richard Warman filed a copyright violation lawsuit against them on these grounds.

The last, third count of copyright violation has me puzzled more than the previous two.

The Fourniers had posted on Free Dominion sections of court documents – public documents, to the best of my knowledge – which had contained the phrases on the basis of which Mr. Warman was taking legal action against someone (the phrases he had found offensive) which had also been published in the article from point two.  Even though the Fourniers had clearly published these phrases as part of a public document, as they were also part of the article which Mr. Warman’s lawyers asked them to take down, Mr. Warman had charged them with copyright infringement for having posted them.

This, in a nutshell, is the background to this particular lawsuit Mr. Warman is pursuing against the Fourniers.

The Fourniers had filed their defense statement with the court – representing themselves.  Mr. Warman’s lawyers had informed the Fourniers that some of the things which they listed in their documents were inadmissible in court and asked the Fourniers to remove them.  The Fourniers refused to do so, because they believe this information to be relevant to their defense and would like the judge in the case to be the one to decide what is admissible and what is not.

Mr. Warman’s lawyers then filed a motion to have parts of the Fourniers defence statements struck from the record (not all the bits they had originally wanted removed, but still a significant amount)- something the Fourniers believe will affect their defense not only in this copyright violation lawsuit but also in three additional lawsuits (for defamation, I believe) that Mr. Warman is pursuing against them.

Last week, there was a hearing in federal court for this motion – a most interesting event in its own right (which I had gone to see for myself and will write up very, very soon, I promise!).

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Thunderf00t: My real name is…

October 9, 2011 — xanthippa

This is disgusting!

Yes, there are some people who abuse anonymity on the internet.

Then there are others who eschew it – they believe that attaching their real-life name to an online communication will add weight and respect to it.  This is, to some degree, true:  if their real-life name has some earned public credibility, attaching it to their online persona will add credibility to the online persona.

BUT!!!

Name is just a label.

If a person has built up his or her credibility using an online persona – truly built up credibility – by time and time again providing solid, verifiable, quality information, then their real-life name is really quite irrelevant.

To the contrary:  it is a very useful shield!

Journalists who publish in traditional media have an organization that stands behind them and offers them at least a modicum of protection should they become threatened by those who wish to silence them.

Online communicators do not have this luxury!!!

But ‘online’ is not the beginning of ‘anonymous protest speech’!

No, nowhere near…  Even the most basic bit of research into the history of anonymous protest speech demonstrates brings us to Colonial North America.  Printing presses were used to print anonymous pamphlets which were distributed and which informed the public of facts that the government did not want known and which fostered the atmosphere necessary for the fight for independence.

In fact, most of the works by America’s Founding Fathers were originally published as anonymous pamphlets!

So, let’s not go down the role of silly posturing:  anonymity is essential for free speech!

(Sorry if I am not particularly coherent in this post – I am so angry as I write this, I can hardly keep myself calm enough to type!)

To hear that Thunderf00t’s real-life name has been ‘outed’ by an Islamist group (which claims to be made up of ‘moderate Muslims’), that his job has been threatened, that his address has been published – and now, that his family members are being threatened with physical violence…THAT IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!

I guess all we can do is spread the word…

…and hope for the best.  Because I am at a loss for what else to do to help him.

 

P.S.:  It took me a second viewing to pick up pn it, but it does seem that the online Islamists just may have attracted the attention of ‘Anonymous’.  THAT would be interesting, to say the least!

Posted in atheism, freedoms, opression, politics, religion, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »