FRINGE INTELLIGENCE - year 15 - no.290 – August 2015 - page 1

FRINGE INTELLIGENCE * A monthly journal on the climax of non-transparency: intelligence services *

* Editor: Roger Vleugels - roger.vleugels@planet.nl *

* Donations are very welcome, see colophon *

* Year 15- No. 290 – August 2015 *

General content

02► FBI Understaffed to ... 02► UK: Undercover Police Unit Shut Down 03► Free Movement of [LEA] Data 04► Drones and the ISR Revolution 09► The Release of Israeli Spy Pollard 11► CSE Warns of a Canadian Snowden 12► Chinese SIGINT 12► Temperer: 5,000 Troops on UK Streets 14► MI5 Twice Blocked in Northern Ireland 14► Open Source Indicators and ... 17► The Turkish Enigma 20► UK Undercover Police Failings 21► Girlfriend of Undercover Spy Sues ... 23► EU and "Discreet Surveillance" 24► UK: Privacy and Surveillance 26► MH-17: A New Tonkin Gulf Case? 29► SeaWorld Infiltrated PETA 30► Belgium: OCAD in conflict 31► NSA Targeted Not Targeted Foreigners 35► CJR on 'Terror Warnings' 36► US Tapping Turkey’s Intelligence 37► Kanzleramt ... im NSA-Visier 38► Erdogans Schattenkrieger 40► Psychologists Shielded US Torture ... 42► Nemesis: Greek Street Battles 43► NSA Spied on French Presidents 44► Spiegel Targeted by US Intelligence 49► Selektorenliste der NSA 50► Massive NSA Spying on Top Germany 50► Social Media to Report Terrorist Activity 51► NSA Targeted All of Merkel’s Top Aides 51► Leaked Files on Hacking Team 53► Merkel Must End Devil's Pact with US 54► België: ADIV ... datakabels bespioneren 55► The FBI Spent $775K on Hacking Team 56► Brazil Officials’ Phones Tapped by NSA 57► Freelance Diplomacy and the Iran Deal 58► An American Tip to German Spies 60► CSIS Relied on No-torture 'Assurances' 61► Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ... 62► Targetting Jihadi's on Social Media

Content on NARINT: Natural Resources Intel

No articles in this issue Content on Intelligence 2.0

63► Obama's War against Apple & Google 64► The Dark Web 64► Disinformation on Social Media Content on The Netherlands

65► NL stuurt Russische spion naar huis 66► Neutraliseren van ongewenste drones 67► Srebrenica: Hoe Voorhoeve ... afleidt 68► Plans for Dragnet Surveillance 69► CieIVD: Jaarverslag 2014 72► AIVD en MIVD mogen ... meer aftappen 73► AIVD Must Stop Bugging Lawyers 73► AIVD: stoppen met afluisteren advocaten Content ’in the Fringe’

74► Interview with Julian Assange 79► Fringe Colophon

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FBI UNDERSTAFFED TO TACKLE CYBER THREATS, SAYS WATCHDOG ► www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-usa-fbi-cyberattack-idUSKCN0Q428220150730?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

► Reuters / by Lindsay Dunsmuir ► Source: Infowarrior / https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior Jul 31 2015 ► Jul 30. The FBI is struggling to attract computer scientists to its cybersecurity program mainly due to low pay, a report by the U.S. Department of Justice showed, highlighting weaknesses in a flagship initiative to tackle growing cyber threats. As of January 2015, The Federal Bureau of Investigation had only hired 52 of the 134 computer scientists it was authorized to employ under the Justice Department's Next Generation Cyber Initiative launched in 2012, the report showed. Although cyber task forces have been set up at all 56 FBI field offices, five of them did not have a computer scientist assigned to them, the report by the Office of the Inspector General found. Cyber security threats are among the Justice Department's top priorities and there has been a slew of damaging cyberattacks against private companies and U.S. government agencies in the last couple of years. The FBI budgeted $314 million on the program for the 2014 fiscal year, including 1,333 full-time employees, the report by the internal watchdog said. Lower salaries compared to the private sector made it difficult for the FBI to hire and retain cyber experts, the Office of the Inspector General said in the report. It also said extensive background check procedures and drug tests excluded many otherwise qualified candidates. For example, the FBI is unable to hire anyone who is found to have used marijuana in the previous three years or any other illegal drug in the past ten years, it said. The report follows the disclosure by the U.S. government's personnel management agency that up to 22.1 million people were affected by a breach of its computer networks that was discovered in April, or almost 7 percent of the U.S. population. The United States has privately accused China for the cyber attack, but Beijing has denied responsibility. A previous hack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November 2014 was pinned on North Korea by FBI investigators. The FBI said in a letter to the Office of the Inspector General responding to the report that "the cyber workforce challenge runs throughout the federal government" and that it would continue to develop "aggressive and innovative recruitment and retention strategies".

UK: UNDERCOVER POLICE UNIT SHUT DOWN Scotland Yard shut down undercover police unit because it broke rules A secret review found that the Special Demonstration Squad ignored ethical issues and gathered information that had no crime-fighting value ► www.theguardian.com/uk-news/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2015/jul/26/scotland-yard-shut-down-undercover-police-unit-because-it-broke-rules ► The Guardian / by Rob Evans ► Source: Statewatch / London / www.statewatch.org Jul 30 2015 ► Jul 26. A secret Scotland Yard review of an undercover unit at the heart of the controversy over long-term infiltration of political groups concluded that the squad had been shut down because it broke official rules, newly disclosed documents reveal. The review found that the unit – known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) – operated without tight controls, ignored ethical issues and gathered information that had no use in fighting crime. The 68-page review was completed in 2009 but concealed by Scotland Yard until a freedom of information battle forced the Metropolitan police to disclose a censored version to the Guardian. It was produced a year after the SDS was closed down by the Met as an exercise to see what lessons could be learned from its operation. It paints an unflattering picture of the SDS, finding that “a number of ethical/moral dilemmas arose from the activity of SDS operatives and the management of them”. It finds that “in the vast majority of cases” the SDS dealt with the problems “internally and on occasions informally”. The review adds: “In some instances apparent ‘ethical/moral dilemmas were simply not addressed as they formed part of the ‘accepted consequences’ of such operational deployments.” The review concluded that the closure of the SDS “resulted from an inability to transform its processes

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and systems to comply with the present” guidelines that had been drawn up by senior police officers. The disclosure of the previously secret review comes as a leading judge, Lord Justice Pitchford, is due on Tuesday to open the first public inquiry into undercover policing in Britain. Pitchford’s inquiry was launched by the home secretary, Theresa May, after a series of revelations about the conduct of undercover officers, who formed long-term relationships with female campaigners and had children with them, spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, and hid evidence in court cases. The SDS was run by the Met and collected what the review called “high-grade intelligence” on protesters during “deep infiltration operations”. Established in 1968, the unit planted more than 100 undercover officers in more than 460 political groups, until it was wound up in 2008. The undercover officers adopted intricate fake personas and pretended to be campaigners for spells of usually five years. The SDS spies were deployed to gather information about protests organised by campaigns including those of grieving families seeking the truth about police misconduct, environmentalists and anti-racist groups. The operations of the SDS were kept secret from the public and were known to only a small number of police officers, government ministers and Whitehall officials. However, behind the scenes senior police officers chronicled the failings of the SDS, whose use of undercover infiltration is one of the most intrusive surveillance techniques in the police’s repertoire. The 2009 review concluded that SDS “directed its own operations with significant tactical latitude with minimal organisational constraints”. The squad collected information on “inappropriate” and “peripheral” targets that appeared to have no “value to the policing of London”, it added. In the late 1990s – around the time the unit was gathering information about Stephen Lawrence’s family – the SDS was presenting descriptions of its operations on one side of A4 paper to be rubber-stamped by its superiors. “Clearly the SDS preferred the less bureaucratic approach and directed their operational activity without intrusive supervision management at that time,” the review says. In the 1970s and 80s, the SDS’s superiors only scrutinised its operations after they had happened and then only in an annual report “justifying the continued expenditure provided by them for the operation”. The review reported that the secrecy surrounding the unit was so intense that there was “little evidence of regular or systematic” scrutiny of its operation by outsiders. Towards the end of its 40-year existence, the unit had become isolated from the rest of the police. A source involved in the discussions to close it down has previously said the unit had spun so far out of control it had lost its moral compass and become a “force within a force”. In a prescient prediction, the officer writing the review warned that a number of aspects of SDS operations posed a significant threat to the Met’s reputation if they were exposed to the public. Without elaborating, the officer said these included “targeting, activity falling outside of the law, arrests and ‘relationships’ with criminal proceedings, finance”. Police chiefs have been compelled to disclose more details of the undercover infiltration of political groups after revelations about the SDS’s activities started to appear after 2010. On Tuesday, Pitchford is expected to outline the future course of the inquiry, which is likely to start hearing evidence at a later date. The Met said the public inquiry “represents a real opportunity to provide as complete a picture as possible of how the SDS came to be”. It added that the police’s internal investigation into the SDS showed that “there has been some behaviour and practice by this unit that today causes us concern, but even when it is uncomfortable for us we are determined to face up to the facts and learn from the past”.

FREE MOVEMENT OF [LEA] DATA ► Source: Statewatch / London / www.statewatch.org Jul 30 2015 ► Jul 30. Council of the European Union developing its negotiating position on the: Pro-posed Directive on the exchange of personal data between law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the EU: - Proposal for a Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and the free movement of such data (LIMITE doc no: 10335-15) 149 pages with 629 Member State position/amendments: "All changes made to the original Commission proposal are underlined text, or, where text has been deleted, indicated by (…).

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Where existing text has been moved, this text is indicated in italics. The most recent changes are marked in bold underlining." - Chapters I, II and V (LIMITE doc no: 10133-15, 63 pages) Chapter 1: General, Chapter II: Principles and Chapter V: Transferring of personal data to third countries or international organisations. With 219 very detailed Member State positions/amendments including: "DE, supported by FI, wanted it to be possible to transfer data to private bodies/entities, for cybercrime this was important. NL, SE and SI agreed with DE on the need for a solution on transfer to private parties in third countries...." - Discussion on questions suggested by the Presidency (LIMITE doc no: 10208-15) See Statewatch Observatory: Observatory on data protection and law enforcement agencies - the pro-tection of personal data in police and judicial matters (2005-2008) and new proposals 2011 ongoing with full-text documentation on all the secret discussions in the Council - Last updated 19 July 2015

DRONES AND THE ISR REVOLUTION Drone Warfare Reaping the rewards: How private sector is cashing in on Pentagon’s ‘insatiable demand’ for drone war intelligence ► https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/07/30/reaping-the-rewards-how-private-sector-is-cashing-in-on-pentagons-insatiable-demand-for-drone-war-intelligence/ ► The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / by Abigail Fielding-Smith and Crofton Black Jul 30 2015 ► Jul 30. Some months ago, an imagery analyst was sitting in his curtained cubicle at Hurlburt Field airbase in Florida watching footage transmitted from a drone above one of the battle-fields in the War on Terror. If he thought the images showed someone doing anything suspicious, or holding a weapon, he had to type it in to a chat channel seen by the pilots controlling the drone’s missiles. Once an observation has been fed in to the chat, he later explained, it’s hard to revise it – it influences the whole mindset of the people with their hands on the triggers. “As a screener anything you say is going to be interpreted in the most hostile way,” he said, speaking with the careful deliberation of someone used to their words carrying consequences. He and the other imagery analysts in the airbase were working gruelling 12-hour shifts: even to take a bathroom break they had to persuade a colleague to step in and watch the computer screen for them. They couldn’t let their concentration or judgement lapse for a second. If a spade was misidentified as a weapon, an innocent man could get killed. “The position I took is that every call I make is a gamble, and I’m betting their life,” he said. “That is a motivation to play as safely as I can, because I don’t want someone who wasn’t a bad guy to get killed.” In spite of his vital role in military operations, the analyst wasn’t wearing a uniform. In fact, he wasn’t working for the Department of Defense, or indeed any branch of the US government. He was working for one of a cluster of companies that have made money supplying imagery analysts to the US military’s war on terror. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s award-winning drones team has spent six months exploring this intersection of corporate interests and global surveillance systems. Drawing on interviews with a dozen military insiders (including former generals, drone operators and imagery analysts), contracts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, scores of contractor CVs publicly available on everyday job sites such as LinkedIn, and the analysis of millions of federal procurement records, the Bureau has identified ten private sector companies operating at the heart of the US’s surveillance and targeting networks. HOW WE GOT THE DATA – CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR RESEARCH METHODS The private sector’s involvement could grow: an Air Force official confirmed they are considering bringing in more contractors as it struggles to process the nearly half million hours of video footage filmed each year by drones and other aircraft. Analysing this video can be a highly sensitive role. As one contractor analyst told the Bureau, “when you mess up, people die”. While the military’s use of boots-on-the-ground contractors has prompted numerous congressional responses and tightened procurement protocol, among the general public few are even aware of the private sector’s role behind the scenes processing military surveillance video. “I think they’ve fallen under the radar to some degree,” said Laura Dickinson (pictured), a specialist in military contracting at George Washington University Law School and author of ‘Outsourcing War and Peace’. “It’s not that these contractors are necessarily doing a bad job, it’s that our legal system of

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oversight isn’t necessarily well equipped to deal with this fragmented workforce where you have contractors working alongside uniformed troops.” In theory, these contractors aren’t decision-makers. Military officials and project managers are there to ensure they perform effectively, and according to the terms of their contracts. But past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that management of military contractors does not always work perfectly in practice, especially when demand for the services they provide is surging. As one commander told the Bureau, demand for Air Force intelligence against threats such as Islamic State is currently “insatiable”. The ISR revolution Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or ISR as it is known in military jargon, has become central to American warfare in recent years. US counterterrorism operations such as the May 16 special forces raid on Islamic State commander Abu Sayyaf are critically dependent on the video captured by drones and other aircraft. Analysts sitting thousands of miles away can tell a team on the ground the exact height of ladder they need to scale a building, or alert them to approaching militants. They can also establish a ‘pattern of life’, and what constitutes unusual movement in a particular place. The aircraft are flown by pilots and operators from bases in the US, whilst the imagery analysts poring through the video they transmit are mostly housed in clusters of analysis centres – part of a warfighting structure spreading from Virginia to Germany known as the ‘Distributed Common Ground System’. Remotely Piloted Aircraft, as the US military prefers to call drones, are more often associated with firing missiles at the tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen than with gathering intelligence. But it is their intelligence capabilities – particularly the ability to collect and transmit video footage in close to real time – that have revolutionised warfare. “In Kosovo the intelligence we would get was typically a photo, normally black and white, often from a plane that took it the day before,” Lt Colonel David Haworth, director of combat operations at the US’s Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar told the Bureau. “It’s like being able to talk on a can and a string before, and now I have a smartphone.” The number of daily drone combat air patrols (CAPs) – that is, the ability to observe a particular spot for 24 hours – went up from five in 2004 to 65 in 2014 as demand for the intelligence they offered soared in Iraq and Afghanistan. Colonel Jim Cluff, the commander of the drone squadrons at Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base, said the recent campaign against Islamic State has fuelled a new surge in demand. “We’re seeing just an insatiable demand signal,” he said. “You cannot get enough ISR capability to meet all the warfighters’ needs.” Meeting this demand is not simply a question of having enough aircraft. By 2010, according to a presentation by David Deptula (pictured above), a now retired three star general who was asked to oversee the Air Force’s rapidly evolving ISR expansion in 2006, the average Predator or Reaper CAP required 10 pilots and 30 video analysts. “We’re drowning in data,” he told the Bureau. ‘Growth industry’ The military has always used the private sector to help operate its drone programmes; according to defence writer Richard Whittle, General Atomics, the manufacturer of the Predator, even supplied some of the pilots for the aircraft’s first sorties. The defence industry’s supply of equipment to drone operations is well known, but the private sector’s role in providing a workforce has been harder to pin down. Through extensive research, the Bureau has traced the contracting histories of eight companies which have provided the Pentagon with imagery analysts in the past five years (the CIA’s transactions remain classified). Two more companies have been linked to the imagery analysis effort. In 2007, defence industry behemoth SAIC – later rebranded Leidos – was contracted to provide services including imagery analysis to the Air Force Special Operations Command (Afsoc). A contracting document described SAIC’s involvement as “intelligence support to direct combat operations”. Its 202 contractors embedded in Afsoc were providing “direct support to targeting” among other functions (in military-speak, targeting can refer to surveillance of people and objects as well as lethal strikes). In a bidding war to renew the deal in 2011, SAIC lost out to a smaller defence firm, MacAulay-Brown. According to a copy of the contract obtained by the Bureau under a Freedom of Information Act request, MacAulay-Brown was tasked to “support targeting, information operations, deliberate and crisis action planning, and 24/7/365 operations.” The company asked for $60 million to perform these functions over three years.

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Afsoc required MacAulay-Brown to provide a total of 187 analysts, some of whom were sourced through partnership with another company, Advanced Concepts Enterprises. A portion of this work was to be carried out outside the US, according to the contract. The Bureau found two CVs posted online by people who had worked for MacAulay-Brown in Afghanistan. Both were embedded with special operations forces supporting targeting. In January this year the latest award for Afsoc intelligence support went to another company, Zel Technologies. According to a document describing the scope of the contract, Zel was set to provide fewer overall analysts than MacAulay-Brown, but more imagery experts. Zel was also required to offer subject matter experts “in the areas of the Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Syria, Iran, North Africa, Trans Sahel region, Levant region, Gulf States and territorial waters”. Afsoc has paid out $12 million for the first year, with options on the contract due to last until January 2018. Although Zel Technologies is now the prime contractor, MacAulay-Brown is providing some of the intelligence specialists the contract demands. Indeed, it is not unusual for analysts to simply move from company to company as contracts for the same set of services change hands. They market themselves on recruitment sites with a surreal blend of corporate and military jargon. One boasts of having supported the “kill / capture” of “High Value Targets”. Others go in to detail about their expertise in things like establishing a pattern of life and following vehicles. The Air Force is not the only agency that employs contractor imagery analysts. Intrepid Solutions, a small business based in Reston, Virginia, received an intelligence support contract with the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command in 2012, scheduled to run until 2017. In 2012 TransVoyant LLC, a leading player in real-time intelligence and analysis of big data based in Alexandria, Virginia, was awarded a contract with a maximum value set at $49 million to provide full motion video analysts for a US Marine Corps “exploitation cell” deployed in Afghanistan. Transvoyant had taken over this role from the huge Virginia-based defence company General Dynamics. In 2010, the Army gave a million-dollar contract to a translation company, Worldwide Language Resources, to provide US forces in Afghanistan with “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection management and imagery analysis support”. In the same year, the Special Operations Command awarded an imagery analyst services contract to the firm L-3 Communications, which was to net the company $155 million over five years. Defence industry giants BAE Systems and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton are also involved in the US’s ISR effort. BAE Systems describes itself as “the leading provider of full-motion video analytic services to the intelligence community with more than 370 personnel working 24 hours a day”. The Bureau has traced some of the activities it carried out through social media profiles of company employees. People identifying themselves as video and imagery analysts for BAE state that they have used real-time and geo-spatial data to support tracking and targeting. A job advert posted on June 10 by BAE gave further insight into the services provided. The posting sought a “Full Motion Video (FMV) Analyst providing direct intelligence support to Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)” to be “part of a high ops tempo team, embedded in a multi-intelligence fusion watch floor environment”. Booz Allen Hamilton has also aided the intelligence exploitation effort for special operations command at Hurlburt Field. Its role included “ongoing and expanding full motion video PED operational intelligence mission”, according to transaction records. A recent job ad shows the company is looking for video analysts to join its team “providing direct intelligence support to the Global War on Terror”. The hundreds of millions of dollars paid to these companies for imagery analysis represent just a fraction of the private sector’s stake in America’s global surveillance effort. The Bureau has found billions of dollars of contracts for a range of ISR services. These include the provision of smaller drones, the supply and maintenance of data collection systems, and the communications infrastructure to fly the drones and connect their sensors with analysts across the other side of the world. These contracts have gone to companies including General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Textron and ITT Corporation. General Deptula believes military demand for ISR will continue to grow. As he puts it, “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance is a growth industry.” Private eyes In the Air Force at least, contractor imagery analysts are still in the minority of the work force. Around one in 10 of the people working in the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of intelligence is estimated to be either a government civilian or a contractor. The Hurlburt Field analyst, who is here referred to as John (like other analysts interviewed, he didn’t want his real name to be published because of the sensitivity of the subject matter) estimates that they represent around an eighth of the analysts working there in support of Special Operations.

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John argues that taking on even a small number of contractors helps ease the strain on the uniformed force without incurring the expense of pensioned, trained, health-insured employees. “Contractors are used to fill the gap to give enough manpower to provide flexibility necessary for military to do things like take leave,” he said. Contractor imagery analysts are invariably ex-military, but the framework of their employment and their incentives are differently aligned once they join the private sector. “In the military no-one’s obligated to respect your time,” explained John. “There were months you’d never get off days – If they need you to clean the bathroom on your off day that’s what you’ve got to do.” “As a contractor you’re not as invested in the unit…your motivations are going to be more selfish.” John and other analysts stressed however that contractors were highly professional, and able to provide a concentration of expertise. “By the time an airman has built up enough experience to be competent at the job it’s usually time to change their duty location. Age also has a lot to do with the professionalism of contractors. Most contractors are at the youngest mid to late 20s, whereas Airmen are fresh out of high school,” said one analyst. “As an FMV (analyst), you cannot identify something unless you’ve seen it before.” Screening for trouble According to John the PED units at Hurlburt Field were much smaller than those of regular Air Force crews, consisting of only about three or four people. As well as an analyst to watch the video in near real-time, and one to make the call on whether to type an observation in to the chat channel (often described as a ‘screener’), units typically also need a geospatial analyst to cross-reference the images brought up on the screen with other data. Sitting there watching a video screen sounds simple, but the herculean amount of concentration involved requires real discipline and commitment. According to analysts interviewed, between 80 and 85% of the time is spent on long-term surveillance, when very little is happening. “You can go days and weeks watching people do nothing,” said John. Another contractor interviewed said that because of the “long durations of monotonous and low activity levels”, a good analyst needs “attention to detail and a vested interest in the mission.” “Many of the younger analysts view the job as a game,” he said. “It is critical to understand everything that happens, happens in real life. When you mess up, people die. In fact, the main role of the FMV analyst is to ensure that does not happen.” The screeners type their observations in to a chat channel called mIRC, which is seen by the drone pilot and sensor operator, who are usually sitting in a different base. The Mission Coordinator, or Mission Intelligence Coordinator, typically sitting on the same base as the pilot and operator and communicating with them through a headset, helps ensure they don’t miss anything important in the mIRC. Sometimes, John said, the analysts and the Mission Coordinator will communicate directly with each other in what is known as a “Whisper chat”. “It gives you a way to say ‘this is what we think we saw’,” he explained, adding dryly, “a large part of the job is an exercise in trying not to kick the hornets’ nest.” According to John, once you’ve influenced the mentality of the pilot and operator by typing something which could signal hostility in to the chat, it’s hard to retract it. He likens his role to that of a citizen tipping off armed police about criminals. “As a civilian I don’t have authority to arrest someone, but if I call the police and say ‘this person’s doing something’, and say ‘I think that guy’s dangerous’…the police are going to turn up primed to respond to the threat, they’ll turn up trusting my statement,” he said. “It could be argued that I was responsible, but I’m not the one shooting.” John said that in his unit, imagery analysts usually took a back seat once the use of force had been authorised. Because there is usually a slight delay between the drone crew receiving the feed and the analysis crew seeing it, John said, “in a situation where it gets high-paced they (military personnel)’ll cut the screener out entirely”. The other analyst however said that in his experience the PED unit still maintained its function for “identifying and confirming IMINT (imagery intelligence) lock on the target” once force is authorised. Video analysts, he said, had the capability to tell other crew members to abort a strike under some circumstances, and the analyst could receive “blowback” when things went wrong. The video analyst is the “subject matter expert,” he explained. “As such you have an important role in all the events that have led up to the determination for using force on the target. While you are not the one firing the missile, a misidentification of an enemy combatant with a weapon and a female carrying a broom can have dire consequences.”

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Inherently governmental? Given the Air Force’s efforts to keep contractors out of sensitive, decision-making positions, the contractors’ role in supporting targeting seems surprising, at first glance. Charles Blanchard was the Air Force’s chief lawyer between 2009 and 2013 when he advised the officials spearheading these efforts. He describes himself as a “purist” when it comes to contractors flying armed drones. But for a function like imagery analysis, his view is more flexible. “I’d be comfortable with some contractors sprinkled in to this framework because you have so many eyes on one target usually,” he said. “I’d be uncomfortable with contractors advising the commander ‘here’s where the target is’, unless the data collected and analysed was so clear that the Commander could confirm this for themselves, as often happens.” The constraints on using contractors are often more to do with command culture than the “mushy” legal framework surrounding inherently governmental functions, Blanchard explained. “A commander in the military justice system has a lot more authority to take action where mistakes are made. Someone in blue uniform – or green or white – is someone they feel they have authority over.” The consensus seems to be that contractors effectively taking targeting decisions is undesirable. MacAulay-Brown’s contract with Afsoc stipulated that the contractors were not to be “placed in a position of command, supervision, administration of control” over military or civilian personnel. There are concerns that such safeguards may be diluted in practice if contractor use goes up. One of the analysts interviewed said that contractors were already relied on for their greater expertise and experience, effectively placing them in the chain of command. “It will always be military bodies or civilian government bodies as the overall in charge of the missions…however you will have experienced contractors act as a ‘right-hand man’ many times because typically contractors are the ones with subject matter expertise, so the military/government leadership lean on those people to make better mission related decisions,” he said. The profit motive Although it is hard for the military to discipline contractors, people are keeping tabs on them and providing them with an incentive to do their jobs well. John noted that the knowledge that “you can get fired” is a motivational factor for contractors. In theory, the possibility of losing the contract should also incentivise the contractors’ bosses to field the best possible staff and manage them closely. Jerome Traughber of the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy is a former program manager for airborne reconnaissance acquisitions in the Air Force. He said that in his experience of intelligence support services, a company’s bid and performance would be scrutinised closely, with incentive fees built in. “If a contractor wasn’t measuring up we’d make a change very quickly,” he said. A large part of the monitoring is done through contracting officers, who liaise with other personnel inside the warfighting unit to evaluate the performance of the contractors embedded there. Traughber acknowledged, however, that during the surge in Afghanistan, when thousands of contracts needed to be overseen, contracting officers and their counterparts inside military units were overwhelmed by their work load. Nor is it clear that poor performance would necessarily prevent a company getting another contract. Daniel Gordon, a retired law professor and previous Administrator of Federal Procurement Policy, argues that the past performance criteria that contracting officers are supposed to take in to account when awarding bids might not always be rigorously assessed. “As soon as you start saying the contractor didn’t do a good job you risk having litigation, lawyers are going to get involved, it’s just not worth it, so… everyone’s ok, no-one’s outstanding, which makes the rating system completely meaningless,” he said. Another potential problem with the profit motive as a way of delivering good performance is that contractor pay has reportedly gone down. Mary Blackwell, the president of Advanced Concepts Enterprises, one of the subcontractors who provided analysts in Hurlburt Field, said that since mandatory defence budget caps took effect in 2013, the value of contracts has decreased. Imagery analysts, along with everyone else, have seen their pay cut by between 15 and 20%, she said. “The military people – their pay is set. The only place where there’s any room is the contracts.” This could drive down quality in the long term, contractors say. “It is running good analysts off,” said one. “The quality of force is suffering.” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism contacted all of the contractors named in this story with a series of questions. None provided a statement, though several directed queries towards the US

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military. The Pentagon and the US Air Force were contacted for comment with a series of questions about transparency and oversight for contractors involved in ISR. A spokeswoman for the Air Force said ISR was “vital to the national security of the United States and its allies”, and there was an “insatiable demand” for it from combatant commanders. She said this demand was the reason for increasing use of contractors, which she said was a “normal process within military operations”. On the issue of whether private contractors’ assessments risk pre-empting the military’s official decisions, she said the service had thorough oversight and followed all appropriate rules. “Current AF Judge Advocate rulings define the approved roles for contractors in the AF IRS’s processing, exploitation and dissemination capability,” she said. “Air Force DCGS [Distributed Common Ground System] works closely with the Judge Advocate’s office to ensure a full, complete, and accurate understanding and implementation of those roles. Oversight is accomplished by Air Force active duty and civilian personnel in real time and on continual basis with personnel trained on the implementation of procedural checks and balances. Transparency gap Contractors such as John pride themselves on their professionalism and skill. But as ISR demand continues to rise, robust oversight is needed – in particular to ensure contractors do not creep into decision-making roles. “There are tremendous pressures for that ratio of contractors to governmental personnel to swell,” she argued. “If that ratio balloons, oversight could easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting decisions could become meaningless. Laura Dickinson argues the lack of information about drone operations makes such oversight much harder. “We urgently need more transparency,” she said. The Department of Defense now publishes a quarterly report on the number of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a breakdown of their functions, but Dickinson said she was not aware of any such information being released on contractors in drone operations. “There are tremendous pressures for that ratio of contractors to governmental personnel to swell,” she argued. “If that ratio balloons, oversight could easily break down, and the current prohibition on contractors making targeting decisions could become meaningless.”

THE RELEASE OF ISRAELI SPY POLLARD Why Is the U.S. Releasing Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard? ► www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/29/why-is-the-u-s-releasing-israeli-spy-jonathan-pollard.html

► The Daily Beast Jul 29 2015 ► Jul 29. The White House denies it’s freeing Jonathan Pollard as a salve to Israelis angry at the Iran deal, but the timing is curious—and ex-counterintelligence officials are against the move. “It is difficult for me, even in the so-called ‘year of the spy,’ to conceive of a greater harm to the national security than that caused by the defendant in view of the breadth, the critical importance to the U.S., and the high sensitivity of the information he sold to Israel.” Thus spake U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in 1986 in a still largely classified declaration, more or less sealing the life sentence handed down to Jonathan Pollard, a former analyst at the U.S. Navy’s Anti-Terrorist Alert Center who over a 17-month period in the mid-1980s passed along enough classified intelligence to Israel to fill, by his own admission, a 6-by-6-by-10-foot room. After decades of trying in vain to get out of jail, Pollard will be released on November 20 after serving 29 years in a federal prison. The timing, coming so soon after the U.S. helped ink an arms control agreement with Iran, has raised eyebrows not least because anonymous U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal last week that the Obama administration was planning to release Pollard as a salve to Israel to try to convince the Jewish state to tone down or abandon its fierce criticism of the Iran deal. The administration has repeatedly denied that any such quid pro quo arrangement was being brokered and insisted that Pollard’s fate was entirely up to an independent parole board. “I haven’t even had a conversation about it,” Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters Tuesday. However, while it’s true that Pollard was in any event due for a mandatory parole hearing this year under the terms of his sentence, the Journal scoop proved uncannily prescient. At least one former U.S. government attorney who has done damage assessments on Pollard’s espionage told The Daily Beast that it was well within the White House’s prerogative to leverage a

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coincidental calendar date to shut up Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—namely by instructing the Justice Department not to block Pollard’s parole. “The Justice Department has been corrupt under this administration,” said Marion “Spike” Bowman, a former counselor for the U.S. Navy and FBI as well as the former deputy director of the National Coun-terintelligence Executive who was privy to the classified intelligence Pollard gave the Israelis. “I say that as having worked for the FBI for 11 years. This is a real fortuity for Obama. It came up at exactly the right time for him to make nice with the Israelis. They may have taken advantage of the fact that the timing was perfect. My best guess is that the intelligence community was not consulted because there’s been no hue and cry this time as there has been every other time the issue has come up.” And it’s come up quite a lot over three decades. Pollard’s case has been a cause célèbre for decades within Israel and a perennial bargaining chip in diplomatic parlays with Jerusalem—and with Netanyahu in particular. Just a year ago, letting Pollard go was mooted as one way to save foundering Israel-Palestine peace talks. And in 1998, President Bill Clinton considered pardoning Pollard after Netanyahu, then in his first stint as Israeli premier, prevailed upon him during a prior round of negotiations at Wye River. Clinton’s CIA director, George Tenet, threatened to resign if that happened. It never did. Indeed, the mere consideration of the spy’s being granted clemency has engendered intense resistance in U.S. intelligence officials. Two former U.S. intelligence officials told The Daily Beast that former FBI director Robert Mueller, who served from 2001 to 2013, also threatened to resign if Pollard was let out of prison. Mueller, now an attorney in private practice, declined to comment for this story. In 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was so incensed by the very possibility that the Israelis would ask the Bush administration to release Pollard that he preemptively drafted a letter to the president advising against it, claiming that “[a]ny step to free Pollard would be enormously damaging to our efforts to keep spies out of government.” For good measure, Rumsfeld also attached a letter he and six other former defense secretaries—including Dick Cheney—sent to Clinton during the Wye River process. Rumsfeld tweeted copies of both documents on Monday, adding Tuesday that “spying ought not to be rewarded.” Even before Pollard committed treason, his tenure as an intelligence officer was sufficiently checkered to have roused U.S. suspicions. Though praised as an exceptional analyst on Soviet ship technology, he was assessed after his breach as having exhibited erratic and disturbing behavior. He falsified his academic credentials by saying he’d obtained a master’s degree in law and diplomacy when he hadn’t. He said he was proficient in Afrikaans when he wasn’t. He claimed to be the son of the former CIA station chief in South Africa; he was not. He also told colleagues that he had served as a CIA operative in Syria before being captured and tortured by the mukhabarat. He had not. Perhaps the biggest red flag was that Pollard was known to have disclosed classified information to a South African defense attaché, a violation that evidently alarmed his higher-ups in naval intelligence. Nevertheless, a clinical psychologist judged him to be “grandiose and manipulative” and a high risk for the “unintentional compromise of information” but not for the graver crime of espionage. Pollard was successfully recruited in 1984 by Colonel Aviem Sella, an Israeli air force pilot who had taken part in the famous 1981 raid on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor. To prove his bona fides, Pollard initially passed along U.S. intelligence on Saudi military capability and ground force logistics as well as American satellite footage of the aftermath of the destroyed Iraqi reactor, which Sella may only have wanted as a personal souvenir. Eventually, the Israelis would pay Pollard as much as $2,500 a month—roughly the equivalent of his U.S. government salary—in exchange for sensitive documents related to Arab and Pakistani nuclear intelligence, Arab biological and chemical warfare programs, Soviet air force and air defense systems, and Arab nations’ orders of battle. Specifically, the Israelis were most interested in information on Syria, according to a CIA damage assessment written in 1987. According to the assessment, Pollard’s second handler, Joseph Yagur, who had been the counselor for scientific affairs at the Israeli consulate in New York, asked the American for specific intelligence on a suspected “Syrian research and development facility; data on Syrian remotely piloted vehicles…the numbers and locations of all Soviet advisors in Syria; information on the national-level command, control and communications center in Damascus; the identities of Syrian units with attached Soviet advisors; and all training programs for Syrian personnel in the USSR. Yagur also requested medical intelligence on the health of Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad.” Pollard also stole National Security Agency summaries on the Middle East and North Africa, and intel-ligence on Egypt’s air defenses. A veteran Mossad agent, Rafael Eitan, who was in charge of running Pollard, apparently tasked him with obtaining information from PLO Force 17, an elite commando unit of Palestinian Fatah, also responsible for Yasser Arafat’s personal security; any U.S. “dirt” compiled on Israeli politicians; any information on Israeli citizens who might by spying for the U.S.; and broader

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U.S. intelligence operations against Israel. However, Pollard insisted, in a polygraph-debriefing, that these requests were evidently overruled by Yagur, according to the CIA assessment. In addition to paying him a monthly fee, Israel bought Pollard’s fiancée a diamond-sapphire engage-ment ring and, under the cover of a fake uncle’s subsidized holiday, paid for the couple’s trip to Paris, where his transformation into a mole was finalized. Israel also financed Pollard’s wedding and honeymoon, to the tune of $12,000. Pollard’s handlers agreed to open a Swiss bank account for him in the name of “Danny Cohen” where they’d deposit $30,000 a year for a period of 10 years, after which Pollard would no longer be asked to spy for Israel. (According to the CIA, no money was ever deposited in the Swiss bank account.) Pollard never made it to his second anniversary as spy. But what he turned over to the Israelis defied their highest expectations. He later confessed to selling more than 800 classified publications and 1,000 classified messages and cables. Still, he maintained in court and in subsequent years that this caused the U.S. no great harm and was on behalf of a trusted diplomatic and military ally. Not so, say experts. “The notion that what he did wasn’t very bad because we are an ally of the Israelis is foolishness,” one U.S. counterintelligence official intimately acquainted with the Pollard case told The Daily Beast. “The point of having a security clearance is that you owe your loyalty to one country and one country only. It doesn’t matter what your particular feelings are about Israel. This is a man who was a traitor and who thought that because of his personal views it was permissible to substitute his views for what should be shared with our ally for those of the president or the government in general.” Spike Bowman also pointed out that Pollard had previously tried to sell information to both Pakistan and South Africa, despite his self-portrayal—and the narrative adopted by his defenders—that he was motivated by an ardent Zionism. “He was scheming any way he could to make money,” Bowman said. “This was his big thing. He just happened to hit upon one that was a well to go to. It was purely mercenary.” Some of the damage Pollard wrought, Bowman said, still has an impact on U.S. national security in 2015 because the data he disclosed forced organizations such as the NSA to alter their operations and intelligence-gathering mechanism. And that was long before Edward Snowden. “Pollard’s advocates have long argued that he’s suffered more severely than any other spy,” Bowman said. “But that’s because there are no other spies with similar convictions. He’s a loner. Personally I don’t think he should ever see the light of day.”

CSE WARNS OF A CANADIAN SNOWDEN A Canadian Snowden? CSE warns of “insider threats” Canada’s electronic spying agency took steps to educate employees about “insider threats” after Snowden disclosures. ► www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/07/26/a-canadian-snowden-cse-warns-of-insider-threats.html ► The Star / by Alex Boutilier Jul 27 2015 ► Jul 26. Canada’s electronic spy agency is worried about a Canadian Edward Snowden. The Communications Security Establishment began educating new employees and existing staff about “insider threats” in 2013, according to documents obtained by the Star. The crackdown on “unauthorized disclosures” was tied directly to the whistleblower Snowden, who pulled back the curtain on a pervasive electronic spying apparatus in the United States and its Five Eyes partners, including CSE in Canada. “Following the unauthorized disclosures of Canadian Navy Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle (2012) and NSA contractor Edward Snowden (2013), CSE has intensified its efforts to tighten already stringent security,” the documents, obtained under access to information law, state. “CSE’s security responses to the unauthorized disclosures comprise both new and existing measures as part of ongoing efforts to better safeguard intelligence.” Most of those “new and existing measures” have been censored from the heavily redacted document, a 2013-14 annual report to the minister of national defence. Almost everything Canadians know about CSE’s modern operations comes from Snowden, who fled the United States with a vast amount of information on the U.S. National Security Agency and its counterparts in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Snowden gave that information to journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has been writing about the NSA’s operations since. In Canada, Greenwald partnered with the CBC to release select documents on CSE’s operations, including:

Tracking free wifi traffic in a Canadian airport, thought to be Pearson International in Toronto.

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A program called EONBLUE, which collects vast amounts of Internet data at 200 “backbone” sites. A project called Levitation that reportedly allows the agency to monitor the traffic of millions of users

on a popular file-sharing site. A number of discrete instances of spying or assisting the United States’ spying, including at the

G20 summit in Toronto and snooping around in the Brazilian ministry of mining and energy. In the report, former CSE chief John Forster said those disclosures have made the agency’s job more challenging. “We continue to see significant challenges as a result of these disclosures, including the changes in target behaviors,” Forster said. If CSE provided any concrete examples of how target behaviours have changed, it’s either not included or censored from the documents obtained by the Star. The agency seemed concerned with their new public profile — CSE has existed since the Second World War, but has rarely seen a flurry of public attention like 2013. The report noted that the increase in public awareness lead to several “civic protest activities” on its properties. These protests were seen as a threat to the agency. “Having identified an increase in threats to CSE employees and assets, a thorough review of security measures was conducted to identify areas where greater risk controls may be warranted,” the report reads. In addition to educating employees about inside jobs, CSE has committed $45 million over five years to upgrade and enhance the federal government’s Top Secret network. The Star requested an interview with both CSE and Julian Fantino, the junior minister of defence who handles media requests on CSE, including sending specific questions. Fantino did not respond to the Star’s request. In a written statement, CSE declined to discuss specifics about their education efforts. “While we can’t discuss specific advice to staff on insider threats, CSE provides continuous security education and training to staff, which includes increasing staff awareness of insider threat issues,” the agency wrote.

CHINESE SIGINT New Report on China’s SIGINT Agency, the Third Department, and its Cyber Espionage Unit in Shanghai, Unit 61398 ► http://www.matthewaid.com/post/125168959231/new-report-on-chinas-sigint-agency-the-third ► Source: Matthew Aid / Matthew Aid Blog / US / www.matthewaid.com Jul 27 2015 ► Jul 27. The Project 2049 Institute in northern Virginia has just issued another very detailed and richly illustrated 25-page report on Chinese SIGINT entitled The PLA General Staff Department Third Department Second Bureau: An Organizational Overview of Unit 61398. The report’s author, Mark A. Stokes, knows his stuff. Stokes focuses the report’s attention on the major Chinese SIGINT and cyber spying hub at Shanghai, whose principal focus is stealing the government, military and economic secrets of the United States. And best still, Stokes tells you where he found his information. If your interest is signals intelligence or Chinese spying, this report is an absolute “must read.” The report can be accessed here.

TEMPERER: 5,000 TROOPS ON UK STREETS Secret plan to put 5,000 heavily-armed troops on streets of Britain to fight jihadis in event of a terror attack * Operation Temperer would see troops guard key targets with armed police * Plans drawn up by police chiefs and discussed by top Government officials * Would be triggered by Cobra committee in event of simultaneous attacks * Paris attacks convinced authorities military would be needed if UK hit ► www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3174590/Secret-plan-5-000-heavily-armed-troops-streets-Britain-fight-jihadis-event-terror-attack.html ► Mail on Sunday / by Martin Beckford ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 27 2015 ►Jul 25. A top secret plan for the mass deployment of armed troops on the streets of Britain in the wake of a major terrorist attack can be revealed for the first time today. More than 5,000 heavily armed soldiers would be sent to inner cities if Islamic State or other fanatics launched multiple attacks on British soil – an unprecedented military response to terrorism.

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The plan, codenamed Operation Temperer, would see troops guard key targets alongside armed police officers, providing ‘protective security’ against further attacks while counter-terror experts and MI5 officers hunted down the plotters. The shocking plans for ‘large-scale military support’ to the police are contained in documents uncovered by The Mail on Sunday. They have been drawn up by police chiefs and are being discussed at the highest levels of Government, but have never been revealed in public or mentioned in Parliament. The mass deployment of Army personnel on the streets of mainland Britain would be hugely controversial, even if it helped keep the population safe, because it could give the impression that the Government had lost control or that martial law was being imposed. Baroness Jones, who sits on London’s Police and Crime Committee, said she was ‘shocked’ at the plans, saying: ‘This would be unprecedented on mainland Britain.’ And she expressed concern that the troops would not be sufficiently trained to protect civil liberties. Some police leaders fear that the soldiers would be needed if there was a wave of attacks by extremists inspired by Islamic State or Al-Qaeda, as police forces no longer have enough manpower to cope. It can also be disclosed today that, after this year’s Paris massacres, senior police officers discussed raising the terror threat level in Britain from ‘severe’ to the highest level of ‘critical’, meaning a terror attack is ‘imminent’ rather than ‘highly likely’. The military contingency plan is revealed in the minutes of a National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) meeting held on April 22 at a hotel in Leicester. Documents accidentally uploaded to the NPCC website give details of what was discussed in a closed session. Under the heading ‘COUNTER TERRORISM POST PARIS LARGE SCALE MILITARY SUPPORT TO THE POLICE’, the minutes reveal that deputy chief constable Simon Chesterman, the ‘national lead’ for armed policing, briefed the other chief officers. The paper says up to 5,100 military personnel could be deployed ‘based upon force assessments of how many military officers could augment armed police officers engaged in protective security duties’. ‘Discussions were ongoing with Government’, the minutes added, saying: ‘Chiefs recognised that the Army played an important part in national resilience and supported the work going forward.’ After being spotted by this newspaper, this section was removed from the NPCC website on Friday. Sources confirmed the detailed plan had been discussed at the highest level and would only be triggered by the Cobra committee chaired by the Prime Minister if there were two or three terror attacks at the same time in Britain, leaving police struggling to respond. Will Riches, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: ‘The bottom line is you can’t reduce 17,000 police officers and expect nothing to change. While police are well-versed at contingency planning, the levels of cuts to officers means that we cannot police events in the same way.’ Military activity on the streets has previously proved controversial. There was outcry in 2003 when tanks were stationed at Heathrow following warnings of a plot to shoot down a passenger jet. And residents were terrified when surface-to-air missiles were set up on rooftops and in parks for the 2012 London Olympics. But it is thought that the series of attacks across Paris by Islamists in January convinced the authorities that military support would be needed if similar atrocities took place right across Britain. Raffaello Pantucci, a security expert at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said: ‘It makes sense. The Paris attacks were seen with great concern because there were so many sites. The concern was would the UK be able to respond in the same way? There was understandable concern about whether they would get very stretched.’ A separate note on an meeting of the NPCC on January 16, the week after 17 people were killed in Paris, reveals for the first time: ‘Chiefs were asked to consider raising the threat level to critical’ – but in the end the level was kept at ‘severe’. It is understood that Home Secretary Theresa May would not oppose soldiers taking to the streets in a ‘worst-case scenario’. But Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warned: ‘Our national security must not be put at risk. Theresa May has a responsibility to make sure we have enough police for vital counter-terror work.’ Just last month, days after the Tunisia beach massacre, security forces and emergency services held a major training exercise called Exercise Strong Tower which David Cameron said would ‘test and refine the UK’s preparedness for dealing with a serious terrorist attack’. Former Cobra member Col Richard Kemp said plans have been stepped up as more Britons go to fight with IS in Iraq and Syria. He said: ‘They are returning with a level of capability previously unseen. They are blooded, trained, motivated and given direction to return home and attack us here.’

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The Home Office declined to comment. The MoD says it ‘works closely with other government departments and agencies to ensure that it is able to provide appropriate assistance in response to any security threats.

MI5 TWICE BLOCKED IN NORTHERN IRELAND Two MI5 surveillance operations in Northern Ireland blocked, ISC reveals Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, twice denied spying requests from security service, says intelligence services commissioner ► www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/27/mi5-surveillance-operations-blocked-northern-ireland-isc ► The Guardian / by Henry McDonald ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 27 2015 ► Jul 27. 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. On Sunday, a human rights organisation in Belfast called for more transparency on the number of covert surveillance operations the secretary of state sanctions in Northern Ireland. MI5’s regional headquarters is based at Holywood, Co Down, just outside Belfast, and up to 1,000 MI5 operatives are stationed there. The ISC said the Northern Ireland Office took great care when considering requests from the counter-terrorism agency and that paperwork was in good order. However, the commissioner, Sir Mark Waller, expressed concern about the breadth of language used to define the subjects on two urgent warrants, one that included intrusive surveillance – spying in relation to anything taking place on residential premises or in any private vehicle. He said: “The secretary of state for Northern Ireland shows a keen interest in the case for necessity and proportionality. She can and does refuse warrants.” MI5 has the lead role in counter-terrorist operations across the UK, including in Northern Ireland. Its main task in the region is to spy on dissident Irish republicans in the New IRA, Continuity IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann who oppose the peace process. In one surveillance operation last year against a dissident republican faction in Newry, MI5 recorded more than 60 hours of conversations between alleged members of a terror group discussing potential police and army targets. But the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a human rights group, said the report “showed the inadequacy of the oversight of the secretary of state.” Brian Gormally, the CAJ’s director, said: “The intelligence services commissioner says the secretary of state is doing her job – it would be strange indeed if he reported that she showed no ‘interest in the case for necessity and proportionality’. “The fact that he thinks it is news that she occasionally refuses warrants demonstrates that the norm is that the secret MI5 normally gets its way. We need to know the number, type and justification of warrants for intrusive surveillance. More importantly, we need a genuinely independent and fearless form of oversight that can bring proper accountability to secret policing.”

OPEN SOURCE INDICATORS AND ASYMMETRIC ADVANTAGE IN SECURITY PLANNING ► http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=192425 ► ISN / by Regina Joseph Jul 21 2015 ► Jul 21. Can the West use its unfettered access to open source information to maintain its asymmetric advantage in security planning? Regina Joseph believes so. However, there are problems that have to be faced, including the authenticity of the information that’s available and its sheer size. Imagine the following global conditions: after several years of exhausting conflict, a propaganda battle ratchets upwards in an attempt to spread the influence of new political movements, mobilize masses and attract members to causes via new media outlets. On one side lie the political and business elites, who control and/or own most information channels. On the other lie smaller niche groups, some of whom have extremist ideologies. The elites fear radical subversion, especially as they watch these

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groups nimbly circumvent a lack of access to information channels by successfully reaching people through more direct means. That success is driven by a grinding ” psychological and cultural isolation" and “loss of security faced by citizens once bound and sustained by informal social rules and orders”, a development that has rendered people uniquely receptive to anti-democratic and nihilist rhetoric. If that sounds like a description of today’s headlines regarding the so-called Islamic State and neo-fascist right-wing groups, you would only be half-right. The scenario above describes the post-World War I battles for hearts and minds by Communist, Socialist and Fascist groups who used then-emerging conduits like radio to attract war-weary citizens. Media was as forceful a tool for engineering human behavior then—a time when propaganda theory was in its ascendance—as it is now. Today, the Internet also acts as a force multiplier for media, creating new dissemination channels by tearing down entry barriers for public communication and distribution—whether via social media, blogs or YouTube. For many Western countries, this digital firehose of free speech is perceived as a manifestation and natural extension of the democratic identity. For other states, it is a force to be both feared and used, whether as a tool to control their own societies or as a weapon to manipulate others. Russia’s troll factories and China’s 50-Cent Party of hired “public opinion guides” represent some of the more notorious attempts to keep people pliant and to bend narratives in service of state objectives. With so much more information now cheaply and easily available to anyone with uncensored Internet access, a strategic security domain is emerging. Whereas the business of defense has always been predicated on privileged and classified information meant for the eyes of a highly select few, new research initiatives that merge human cognitive judgment, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that open source information can—in certain cases—be as (if not more) tractable when trying to predict economic and political events. Yet, while such findings may elicit conclusive security advantages in the future for states that uphold free speech, authenticity and volume pose greater near-term difficulties to be overcome. The Good News… Since the development of the Internet in the late 1960s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other agencies have sought to harness its national security potential. For instance, the Internet’s facilitation of data collection has enhanced research once dependent on onerous data scraping from analog sources. AI, machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) techniques designed for trawling the net’s vast resources have opened up new vistas in anticipatory intelligence. In this respect, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s (IARPA) Office of Anticipating Surprise (OAS) is one of the leading repositories of programs dedicated to testing the potential of predictive analytics to enhance strategic security. These include the Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE) Program and other open source projects like the handily-titled Open Source Indicators (OSI) program. OSI aims “to develop methods for continuous automated analysis of publically available data in order to anticipate and/or detect significant societal events, such as political crises, mass violence, riots, mass migrations, disease outbreaks”. The program’s top performer was a forecasting model put together by researchers from Virginia Tech, Raytheon and Hughes Research Laboratories called EMBERS (Early Model Based Event Recognition using Surrogates). By sifting through more than 200,000 blogs, Twitter’s entire feed pipeline, and satellite imagery, EMBERS produced alerts that accurately predicted events of civil unrest—although it is still improving upon getting all the particulars of the predicted events correct. Whether generated by humans or software agents, accurate forecasts derived from publically available media sources represent a distinct advantage in strategic foresight. Aside from the value of the forecasts themselves, the potential cost-benefit ratio—especially compared to that of classified information during a time of budget cuts and sequestration—requires serious consideration. A critical caveat, however, lies in the rapidly multiplying costs of open source media. …And the Bad Two major challenges in using open source media lie in its verifiability and the total volume available. Starting with the latter, the sheer numbers are staggering. In 2012, 2.5 exabytes of data were created every day, a number calculated to double approximately every 40 months. And while data is becoming cheaper as it becomes more ubiquitous, the cost of managing it is on the rise. Data science is a relatively new profession, and is thus professionally underpopulated. That scarcity exacerbates the problems caused by the mismatch between data containing ‘signal’ and data containing ‘noise’, which rises in direct proportion to the total amount of new data generated every second. While new software programs and system architecture emerge to separate the wheat from the chaff, researchers estimate that 30% of key data goes unused because of the difficulty involved in physically accessing it. While this poses tactical complexity and economic burden, the real risk in using open source media lies in a burgeoning information arms race. Fake news and disinformation can be created and spread

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as easily as real and objectively reported news. Distinguishing between the two has become increasingly tough. In authoritarian states where Internet use is carefully monitored (if not censored outright), government-led units designed to flood the Internet with faux Twitter feeds, Photoshop-doctored images, and phony news items are common. Peter Pomerantsev has chronicled Russia’s “weaponization of information” and the role it has played not only in sowing confusion among citizens in Ukraine and the Baltics, but also abroad, where foreign analysts and reporters must go to great lengths to understand what is real and what is false in the country’s reporting. But disinformation and propaganda are only part of the problem. Declining revenues in the media world mean fewer professional journalists, thus augmenting the potential for incomplete information. That can take the shape of news aggregators sloppily copying or cutting and pasting information on a second- or third-hand basis, or it can appear in the form of young, cheap hacks who lack sufficient knowledge and experience to convey important nuances ( or who fabricate altogether ). At the business level, media convergence and consolidation concentrates information outlets under the control of only a handful of corporations or singular owners (such as Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi ) who often struggle with editorial objectivity and curation, especially if it flies in the face of profits. In the cybersecurity realm, the problem of information deception has been a longstanding concern. For instance, Dartmouth College computer science professor and researcher Paul Thompson has written extensively on the effect of cognitive hacking on computer systems. Thompson has called for the development of a “News Verifier” program that can prevent attacks on a digital network by allowing administrators to check possible misinformation before it compromises a system. Indeed, given the possible security advantages offered by foresight initiatives like the Good Judgment Project or EMBERS, a “news verifier” tool could become as vital for human forecasters and software models working the geopolitical realm as it is for computer scientists. Moreover, if tools for filtering, aggregation and fact-checking can be developed to hone the potential for predictive analytics, it’s worth considering how this might fit into a larger security and defense planning scheme. A Possible Opportunity? When former US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called in late 2014 for innovative approaches to counter a perceived loss of technical advantage during a time of austerity, he evoked two historical antecedents. By proclaiming a need for “a game-changing offset strategy,” Hagel referenced the Offset Strategy created in the 1970s under then-Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. Devised against the backdrop of economic restrictions imposed after the Vietnam War, it sought to maintain a superior defensive advantage through new microelectronics, stealth and information technologies. However, the central driver behind the strategy was to asymmetrically offset the quantitative edge achieved by the Soviet Union after it reached nuclear parity with the US. This so-called “offset” took its cues from the precursor “New Look” strategy devised in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower. New Look’s offset was built on the superior technical advantage the US had at that time in its nuclear arsenal and missile delivery systems. In a 2014 report for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Robert Martinage suggests the development of a third offset strategy, one built on targeting the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) advantages held by other states. This would consist of a Global Surveillance and Strike (GSS) Concept which leverages the “US’ ‘core competencies’ in unmanned systems, automation, extended-range and low-observable air operations, undersea warfare and complex system engineering and integration.” In short, drones, robots, lasers, and undersea payload technologies combine to offset the advantage other countries now have with A2/AD. This and other offset strategies proposed elsewhere remain heavily rooted in the battlefield-based/theatre of operation concept of warfare. Yet, as conflicts become increasingly transnational, unconventional and virtual (as in the case of zero-day cyberattacks), such offsets—predicated on current US technical and economic comparative advantages—may confer very little asymmetry. As automation and unmanned vehicle technologies proliferate across the globe, US asymmetric advantages in those areas may not last for long. However, one overlooked asymmetric advantage the US and many of its Western allies do hold is the uncensored access to information and knowledge they grant their citizens—the exploitation of which has been a significant factor not only in US digital dominance (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are some of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization) but also in the progress of OSI-based anticipatory intelligence programs like the ones run by IARPA and DARPA. Resiliency and innovation are by-products of societies which uphold free speech; the strengths of societies permitted to roam the Internet stands in contrast to the dependencies of countries that dictate their inhabitants’ understanding of the world.

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Possible Ways Forward Strategic foresight security programs designed to anticipate geopolitical outcomes could serve as one facet of a truly asymmetric offset strategy. Martinage notes the US’ comparative advantage in AI, NLP and machine learning—all of which form critical parts of any strategic foresight platform. Clearly, the issues of verifiability and authenticity would need to be addressed. Additionally, an OSI-based program would likely confront the generational, economic and dispositional aspects of a military-defense industrial complex still built primarily upon machinery rather than human capital. These factors would be a challenge to mitigate—but not impossible Further research will drive the leading edge on how humans can harness the universe of information at their fingertips. It will also examine how technology can assist humans to glean insights that may provide asymmetric security advantages. Whether these will be taken up as part of a new security approach, however, remains to be seen. For more information on issues and events that shape our world, please visit the ISN Blog or browse our resources.

THE TURKISH ENIGMA ► https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/turkish-enigma?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_term=G-

weekly&utm_campaign=20150721&utm_content=readmoretext&mc_cid=9245188851&mc_eid=4bcf1d0717

► Stratfor / by George Friedman Jul 21 2015 ► Jul 21. In my "Net Assessment of the World," I argued that four major segments of the European and Asian landmass were in crisis: Europe, Russia, the Middle East (from the Levant to Iran) and China. Each crisis was different; each was at a different stage of development. Collectively the crises threatened to destabilize the Eurasian landmass, the Eastern Hemisphere, and potentially generate a global crisis. They do not have to merge into a single crisis to be dangerous. Four simultaneous crises in the center of humanity's geopolitical gravity would be destabilizing by itself. However, if they began to merge and interact, the risks would multiply. Containing each crisis by itself would be a daunting task. Managing crises that were interlocked would press the limits of manageability and even push beyond. These four crises are already interacting to some extent. The crisis of the European Union intersects with the parallel issue of Ukraine and Europe's relation to Russia. The crisis in the Middle East intersects with the European concern over managing immigration as well as balancing relations with Europe's Muslim community. The Russians have been involved in Syria, and appear to have played a significant role in the recent negotiations with Iran. In addition there is a potential intersection in Chechnya and Dagestan. The Russians and Chinese have been advancing discussions about military and economic cooperation. None of these interactions threaten to break down regional boundaries. Indeed, none are particularly serious. Nor is some sort of inter-regional crisis unimaginable. Sitting at the center of these crisis zones is a country that until a few years ago maintained a policy of having no problems with its neighbors. Today, however, Turkey's entire periphery is on fire. There is fighting in Syria and Iraq to the south, fighting to the north in Ukraine and an increasingly tense situation in the Black Sea. To the west, Greece is in deep crisis (along with the EU) and is a historic antagonist of Turkey. The Mediterranean has quieted down, but the Cyprus situation has not been fully resolved and tension with Israel has subsided but not disappeared. Anywhere Turkey looks there are problems. As important, there are three regions of Eurasia that Turkey touches: Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. I have argued two things in the past. The first was that Turkey was an emerging regional power that would ultimately be the major power in its locale. The second was that this is a region that, ever since the decline and fall of the Ottomans in the first quarter of the 20th century, has been kept stable by outside powers. The decision of the United States to take a secondary role after the destabilization that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq has left a vacuum Turkey will eventually be forced to fill. But Turkey is not ready to fill that vacuum. That has created a situation in which there is a balancing of power underway, particularly among Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. A Proximate Danger The most violent and the most immediate crisis for Ankara is the area stretching from the Mediterra-nean to Iran, and from Turkey to Yemen. The main problem for Turkey is that Syria and Iraq have become contiguous battlegrounds featuring a range of forces, including Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish elements. These battles take place in a cauldron formed by four regional powers: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. This quadrangle emerged logically from the mayhem caught between them. Each major power has differing strategic interests. Iran's primary interest is the survival of the esta-

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blishment and in assuring that an aggressive Sunni polity does not arise in Iraq to replicate the situa-tion Tehran faced with Saddam Hussein. Iran's strategy is to support anti-Sunni forces in the region. This support ranges from bolstering Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up the minority Alawite establish-ment in Syria led — for the moment — by Bashar al Assad, and assisting the Iraqi army, itself controll-ed by Shiites and Iraq's Shiite militias. The United States sees Iran as aligned with American interests for the moment, since both countries oppose the Islamic State and Tehran is important when it comes to containing the militant group. The reality on the ground has made this the most important issue between Iran and the United States, which frames the recent accord on nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia sees Iran as its primary enemy. Riyadh also views the Islamic State as a threat but at the same time fears that an Iraq and Syria dominated by Iran could present an existential threat to the House of Saud. The Saudis consider events in Yemen from a similar perspective. Also in this context, Riyadh perceives a common interest with Israel in containing Iranian militant proxies as well as the Islamic State. Who exactly the Saudis are supporting in Syria and Iraq is somewhat murky, but the kingdom has no choice but to play a tactical and opportunistic game. The Israelis are in a similar position to the Saudis. They oppose the Iranians, but their main concern must be to make certain that the Hashemites in Jordan don't lose control of the country, opening the door to an Islamic State move on the Jordan River. Jordan appears stable for the moment and Israel and the Saudis see this as a main point of their collaboration. In the meantime, Israel is playing a wait-and-see game with Syria. Al Assad is no friend to the Israelis, but a weak al Assad is better than a strong Islamic State rule. The current situation in Syria suits Israel because a civil war limits immediate threats. But the conflict is itself out of control and the risk is that someone will win. Israel must favor al Assad and that aligns them on some level with Iran, even as Israel works with Sunni players like Saudi Arabia to contain Iranian militant proxies. Ironies abound. It is in this context that the Turks have refused to make a clear commitment, either to traditional allies in the West or to the new potential allies that are yet emerging. Partly this is because no one's commitments — except the Iranians' — are clear and irrevocable, and partly because the Turks don't have to commit unless they want to. They are deeply opposed to the al Assad regime in Syria, and logic would have it that they are supporting the Islamic State, which also opposes the Syrian regime. As I have said before, there are endless rumors in the region that the Turks are favoring and aiding the Islamic State. These are rumors that Turkey has responded to by visibly and seriously cracking down on the Islamic State in recent weeks with significant border activity and widespread raids. The Turks know that the militants, no matter what the currently confrontational relationship might be, could transition from being a primarily Arab platform to being a threat to Turkey. There are some who say that the Turks see the Islamic State as creating the justification for a Turkish intervention in Syria. The weakness of this argument is that there has been ample justification that Ankara has declined, even as its posture toward the Islamic State becomes more aggressive. This shows in Turkey's complex relations with the United States, still formally its major ally. In 2003 the Turks refused to allow U.S. forces to invade Iraq from Turkey. Since then the relationship with the United States has been complex and troubled. The Turks have made U.S. assistance in defeating al Assad a condition for extensive cooperation in Syria. Washington, concerned about an Islamic State government in Syria, and with little confidence in the non-Islamic State militancy as a long-term alternative, has refused to accept this. Therefore, while the Turks are now allowing some use of the NATO air base at Incirlik for operations against the Islamic State, they have not made a general commitment. Nor have they cooperated comprehensively with Sunni Saudi Arabia. The Turkish problem is this: There are no low-risk moves. While Ankara has a large army on paper, it is untried in battle outside of Turkey's 30-year insurgency in its southeast. Turkey has also observed the outcome of U.S. conventional forces intervening in the region and doesn't want to run the same risk. There are domestic considerations as well. Turkey is divided between secular and Islamist factions. The secularists suspect the Islamists of being secretly aligned with radical Islam — and are the source of many of the rumors floating about. The ruling Sunni-dominated Justice and Development Party, better known by its Turkish acronym, AKP, was seriously weakened in the last election. Its ability to launch the only attack it wants — an attack to topple al Assad — would appear to be a religious war to the secularists and would not be welcomed by the party's base, setting in motion rifts that could bring down the AKP. An attack on the Sunnis, however radical, complicates relations with the rebel factions in northern Syria that Turkey is already sponsoring. It also would risk the backlash of reviving anti-Turkish feelings in an adjacent Arab country that remembers Turkish rule only a century ago. Therefore Turkey, while incrementally changing — as evidenced by the recent accord to allow U.S. Predator drones to fly from Incirlik — is constrained if not paralyzed. From a strategic point of view, there appears to be more risk than reward. Its position resembles Israel's: watch, wait and hopefully

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avoid needing to do anything. From the political point of view, there is no firm base of support for either intervening directly or providing support for American airstrikes. The problem is that the worst-case scenario for Turkey is the creation of an independent Kurdish republic in Syria or Iraq. That would risk lighting a touchpaper among Kurds in southeastern Turkey, and regardless of current agreements, could destabilize everything. This is the one thing that would force Turkey's hand. However, the United States has historically had some measure of influence among the Kurds in Iraq and also in Syria. While this influence can be overstated, and while Washington is dependent on the Kurdish peshmerga militias for ground support as it battles the Islamic State from the air, it is an important factor. If the situation grew out of control, Ankara would expect the United States to control the situation. If Washington could and would, the price would be Turkish support for U.S. operations in the region. The Turks would have to pay that price or risk intervention. That is the lever that would get Ankara involved. Added Complications The Turks are far less entangled in the Russian crisis than in the Middle East, but they are still involved, and potentially in a way that can pyramid. There are three dimensions to this. The first is the Black Sea and Turkey's role in it. The second is the Bosporus and the third is allowing the United States to operate from its air base in Incirlik in the event of increased Russian military involvement in Ukraine. The crisis in Ukraine necessarily involves the Black Sea. Crimea's Sevastopol is a Russian Base on the Black Sea. In this potential conflict, the Black Sea becomes a vital theater of operations. First, in any movement westward by the Russians, the Black Sea is their right flank. Second, the Black Sea is a vital corridor for trade by the Russians, and an attempt by its enemies to shut down that corridor would have to be addressed by Russian naval forces. Finally, the U.S./NATO strategy in addressing the Ukrainian crisis has been to increase cooperation with Romania. Romania is on the Black Sea and the United States has indicated that it intends to work with Bucharest in strengthening its Black Sea capabilities. Therefore, events in the Black Sea can rapidly escalate under certain circumstances, posing threats to Turkish interests that Ankara cannot ignore. The Black Sea issue is compounded by the question of the Bosporus, which is a narrow strait that, along with the Dardanelles, connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. The Bosporus is the only passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. For the Russians, this is a critical trade route and the only means for Russian ships passing into the Mediterranean. In the event of a conflict, the United States and NATO would likely want to send naval forces into the Black Sea to support operations around its perimeter. Under the Montreux Convention, an agreement signed in 1936, the Bosporus is under Turkish control. However the convention also places certain restrictions on traffic in the Bosporus. Access is guaranteed to all commercial traffic, however, Ankara is authorized to refuse transit to countries at war with Turkey. All countries with coasts on the Black Sea are free to operate militarily in the Black Sea. Non-Black Sea nations, however, suffer restrictions. Only warships under 15,000 tones may be sent, and no more than nine at any one time, with a total tonnage of 30,000 tons. And then they are only permitted to stay for 21 days or less. This limits the ability of the United States to project forces into the Black Sea — American carrier battle groups, key components of U.S. naval power, are unable to pass through. Turkey is, under international law, the guarantor of the convention and it has over time expressed a desire to be freed from it so Ankara can exercise complete sovereignty over the Bosporus Straits. But it has also been comforted by knowing that refusal to allow warships to pass can be referred to international law, instead of being Turkish responsibility. However, in the event of a conflict with Russia, that can no longer be discounted: Turkey is a member of NATO. If NATO were to formally participate in such a conflict, Ankara would have to choose whether the Montreaux Convention or its alliance obligations take precedence. The same can be said of air operations out of Incirlik. Does Turkey's relationship with NATO and the United States take precedence or will Ankara use the convention to control conflict in the Black Sea? Even prior to its own involvement in any conflict with Russia, there would be a potentially dangerous diplomatic crisis. To complicate matters, Turkey receives a great deal of oil and natural gas from Russia through the Black Sea. Energy relations shift. There are economic circumstances on which the seller is primarily dependent on the sale, and circumstances on which the buyer is dependent. It depends on the room for maneuver. While oil prices were over $100, Russia had the financial option to stop shipping energy. Under current pricing, Russia's ability to do this has decreased dramatically. During the Ukrainian crisis, using energy cut-offs in Europe would have been a rational response to sanctions. The Russians did not do it because they could not afford the cost. The prior obsession with the fragility of the flow of energy from Russia is no longer there, and Turkey, a major consumer, has reduced its

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vulnerability, at least during the diplomatic phase. The United States is constructing an alliance system that includes the Baltics, Poland and Romania that is designed to contain any potential Russian advance westward. Turkey is the logical southern anchor for this alliance structure. The Turks have been more involved than is already visible — conducting exercises with the Romanians and Americans in the Black Sea. But as in the Middle East, Ankara has carefully avoided any commitment to the alliance and has remained unclear on its Black Sea Strategy. While the Middle East is more enigmatic, the Russian situation is potentially more dangerous, though Turkish ambiguity remains identical. Similarly, Turkey has long demanded membership in the European Union. Yet Ankara's economic performance over the last 10 years indicates that Turkey has benefitted from not being a member. Nevertheless, the secularists in particular have been adamant about membership because they felt that joining the union would guarantee the secular nature of Turkish society. The AKP has been more ambiguous. The party continues to ask for membership, but it has been quite content to remain outside. It did not want the EU strictures secularists wanted, nor did it want to share in the European economic crisis. Turkey is nevertheless drawn in two directions. First, Ankara has inevitable economic ties in Europe that are effected by crises, ironically focused on its erstwhile enemy Greece. More important at the moment is the immigration and Islamic terrorism crisis in Europe. Many of the Muslims living in Germany, for example, are Turks and the treatment of overseas Turks is a significant political issue in Turkey. While Ankara has wanted to be part of Europe, neither economic reality nor the treatment of Turks and other Muslims in Europe argue for that relationship. There is a growing breach with Europe in an attempt to avoid absorption of economic problems. However in southeastern Europe discussions of Turkish investments and trade are commonplace. Put into perspective, as Europe fragments, Turkey — a long-term economic power, understanding of what the short-term problems are — draws southeastern Europe into its economic center of gravity. In a way it becomes another force of fragmentation, simply by being an alternate economic benefactor for the poorer countries in the southeast. The potential interaction of Turkey in the Middle East is an immediate question. The mid-term involvement with Russia is a longer question. Its relation to Europe is the longest question. And its relationship with the United States is the single question that intersects all of these. For all these concerns, Turkey has no clear answer. It is following a strategy designed to avoid involvement and maintain maximum options. Ankara relies on a multi-level strategy in which it is formally allied with some powers and quietly open to relations with powers hostile to its allies. This multi-hued doctrine is designed to avoid premature involvement; premature meaning before having achieved a level of strategic maturity and capability that allows it to define itself, with attendant risks. In one sense, Turkish policy parallels American policy. U.S. policies in all three regions are designed to allow the regional balance of power to maintain itself, with Washington involving itself selectively and with limited force. The Turks are paralleling the United States in principle, and with even less exposure. The problem the Turks have is that geography binds them to the role of pivot for three regions. For the United States this role is optional. The Turks cannot make coherent decisions, but they must. So Ankara's strategy is to be consistently ambiguous, an enigma. This will work until outside powers make it impossible to work.

UK UNDERCOVER POLICE FAILINGS Convictions of 83 political campaigners in doubt over undercover police failings Report finds officers deployed to infiltrate groups appeared in trials using fake personas and allowed false evidence to be presented in court ► http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/16/theresa-may-public-inquiry-undercover-police ► The Guardian / by Rob Evans ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 20 2015 ► Jul 16. The criminal convictions of another 83 political campaigners could be over-turned because the involvement of undercover police was hidden from their trials, an official review has revealed. The home secretary, Theresa May, said the safety of the convictions was causing concern and descri-bed the withholding of crucial evidence by undercover police as an “appalling practice”. The report by Mark Ellison QC showed that the undercover officers had operated in such tight secrecy that they routinely concealed their activities from prosecutors and other police officers. Ellison found that undercover officers deployed to infiltrate political groups had appeared in trials using

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their false personas, deceived lawyers about their true identities and allowed evidence they knew to be false to be presented in court by prosecutors. In recent years, 57 environmental protesters have had their convictions quashed or prosecutions against them dropped because key evidence gathered by undercover officers was concealed from their trials. The new cases of potentially unjust convictions came to light on Thursday as May announced details of the remit of a public inquiry into undercover infiltration of political groups since 1968. She said the inquiry into the failings of the undercover police – to be headed by Lord Justice Pitchford – is expected to be completed within three years. May set up the inquiry following a series of revelations which included how undercover officers had spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence and other grieving families, and formed long-term relationships with female campaigners. The inquiry will scrutinise how the undercover officers “targeted individuals and groups such as political and social justice campaigners” during deployments that typically lasted five years, she said. Pitchford will “examine the motivation for, and the scope of, undercover police operations in practice and their effect upon individuals in particular and the public in general”, she added. The inquiry will also look at the oversight and regulation of the undercover operations, and how much ministers and Whitehall officials knew about the covert missions. May said the inquiry will also scrutinise the convictions of campaigners to see if they should be quashed, as the independent report she had commissioned from Ellison was released. Ellison said that sometimes the undercover officers had been working in their secret role when activists they were infiltrating had been arrested and later prosecuted. However, the undercover police knew that parts of the prosecution case against the activists were false but did not alert the court. On other occasions, the undercover spies were arrested and prosecuted but appeared in court using their fake identities. Ellison said that inevitably the spies deceived other police officers who had made the arrests, prosecutors as well as the lawyers representing the campaigners who were being prosecuted. He added that the undercover officers gathered evidence in prosecutions of campaigners but failed to disclose it to prosecutors as the legal rules governing fair trials required. The QC said that at least 26 officers had been arrested in their undercover roles on 53 occasions, but gave no details. May, who said Ellison’s report had “shone a spotlight on this police tactic”, has set up a panel, consisting of senior prosecutors and police, that can be called upon by the inquiry to look at possible miscarriages of justice. No details of the 83 new cases were published by Ellison, who said they were being examined by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the official agency that looks at potential wrongful convictions. “No decisions have been made by the CCRC or the CPS as to whether they should be referred to the courts. Nevertheless the cases provide some further insight as to the types of issues being raised, and the spectrum of behaviour of concern to the safety of convictions.” Ellison made it clear that there were a large number of convictions where he could not identify if they were unjust, because the records of the undercover operations were no longer available. He quotes one senior undercover officer who said: “We did our best to make it difficult for anyone to understand/reveal our work”, and another saying : “We were part of a ‘black operation’ that absolutely no one knew about and only the police had actually agreed that this was all OK.” Some individuals and groups who were spied on by the undercover police welcomed the scope of the inquiry, but warned that it must not be a whitewash.

GIRLFRIEND OF UNDERCOVER SPY SUES CORPORATE SECURITY FIRM Environmental activist who had a relationship with spy Mark Kennedy is taking legal action against Global Open – thought to be first lawsuit of its kind ► http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2015/jul/12/former-girlfriend-of-undercover-spy-sues-corporate-security-firm ► The Guardian / by Rob Evans ► Source: Statewatch / London / www.statewatch.org Jul 20 2015 ► Jul 12. An environmental campaigner who had an intimate relationship with an under-cover spy is suing a corporate security firm in what is believed to be the first legal action of its kind. The woman is taking legal action against Global Open, a commercial firm hired by companies to

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monitor protesters. She alleges in the high court case that Mark Kennedy pursued her to start the relationship, while, she says, he worked undercover for Global Open. Kennedy had previously worked for the police as an undercover officer and used a false identity to infiltrate environmental groups for seven years. He maintained his fake persona after he left the police. She alleges that he used this fake identity to continue spying on protesters “under the direction and control of Global Open”, while they were having a sexual relationship. Global Open, which is con-testing the lawsuit and has filed a defence, is understood to argue that Kennedy did not work under-cover for it. Disclosure of the lawsuit comes as the home secretary, Theresa May, prepares to announce this month the remit of a judge-led public inquiry into the undercover infiltration of hundreds of political groups since 1968. More than 10 women who had long-term relationships with undercover police officers have been taking legal action against the police. In the first settlement, the Metropolitan police last year paid more than £400,000 to a woman who discovered by chance that the father of her son was an undercover police officer. However, the lawsuit against Global Open is believed to be the first one of this nature launched against a corporate security firm. Global Open, established by a former Special Branch officer Rod Leeming, is one of a number of pri-vate security firms that operate in a largely secretive world. Big companies, such as energy producers and arms dealers, hire firms to monitor protesters who are organising campaigns against them. Like the women suing the police, the woman, who has been granted anonymity during the legal case against Global Open, says she has suffered psychiatric damage after discovering the true identity of her one-time boyfriend. The woman, who has been active in environmental groups for many years, knew Kennedy only casually while he worked for the police. His covert mission for the police started in 2003 when he appeared in radical groups in Nottingham with the elaborate fictional persona of “Mark Stone”, a professional climber with an apparently disreputable criminal past. He gathered information about campaigners until he resigned from the police in early 2010. However, he had reappeared in Nottingham still pretending to be “Stone”. The woman says that from February 2010, he “began to positively seek out a relationship” with her. She says she fell in love with him after he invited her to stay on his canal boat in Nottingham the following month. She adds that Kennedy had to “go deliberately out of his way to make and sustain” his relationship with her as she lived some distance from Nottingham. She says Kennedy gathered inside information about environmental campaigners and planned protests while working for Global Open. He also became involved in campaigning on animal rights issues – something he had previously shown no interest in, according to several campaigners. The woman says that “monitoring animal rights protest was a core focus” of Global Open’s work. Kennedy was exposed as a police spy by the activists he had been spying on in October 2010. Within hours, she says, he travelled to her house and confessed his real identity and covert police role, leaving her devastated. The relationship ended. Asked for a comment about the legal action, Leeming, a director of Global Open, told the Guardian: “We are not allowed to talk about it anyway and I don’t want to talk to you.” Two years ago, Kennedy told a parliamentary select committee: “When I first left the police, I was employed by Global Open and I assisted them in investigating a serious offence.” Kennedy, who is not the subject of the lawsuit, has said that he did not work undercover for Global Open. He said he returned to Nottingham after he left the police in order to spend more time with-drawing from his fake identity in a credible way. The woman’s lawyer, Beth Handley of Hickman & Rose law firm, said the lawsuit – which started in 2013 – has “reached an advanced stage”. She has described the lawsuit in a submission to the public inquiry into the undercover policing of political groups, which is being led by Lord Justice Pitchford and has yet to open. Handley and the woman are pressing the public inquiry to examine the work of private security firms. Handley said the lawsuit raised important issues about the crossover between state and corporate monitoring of political movements and the unregulated nature of the private sector. Three women who had intimate relationships with Kennedy are part of the legal action against police chiefs.

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EU AND "DISCREET SURVEILLANCE" Official reports on EU databases show massive increases in "discreet surveillance" and asylum seeker fingerprinting ► http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/jul/it-systems-reports.htm ► Source: Statewatch / London / www.statewatch.org Jul 20 2015 ► Jul 10. Two new reports on EU databases have been released by the EU's Agency for Large-Scale IT Systems (eu-LISA), which is responsible for managing and developing the Schengen Information System (SIS), the Visa Information System (VIS) and Eurodac (used by Member States to compare the fingerprints of migrants and asylum seekers). The new reports concern SIS and Eurodac. SIS is used by Member States' authorities to issue and search for alerts on wanted persons or objects. EU agencies Europol and Eurojust also have access. The most recent list of authorities formally grant-ed access was published in late June. See: List of competent authorities which are authorised to search directly the data contained in the second generation Schengen Information System. Eurodac is used by the relevant national authorities to register and check the fingerprints and biogra-phical details of asylum seekers and irregular migrants. The system can also be accessed by law en-forcement agencies. In both cases, eu-LISA is responsible for managing a central database for the systems, which is accessed and updated by those Member State authorities with access. Schengen Information System: massive increase in those tagged for "discreet checks" at the border eu-LISA, Report on the technical functioning of Central SIS II and the Communication Infrastructure, including the security thereof and the bilateral and multilateral exchange of supplementary information between Member States eu-LISA, SIS II - Report on the technical functioning. The report on the SIS is mainly technical - dealing with network and security issues - but it also con-tains some statistics that demonstrate its enormous size: "At the end of the reporting period (31 De-cember 2014), the system contained almost 56 million alerts, which makes it the largest database for public security in Europe. In 2014 the number of alerts increased by over 11% compared to... 31 December 2013... Since the entry into operation on 9 April 2013, when there were almost 47 million alerts, the increase was over 19%." The vast majority of these alerts relate to objects sought by the authorities: aircraft, banknotes, blank documents, boats, firearms, industrial equipment, issued documents, securities/means of payment or vehicles. However, a considerable number relate to people: wanted for arrest or extradition, "unwanted aliens", missing persons, "localisation", and persons tagged for "discreet surveillance or specific checks". This last category of alert are known as Article 36 alerts. Statistics on the number of each type of alert stored in the system are not yet available for 2014. However, the IT Agency's "technical report" does list the number of "hits" - that is, the "finding of wanted persons and objects" - for each category. The number of hits on Article 36 alerts grew massively in 2014 compared to the previous year. In 2013, the number of hits on foreign alerts was 14,169, and the number of hits abroad on country's own alerts was 13,424. In 2014 these categories had grown to 23,942 and 23,222 respectively. It is likely that the sigificant increase in the amount of "discreet surveillance" undertaken is due to attempts by the EU and Member States to intensify the monitoring of suspected "foreign fighters" heading to Syria and Iraq. As the IT Agency's report notes: "During the second semester of 2014, ur-gent technical changes related to recommendations in the context of counter-terrorism were endorsed by the SISVIS Committee and planning for implementation was initiated by eu-LISA in the very short term. The changes related to relevant codes tables, definition of new business rules and the check on compatibility of alerts. In practice, the changes allow the authorities having access to the system to trigger immediate actions towards the appropriate SIRENE Bureau as well as the display of the invalidated travel documents which should be seized." For more on this issue, see: Schengen Information System: 41,000 people subject to "discreet surveillance or specific checks" (Statewatch News Online, 9 September 2014) EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: Follow-up to the statement of the Members of the European Council of 12 February 2015 on counter-terrorism: Report on implementation of measures (9422/15) EURODAC: Massive increases in data stored and Member State access eu-LISA, Annual report on the 2014 activities of the Central System of Eurodac pursuant to Article 24(1) of Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 eu-LISA, Annual report on the 2014 activities of Eurodac The report on Eurodac covers the period from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2014. The number of fingerprint sets stored in Eurodac's central database has increased by 330,00 compared to the figures

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for 2013: "At the end of the reporting period on 31 December 2014, there were 2,707,339 sets of fin-gerprints stored in the Central System, comprising both category 1 data and category 2 data together 29. This represented an increase of 14% compared to the data stored at the end of 2013 when there was a total of 2,378,008 sets of fingerprints and an increase of 18% compared to the amount of data stored by end of December 2012 (when there were 2,295,670 fingerprint sets)." Out of the 2.7 million sets of fingerprints stored in the system, the number of people exercising their right to access and, if necessary, correct the data stored on them is tiny: "In 2014 there were a total of 26 category 9 transactions." Category 9 is the type of search carried out by a Member State on behalf of an individual seeking access to their data. Furthermore, despite the ongoing increase in the number of fingerprints stored in the system, the number of access requests is decreasing: "Compared to previous reporting periods, the volume of category 9 transactions is steadily decreasing. A decrease of 47% was registered compared to 2013 data (when 49 category 9 transactions were executed), and a decrease of 77% compared to data registered in 2012 (when 111 category 9 transactions were executed)." This decline contrasts sharply with the growth in Member States' use of the system: "During the reporting period, the Central System processed a total of 756,368 transactions, an increase of 49% compared to the traffic observed in 2013 when the total transactions were 508,565. In a period of two years, the volume of transactions almost doubled, with an 84% increase in transactions observable compared to 2012." These increases mainly relate to asylum seekers and "persons apprehended when irregularly crossing external borders": "In 2014, a total of 505,221 transaction related to asylum seekers (category 1 data) were registered, an increase of 43% compared to data from 2013; the main contributor for this type of data was Germany, as in previous years. A notable increase was also observed for transactions related to persons apprehended when irregularly crossing external borders (category 2 data) - an increase of 112% was apparent relative to data from 2013. In 2014, Italy submitted 42% of category 2 transactions and Greece 32%, very similar to those made in 2013." For an overview of Eurodac's growth and development since the system was launched in 2003, see: Chris Jones, '11 years of Eurodac' The report also mentions the issue of forced fingerprinting, which been high on the political agenda recently as the EU and Member States try to ensure that all those whose data is supposed to be stored in the system are actually registered by Member States. It has been agreed that this may permit the use of force and detention against pregnant women and minors, if Member States' authorities deem it necessary. See: Briefing: Coercive measures or expulsion: fingerprinting migrants EU: FORCIBLE FINGERPRINTING, DETENTION, EXPULSION & ENTRY BAN of MIGRANTS including pregnant women and minors (Statewatch News Online, May 2015) There is no mention of the number of times law enforcement agencies have obtained data from the system. This controversial power was handed to law enforcement authorities when the legislation underpinning Eurodac was redrafted in 2013. See: European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee adopts proposal giving law enforcement authorities and Europol access to Eurodac (Statewatch News Online, December 2012) EURODAC: Council of the European Union: Common European Asylum System: Council adopts the Eurodac regulation (Statewatch News Online, June 2013)

UK: PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE Privacy campaigners win concessions in UK surveillance report Report in response to Edward Snowden’s revelations concedes privacy should be a greater concern in data collection and that current laws are outdated ► www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/14/uk-surveillance-report-makes-concessions-to-privacy-lobby ► The Guardian / by Ewen MacAskill Jul 18 2015 ► Jul 14. Privacy campaigners have secured significant concessions in a key report into surveillance by the British security agencies published on Tuesday. The 132-page report, A Democratic Licence To Operate, which Nick Clegg commissioned last year in the wake of revelations by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, acknowledges the importance of privacy concerns. “Privacy is an essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom, and its erosion weakens the constitutional foundations on which democracy and good governance have traditionally been based in this country,” the report says.

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It says that there are “inadequacies in both law and oversight that have helped create a credibility gap that has undermined public confidence”. The report proposes that the intelligence services retain the power to collect bulk communications data on the private lives of British citizens, but it also now concedes that privacy must be a consideration throughout the process. The report, written for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) by a panel that includes three former heads of UK intelligence agencies, also calls for an overhaul of existing legislation. Despite its concessions to the privacy lobby, the report overall is more favourable to the police and intelligence services than to the campaigners. The panel included the former MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett, the former head of GCHQ Sir David Omand, the former MI5 director general Lord Evans, the investigative journalist Heather Brooke, the historian Lord Hennessy, the co-founder of lastminute.com, Baroness Lane-Fox, and the professor of computer science Dame Wendy Hall. Key points in the report include: ++ Its claim that the UK intelligence agencies are not knowingly acting illegally, though it leaves open past behaviour. ++ Its proposal that the security services retain the power to collect bulk communications data, one of the key concerns raised by Snowden. ++ Its acknowledgment that privacy concerns should be integral to considerations at the start of bulk data collection rather than left towards the end of the process. ++ Its proposal that judges rather than ministers take responsibility for authorising warrants related to criminal issues but that, subject to judicial review, ministers retain responsibility for warrants related to national security – something the intelligence agencies wanted. There was vigorous debate between the former intelligence heads and privacy advocates over Snowden’s disclosures and whether British intelligence agencies had acted illegally. The intelligence agencies had wanted the report to give them a clean bill of health, but instead several caveats were added at the request of privacy advocates such as the inclusion of the word “knowingly”. The report concludes: “Despite the disclosures made by Edward Snowden, we have seen no evidence that the British government knowingly acts illegally in intercepting private communications, or that the ability to collect data in bulk is used by the government to provide it with a perpetual window into the private lives of British citizens. “On the other hand, we have seen evidence that the present legal framework authorising the interception of communications is unclear, has not kept pace with developments in communications technology and does not serve either the government or members of the public satisfactorily. A new, comprehensive and clearer legal framework is required.” The issue of bulk data collection also divided the panel. The intelligence agencies argued that privacy considerations should only kick in near the end of the process when a human analyst sees the information, and not in the initial stages when computers gather and filter data. Privacy campaigners disputed this and secured a new benchmark that puts privacy concerns at the start of the process. The report says: “Our privacy rights as individuals are engaged whenever these agencies embark upon such intelligence activity, including when the public’s data is accessed, collected, filtered and eventually examined by an intelligence analyst. “At each stage, such activities must be demonstrably lawful, necessary and proportionate. Such requirements are essential if there is to be public confidence in the use of these powerful capabilities.” Brooke, an investigative journalist and a representative of the campaign group Privacy International, identified this as a significant shift. “In the age of big data, it is important to recognise that people’s privacy rights are engaged at the point of collection, not just when a human being sits down to look at the final analysis,” she said. “We can’t pretend that intercepting an undersea cable filled with the world’s internet traffic doesn’t affect privacy simply because the data is held and analysed by computers. The mere fact it is accessed and collected is the concern.” The report is the third to be published in the UK this year in response to Snowden’s disclosures. The first was from the parliamentary intelligence and security committee and the second by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation. The three reports will feed into the debate later this year when the government is scheduled to introduce legislation on surveillance. Clegg, who will be at the RUSI on Tuesday for the formal launch of the report, said: “The RUSI report is hugely significant. It brings together thinkers from civil society with senior members of the intelligence community to consider whether internet surveillance practices which have evolved in secret are appropriate for our democratic society.

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“We are now seeing an emerging consensus in favour of a new settlement, with clearer rules and stronger safeguards,” the former deputy prime minister said. “I hope that this report, together with the recent report by David Anderson QC, can provide the basis for a stable new system that protects our security while doing much more to preserve the privacy of ordinary citizens online.”

MH-17 MYSTERY: A NEW TONKIN GULF CASE? ► https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/17/mh-17-mystery-a-new-tonkin-gulf-case/ ► Consortiumnews.com / by Robert Parry ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 18 2015 ► Jul 17. In 1964, the Tonkin Gulf incident was used to justify the Vietnam War although U.S. intelligence quickly knew the facts were not what the U.S. government claimed. Now, the MH-17 case is being exploited to justify a new Cold War as U.S. intelligence again is silent about what it knows, writes Robert Parry. One year ago, the world experienced what could become the Tonkin Gulf incident of World War III, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. As with the dubious naval clash off the coast of North Vietnam in 1964, which helped launch the Vietnam War, U.S. officials quickly seized on the MH-17 crash for its emotional and propaganda appeal – and used it to ratchet up tensions against Russia. Shocked at the thought of 298 innocent people plunging to their deaths from 33,000 feet last July 17, the world recoiled in horror, a fury that was then focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Putin’s face emblazoned on magazine covers, the European Union got in line behind the U.S.-backed coup regime in Ukraine and endorsed economic sanctions to punish Russia. In the year that has followed, the U.S. government has continued to escalate tensions with Russia, supporting the Ukrainian regime in its brutal “anti-terrorism operation” that has slaughtered thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. The authorities in Kiev have even dispatched neo-Nazi and ultranationalist militias, supported by jihadists called “brothers” of the Islamic State, to act as the tip of the spear. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists.”] Raising world tensions even further, the Russians have made clear that they will not allow the ethnic Russian resistance to be annihilated, setting the stage for a potential escalation of hostilities and even a possible nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia. But the propaganda linchpin to the West’s extreme anger toward Russia remains the MH-17 shoot-down, which the United States and the West continue to pin on the Russian rebels – and by extension – Russia and Putin. The latest examples are media reports about the Dutch crash investigation suggesting that an anti-aircraft missile, allegedly involved in destroying MH-17, was fired from rebel-controlled territory. Yet, the U.S. mainstream media remains stunningly disinterested in the “dog-not-barking” question of why the U.S. intelligence community has been so quiet about its MH-17 analysis since it released a sketchy report relying mostly on “social media” on July 22, 2014, just five days after the shoot-down. A source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that the reason for the intelligence community’s silence is that more definitive analysis pointed to a rogue Ukrainian operation implicating one of the pro-regime oligarchs. The source said that if this U.S. analysis were to see the light of day, the Ukrainian “narrative” that has supplied the international pressure on Russia would collapse. In other words, the Obama administration is giving a higher priority to keeping Putin on the defensive than to bringing the MH-17 killers to justice. Like the Tonkin Gulf case, the evidence on the MH-17 case was shaky and contradictory from the start. But, in both cases, U.S. officials confidently pointed fingers at the “enemy.” President Lyndon Johnson blamed North Vietnam in 1964 and Secretary of State John Kerry implicated ethnic Russian rebels and their backers in Moscow in 2014. In both cases, analysts in the U.S. intelligence community were less certain and even reached contrary conclusions once more evidence was available. In both cases, those divergent assessments appear to have been suppressed so as not to interfere with what was regarded as a national security priority – confronting “North Vietnamese aggression” in 1964 and “Russian aggression” in 2014. To put out the contrary information would have undermined the government’s policy and damaged “credibility.” So the facts – or at least the conflicting judgments – were hidden.

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The Price of Silence In the case of the Tonkin Gulf, it took years for the truth to finally emerge and – in the meantime – tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese had lost their lives. Yet, much of the reality was known soon after the Tonkin Gulf incident on Aug. 4, 1964. Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1964 was a young Defense Department official, recounts – in his 2002 book Secrets – how the Tonkin Gulf falsehoods took shape, first with the panicked cables from a U.S. Navy captain relaying confused sonar readings and then with that false storyline presented to the American people. As Ellsberg describes, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced retaliatory airstrikes on Aug. 4, 1964, telling “the American public that the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on ‘routine patrol in international waters’; that this was clearly a ‘deliberate’ pattern of ‘naked aggression’; that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was ‘unequivocal’; that the attack had been ‘unprovoked’; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition, intended no wider war.” Ellsberg wrote: “By midnight on the fourth, or within a day or two, I knew that each one of those assurances was false.” Yet, the White House made no effort to clarify the false or misleading statements. The falsehoods were left standing for several years while Johnson sharply escalated the war by dispatching a half million soldiers to Vietnam. In the MH-17 case, we saw something similar. Within three days of the July 17, 2014 crash, Secretary Kerry rushed onto all five Sunday talk shows with his rush to judgment, citing evidence provided by the Ukrainian government through social media. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Gregory asked, “Are you bottom-lining here that Russia provided the weapon?” Kerry: “There’s a story today confirming that, but we have not within the Administration made a determination. But it’s pretty clear when – there’s a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence. I’m a former prosecutor. I’ve tried cases on circumstantial evidence; it’s powerful here.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Kerry’s Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment.”] Two days later, on July 22, the Director of National Intelligence authorized the release of a brief report essentially repeating Kerry’s allegations. The DNI’s report also cited “social media” as implicating the ethnic Russian rebels, but the report stopped short of claiming that the Russians gave the rebels the sophisticated Buk (or SA-11) surface-to-air missile that the report indicated was used to bring down the plane. Instead, the report cited “an increasing amount of heavy weaponry crossing the border from Russia to separatist fighters in Ukraine”; it claimed that Russia “continues to provide training – including on air defense systems to separatist fighters at a facility in southwest Russia”; and its noted the rebels “have demonstrated proficiency with surface-to-air missile systems, downing more than a dozen aircraft in the months prior to the MH17 tragedy, including two large transport aircraft.” Yet, despite the insinuation of Russian guilt, what the public report didn’t say – which is often more significant than what is said in these white papers – was that the rebels had previously only used short-range shoulder-fired missiles to bring down low-flying military planes, whereas MH-17 was flying at around 33,000 feet, far beyond the range of those weapons. The assessment also didn’t say that U.S. intelligence, which had been concentrating its attention on eastern Ukraine during those months, detected the delivery of a Buk missile battery from Russia, despite the fact that a battery consists of four 16-foot-long missiles that are hauled around by trucks or other large vehicles. Rising Doubts I was told that the absence of evidence of such a delivery injected the first doubts among U.S. analysts who also couldn’t say for certain that the missile battery that was suspected of firing the fateful missile was manned by rebels. An early glimpse of that doubt was revealed in the DNI briefing for several mainstream news organizations when the July 22 assessment was released. The Los Angeles Times reported, “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mystery of a Ukrainian ‘Defector.’”] The Russians also challenged the rush to judgment against them, although the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored – or ridiculed – their presentation. But the Russians at least provided what appeared to be substantive data, including alleged radar readings showing the presence of a Ukrainian jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of MH-17. Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov also called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems to sites in eastern Ukraine and why Kiev’s Kupol-M19S18 radars, which coordinate the flight of Buk missiles, showed increased activity leading up to the July 17 shoot-

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down. The Ukrainian government countered by asserting that it had “evidence that the missile which struck the plane was fired by terrorists, who received arms and specialists from the Russian Federation,” according to Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, using Kiev’s preferred term for the rebels. On July 29, amid this escalating rhetoric, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of mostly retired U.S. intelligence officials, called on President Barack Obama to release what evidence the U.S. government had, including satellite imagery. “As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information,” the group wrote. “As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence.” But the Obama administration failed to make public any intelligence information that would back up its earlier suppositions. Then, in early August, I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had begun shifting away from the original scenario blaming the rebels and Russia to one focused more on the possibility that extremist elements of the Ukrainian government were responsible, funded by one of Ukraine’s rabidly anti-Russian oligarchs. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-down Scenario Shifts”and “Was Putin Targeted for Mid-air Assassination?”] Last October, Der Spiegel reported that the German intelligence service, the BND, also had concluded that Russia was not the source of the missile battery – that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base – but the BND still blamed the rebels for firing it. The BND also concluded that photos supplied by the Ukrainian government about the MH-17 tragedy “have been manipulated,” Der Spiegel reported. And, the BND disputed Russian government claims that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been flying close to MH-17, the magazine said, reporting on the BND’s briefing to a parliamentary committee on Oct. 8, 2014. But none of the BND’s evidence was made public — and I was subsequently told by a European official that the evidence was not as conclusive as the magazine article depicted. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case.”] Dog Still Doesn’t Bark When the Dutch Safety Board investigating the crash issued an interim report in mid-October, it answered few questions, beyond confirming that MH-17 apparently was destroyed by “high-velocity objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” The 34-page Dutch report was silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who fired it. In January, when I re-contacted the source who had been briefed by the U.S. analysts, the source said their thinking had not changed, except that they believed the missile may have been less sophisticated than a Buk, possibly an SA-6, and that the attack may have also involved a Ukrainian jetfighter firing on MH-17. Since then there have been occasional news accounts about witnesses reporting that they did see a Ukrainian fighter plane in the sky and others saying they saw a missile possibly fired from territory then supposedly controlled by the rebels (although the borders of the conflict zone at that time were very fluid and the Ukrainian military was known to have mobile anti-aircraft missile batteries only a few miles away). But the larger dog-not-barking question is why the U.S. intelligence community has clammed up for nearly one year, even after I reported that I was being told that U.S. analysts had veered off in a different direction – from the initial blame-the-Russians approach – toward one focusing on a rogue Ukrainian attack. For its part, the DNI’s office has cited the need for secrecy even as it continues to refer to its July 22 report. But didn’t DNI James Clapper waive any secrecy privilege when he rushed out a report five days after the MH-17 shoot-down? Why was secrecy asserted only after the U.S. intelligence community had time to thoroughly review its photographic and electronic intelligence? Over the past 11 months, the DNI’s office has offered no updates on the initial assessment, with a DNI spokeswoman even making the absurd claim that U.S. intelligence has made no refinements of its understanding about the tragedy since July 22, 2014. If what I’ve been told is true, the reason for this silence would likely be that a reversal of the initial rush to judgment would be both embarrassing for the Obama administration and detrimental to an “information warfare” strategy designed to keep the Russians on the defensive.

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But if that’s the case, President Barack Obama may be acting even more recklessly than President Johnson did in 1964. As horrific as the Vietnam War was, a nuclear showdown with Russia could be even worse.

SEAWORLD INFILTRATED PETA SeaWorld Employee Masqueraded as Animal Activist, Peta Says ► www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-14/seaworld-employee-posed-as-animal-activist-for-years-peta-says ► Bloomberg / by by Chris Palmeri ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 18 2015 ► Jul 14. A SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. employee posed for years as an animal-rights activist, joining protests against the company over its use of captive killer whales, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Peta, based in Norfolk, Virginia, said that a California activist who identified himself as Thomas Jones has been taking part in the group’s activities. He protested a SeaWorld float at New York’s Thanksgiving Day parade in 2013, held anti-SeaWorld signs outside the company’s San Diego theme park, and got hauled away by police at the 2014 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, Peta said. Peta officials said they believe Jones is another man: 28-year-old Paul McComb, who has worked in a number of positions at SeaWorld since at least 2008, including as a human resources representative, according to a job history posted on the website Jresume.com. The claim, if true, could mark another public-relations black eye for SeaWorld, which has faced withering criticism of its marquee attraction -- trained killer whales performing for guests. The company has endured a critical documentary, boycotts and the loss of sponsorships. Attendance and revenue have suffered. “We are focused on the safety of our team members, guests and animals, and beyond that we do not comment on our security operations,” Fred Jacobs, a SeaWorld spokesman, said in a statement Monday. “This is a responsibility that we take very seriously, especially as animal rights groups have become increasingly extreme in their rhetoric and tactics.” SeaWorld didn’t respond to other questions, including whether McComb works for the company. McComb, reached by mobile phone using the number at the jresume.com site, declined to say if he was a SeaWorld employee and hung up when asked if he used the name Thomas Jones. Pitch Forks Jones used social media to contact other protesters for information. “What is the big surprise for the upcoming protest. Are we going up the gates or something,” he asked another activist in a March 2014 message provided by Peta. He also urged activists on. “Grab your pitch forks and torches. Time to take down SeaWorld,” Jones said in comments on Facebook before a July 4, 2014, SeaWorld protest. Photos of Jones posted on his Facebook page resemble those of McComb on the page of his wife, Brittany McComb. Reached by phone, she confirmed she is married to Paul McComb, while declining to answer other questions. The Facebook page of Brittany McComb, which was available Monday, has since been taken down. Jones’s Facebook page disappeared Tuesday morning and then reappeared with photos of him removed. Photos Match? Hal Weiss, an activist who sat next to Jones in a police van after the Rose Bowl protest, said he is certain the pictures of McComb are of the same man. Lisa Lange, a Peta spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said she met Jones three times and that the photos on Brittany McComb’s Facebook page matched those of the activist. “It’s definitely him,” Lange said in a phone interview. SeaWorld, which owns 11 theme parks in the U.S., has experienced a public-relations tsunami since the release of the “Blackfish” documentary in 2013. The film, produced by Manny O Productions and aired repeatedly by CNN, argues that killer whales are too big to be kept in captivity. At the urging of petitioners at Change.org and groups including Peta, artists such as Willie Nelson canceled appearances at SeaWorld’s flagship park in Orlando. Southwest Airlines Co. ended its marketing relationships with the brand a year ago. SeaWorld’s attendance dropped in 2013 and 2014. SeaWorld rose 0.5 percent to $18.61 at the close in New York. The shares are more than 30 percent below the $27 they were offered at in April 2013 when the company first sold stock to the public. Blackstone Group is SeaWorld's largest shareholder with a 22 percent stake, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.

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New CEO In December, SeaWorld said it was replacing Chief Executive Officer Jim Atchison. In March, the company appointed Joel Manby, who ran the Dollywood park and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. The same month, SeaWorld introduced a marketing campaign designed to show off the good work it does for animals, such as rescuing beached sea lions. SeaWorld has said its killer whales get excellent care. Lange, the Peta spokeswoman, said she saw Jones taken away by police after she and a group of activists tried to stop a SeaWorld float during the January 2014 Rose Parade. The group planned to regroup outside the Pasadena police station after their arrests, but Jones never reappeared, she said. License Search Lieutenant Mark Goodman, a spokesman for the Pasadena police, said he couldn’t find a record of a Paul McComb being arrested. He also didn’t have a record of a Thomas Jones close to McComb’s age. With suspicions growing, Peta activists wrote down Jones’s license plate number at a June 6 protest in San Diego and traced it to McComb, according to Kathy Guillermo, another Peta spokeswoman. There were other reasons Peta suspected a connection between Jones and SeaWorld. Jones gave two addresses when registering with the group. One is on a street in Jamul, California, that doesn’t exist. There is such a street in El Cajon, where McComb lives, according to a Nexis search of public records. Jamul, where he lived previously, is nearby. SeaWorld Link The other address provided by Jones, a post-office box in San Diego, comes up in a Nexis search as used by Richard Marcelino. Ric Marcelino is SeaWorld’s head of security in San Diego, according to his LinkedIn profile. Marcelino didn’t respond to a request for comment sent through LinkedIn. McComb held a security guard’s license in California that expired in March, according to state records. SeaWorld, in its statement, provided a link to a Peta job posting for an undercover investigator. “Peta itself actively recruits animal rights activists to gain employment at companies like SeaWorld, as this job posting demonstrates,” company spokesman Jacobs said. “Safety is our top priority, and we will not waiver from that commitment.” Peta has encouraged activists to use drones to capture footage of hunters. The group put a hidden camera in a Kentucky horse trainer’s barn to record what it said was mistreatment. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission said there were no violations by the stable. Peta’s Guillermo said it never uses false names in its investigations.

BELGIUM: OCAD IN CONFLICT Antiterreurorgaan komt in vaarwater van andere inlichtingendiensten ► http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20150714_01777368 ► De Standaard / by Mark Eeckhaut and Nikolas Vanhecke Jul 15 2015 ► Jul 15. Ocad, het orgaan dat de terreurdreiging moet analyseren, krijgt kritiek te ver-werken na een rapport van zijn toezichthouder. Ocad werkt zélf als een inlichtingendienst en komt zo in het vaarwater van de Staatsveiligheid en de militaire inlichtingendienst. Ocad, voluit het ‘coördinatieorgaan voor de dreigingsanalyse’, moet op basis van inlichtingen analyse-ren hoe ernstig de terroristische en extremistische dreiging is. In het hele land of bijvoorbeeld in ge-bouwen of op evenementen. Het doet dat op basis van informatie van verschillende diensten, zoals de Staatsveiligheid of de federale politie, maar ook Buitenlandse Zaken of de douane. In een doorlichtingsrapport van het Comité I, dat inlichtingendienst in ons land controleert, zou volgens onze bronnen Ocad verweten worden dat het ook op eigen houtje naar informatie op zoek gaat. En dat mag niet. De audit nam verschillende maanden in beslag en werd vorige week en gisteren besproken in het parlement. Daar waren ook premier Charles Michel (MR), minister van Justitie Koen Geens (CD&V), Defensieminister Steven Vandeput (N-VA) en minister van Binnenlandse Zaken Jan Jambon (N-VA) uitzonderlijk bij aanwezig. Contacten in het buitenland Volgens onze informatie is er ook bij de andere veiligheidsdiensten, de Adiv en de Staatsveiligheid, ergernis over de – volgens hen – parallelle contacten die Ocad-topman Vandoren de voorbije jaren heeft uitgebouwd met buitenlandse diensten. De Standaard kon kennisnemen van de voornaamste punten van kritiek aan het adres van Ocad. Zo zou topman Vandoren onder andere zijn afgereisd naar Rusland en Oekraïne (nog voor de revolutie

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en burgeroorlog daar) om er contacten te hebben met de veiligheidsdiensten. De Ocad-topman zou ook nauwe contacten hebben met de Chinese autoriteiten en zijn dienst zou daarenboven in contact staan met de Amerikaanse geheime dienst. Het Comité I vraagt zich af of Vandoren die contacten in de functie die hij bekleedt, wel hoort te hebben. Sanctie? Nu moeten de beleidsmakers uitmaken of de wet over Ocad moet worden herzien en of topman Vandoren een sanctie krijgt voor de eventueel ongeoorloofde contacten. André Vandoren wilde gisteren niet reageren op de inhoud van het rapport, maar zei wel dat hijzelf en zijn dienst zich niets te verwijten hebben.

NSA TARGETED NOT TARGETED FOREIGNERS In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are Files provided by Snowden show extent to which ordinary Web users are caught in the net ► https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-nsa-intercepted-data-those-not-targeted-far-

outnumber-the-foreigners-who-are/2014/07/05/8139adf8-045a-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html ► Washington Post / by Barton Gellman, Julie Tate and Ashkan Soltani Jul 14 2015 ► Jul 5. Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post. Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else. Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents. (How 160,000 intercepted conversations led to The Post’s latest NSA story) The surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma that has been aired only abstractly in public. There are discoveries of considerable intelligence value in the intercepted messages — and collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the Obama administration has not been willing to address. Among the most valuable contents — which The Post will not describe in detail, to avoid interfering with ongoing operations — are fresh revelations about a secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by an ostensible ally, a military calamity that befell an unfriendly power, and the identities of aggressive intruders into U.S. computer networks. Months of tracking communications across more than 50 alias accounts, the files show, led directly to the 2011 capture in Abbottabad of Muhammad Tahir Shahzad, a Pakistan-based bomb builder, and Umar Patek, a suspect in a 2002 terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali. At the request of CIA officials, The Post is withholding other examples that officials said would compromise ongoing operations. (Transcript: Q&A with Barton Gellman) Many other files, described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained, have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless. In order to allow time for analysis and outside reporting, neither Snowden nor The Post has disclosed until now that he obtained and shared the content of intercepted communications. The cache Snowden provided came from domestic NSA operations under the broad authority granted by Congress in 2008 with amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA content is generally stored in closely controlled data repositories, and for more than a year, senior government officials have depicted it as beyond Snowden’s reach. The Post reviewed roughly 160,000 intercepted e-mail and instant-message conversations, some of them hundreds of pages long, and 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts. The material spans President Obama’s first term, from 2009 to 2012, a period of exponential growth for the NSA’s domestic collection. Taken together, the files offer an unprecedented vantage point on the changes wrought by Section 702 of the FISA amendments, which enabled the NSA to make freer use of methods that for 30 years

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had required probable cause and a warrant from a judge. One program, code-named PRISM, extracts content stored in user accounts at Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and five other leading Internet companies. Another, known inside the NSA as Upstream, intercepts data on the move as it crosses the U.S. junctions of global voice and data networks. No government oversight body, including the Justice Department, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, intelligence committees in Congress or the president’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, has delved into a comparably large sample of what the NSA actually collects — not only from its targets but also from people who may cross a target’s path. Among the latter are medical records sent from one family member to another, résumés from job hunters and academic transcripts of schoolchildren. In one photo, a young girl in religious dress beams at a camera outside a mosque. Scores of pictures show infants and toddlers in bathtubs, on swings, sprawled on their backs and kissed by their mothers. In some photos, men show off their physiques. In others, women model lingerie, leaning suggestively into a webcam or striking risque poses in shorts and bikini tops. “None of the hits that were received were relevant,” two Navy cryptologic technicians write in one of many summaries of nonproductive surveillance. “No additional information,” writes a civilian analyst. Another makes fun of a suspected kidnapper, newly arrived in Syria before the current civil war, who begs for employment as a janitor and makes wide-eyed observations about the state of undress displayed by women on local beaches. By law, the NSA may “target” only foreign nationals located overseas unless it obtains a warrant based on probable cause from a special surveillance court. For collection under PRISM and Upstream rules, analysts must state a reasonable belief that the target has information of value about a foreign government, a terrorist organization or the spread of nonconventional weapons. Most of the people caught up in those programs are not the targets and would not lawfully qualify as such. “Incidental collection” of third-party communications is inevitable in many forms of surveillance, but in other contexts the U.S. government works harder to limit and discard irrelevant data. In criminal wiretaps, for example, the FBI is supposed to stop listening to a call if a suspect’s wife or child is using the phone. There are many ways to be swept up incidentally in surveillance aimed at a valid foreign target. Some of those in the Snowden archive were monitored because they interacted directly with a target, but others had more-tenuous links. If a target entered an online chat room, the NSA collected the words and identities of every person who posted there, regardless of subject, as well as every person who simply “lurked,” reading passively what other people wrote. “1 target, 38 others on there,” one analyst wrote. She collected data on them all. In other cases, the NSA designated as its target the Internet protocol, or IP, address of a computer server used by hundreds of people. The NSA treats all content intercepted incidentally from third parties as permissible to retain, store, search and distribute to its government customers. Raj De, the agency’s general counsel, has testified that the NSA does not generally attempt to remove irrelevant personal content, because it is difficult for one analyst to know what might become relevant to another. The Obama administration declines to discuss the scale of incidental collection. The NSA, backed by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., has asserted that it is unable to make any estimate, even in classified form, of the number of Americans swept in. It is not obvious why the NSA could not offer at least a partial count, given that its analysts routinely pick out “U.S. persons” and mask their identities, in most cases, before distributing intelligence reports. If Snowden’s sample is representative, the population under scrutiny in the PRISM and Upstream programs is far larger than the government has suggested. In a June 26 “transparency report,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed that 89,138 people were targets of last year’s collection under FISA Section 702. At the 9-to-1 ratio of incidental collection in Snowden’s sample, the office’s figure would correspond to nearly 900,000 accounts, targeted or not, under surveillance. ‘He didn’t get this data’ U.S. intelligence officials declined to confirm or deny in general terms the authenticity of the intercepted content provided by Snowden, but they made off-the-record requests to withhold specific details that they said would alert the targets of ongoing surveillance. Some officials, who declined to be quoted by name, described Snowden’s handling of the sensitive files as reckless. In an interview, Snowden said “primary documents” offered the only path to a concrete debate about the costs and benefits of Section 702 surveillance. He did not favor public release of the full archive, he said, but he did not think a reporter could understand the programs “without being able to review some of that surveillance, both the justified and unjustified.”

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“While people may disagree about where to draw the line on publication, I know that you and The Post have enough sense of civic duty to consult with the government to ensure that the reporting on and handling of this material causes no harm,” he said. In Snowden’s view, the PRISM and Upstream programs have “crossed the line of proportionality.” “Even if one could conceivably justify the initial, inadvertent interception of baby pictures and love letters of innocent bystanders,” he added, “their continued storage in government databases is both troubling and dangerous. Who knows how that information will be used in the future?” For close to a year, NSA and other government officials have appeared to deny, in congressional testimony and public statements, that Snowden had any access to the material. As recently as May, shortly after he retired as NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander denied that Snowden could have passed FISA content to journalists. “He didn’t get this data,” Alexander told a New Yorker reporter. “They didn’t touch —” “The operational data?” the reporter asked. “They didn’t touch the FISA data,” Alexander replied. He added, “That database, he didn’t have access to.” Robert S. Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in a prepared statement that Alexander and other officials were speaking only about “raw” intelligence, the term for intercepted content that has not yet been evaluated, stamped with classification markings or minimized to mask U.S. identities. “We have talked about the very strict controls on raw traffic, the training that people have to have, the technological lockdowns on access,” Litt said. “Nothing that you have given us indicates that Snowden was able to circumvent that in any way.” In the interview, Snowden said he did not need to circumvent those controls, because his final position as a contractor for Booz Allen at the NSA’s Hawaii operations center gave him “unusually broad, unescorted access to raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] under a special ‘Dual Authorities’ role,” a reference to Section 702 for domestic collection and Executive Order 12333 for collection overseas. Those credentials, he said, allowed him to search stored content — and “task” new collection — without prior approval of his search terms. “If I had wanted to pull a copy of a judge’s or a senator’s e-mail, all I had to do was enter that selector into XKEYSCORE,” one of the NSA’s main query systems, he said. The NSA has released an e-mail exchange acknowledging that Snowden took the required training classes for access to those systems. ‘Minimized U.S. president’ At one level, the NSA shows scrupulous care in protecting the privacy of U.S. nationals and, by policy, those of its four closest intelligence allies — Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. More than 1,000 distinct “minimization” terms appear in the files, attempting to mask the identities of “possible,” “potential” and “probable” U.S. persons, along with the names of U.S. beverage companies, universities, fast-food chains and Web-mail hosts. Some of them border on the absurd, using titles that could apply to only one man. A “minimized U.S. president-elect” begins to appear in the files in early 2009, and references to the current “minimized U.S. president” appear 1,227 times in the following four years. Even so, unmasked identities remain in the NSA’s files, and the agency’s policy is to hold on to “incidentally” collected U.S. content, even if it does not appear to contain foreign intelligence. In one exchange captured in the files, a young American asks a Pakistani friend in late 2009 what he thinks of the war in Afghanistan. The Pakistani replies that it is a religious struggle against 44 enemy states. Startled, the American says “they, ah, they arent heavily participating . . . its like . . . in a football game, the other team is the enemy, not the other teams waterboy and cheerleaders.” “No,” the Pakistani shoots back. “The ther teams water boy is also an enemy. it is law of our religion.” “haha, sorry thats kind of funny,” the American replies. When NSA and allied analysts really want to target an account, their concern for U.S. privacy diminishes. The rationales they use to judge foreignness sometimes stretch legal rules or well-known technical facts to the breaking point. In their classified internal communications, colleagues and supervisors often remind the analysts that PRISM and Upstream collection have a “lower threshold for foreignness ‘standard of proof’ ” than a traditional surveillance warrant from a FISA judge, requiring only a “reasonable belief” and not probable cause. One analyst rests her claim that a target is foreign on the fact that his e-mails are written in a foreign language, a quality shared by tens of millions of Americans. Others are allowed to presume that anyone on the chat “buddy list” of a known foreign national is also foreign.

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In many other cases, analysts seek and obtain approval to treat an account as “foreign” if someone connects to it from a computer address that seems to be overseas. “The best foreignness explanations have the selector being accessed via a foreign IP address,” an NSA supervisor instructs an allied analyst in Australia. Apart from the fact that tens of millions of Americans live and travel overseas, additional millions use simple tools called proxies to redirect their data traffic around the world, for business or pleasure. World Cup fans this month have been using a browser extension called Hola to watch live-streamed games that are unavailable from their own countries. The same trick is routinely used by Americans who want to watch BBC video. The NSA also relies routinely on locations embedded in Yahoo tracking cookies, which are widely regarded by online advertisers as unreliable. In an ordinary FISA surveillance application, the judge grants a warrant and requires a fresh review of probable cause — and the content of collected surveillance — every 90 days. When renewal fails, NSA and allied analysts sometimes switch to the more lenient standards of PRISM and Upstream. “These selectors were previously under FISA warrant but the warrants have expired,” one analyst writes, requesting that surveillance resume under the looser standards of Section 702. The request was granted. ‘I don’t like people knowing’ She was 29 and shattered by divorce, converting to Islam in search of comfort and love. He was three years younger, rugged and restless. His parents had fled Kabul and raised him in Australia, but he dreamed of returning to Afghanistan. One day when she was sick in bed, he brought her tea. Their faith forbade what happened next, and later she recalled it with shame. “what we did was evil and cursed and may allah swt MOST merciful forgive us for giving in to our nafs [desires]” Still, a romance grew. They fought. They spoke of marriage. They fought again. All of this was in the files because, around the same time, he went looking for the Taliban. He found an e-mail address on its English-language Web site and wrote repeatedly, professing loyalty to the one true faith, offering to “come help my brothers” and join the fight against the unbelievers. On May 30, 2012, without a word to her, he boarded a plane to begin a journey to Kandahar. He left word that he would not see her again. If that had been the end of it, there would not be more than 800 pages of anguished correspondence between them in the archives of the NSA and its counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate. He had made himself a target. She was the collateral damage, placed under a microscope as she tried to adjust to the loss. Three weeks after he landed in Kandahar, she found him on Facebook. “Im putting all my pride aside just to say that i will miss you dearly and your the only person that i really allowed myself to get close to after losing my ex husband, my dad and my brother.. Im glad it was so easy for you to move on and put what we had aside and for me well Im just soo happy i met you. You will always remain in my heart. I know you left for a purpose it hurts like hell sometimes not because Im needy but because i wish i could have been with you.” His replies were cool, then insulting, and gradually became demanding. He would marry her but there were conditions. She must submit to his will, move in with his parents and wait for him in Australia. She must hand him control of her Facebook account — he did not approve of the photos posted there. She refused. He insisted: “look in islam husband doesnt touch girl financial earnigs unless she agrees but as far as privacy goes there is no room….i need to have all ur details everything u do its what im supposed to know that will guide u whether its right or wrong got it” Later, she came to understand the irony of her reply: “I don’t like people knowing my private life.” Months of negotiations followed, with each of them declaring an end to the romance a dozen times or more. He claimed he had found someone else and planned to marry that day, then admitted it was a lie. She responded: “No more games. You come home. You won’t last with an afghan girl.” She begged him to give up his dangerous path. Finally, in September, she broke off contact for good, informing him that she was engaged to another man. “When you come back they will send you to jail,” she warned. They almost did. In interviews with The Post, conducted by telephone and Facebook, she said he flew home to Austra-lia last summer, after failing to find members of the Taliban who would take him seriously. Australian National Police met him at the airport and questioned him in custody. They questioned her, too, politely, in her home. They showed her transcripts of their failed romance. When a Post reporter called, she already knew what the two governments had collected about her. Eventually, she said, Australian authorities decided not to charge her failed suitor with a crime. Police

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spokeswoman Emilie Lovatt declined to comment on the case. Looking back, the young woman said she understands why her intimate correspondence was recorded and parsed by men and women she did not know. “Do I feel violated?” she asked. “Yes. I’m not against the fact that my privacy was violated in this instance, because he was stupid. He wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t agree with what he was doing.” What she does not understand, she said, is why after all this time, with the case long closed and her own job with the Australian government secure, the NSA does not discard what it no longer needs.

CJR ON 'TERROR WARNINGS' Here’s how not to report on the US government’s terror warnings ► www.cjr.org/analysis/heres_how_not_to_report_on_the_us_governments_terror_warnings.php ► Columbia Journalism Review / by Trevor Timm Jul 13 2015 ► Jul 10, If you turned on the television or checked your phone in the lead up to July 4th, it was almost impossible to miss the wall-to-wall coverage blaring ominous warnings from the US government: ISIS terrorists could strike Americans at any minute over the holiday weekend. As it often is in such instances, the media’s reporting was breathless, hyperbolic, and barely contained a hint of skepticism. When nothing happened—as has been the case literally every time the govern-ment has issued these warnings in the past—there was no apparent self-reflection by these media outlets about how they could have tempered their coverage. Instead, many doubled down by re-writing government press releases, claiming that arrests that hap-pened well before July 4th, and in which the alleged criminals never mentioned the American holiday, are proof of “just how close” the US came to a terror attack over the holiday weekend. During the Bush administration, terror alerts were issued with such frequency that they were widely derided and criticized—even by seasoned counter-terrorism experts. Now that ISIS has emerged, the Bush administration’s derided “color code system” is gone, but the willingness of the media to imme-diately buy into the idea that the public should be freaking out is still alive and well. The last two years have seen the media become much more skeptical of government surveillance powers. Yet when the terror alert flashes, they revert right back to their old ways. Last weekend’s coverage was a case study in rash judgment. All the caveats issued with the warning’s release were hardly noticeable, downplayed and buried in the middle of the articles, sandwiched in-between urgent calls for caution from various government agencies. There will soon be a next time; the government will issue a warning, and the media will inevitably jump. When it does, the first rule of reporting should be to determine whether the alerts are based on anything at all and to put that information in the lede. Authorities flatly acknowledged two weeks ago that they have no “credible” or “specific” information that any attacks will occur, but that barely registered in the media’s coverage. CBS News waited until the sixth paragraph in one of their main articles on the subject to tell its readers of the mitigating information. USA Today also stuck the phrase in the middle of its sixth paragraph and never returned to it. CNN, with a finely honed talent for siren headlines, didn’t disclose this information until their 10th paragraph. NBC News, though, was the most brazen. They told readers that authorities “are unaware of any specific or credible threat inside the country” in the 7th paragraph, quickly followed by a qualifier that could not contain more hyperbole if they tried: “But the dangers are more complex and unpredictable than ever.” Really? Apparently the dangers are more complex and unpredictable than ever if you ignore the fact that terrorism attacks in the US are close to all-time lows, and that Americans have generally never been safer. None of these major news stories mentioned that the US government had issued similar terrorism warnings that generated alarming headlines at least forty times since 9/11. As FAIR’s Adam Johnson detailed, all forty times nothing happened. If news organizations are going to list all the reasons readers should be scared, they should at least attempt to note the reasons that they probably shouldn’t be. Even taking the terror alerts at face value, almost no one asked the question of why there was a sudden and intense worry about ISIS attacks in the United States. Is it because ISIS’s modus operandi calls for terrorism in the US, or is it because US military attacks on ISIS increase the chances that ISIS will want to attack the US back? Recent academic research, after all, concludes “the deployment of troops overseas increases the likelihood of transnational terrorist attacks against the global interests of the deploying state.” Should

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not the fact that the US might be increasing the chances that ISIS will aim an attack against civilians in the United States by starting another long term war in the Middle East be part of the discussion? The US government quickly justified its terrorism warnings after July 4th, announcing that it had arrest-ed a few alleged ISIS sympathizers planning attacks. It’s hard to tell who the FBI arrested, as the FBI director “would not say what the plots entailed or how many people had been arrested.” But judging from public arrest records, there is no indication that any terrorism suspects were planning anything around that specific day. They were arrested before the alerts even went out, and before large numbers of people were ever at risk. Like the vast majority of other recent arrests of terrorism suspects in the US, it’s also likely these arrestees were hapless rubes with mental health issues, not terrorism masterminds. It has become a pattern: the FBI announces a high-profile terrorism arrest that sounds gravely dan-gerous, and then we later find out through court documents the suspect was poor and likely mentally-ill, and that FBI informants were directing the “attack” every step of the way. Several recent investiga-tions have shown the disturbing frequency in which FBI informants suggested, cajoled, pressured, entrapped, and even planned the “terrorist attacks” for the arrested suspects every step of the way. The gripping HBO documentary “The Newburgh Four” or the more recent short film “Entrapped”—about a group of “terrorists” first prosecuted by presidential candidate Chris Christie, who never attempted to commit terrorism at all—have exposed this practice to a wider audience, yet this tactic still barely makes it into traditional media coverage announcing yet another attack thwarted. I’m certainly not arguing the media should ignore ISIS or any potential threat it poses to Americans. Terrorist attacks of all stripes, while extremely rare, will always be a risk to the American public and citizens around the world. But evidence-free fear-mongering at the behest of the government does no one any good. A little perspective would certainly go a long way. Over July 4th weekend, two people in Indiana died in separate fireworks accidents. That’s two more people than ISIS has killed on US soil in the terrorist group’s entire existence.

US TAPPING TURKEY’S INTELLIGENCE US neither confirms nor denies tapping Turkey’s intelligence head Hakan Fidan ► www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_us-neither-confirms-nor-denies-tapping-turkeys-intelligence-head-hakan-fidan_393369.html ► Today's Zaman ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 13 2015 ► Jul 10. US Department of State Spokesperson John Kirby refused to comment during Thursday's daily press briefing on a German magazine's claim that the US's National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on Hakan Fidan, the chief of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), in order to collect information on a high level security meeting about the possible Turkish intervention in Syria to protect a Turkish enclave there last year. When asked about a report by the Germany-based Focus magazine asserting the NSA tapped Fidan's phone and therefore collected the audio from the meeting, Kirby said: "We're not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence or disclosure activity. I just -- I would refer you to the National Security Agency for anything more." Kirby was also asked to comment on this week's meeting in Ankara between Turkish officials and a US delegation led by US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Gen. John Allen. In response to the question, Kirby said the US delegation and the Turks held a series of constructive meetings, in which the parties discussed their mutual efforts in the coalition against ISIL. He added, "I'm not going to detail all the various things that were discussed, but I think you can understand that -- I mean, again, it was a pretty wide-ranging sets of discussions about all the different challenges we're facing against ISIL." Kirby did not confirm or deny allegations that the Turkish government had agreed during the talks to allow its military air base in İncirlik, Adana, to be used by US drones to strike ISIL targets in Syria. "I'm in no position to confirm any kind of decision in that regard," said the spokesman on the claim. With regards to the differences between Turkey and the US on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Kirby stated that the US understands Turkish concerns, adding "It's not something that we ignore. What our focus [is] on inside Syria is against ISIL. That's the focus of the coalition effort. And I'd like to remind everybody that Turkey is a part of that coalition, not just a NATO ally but a part of that coalition, and they're contributing to the effort." Kirby also pointed out Turkey's "significant refugee problem" from Syria. Gen. Allen and US Department of Defense Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Christine Wormuth, along with a large

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delegation from the Pentagon, have been in Ankara this past week meeting with their Turkish counterparts, including Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu. The Turkish and US delegations had an eight-hour-long meeting on Tuesday and continued their discussions on Wednesday and Thursday. The Turkish daily Cumhuriyet reported on Thursday that Ankara agreed to let US armed drones that are deployed at İncirlik Air Base be used against ISIL. Speaking to the A Haber TV channel in late June, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu talked about the presence of armed US drones at İncirlik, adding that the drones were being used for gathering intelligence and that it was natural that they were armed, given the threats in the region. According to Cumhuriyet, Turkey and the US are close to a deal on using the base, but Ankara wants the US to support the Syrian opposition, especially around Aleppo, as a precondition to its assistance.

KANZLERAMT SCHON SEIT KOHL-ÄRA IM NSA-VISIER ► http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/nsa-wikileaks-103.html ► Tagesschau / by John Goetz, Janina Findeisen and Christian Baars ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 13 2015 ► Jul 7. Die NSA hat nach Informationen von WikiLeaks schon seit Jahrzehnten das Bundeskanzleramt abgehört. Das zeigen neue Dokumente, die NDR, WDR und SZ vor Veröffent-lichung einsehen konnten. Betroffen waren demnach neben Kanzlerin Merkel auch ihre Vorgänger Schröder und Kohl. Noch in der vergangenen Woche hatten der Geheimdienstkoordinator im Kanzleramt, Günter Heiß, und der ehemalige Kanzleramtschef Ronald Pofalla (CDU) bei einer Befragung im NSA Unter-suchungsausschuss abgewiegelt. Auf die Frage, ob Merkels Handy abgehört worden sei, sagte Heiß, es gebe Indizien dafür. Es könne aber auch sein, dass ein Gespräch "zufällig" abgehört worden sei, als ein "Beifang" etwa bei einem Telefonat mit dem russischen Präsidenten Putin. Pofalla sagte, er halte es bis heute für nicht bewiesen, dass das Handy der Kanzlerin abgehört worden sei. Der "Spiegel" hatte 2013 erstmals über diesen Verdacht berichtet. Nummern von Merkel, Kauder und Pofalla offenbar in NSA-Datenbank Nun liegen die neuen WikiLeaks-Dokumente vor - eine Liste mit 56 Telefonnummern, darunter Merkels Handy-Nummer, die sie bis mindestens Ende 2013 genutzt hat. Die Nummern stammen offenbar aus einer Datenbank der NSA, in der Abhörziele erfasst sind. Und in dieser Liste findet sich nicht nur Merkels alte Mobilnummer, sondern auch mehr als ein Dutzend weiterer Festnetz-, Handy und Faxanschlüsse aus ihrem direkten Umfeld - darunter die Durchwahl ihrer Büroleiterin im Kanzleramt, Beate Baumann, ihres Stellvertreters sowie weitere Nummern aus dem Kanzlerbüro. Außerdem steht der Name des Unions-Fraktionschefs Volker Kauder, einem engen Vertrauten von Merkel, samt einer Nummer im Bundestag auf der Liste und eine Merkel zugeordnete Nummer in der CDU-Bundesgeschäftsstelle. Auch die aktuelle Handy-Nummer von Ronald Pofalla ist in der NSA Datenbank erfasst. Er hatte es anscheinend schon geahnt. In der Sitzung des NSA Untersuchungs-ausschusses wies ihn jemand darauf hin, dass seine Nummer bislang nicht aufgetaucht sei. Pofallas Antwort: "Kommt noch." Gezieltes Vorgehen der NSA Die Liste zeigt, dass die NSA offenbar sehr gezielt vorgegangen ist. Außer der Kanzlerin und ihrem Büro umfasst sie vor allem Nummern und Namen von der Leitung des Bundeskanzleramts sowie von den Abteilungen 2, 4 und 6 - zuständig für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, Wirtschaftspolitik und die Nachrichtendienste. Selbst die Telefonzentrale des Kanzleramts inklusive der Faxnummer wurde offenbar ausspioniert. Von wann die Liste stammt, ist nicht bekannt. Viele der aufgeführten Nummern sind bis heute aktuell, andere - teils noch aus Bonner Zeiten - sind anscheinend veraltet. Mitarbeiter von Kohl und Schröder im Visier Wann der US-Geheimdienst den Lauschangriff auf das Zentrum der deutschen Regierung gestartet hat, ist nicht klar. Aber einiges deutet daraufhin, dass auch Mitarbeiter von Merkels Vorgängern abgehört wurden. Die ersten Ziele hat die NSA offenbar bereits vor mehr als 20 Jahren in die Daten-bank aufgenommen und in den folgenden Jahren stetig erweitert. Unter anderem findet sich eine alte Bonner Nummer mit dem Eintrag "DR LUDEWIG CHIEF OF DIV 4" in der Liste. Dr. Johannes Lude-wig leitete von 1991 bis 1994 die Wirtschaftsabteilung des Kanzleramts, die Abteilung 4. Danach wechselte er ins Wirtschaftsministerium. Ausgespäht wurde offenbar auch ein persönlicher Referent des damaligen CDU-Staatsministers Anton Pfeiffer, ein enger Vertrauter von Helmut Kohl. Außerdem stehen unter anderem auf der Liste: Bodo Hombach, der 1998/99 einige Monate lang das

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Kanzleramt geleitet hat; Schröders sicherheitspolitischer Berater Michael Steiner; Klaus Gretschmann, ehemaliger Leiter der Abteilung für Wirtschaftspolitik, der unter anderem die Weltwirtschaftsgipfel für den Kanzler vorbereitet hat; Ernst Uhrlau, von 1998 bis 2005 im Kanzleramt für die Aufsicht über die Nachrichtendienste zuständig. Weitere "streng geheime" Abhörprotokolle veröffentlicht WikiLeaks hat außer der Telefonliste erneut einige als "streng geheim" eingestufte Abhörprotokolle der NSA veröffentlicht, darunter abgefangene Gespräche von Kanzlerin Merkel unter anderem mit Scheich Muhammad bin Zayid Al Nahyan aus den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten aus dem Jahr 2009 über die Situation im Iran. Laut einem weiteren Protokoll - ebenfalls von 2009 - hat sie intern kurz vor dem damals geplanten G20-Gipfel in London Vorschläge der US-Notenbank zur Lösung der Finanzkrise kritisiert. Es ging um "toxische Anlagen", die in "bad banks" ausgelagert werden sollten. Merkel habe sich skeptisch dazu geäußert, dass Banken sich komplett ihrer Verantwortung entziehen. Mitte Juni hat Generalbundesanwalt Harald Range ein Ermittlungsverfahren wegen des mutmaßlichen Ausspähens von Merkels Handy eingestellt. Die Vorwürfe seien nicht gerichtsfest nachzuweisen. Beweisdokumente habe die Behörde nicht beschaffen können. Kurz darauf - Anfang Juli - hat Wiki-leaks erste Abhörprotokolle und eine Liste mit Abhörzielen veröffentlicht, die auf einen umfassenden Lauschangriff der NSA auf die deutsche Regierung hindeuteten. Bundesregierung prüft Veröffentlichungen Als Reaktion auf die erste Enthüllung bat die Bundesregierung den US-Botschafter in Deutschland, John B. Emerson, zu einem Gespräch ins Kanzleramt. Die Bundesanwaltschaft prüft nun mögliche neue Ermittlungen wegen der NSA-Aktivitäten. Und in Regierungskreisen hieß es, man wundere sich in dieser Sache über gar nichts mehr. Beschwerden in Washington seien aber offenbar sinnlos. Die Bundesregierung erklärte nun auf Anfrage von NDR, WDR und SZ, die Veröffentlichung aus der vergangenen Woche werde von den zuständigen Stellen geprüft und bewertet, dies dauere an. "Insbesondere da ein Nachweis der Authentizität der veröffentlichten Dokumente fehlt, ist eine abschließende Bewertung derzeit nicht möglich." Zu den in den aktuellen Dokumenten aufgeführten Mobilfunknummern will die Bundesregierung nicht öffentlich Stellung nehmen. Eine Sprecher betonte jedoch, dass weiterhin gelte, was der Chef des Bundeskanzleramts, Peter Altmaier, in der vergangenen Woche gegenüber dem US-Botschaft deutlich gemacht habe: "Die Einhaltung deutschen Rechts ist unabdingbar und festgestellte Verstöße werden mit allen Mitteln des Rechtsstaats verfolgt werden. Darüber hinaus wird die für die Sicherheit unserer Bürger unverzichtbare Zusammenarbeit der deutschen und amerikanischen Nachrichten-dienste durch derartige wiederholte Vorgänge belastet. Bereits seit dem vergangenen Jahr hat die Bundesregierung ihre Spionageabwehr verstärkt und fühlt sich darin durch die neuesten Veröffentlichungen bestätigt." Die US-Regierung hat sich bislang weder offiziell noch inoffiziell zur aktuellen Abhörpraxis in Deutsch-land geäußert. Nur Kanzlerin Merkel hat nach den ersten Berichten über das Abhören ihres Handys eine Art No-Spy-Garantie von US-Präsident Obama bekommen. Dabei ging es allerdings tatsächlich nur um sie persönlich, stellte der frühere NSA- und CIA-Direktor Michael Hayden in einem "Spiegel"-Interview klar. "Das war kein Versprechen, das für irgendjemand anderes an der Spitze der Bundes-regierung gilt."

ERDOGANS SCHATTENKRIEGER So ungeniert spioniert Erdogan seine Gegner aus – mitten in Deutschland ► www.focus.de/politik/ausland/politik-und-gesellschaft-erdogan-und-seine-schattenkrieger_id_4776655.html ► Focus / by Josef Hufelschulte and Axel Spilcker ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 13 2015 ► Jul 4. Türkische Spione in Deutschland sollen Erdogan-Gegner ans Messer geliefert haben. Ein Prozess gegen einen Top-Spion zeigt jetzt, wie Ankaras Geheimdienst massiv Spitzel nach Deutschland einschleust. Richterin Yvonne O. geriet ins Stocken. Die Verlesung des Haftbefehls gegen den mutmaßlichen türkischen Spion Taha Gergerlioglu, 59, hatte um 11.30 Uhr just begonnen, da stolzierte ein elegant gekleideter Herr in den Verhandlungssaal. Der Mann übersah mit diplomatischer Arroganz die einfachen Justizbeamten und erwartete Respekt. Immerhin, sagte er zu der Haftrichterin am Karlsruher Bundesgerichtshof, sei er der türkische Generalkonsul Serhat Aksen, 44. In schwerer Stunde wolle er seinem Landsmann Gergerlioglu beistehen, eingesperrt wegen angeblicher feindlicher Agententätigkeit in Deutschland. Die sichtlich überraschte Richterin wollte gerade weiter den Haftbefehl vortragen, als das Telefon

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neben ihr klingelte. Ein Anwalt teilte im Auftrag eines Professors aus Ankara mit, dass der mutmaßliche Agentenführer zum einflussreichen Beraterstab des türkischen Präsidenten Recep Tayyip Erdogan gehöre. „Damit“, so ein Ermittler zu FOCUS, „war die Katze aus dem Sack. Die Türken haben versucht, massiv auf die deutsche Justiz einzuwirken.“ Die mutmaßliche Botschaft, überbracht von Generalkonsul und Professor: Wenn dem Angeklagten auch nur ein Haar gekrümmt wird, bekommt ihr Erdogans Jähzorn zu spüren. Den Boss nennen sie "Großbruder" Die Bundesanwaltschaft stuft die Intervention im Gerichtssaal durchaus als „besonderen Umstand“ ein, lässt sich ansonsten aber nicht irritieren. Auch wenn Erdogans Top-Spion eine hohe Stellung im Staatsgefüge der Türkei bekleide, so sei er nach Staatsschutz-Ermittlungen gleichwohl der Anführer eines Agentenrings in der Bundesrepublik. Zwei seiner besonders aktiven Spitzel, der Arbeitslose Göksel G., 34, aus Bad Dürkheim und Reisekaufmann Duran Y., 59, aus Wuppertal, werden sich mit ihrem Chef Gergerlioglu vor Gericht verantworten müssen. Die Spionage-Clique hatte ein klares Ziel: Verfolgung und Ausspähung von türkischen und kurdischen Dissidenten, die bei der Rückkehr in ihre Heimat vermutlich verhaftet und gefoltert wurden. Ende April 2014 teilte zum Beispiel Duran Y. seinem Führungsoffizier Gergerlioglu mit, dass einer der „Hetzer“ gegen Erdogan bald in die Türkei fahre. Der Boss, von seinen Spitzeln stets demütig als „Großbruder“ oder „Gouverneur“ angesprochen, versprach, dass man das Lästermaul nach der Einreise in die Türkei „sofort fertigmachen“ werde. In Deutschland lebende Aktivisten der verbotenen Arbeiterpartei Kurdistans (PKK) sowie rebellische Jesiden waren in den Augen des Erdogan-Vertrauten die größten Staatsfeinde. Überdies galten auch Kommunisten der Partei DHKP-C als Top-Zielpersonen. Das Stammkapital kommt aus der Operativ-Kasse Der vierfache Familienvater Gergerlioglu, seit Studentenzeiten ein fleißiger Unterstützer Erdogans islamischkonservativer Partei AKP, begann offenbar 2011 seine erste Geheimmission in Deutschland. In Bad Dürkheim gründete der Textilingenieur mit seinem Komplizen Göksel G. eine Agentur zur Beratung von Firmen im deutsch-türkischen Handel. Eine Tarnadresse? Das Stammkapital von 25 000 Euro kommt offenbar aus der Operativ-Kasse von Hakan Fidan, 46, Boss des mächtigen und allseits gefürchteten Geheimdienstes MIT. Fidan, Intimus von Erdogan, führt Agentennetze im In- und Ausland. Seine Kundschafter in Deutschland sind ihm besonders wichtig. Umso mehr dürfte es ihn geschmerzt haben, dass seine Spitzenkraft Gergerlioglu im Untersuchungsgefängnis landete. Fidan, ein intelligenter und bulliger Typ, kennt die deutschen Sicherheitsbehörden sehr gut. Als türkischer Verbindungsoffizier zur Nato war er eine Zeitlang am „Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps“ in Mönchengladbach-Rheindahlen stationiert. Seit dieser Zeit gilt er als großer Fußballfan von Borussia Mönchengladbach. Wer ist der größte Prahler? Die absurden Protzbauten von Staatsoberhäuptern So smart Fidan wirken mag, so knallhart setzt er Erdogans Ideen um. Vor knapp zwei Jahren protokollierte der US-Geheimdienst NSA ein Telefonat von Fidan, in dem er mit einem hohen Offizier den heimtückischen Plan erörterte, in einer verdeckten Operation von syrischer Seite aus das Grabmal eines berühmten türkischen Religionslehrers beschießen und zerstören zu lassen. Nach Fidans Konzept hätte dies der Anlass sein können, mit türkischen Truppen in Syrien einzumarschieren. Der Plan liegt bis heute in der Schublade. Stattdessen muss Erdogans Adlatus seit Monaten sein Image aufpolieren. Nahezu alle Geheimdienste in Europa werfen ihm vor, gefährliche Islamisten auf dem Weg nach Syrien ungehindert durch die Türkei ziehen zu lassen. Fahndungsersuchen aus Deutschland oder Frankreich wurden nachweislich missachtet. Seinem Top-Spion Gergerlioglu und dessen Komplizen war offenbar kein Trick zu schmutzig. Ende 2013 nahmen sie sich den Anführer einer oppositionellen Glaubensgruppe vor. Staatsschützer des Hessischen Landeskriminalamts (LKA) konnten in abgehörten Telefonaten verfolgen, wie das Trio ihr Opfer Fetullah Güllen erledigen wollte. Mit Hilfe eines Fälschers sollte ein Dokument erstellt werden, aus dem hervorging, dass sich Güllen im Korankurs sexuell an Jungen vergangen habe. Diese belastende Nachricht, so die Ermittlungen, war eigens für den „Oberchef“ bestimmt - gemeint ist Recep Erdogan. Er würde seinem Vorbild angeblich bis in den Tod folgen Der türkische Staatspräsident war zu dieser Zeit ohnehin rachsüchtig. Kurz vor seinem Besuch in Köln erfuhr er im Mai 2014, dass Plakate in der Domstadt ihn als „unerwünschte Person“ dargestellt hatten. Zwei Wochen später nannten Erdogans Spezialagenten einen der angeblichen Aufwiegler: Diesen Mann, so hörten die LKA-Lauscher, müsse man „ficken“.

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Der Prozess gegen das Spionage-Trio könnte die deutschtürkischen Beziehungen weiter belasten. Angebliche V-Mann-Operationen des Bundesnachrichtendienstes im Umfeld von Mördern eines Staatsanwalts brachten die Türken kürzlich in Rage. Umgekehrt agiert man dezenter. Die deutschen Sicherheitsbehörden wissen seit Jahren, wie rücksichtslos die Spione von Hakan Fidan in der Bundesrepublik agieren - dennoch nimmt man auf den Nato-Partner Rücksicht. „Wenn's nach den Türken ginge, könnten wir jede Woche ein Dutzend PKK-Leute festnehmen“, sagte ein früherer BKA-Staatsschutzchef zu FOCUS. Hakan Fidan, der seinem Vorbild Erdogan angeblich treu bis in den Tod folgen würde, gilt als cleverer Geheimdienst-Boss. Seine Deutschland-Spione sitzen nicht nur in sogenannten legalen Residenturen wie Botschaft und Konsulate, sondern auch als Undercover-Agenten in türkischen Reisebüros, Redaktionen, Banken und Gebetshäusern. Seine Trümpfe sind junge Türken Die staatliche DITIB-Moschee in Köln-Ehrenfeld gilt als wichtiger Stützpunkt von Hakan Fidans Geheimdienst MIT. Die Vorbeter werden angeblich angewiesen, Informationen über Erdogans Kritiker sowie Personenfotos über vermeintliche Landesverräter zu liefern. Falls ein Rollkommando für harte Bestrafungsaktionen benötigt wird, stehen die Schläger der nationalistischen Grauen Wölfe gern bereit. Fidans Trümpfe sind junge Türken, die in Deutschland geboren und aufgewachsen sind. Für viele von ihnen ist der Wehrdienst verpflichtend. Wenn sie einwilligen, dem Geheimdienst MIT aus patriotischen Gründen zu helfen, verkürzt sich ihre Militärzeit erheblich. Zurück in Deutschland, arbeiten die zweisprachigen jungen Türken in Stadtverwaltungen, Hotels und Banken. Somit haben sie Zugang zu Daten, die den Agentenboss Fidan interessieren könnten. „Hakans Arm“, so ein LKA-Man, „ist verdammt lang.“

PSYCHOLOGISTS SHIELDED US TORTURE PROGRAM Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds ► www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/us/psychologists-shielded-us-torture-program-report-finds.html?smid=tw-share ► NY Times / by James Risen ► Source: Sabrina Pacifici / BeSpacific / Silver Spring US / www.bespacific.com Jul 10 2015 ► Jul 10. The Central Intelligence Agency’s health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a new report. The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation’s psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon. The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department’s interrogation policies, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.’s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency. The association’s ethics office “prioritized the protection of psychologists — even those who might have engaged in unethical behavior — above the protection of the public,” the report said. Two former presidents of the psychological association were on a C.I.A. advisory committee, the report found. One of them gave the agency an opinion that sleep deprivation did not constitute torture, and later held a small ownership stake in a consulting company founded by two men who oversaw the agency’s interrogation program, it said. The association’s ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group’s public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist, the report said, and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association’s board. Mr. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment. The report, which was obtained by The New York Times and has not previously been made public, is the result of a seven-month investigation by a team led by David Hoffman, a Chicago lawyer with the firm Sidley Austin at the request of the psychology association’s board. After the Hoffman report was made public on Friday, the American Psychological Association issued an apology. “The actions, policies and lack of independence from government influence described in the Hoffman report represented a failure to live up to our core values,” Nadine Kaslow, a former president of the

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organization, said in a statement. “We profoundly regret and apologize for the behavior and the consequences that ensued.” The association said it was considering proposals to prohibit psychologists from participating in interrogations and to modify its ethics policies, among other changes. The involvement of psychologists in the interrogation programs has been a source of contention within the profession for years. Another report, issued in April by several critics of the association, came to similar conclusions. But Mr. Hoffman’s report is by far the most detailed look yet into the crucial roles played by behavioral scientists, especially top officials at the American Psychological Association and some of the most prominent figures in the profession, in the interrogation programs. It also shows that the collaboration was much more extensive than was previously known. A report last December by the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed the brutality of some of the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods, but by focusing on the role of psychologists, Mr. Hoffman’s report provi-des new details, and can be seen as a companion to the Senate report. The C.I.A. and the Pentagon both conducted harsh interrogations during the administration of President George W. Bush, although the C.I.A.’s program included more brutal tactics. Some of them, like the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, are now widely regarded as torture. The agency’s interrogations were done at so-called black site prisons around the world where prisoners were held secretly for years. The report found that while some prominent psychologists collaborated with C.I.A. officials in ways that aided the agency’s interrogation program, the American Psychological Association and its staff members focused more on working with the Pentagon, with which the association has long had strong ties. Indeed, the report said that senior officials of the association had “colluded” with senior Defense Department officials to make certain that the association’s ethics rules did not hinder the ability of psychologists to remain involved with the interrogation program. The report’s most immediate impact will be felt at the association, where it has been presented to the board and its members’ council. The board met last week to discuss the report and is expected to act on its findings soon. The association has since renounced 2005 ethics guidelines that allowed psychologists to stay involved in the harsh interrogations, but several staff members who were named in the report have remained at the organization. A C.I.A. spokesman said that agency officials had not seen it and so could not comment. Dissent began building within the C.I.A. against the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techni-ques not long after its interrogation program began. In about late 2002, the head of the C.I.A.’s Office of Medical Services, Terrence DeMay, started to complain about the involvement in the program of James Mitchell, a psychologist and instructor at the Air Force’s SERE (survival, evasion, rescue and escape) program, in which United States military personnel are subjected to simulated torture to gird them for possible capture. Mr. Mitchell had also served as a consultant to the C.I.A. advisory committee that included two former presidents of the psychological association. One unidentified witness was quoted in the Hoffman report as saying that doctors and psychologists in the C.I.A.’s Office of Medical Services “were not on board with what was going on regarding interroga-tions, and felt that they were being cut out of the discussion.” One leading C.I.A. psychologist told investigators that Mr. DeMay “was berating Jim Mitchell about being involved in the interrogation pro-gram,” and that Mr. DeMay’s objections “related to the involvement of psychologists as professionals adept at human behavior and manipulation.” Mr. DeMay’s complaints “led to a substantial dispute within the C.I.A.,” according to the report, and prompted the head of the agency’s counterterrorism center to seek an opinion from a prominent outside psychologist on whether it was ethical for psychologists to continue to participate in the C.I.A.’s interrogations. The C.I.A. chose Mel Gravitz, a prominent psychologist who was also a member of the agency’s advisory committee. In early 2003, Mr. Gravitz wrote an opinion that persuaded the chief of the agency’s counterterrorism center that Mr. Mitchell could continue to participate in and support interrogations, according to the Hoffman report. Mr. Gravitz’s opinion, which the Hoffman report quotes, noted that “the psychologist has an obligation to (a) group of individuals, such as the nation,” and that the ethics code “must be flexible [sic] applied to the circumstances at hand.” But ethical concerns persisted at the C.I.A. In March 2004, other agency insiders emailed the psycho-logical association to say they were worried that psychologists were assisting with interrogations in ways that contradicted the association’s ethics code. One of those who contacted the association was Charles Morgan, a C.I.A. contractor and psychiatrist

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who had studied military personnel who went through the SERE program’s simulated torture training, research that showed that the techniques used on them could not be used to collect accurate informa-tion. Another, oddly, was Kirk Hubbard, a C.I.A. psychologist who was chairman of the agency advisory committee that included two former association presidents and on which Mr. Mitchell was a consultant. Mr. Hubbard told the Hoffman investigators that he did not have concerns about the participation of psychologists in the interrogation program, but emailed the association because he had been asked to pass on the concerns of other behavioral scientists inside the agency. The ethical concerns raised by Mr. Morgan and others inside the C.I.A. led to a confidential meeting in July 2004 at the psychological association of about 15 behavioral scientists who worked for national security agencies. This was followed by the creation of an association task force to study the ethics of psychologists’ involvement in interrogations. But association and government officials filled the task force with national security insiders, and it concluded in 2005 that it was fine for psychologists to remain involved, the report found. The report provides new details about how Mr. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, another SERE trainer who would later go into business with Mr. Mitchell, gained entree to the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, which hired them to create and run the interrogation program. After Mr. Mitchell worked as a consult-ant to the C.I.A. advisory committee, Mr. Hubbard introduced Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen to Jim Cotsana, the chief of special missions in the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen were later hired as contractors for the counterterrorism center, where they helped create the interrogation program by adapting the simulated torture techniques from the SERE program, using them against detainees. Separately, Joseph Matarazzo, a former president of the psychological association who was a mem-ber of the C.I.A. advisory committee, was asked by Mr. Hubbard to provide an opinion about whether sleep deprivation constituted torture. Mr. Matarazzo concluded that it was not torture, according to the report. Later, Mr. Matarazzo became a 1 percent owner of a unit of Mitchell Jessen and Associates, the con-tracting company Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen created to handle their work with the C.I.A.’s interroga-tion program. Mr. Matarazzo was also listed as a partner of the company in a 2008 annual report, according to the Hoffman report. Mr. Matarazzo said he had not read the report and could not comment. Mr. Hubbard, after he retired from the C.I.A., also did some work for Mitchell Jessen and Associates. The report reaches unsparing conclusions about the close relationship between some association officials and officials at the Pentagon. “The evidence supports the conclusion that A.P.A. officials colluded with D.O.D. officials to, at the least, adopt and maintain A.P.A. ethics policies that were not more restrictive than the guidelines that key D.O.D. officials wanted,” the report says, adding, “A.P.A. chose its ethics policy based on its goals of helping D.O.D., managing its P.R., and maximizing the growth of the profession.”

NEMESIS: GREEK STREET BATTLES Greek army and police prepare for street battles ► http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1577226.ece ► The Sunday Times / by Matthew Campbell ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 5. Greek security forces have drawn up a secret plan to deploy the army alongside special riot police to contain possible civil unrest after today’s referendum on the country’s future in Europe. Codenamed Nemesis, it makes provision for troops to patrol large cities if there is widespread and prolonged public disorder. Details of the plan emerged as polls showed the “yes” and “no” camps neck and neck. But many voters — asked to give their verdict on a bailout agreement rejected by the government and since withdrawn by creditors — were undecided or confused about what they were voting for: the question on the ballot paper is complicated and runs to 74 words. The Greek army has long avoided involvement in politics, but deployment of troops to contain unrest is extremely sensitive in a country with a history of military coups.

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NSA SPIED ON FRENCH PRESIDENTS A new trans-Atlantic diplomatic storm may be brewing. ► http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article25776742.html ► McClatchy DC / by Jonathan S. Landay ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 9 2015 ► Jun 23. The National Security Agency eavesdropped on confidential conversations of French President Francois Hollande, his two predecessors and other senior French officials, according to top-secret NSA documents released on Tuesday by Wikileaks, the online whistleblowing organization. The latest revelation of NSA spying comes nearly two years after U.S.-German relations were roiled by documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that showed that the agency had monitored the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Only last week German prosecutors announced that they were ending a criminal probe into the matter. The new release of the documents could well cause a similar headache for President Barack Obama, even though France, Israel and other key allies are widely believed to spy heavily on the United States. The United States and France work together on many fronts, including negotiations on an accord on Iran’s nuclear program, fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist groups and forging NATO and European Union responses to a more assertive Russia. The revelations also could complicate relations between France and Germany. One of the documents concerned secret talks between French officials and German opposition leaders. Other conversations monitored by the NSA involved the Greek financial crisis, a French effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, French frustrations with what was seen as weak U.S. leadership on coping with the Great Recession and topics, including U.S. spying on France, to be raised at a 2010 summit between Obama and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “The French president will express his frustration that Washington has backed away from its proposed intelligence cooperation agreement,” said a March 24, 2010, summary of a conversation the NSA monitored between Sarkozy’s diplomatic advisor, Jean-David Levitte, and the then-French ambassador to the United States, Pierre Vimont. “As Vimont and Levitte understand it, the main sticking point is the U.S. desire to continue spying on France.” The NSA provided some of the material it collected to Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, a group of English-speaking allies with whom the United States shares intelligence that is known as “the Five Eyes.” A WikiLeaks statement did not reveal how the organization acquired the documents. But a member of the group accompanied Edward Snowden on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow in May 2013 after the former NSA contractor leaked thousands of top-secret documents to American and British journalists. The statement said that WikiLeaks cooperated on the release of the documents with the left-wing French newspaper Liberation and with Mediapart, an online French investigative and opinion journal. “The French people have a right to know that their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally,” the statement quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying. “French readers can expect more timely and important revelations in the near future.” “We are not going to comment on specific intelligence allegations,” said National Security Council spokesman Ned Price. “As a general matter, we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike.” There was no immediate response from the government of Hollande, who succeeded Sarkozy in 2012. WikiLeaks released five NSA documents, calling them “Espionnage Elysee,” a reference to the Elysee Palace, France’s White House. It was unclear from the documents how the NSA eavesdropped on the French officials, although one mentioned “foreign satellite.” It also was marked “unconventional,” as were three other documents. The most recent document – dated May 22, 2012 – summarized a discussion in which Hollande asked his former prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, to convene a secret meeting of top officials to discuss the consequences to the French economy and French banks of a default by Greece on its international loans and its withdrawal from the use of the Euro. “Hollande stressed that the meeting would be secret. (COMMENT: The French president seems worried that if word were to get out that Paris is seriously considering the possibility of a Greek exit, it would deepen the crisis),” said the document. The French president also sought meetings between French officials and members of Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party. Ayrault asked that the meetings be kept secret to avoid

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“diplomatic problems” should Merkel “find out that that Hollande is going behind her back to meet with the German opposition,” the document said. The document noted that “earlier reporting” – an apparent reference to previous NSA spying – showed that Hollande was frustrated with a meeting the previous week with Merkel in which “nothing of substance was achieved.” Another 2006 document outlined a conversation in which then-French President Jacques Chiraq instructed his foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, to push for the appointment of Terje Roed-Larsen, a veteran Norwegian diplomat who served as a special U.N. envoy to Lebanon, to be the deputy U.N. secretary general. A June 10, 2011, summary of a communications intercept disclosed how Sarkozy intended to launch a French initiative to restart stalled face-to-face Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. He was concerned, however, about seeking the participation of the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union, a group known as the Quartet. “It was also disclosed in a conversation between Sarkozy and his foreign minister, Alain Juppe, that consideration was given to including the Quartet in the process,” said the document. “However, they were wary about such an invitation because that group might not bow to Paris’ wishes.” The pair were concerned that “not being a member of the Quartet . . . France would have no control over what transpired in one of its meetings, and if the group elected not to support direct talks, the initiative would be a non-starter,” the document said. Sarkozy considered asking then-Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev to join him “for a possible joint initiative without the United States, or as another option, issuing an ultimatum to the U.S. President regarding Palestinian statehood,” according to the document. “The ultimatum would demand that Washington back France’s efforts to restart the peace process or France would not side with the U.S. in September (presumably referring to the deliberations in the U.N. General Assembly on Palestinian statehood,” it continued. Sarkozy, who supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, publicly unveiled his initiative in a February 2010 news conference in Paris with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

SPIEGEL TARGETED BY US INTELLIGENCE An Attack on Press Freedom ► www.Spiegel.de/international/germany/the-nsa-and-american-spies-targeted-Spiegel-a-1042023.html ► Spiegel Online ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 3. Revelations from WikiLeaks published this week show how boundlessly and comprehensively American intelligence services spied on the German government. It has now emerged that the US also conducted surveillance against SPIEGEL. Walks during working hours aren't the kind of pastime one would normally expect from a leading official in the German Chancellery. Especially not from the head of Department Six, the official inside Angela Merkel's office responsible for coordinating Germany's intelligence services. But in the summer of 2011, Günter Heiss found himself stretching his legs for professional reasons. The CIA's station chief in Berlin had requested a private conversation with Heiss. And he didn't want to meet in an office or follow standard protocol. Instead, he opted for the kind of clandestine meeting you might see in a spy film. Officially, the CIA man was accredited as a counsellor with the US Embassy, located next to Berlin's historic Brandenburg Gate. Married to a European, he had already been stationed in Germany once before and knew how to communicate with German officials. At times he could be demanding and overbearing, but he could also be polite and courteous. During this summer walk he also had something tangible to offer Heiss. The CIA staffer revealed that a high-ranking Chancellery official allegedly maintained close contacts with the media and was sharing official information with reporters with SPIEGEL. The American provided the name of the staffer: Hans Josef Vorbeck, Heiss' deputy in Department Six. The information must have made it clear to Heiss that the US was spying on the German government as well as the press that reports on it. The central Berlin stroll remained a secret for almost four years. The Chancellery quietly transferred Vorbeck, who had until then been responsible for counterterrorism, to another, less important department responsible dealing with the history of the BND federal intelligence agency. Other than that, though, it did nothing.

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Making a Farce of Rule of Law Officials in the Chancellery weren't interested in how the CIA had obtained its alleged information. They didn't care to find out how, and to which degree, they were being spied on by the United States. Nor were they interested in learning about the degree to which SPIEGEL was being snooped on by the Americans. Chancellery officials didn't contact any of the people in question. They didn't contact members of the Bundestag federal parliament sitting on the Parliamentary Control Panel, the group responsible for oversight of the intelligence services. They didn't inform members of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the agency responsible for counterintelligence in Germany, either. And they didn't contact a single public prosecutor. Angela Merkel's office, it turns out, simply made a farce of the rule of law. As a target of the surveillance, SPIEGEL has requested more information from the Chancellery. At the same time, the magazine filed a complaint on Friday with the Federal Public Prosecutor due to suspicion of intelligence agency activity. Because now, in the course of the proceedings of the parliamentary investigative committee probing the NSA's activities in Germany in the wake of revelations leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, details about the event that took place in the summer of 2011 are gradually leaking to the public. At the beginning of May, the mass-circulation tabloid Bild am Sonntag reported on a Chancellery official who had been sidelined "in the wake of evidence of alleged betrayal of secrets through US secret services." Research conducted by SPIEGEL has determined the existence of CIA and NSA files filled with a large number of memos pertaining to the work of the German newsmagazine. And three different government sources in Berlin and Washington have independently confirmed that the CIA station chief in Berlin was referring specifically to Vorbeck's contacts with SPIEGEL. An Operation Justified by Security Interests? Obama administration sources with knowledge of the operation said that it was justified by American security interests. The sources said US intelligence services had determined the existence of intensive contacts between SPIEGEL reporters and the German government and decided to intervene because those communications were viewed as damaging to the United States' interests. The fact that the CIA and NSA were prepared to reveal an ongoing surveillance operation to the Chancellery underlines the importance they attached to the leaks, say sources in Washington. The NSA, the sources say, were aware that the German government would know from then on that the US was spying in Berlin. As more details emerge, it is becoming increasingly clear that representatives of the German government at best looked away as the Americans violated the law, and at worst supported them. Just last Thursday, Günter Heiss and his former supervisor, Merkel's former Chief of Staff Ronald Pofalla, were questioned by the parliamentary investigative committee and attempted to explain the egregious activity. Heiss confirmed that tips had been given, but claimed they hadn't been "concrete enough" for measures to be taken. When asked if he had been familiar with the issue, Pofalla answered, "Of course." He said that anything else he provided had to be "in context," at which point a representative of the Chancellery chimed in and pointed out that could only take place in a meeting behind closed doors. In that sense, the meeting of the investigative committee once again shed light on the extent to which the balance of power has shifted between the government and the Fourth Estate. Journalists, who scrutinize and criticize those who govern, are an elementary part of the "checks and balances" -- an American invention -- aimed at ensuring both transparency and accountability. When it comes to intelligence issues, however, it appears this system has been out of balance for some time. Government Lies When SPIEGEL first reported in Summer 2013 about the extent of NSA's spying on Germany, German politicians first expressed shock and then a certain amount of indignation before quickly sliding back into their persona as a loyal ally. After only a short time and a complete lack of willingness on the part of the Americans to explain their actions, Pofalla declared that the "allegations are off the table." But a number of reports published in recent months prove that, whether out of fear, outrage or an alleged lack of knowledge, it was all untrue. Everything the government said was a lie. As far back as 2013, the German government was in a position to suspect, if not to know outright, the obscene extent to which the United States was spying on an ally. If there hadn't already been sufficient evidence of the depth of the Americans' interest in what was happening in Berlin, Wednesday's revelations by WikiLeaks, in cooperation with Süddeutsche Zeitung, filled in the gaps. SPIEGEL's reporting has long been a thorn in the side of the US administration. In addition to its reporting on a number of other scandals, the magazine exposed the kidnapping of Murat Kurnaz, a man of Turkish origin raised in Bremen, Germany, and his rendition to Guantanamo. It exposed the

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story of Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who was taken to Syria, where he was tortured. The reports triggered the launch of a parliamentary investigative committee in Berlin to look also into the CIA's practices. When SPIEGEL reported extensively on the events surrounding the arrest of three Islamist terrorists in the so-called "Sauerland cell" in Germany, as well as the roles played by the CIA and the NSA in foiling the group, the US government complained several times about the magazine. In December 2007, US intelligence coordinator Mike McConnell personally raised the issue during a visit to Berlin. And when SPIEGEL reported during the summer of 2009, under the headline "Codename Domino," that a group of al-Qaida supporters was believed to be heading for Europe, officials at the CIA seethed. The sourcing included a number of security agencies and even a piece of information supplied by the Americans. At the time, the station chief for Germany's BND intelligence service stationed in Washington was summoned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The situation escalated in August 2010 after SPIEGEL, together with WikiLeaks, the Guardian and the New York Times, began exposing classified US Army reports from Afghanistan. That was followed three months later with the publication of the Iraq war logs based on US Army reports. And in November of that year, WikiLeaks, SPIEGEL and several international media reported how the US government thinks internally about the rest of the world on the basis of classified State Department cables. Pentagon officials at the time declared that WikiLeaks had "blood on its hands." The Justice Department opened an investigation and seized data from Twitter accounts, e-mail exchanges and personal data from activists connected with the whistleblowing platform. The government then set up a Task Force with the involvement of the CIA and NSA. Not even six months later, the CIA station chief requested to go on the walk in which he informed the intelligence coordinator about Vorbeck and harshly criticized SPIEGEL. Digital Snooping Not long later, a small circle inside the Chancellery began discussing how the CIA may have got ahold of the information. Essentially, two possibilities were conceivable: either through an informant or through surveillance of communications. But how likely is it that the CIA had managed to recruit a source in the Chancellery or on the editorial staff of SPIEGEL? The more likely answer, members of the circle concluded, was that the information must have been the product of "SigInt," signals intelligence -- in other words, wiretapped communications. It seems fitting that during the summer of 2013, just prior to the scandal surrounding Edward Snowden and the documents he exposed pertaining to NSA spying, German government employees warned several SPIEGEL journalists that the Americans were eavesdropping on them. At the end of June 2011, Heiss then flew to Washington. During a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, the issue of the alleged contact with SPIEGEL was raised again. Chancellery staff noted the suspicion in a classified internal memo that explicitly names SPIEGEL. One of the great ironies of the story is that contact with the media was one of Vorbeck's job responsibilities. He often took part in background discussions with journalists and even represented the Chancellery at public events. "I had contact with journalists and made no secret about it," Vorbeck told SPIEGEL. "I even received them in my office in the Chancellery. That was a known fact." He has since hired a lawyer. It remains unclear just who US intelligence originally had in its scopes. The question is also unlikely to be answered by the parliamentary investigative committee, because the US appears to have withheld this information from the Chancellery. Theoretically, at least, there are three possibilities: The Chancellery -- at least in the person of Hans Josef Vorbeck. SPIEGEL journalists. Or blanket surveillance of Berlin's entire government quarter. The NSA is capable of any of the three options. And it is important to note that each of these acts would represent a violation of German law. Weak Arguments So far, the Chancellery has barricaded itself behind the argument that the origin of the information had been too vague and abstract to act on. In addition, the tip had been given in confidentiality, meaning that neither Vorbeck nor SPIEGEL could be informed. But both are weak arguments, given that the CIA station chief's allegations were directed precisely at SPIEGEL and Vorbeck and that the intelligence coordinator's deputy would ultimately be sidelined as a result. And even if you follow the logic that the tip wasn't concrete enough, there is still one committee to whom the case should have been presented under German law: the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Panel, whose proceedings are classified and which is responsible for oversight of Germany's intelligence services. The nine members of parliament on the panel are required to be informed about all intelligence events of "considerable importance." Members of parliament on the panel did indeed express considerable interest in the Vorbeck case. They learned in fall 2011 of his transfer, and wanted to know why "a reliable coordinator in the fight

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against terrorism would be shifted to a post like that, one who had delivered excellent work on the issue," as then chairman of the panel, Social Demoratic Party politician Thomas Oppermann, criticized at the time. But no word was mentioned about the reasons behind the transfer during a Nov. 9, 2011 meeting of the panel. Not a single word about the walk taken by the CIA chief of station. Not a word about the business trip to Washington taken by Günter Heiss afterward. And not a word about Vorbeck's alleged contacts with SPIEGEL. Instead, the parliamentarians were told a myth -- that the move had been made necessary by cutbacks. And also because he was needed to work on an historical appraisal of Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND. Deceiving Parliament Officials in the Chancellery had decided to deceive parliament about the issue. And for a long time, it looked as though they would get away with it. The appropriate way of dealing with the CIA's incrimination would have been to transfer the case to the justice system. Public prosecutors would have been forced to follow up with two investigations: One to find out whether the CIA's allegations against Vorbeck had been true -- both to determine whether government secrets had been breached and out of the obligation to assist a longtime civil servant. It also would have had to probe suspicions that a foreign intelligence agency conducted espionage in the heart of the German capital. That could, and should, have been the case. Instead, the Chancellery decided to go down the path of deception, scheming with an ally, all the while interpreting words like friendship and partnership in a highly arbitrary and scrupulous way. Günter Heiss, who received the tip from the CIA station chief, is an experienced civil servant. In his earlier years, Heiss studied music. He would go on as a music instructor to teach a young Ursula von der Leyen (who is Germany's defense minister today) how to play the piano. But then Heiss, a tall, slightly lanky man, switched professions and instead pursued a career in intelligence that would lead him to the top post in the Lower Saxony state branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Even back then, the Christian Democrat was already covering up the camera on his laptop screen with tape. At the very least "they" shouldn't be able to see him, he said at the time, elaborating that the "they" he was referring to should not be interpreted as being the US intelligence services, but rather the other spies - "the Chinese" and, "in any case, the Russians." For conservatives like Heiss, America, after all, is friendly territory. 'Spying Among Friends Not Acceptable' If there was suspicion in the summer of 2011 that the NSA was spying on a staff member at the Chancellery, it should have set off alarm bells within the German security apparatus. Both the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is responsible for counter-intelligence, and the Federal Office for Information Security should have been informed so that they could intervene. There also should have been discussions between the government ministers and the chancellor in order to raise government awareness about the issue. And, going by the maxim the chancellor would formulate two years later, Merkel should have had a word with the Americans along the lines of "Spying among friends is not acceptable." And against the media If it is true that a foreign intelligence agency spied on journalists as they conducted their reporting in Germany and then informed the Chancellery about it, then these actions would place a huge question mark over the notion of a free press in this country. Germany's highest court ruled in 2007 that press freedom is a "constituent part of a free and democratic order." The court held that reporting can no longer be considered free if it entails a risk that journalists will be spied on during their reporting and that the federal government will be informed of the people they speak to. "Freedom of the press also offers protection from the intrusion of the state in the confidentiality of the editorial process as well as the relationship of confidentiality between the media and its informants," the court wrote in its ruling. Freedom of the press also provides special protection to the "the secrecy of sources of information and the relationship of confidentiality between the press, including broadcasters, and the source." Criminalizing Journalism But Karlsruhe isn't Washington. And freedom of the press is not a value that gives American intelligence agencies pause. On the contrary, the Obama administration has gained a reputation for adamantly pursuing uncomfortable journalistic sources. It hasn't even shied away from targeting American media giants. In spring 2013, it became known that the US Department of Justice mandated the monitoring of 100 telephone numbers belonging to the news agency Associated Press. Based on the connections that had been tapped, AP was able to determine that the government likely was interested in determining

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the identity of an important informant. The source had revealed to AP reporters details of a CIA operation pertaining to an alleged plot to blow up a commercial jet. The head of AP wasn't the only one who found the mass surveillance of his employees to be an "unconstitutional act." Even Republican Senators like John Boehner sharply criticized the government, pointing to press freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. "The First Amendment is first for a reason," he said. But the Justice Department is unimpressed by such formulations. New York Times reporter James Risen, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was threatened with imprisonment for contempt of court in an effort to get him to turn over his sources -- which he categorically refused to do for seven years. Ultimately, public pressure became too intense, leading Obama's long-time Attorney General Eric Holder to announce last October that Risen would not be forced to testify. The Justice Department was even more aggressive in its pursuit of James Rosen, the Washington bureau chief for TV broadcaster Fox. In May 2013, it was revealed that his telephone was bugged, his emails were read and his visits to the State Department were monitored. To obtain the necessary warrants, the Justice Department had labeled Rosen a "criminal co-conspirator." The strategy of criminalizing journalism has become something of a bad habit under Obama's leadership, with his government pursuing non-traditional media, such as the whistleblower platform WikiLeaks, with particular aggression. Bradley Manning, who supplied WikiLeaks with perhaps its most important data dump, was placed in solitary confinement and tormented with torture-like methods, as the United Nations noted critically. Manning is currently undergoing a gender transition and now calls herself Chelsea. In 2013, a military court sentenced Manning, who, among other things, publicized war crimes committed by the US in Iraq, to 35 years in prison. In addition, a criminal investigation has been underway for at least the last five years into the platform's operators, first and foremost its founder Julian Assange. For the past several years, a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia has been working to determine if charges should be brought against the organization. Clandestine Proceedings The proceedings are hidden from the public, but the grand jury's existence became apparent once it began to subpoena witnesses with connections to WikiLeaks and when the Justice Department sought to confiscate data belonging to people who worked with Assange. The US government, for example, demanded that Twitter hand over data pertaining to several people, including the Icelandic parliamentarian Brigitta Jonsdottir, who had worked with WikiLeaks on the production of a video. The short documentary is an exemplary piece of investigative journalism, showing how a group of civilians, including employees of the news agency Reuters, were shot and killed in Baghdad by an American Apache helicopter. Computer security expert Jacob Appelbaum, who occasionally freelances for SPIEGEL, was also affected at the time. Furthermore, just last week he received material from Google showing that the company too had been forced by the US government to hand over information about him - for the time period from November 2009 until today. The order would seem to indicate that investigators were particularly interested in Appelbaum's role in the publication of diplomatic dispatches by WikiLeaks. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has referred to journalists who worked with material provided by Edward Snowden has his "accomplices." In the US, there are efforts underway to pass a law pertaining to so-called "media leaks." Australia already passed one last year. Pursuant to the law, anyone who reveals details about secret service operations may be punished, including journalists. Worries over 'Grave Loss of Trust' The German government isn't too far from such positions either. That has become clear with its handling of the strictly classified list of "selectors," which is held in the Chancellery. The list includes search terms that Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, used when monitoring telecommunications data on behalf of the NSA. The parliamentary investigative committee looking into NSA activity in Germany has thus far been denied access to the list. The Chancellery is concerned that allowing the committee to review the list could result in uncomfortable information making its way into the public. That's something Berlin would like to prevent. Despite an unending series of indignities visited upon Germany by US intelligence agencies, the German government continues to believe that it has a "special" relationship with its partners in America -- and is apparently afraid of nothing so much as losing this partnership. That, at least, seems to be the message of a five-page secret letter sent by Chancellery Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier, of Merkel's Christian Democrats, to various parliamentary bodies charged with oversight. In the June 17 missive, Altmaier warns of a "grave loss of trust" should German lawmakers

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be given access to the list of NSA spying targets. Opposition parliamentarians have interpreted the letter as a "declaration of servility" to the US. Altmaier refers in the letter to a declaration issued by the BND on April 30. It notes that the spying targets passed on by the NSA since 2005 include "European political personalities, agencies in EU member states, especially ministries and EU institutions, and representations of certain companies." On the basis of this declaration, Altmaier writes, "the investigative committee can undertake its own analysis, even without knowing the individual selectors." Committee members have their doubts. They suspect that the BND already knew at the end of April what WikiLeaks has now released -- with its revelations that the German Economics Ministry, Finance Ministry and Agriculture Ministry were all under the gaze of the NSA, among other targets. That would mean that the formulation in the BND declaration of April 30 was intentionally misleading. The Left Party and the Greens now intend to gain direct access to the selector list by way of a complaint to Germany's Constitutional Court. The government in Berlin would like to prevent exactly that. The fact that the US and German intelligence agencies shared selectors is "not a matter of course. Rather, it is a procedure that requires, and indicates, a special degree of trust," Almaier writes. Should the government simply hand over the lists, Washington would see that as a "profound violation of confidentiality requirements." One could expect, he writes, that the "US side would significantly restrict its cooperation on security issues, because it would no longer see its German partners as sufficiently trustworthy." Altmaier's letter neglects to mention the myriad NSA violations committed against German interests, German citizens and German media.

SELEKTORENLISTE DER NSA Welche Nummern der Kanzlerin die NSA abhörte ► www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/selektorenliste-der-nsa-welche-nummern-der-kanzlerin-die-nsa-abhoerte-1.2557963 ► Süddeutsche Zeitung ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 9. Anhand der Telefonnummern in dieser Selektorenliste wird deutlich, dass die Ausspähung durch die NSA beispielsweise auch die Telefone von Ronald Pofalla, Peter Altmaier und Volker Kauder umfasste. Der amerikanische Nachrichtendienst hat die deutsche Politik weitaus systematischer ausgespäht als bisher bekannt - und das seit Jahrzehnten. Neue Dokumente der Enthüllungsplattform Wikileaks belegen, dass auch die Regierungen der Kanzler Helmut Kohl und Gerhard Schröder von der NSA belauscht wurden. Diese Erkenntnisse können aus den neuen Enthüllungen gewonnen werden: Die neuen Wikileaks-Enthüllungen katapultieren die Diskussion in eine neue Höhe. Es geht darin um das Kanzleramt - es wurde über Jahrzehnte von der NSA ausgespäht, in Bonn und in Berlin. Die Liste umfasst 56 Anschlüsse und wurde von Wikileaks am Mittwochabend ins Netz gestellt. SZ, NDR und WDR konnten sie vorab prüfen. Die Regierungen von Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schröder und Angela Merkel waren alle im Visier des amerikanischen Nachrichtendienstes. Die halbe Mannschaft von Ex-Kanzler Schröder steht auf der Liste. Bodo Hombach, der für eine kurze Zeit Kanzleramtsminister war und schwierige Operationen in Nahost auszuführen hatte, ist ebenso aufgeführt wie der sicherheitspolitische Berater Michael Steiner und Schröders Mann für die Weltwirtschaftsgipfel, Klaus Gretschmann. Etwa zwei Dutzend Nummern der Bundeskanzlerin stehen auf der Liste. Darunter ihre Handynummer, die mindestens bis Ende 2013 gültig war; ihre Büronummer; eine ihr zugeschriebene Nummer in der CDU-Bundesgeschäftsstelle und ihre Faxnummern; auch ihr enger Vertrauter Volker Kauder, Vorsitzender der CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion, war Ziel der NSA. Auch Merkels ehemaliger Kanzleramtsminister Ronald Pofalla steht auf der Liste. Es findet sich darauf seine bis heute aktive Handynummer. Auffällig ist, dass die Abteilung 2 des Kanzleramts, die für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik zuständig ist, oft vorkommt. Auch der Bereich Wirtschaftspolitik ist stark vertreten, ebenso Abteilung 6 - sie ist für den Bundesnachrichtendienst zuständig. Vorige Woche hatte Wikileaks erste Unterlagen der NSA veröffentlicht, die Deutschland betreffen. Drei Bundesministerien - das Wirtschafts-, das Landwirtschafts- und das Finanzministerium - standen dabei im Mittelpunkt.

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MASSIVE NSA SPYING ON TOP GERMAN OFFICIALS ► http://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-massive-nsa-spying-on-top-german-officials/a-18556918 ► Deutsche Welle ► Stringer: Kees Kalkman / VDAmok / Utrecht NL / kees@amok.antenna.nl Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 1. Wikileaks says its latest release of documents shows the wide reach of economic espionage conducted by the NSA in Germany. Documents released by the whistleblowers suggest an intense interest in the Greek debt crisis. A new batch of documents released by Wikileaks on Wednesday purports to show the extent to which the spying conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on German officials was economic in nature, as opposed to being focused on security issues. As far back as the late 1990s, the phone numbers of officials in the German Ministry of Finance, including sometimes the ministers themselves, were targeted by NSA spies, according to a Wikileaks press release. The list of high priority targets for Germany are mostly telephone numbers within the finance ministry, some within the ministry of agriculture, a few within offices responsible for European policy, and advisors who assisted Merkel ahead of G7 and WTO meetings. One of the targets was within the European Central Bank itself. NSA interest in the course of Greek bailout Some of the espionage also dealt with the handling of the Greek debt crisis, particularly in "intercepted talk between Chancellor Merkel and her assistant, the Chancellor talks about her views on solutions to the Greek financial crisis and her disagreement with members of her own cabinet, such as Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, on matters of policy." The NSA was also interested in Merkel's discussions of "the positions of French leaders, and of the heads of the key institutions of the Troika: European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and IMF Director Christine Lagarde," with regard to the Greece's bailout issues. This intercept, which is dated to October 2011, is classified as highly sensitive, "two levels above top secret." Despite this, it was still cleared for distribution among the "US-led ‘Five Eyes' spying alliance of UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand." Wikileaks also says that the NSA was given a German intercept gathered by British Intelligence (GCHQ), which "details the German government's position ahead of negotiations on a EU bailout plan for Greece." "The report refers to an overview prepared by German Chancellery Director-General for EU Affairs Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut. Germany was, according to the intercept, opposed to giving a banking license to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), however it would support a special IMF fund into which the BRICS nations would contribute to bolster European bailout activities." Julian Assange, Wikileaks' embattled editor-in-chief, made a statement on Wednesday's release, saying that it "further demonstrates that the United States' economic espionage campaign extends to Germany and to key European institutions and issues such as the European Central Bank and the crisis in Greece." "Would France and Germany have proceeded with the BRICS bailout plan for Greece if this intelligence was not collected and passed to the United States - who must have been horrified at the geopolitical implications?" he asked. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" daily was given access to the leaked documents. It reports that a spokesman for the German government said Berlin is not familiar enough with the information published by Wikileaks to offer an analysis or response.

SOCIAL MEDIA TO REPORT ‘TERRORIST ACTIVITY’ Senate Intelligence Committee Passes Secret Bill Requiring Social Media Operators to Report Online “Terrorist Activities” ► Reuters ► http://www.matthewaid.com/post/123625977496/senate-intelligence-committee-passes-secret-bill ► Source: Matthew Aid / Matthew Aid Blog / US / www.matthewaid.com Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 8. Social media operators such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube would have to notify federal authorities of online “terrorist activity,” according to the text of a bill approved by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The types of communication include postings related to “explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction,” according to the text. An official familiar with the bill said it was sent to the Senate floor for a vote.

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The official said its main purpose was to give social media companies additional legal protection if they reported to the authorities on traffic circulated by their users, rather than coerce them to spy on users. It was unclear when the Senate might vote on the bill. A congressional official said it was also unclear if the House of Representatives would pursue similar legislation, which would be necessary for the proposed requirement to become law. Social media groups have been widely used by militant groups such as Islamic State and Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to recruit members and circulate bomb-making instructions. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and sponsor of the legislation, said social media companies should be working with the government to prevent the use of their systems by violent militants. “Twitter, FB and YouTube all, as I understand it, remove content on their sites that come to their attention if it violates their terms of service, including terrorism,” Feinstein said. But, she said, “the companies do not proactively monitor their sites to identify such content nor do they inform the FBI when they identify or remove their content. I believe they should.” The social media legislation, part of a larger intelligence authorization bill, would not require social media companies to monitor specific users or content posted by individuals. Nor would it penalize companies that failed to comply. A representative of Twitter said that her company had not taken a position on the legislation. Other social media companies, including Facebook and Google, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA TARGETED ALL OF MERKEL’S TOP AIDES WikiLeaks: NSA Targeted Phones of All of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Top Aides ► The new NSA revelations can be viewed here ► https://wikileaks.org/nsa-germany/ ► Wikileaks ► Associated Press ► http://www.matthewaid.com/post/123569089206/new-wikileaks-revelations-nsa-targeted-phones-of ► Source: Matthew Aid / Matthew Aid Blog / US / www.matthewaid.com Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 8. WikiLeaks on Wednesday published a new list of German phone numbers it claims showed the U.S. National Security Agency targeted phones belonging to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s close aides and chancellery offices for surveillance. Wednesday’s publication came a week after WikiLeaks released a list of numbers it said showed the NSA targeted officials at various other German ministries and elsewhere. That rekindled concerns over U.S. surveillance in Germany after reports two years ago that Merkel’s own cellphone was targeted. Merkel’s chief of staff last week asked the U.S. ambassador to a meeting and told him that German law must be followed. There was no immediate comment from the German government on the latest publication. The list includes a cellphone number attributed to Ronald Pofalla, Merkel’s chief of staff from 2009-13; a landline number that appears to belong to the leader of Merkel’s parliamentary caucus; various other connections at Merkel’s office; and a cellphone number for the chancellor that WikiLeaks says was used until 2013. It was unclear when exactly the partially redacted list of 56 German phone numbers dates from and it wasn’t immediately possible to confirm the accuracy of that and other documents released by WikiLeaks. Those documents, WikiLeaks said, are NSA reports based on interceptions — including one from 2009 that details Merkel’s views on the international financial crisis and another from 2011 summari-zing advisers’ views on plans for the eurozone’s rescue fund. According to the secret-spilling site, the list of phone numbers was updated for more than a decade after 2002 and a “close study” of it shows it evolved from an earlier target list dating back into the 1990s

LEAKED FILES ON HACKING TEAM More on Hacking Team ► Source: Bruce Schneier / Crypto-gram / US / https://www.schneier.com ► Source: Infowarrior / https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 9. Hacking Team asked its customers to shut down operations, but according to one-

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of the leaked files, as part of Hacking Team's "crisis procedure," it could have killed their operations remotely. The company, in fact, has "a backdoor" into every customer's software, giving it ability to suspend it or shut it down -- something that even customers aren't told about. To make matters worse, every copy of Hacking Team's Galileo software is watermarked, according to the source, which means Hacking Team, and now everyone with access to this data dump, can find out who operates it and who they're targeting with it. It's one thing to have dissatisfied customers. It's another to have dissatisfied customers with death squads. I don't think the company is going to survive this. Read this: Hacking Team Asks Customers to Stop Using Its Software After Hack ► http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacking-team-asks-customers-to-stop-using-its-software-after-hack ► Mothrboard / by Lorenzo Franceschi-Biccherai Jul 9 2015 ► Jul 6. After suffering a massive hack, the controversial surveillance tech company Hacking Team is scrambling to limit the damage as well as trying to figure out exactly how the attackers hacked their systems. But the hack hasn’t just ruined the day for Hacking Team’s employees. The company, which sells surveillance software to government customers all over the world, from Morocco and Ethiopia to the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI, has told all its customers to shut down all operations and suspend all use of the company’s spyware, Motherboard has learned. “They’re in full on emergency mode,” a source who has inside knowledge of Hacking Team’s operations told Motherboard. “They’re in full on emergency mode.” Hacking Team notified all its customers on Monday morning with a “blast email,” requesting them to shut down all deployments of its Remote Control System software, also known as Galileo, according to multiple sources. The company also doesn’t have access to its email system as of Monday afternoon, a source said. On Sunday night, an unnamed hacker, who claimed to be the same person who breached Hacking Team’s competitor FinFisher last year, hijacked its Twitter account and posted links to 400GB of internal data. Hacking Team woke up to a massive breach of its systems. A source told Motherboard that the hackers appears to have gotten “everything,” likely more than what the hacker has posted online, perhaps more than one terabyte of data. “The hacker seems to have downloaded everything that there was in the company’s servers,” the source, who could only speak on condition of anonymity, told Motherboard. “There’s pretty much everything here.” It’s unclear how the hackers got their hands on the stash, but judging from the leaked files, they broke into the computers of Hacking Team’s two systems administrators, Christian Pozzi and Mauro Romeo, who had access to all the company’s files, according to the source. “I did not expect a breach to be this big, but I’m not surprised they got hacked because they don’t take security seriously,” the source told me. “You can see in the files how much they royally fucked up.” “You can see in the files how much they royally fucked up.” For example, the source noted, none of the sensitive files in the data dump, from employees passports to list of customers, appear to be encrypted. “How can you give all the keys to your infrastructure to a 20-something who just joined the company?” he added, referring to Pozzi, whose LinkedIn shows he’s been at Hacking Team for just over a year. “Nobody noticed that someone stole a terabyte of data? You gotta be a fuckwad,” the source said. “It means nobody was taking care of security.” In a series of tweets on Monday morning, which have been since deleted, Pozzi said that Hacking Team was working closely with the police, and warned everyone who was downloading the files and commenting on them. “Be warned that the torrent file the attackers claim is clean has a virus,” he wrote. “Stop seeding and spreading false info.” The data dump contains information on Hacking Team’s clients, including a list of current and past law enforcement and intelligence customers. A source confirmed to Motherboard that the list is accurate and legitimate. While Hacking Team has always declined to confirm or deny who its sold to, researchers from the Citizen Lab, at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, have been able to map some of its customers in the past. But the new files reveal previously unknown customers, such as the FBI, Spain, Chile, Australia, Russia, as well as new details of known customers such as Sudan, a country where Hacking Team was likely legally barred from selling, due to international sanctions and embargoes.

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Hacking Team did not answer to repeated requests for comment, both to its US spokesperson Eric Rabe as well as directly to its office in Milan, Italy. The future of the company, at this point, it’s uncertain. Employees fear this might be the beginning of the end, according to sources. One current employee, for example, started working on his resume, a source told Motherboard. It’s also unclear how customers will react to this, but a source said that it’s likely that customers from countries such as the US will pull the plug on their contracts. Hacking Team asked its customers to shut down operations, but according to one of the leaked files, as part of Hacking Team’s “crisis procedure,” it could have killed their operations remotely. The company, in fact, has “a backdoor” into every customer’s software, giving it ability to suspend it or shut it down—something that even customers aren’t told about. To make matters worse, every copy of Hacking Team’s Galileo software is watermarked, according to the source, which means Hacking Team, and now everyone with access to this data dump, can find out who operates it and who they’re targeting with it. "With access to this data it is possible to link a certain backdoor to a specific customer.” "With access to this data it is possible to link a certain backdoor to a specific customer. Also there appears to be a backdoor in the way the anonymization proxies are managed that allows Hacking Team to shut them off independently from the customer and to retrieve the final IP address that they need to contact,” the source told Motherboard. Meanwhile, Hacking Team will do “the impossible to avenge this,” the source said. “But at this point there’s not much they can do.”

MERKEL MUST END DEVIL'S PACT WITH AMERICA Enough is enough: American spying on Germany is killing the friendship between the countries Following the latest revelations about surveillance by the United States on the German government and media, it is high time for Chancellor Angela Merkel to take action against the systematic spying ► www.Spiegel.de/international/germany/editorial-merkel-must-end-devil-s-pact-with-america-a-1042573.html ► Der Spiegel / by Markus Feldenkirchen Jul 8 2015 ► Jul 7. The German-American friendship no longer exists. It may still remain between citizens of both countries, but not between their governments. Perhaps it has always been an illusion, perhaps the United States pulled away over the course of time. But what binds these two nations today cannot be considered friendship. Openness and fairness are part of the essence of friendship, which is about mutual respect and trust. A quarter century after the United States helped the German people restore their national unity, little remains of this friendship. As new documents from WikiLeaks and reporting by SPIEGEL show, the NSA has been systemati-cally spying on much of the German government. America's spies not only listened in on Chancellor Angela Merkel's private conversations about sensitive political issues. The NSA also bugged minis-tries, ministerial offices and other government agencies. Not even journalism is sacred to the Ameri-cans -- at least not in Germany. American spies monitored at least one SPIEGEL colleague in Berlin -- spies who represent a country that considers itself a guarantor of freedom of the press, one of the cornerstones of a liberal democracy. Today we know: The friendly smile worn by Angela Merkel's hosts in Washington all these years has been insincere at best. Sept. 11 is not a good enough excuse for what has transpired. The terrorist attacks were horrendous, and a turning point for America and the world. It was understandable that the administration in Washington believed that they needed to protect their country against future attacks. Just as friends and family need support after going through a sudden, traumatic experience, the Allies were prepared to show their support for their friend. But what has come to light has nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11 and the fight against terro-rism. The US began systematically spying on the German government at least since 1999 (perhaps even earlier); in other words, two years before the attacks on New York and Washington. It is questionable that the German Agricultural Ministry's fisheries department, which the NSA also spied on, had anything to do with Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. Unscrupulous It wasn't security of the Western world that concerned the Americans. Instead they pursued their own interests, unscrupulously vying for slight political advantages in diplomatic dealings and in the struggle

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for economic prosperity. The reference to the terrorist threat has long become a fig leaf for habitual and brazen espionage. In the US, the complaints, such as the ones formulated in this editorial, are taken as naive and twee. They are considered laughable. However, if naivety means that one has not yet given up the belief in fairness as the basis for the partnership, then one should be naive. It is also better than the pathetic act that Merkel's administration has put on for years with regards to the NSA: feigned public outrage over America's tactics. The German government has engaged in a devil's pact with the US and its Orwellian spying machine. This may have been done out of fear -- fear of not receiving the potentially imperative information about a planned attack. But through her silence, Merkel has made the German government complicit. She allowed the law to be broken. She also permitted the principles that characterize open, democratic societies to be compromised. The German government had the wrong priorities. There is no guarantee of security. Fear of an attack is no reason to sacrifice legal principles. The chancellor must show Washington a clear sign of resistance. Germany must free itself from this pact with the NSA. In the future, it must write the rules for its cooperation with intelligence agencies itself -- which may mean that certain information will no longer be shared. It would not be the end of cooperation between the two countries, particularly not on the issues of trade and foreign policy. Germany and America will have shared interests in certain matters. But currently, there's little room in the relationship for more than that.

BELGIË: ADIV GAAT DATAKABELS BESPIONEREN Militaire inlichtingendienst gaat datakabels bespioneren ► http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20150703_01761451 ► De standaard / by Nikolas Vanhecke and Mark Eeckhaut Jul 7 2015 ► Jul 3. De inlichtingendienst bij Defensie, de ADIV, is van plan om de communicatie die loopt via datakabels te onderscheppen. Dat zegt de topman van de ADIV, generaal Eddy Testelmans, in een gesprek met De Standaard dat morgen verschijnt. De Algemene Dienst Inlichtingen en Veiligheid (ADIV), die onder Defensie valt, is van plan om opti-sche glasvezelkabels af te luisteren. Die optische glasvezelkabels gebruikt iedereen die op het internet surft, een mail verstuurt of telefoneert. ‘Over vijf, hooguit tien jaar zal tachtig procent van alle communicatie langs glasvezelkabels lopen. We moeten net zoals andere westerse inlichtingendiensten toegang krijgen tot die essentiële bron van in-formatie’, zegt Testelmans. Vorig jaar raakte al bekend dat de Britse inlichtingen GCHQ die dataka-bels bespioneert wanneer ze in Engeland arriveren. Relevante informatie filteren De ADIV moet inlichtingen verzamelen over de veiligheid van Belgen in binnen- en buitenland. De inlichtingendienst mag daarvoor elektronische communicatie onderscheppen. Een basisvoorwaarde is wel dat de communicatie is ontstaan in het buitenland. Die voorwaarden sluiten echter niet uit dat de ADIV ook datakabels aftapt die in en door België lopen. De communicatie die ontstaan is in het buitenland zou dan uit die datastroom moeten worden gefil-terd. Op basis van specifieke zoektermen wordt de relevante informatie eruit gehaald. ‘Inlichtingendiensten moeten werk kunnen doen’ Dat aftappen zou ofwel rechtstreeks kunnen gebeuren, ofwel via de telecomproviders. Testelmans rekent erop dat deze vorm van spionage de komende jaren in orde komt. Minister van Defensie Steven Vandeput steunt het plan alvast. ‘Wij vinden dat de inlichtingendienst zijn werk moet kunnen doen’, reageert Vandeput via zijn woordvoerder. ‘Dit soort informatie verza-melen hoort daarbij. Buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten doen dit al. Belgische moeten dat ook kunnen. Maar het is belangrijk dat dit werk gebeurt binnen goede internationale afspraken en een duidelijk wettelijk kader.’ Generaal Testelmans sluit uit dat dit tot ontsporing zal leiden. ‘Je mag niet vergeten dat wij zeer grondig gecontroleerd worden. Intern, door het kabinet van de minister van Defensie en vooral door het Comité I. Zij gaan na wat de ADIV kan, mag en doet.’

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THE FBI SPENT $775K ON HACKING TEAM'S SPY TOOLS SINCE 2011 ► http://www.wired.com/2015/07/fbi-spent-775k-hacking-teams-spy-tools-since-2011/ ► Wired / by Joseph Cox ► Source: Infowarrior / https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior Jul 7 2015 ► Jul 6. The FBI is one of the clients who bought hacking software from the private Italian spying agency Hacking Team, which was itself the victim of a recent hack. It's long been suspected that the FBI used Hacking Team's tools, but with the publication yesterday of internal documents, invoices, emails and even product source code from the company, we now have the first concrete evidence that this is true. The FBI is not in good company here. According to several spreadsheets within the hacked archive, which contain a list of Hacking Team's customers, many of the other governments who bought the same software are repressive regimes, such as Sudan and Bahrain. The documents show that the FBI first purchased the company's RCS in 2011. RCS stands for Remote Control Service, otherwise known as Galileo, Hacking Team's premiere spy product. RCS is a simple piece of hacking software that has been used by the Ethiopian regime to target journalists based in Washington DC. It has also been detected in an attack on a Moroccan media outlet, and a human rights activist from the United Arab Emirates. Once a target's computer has been infected, RCS is able to siphon off data, and listen in on communi-cations before they have been encrypted. According to researchers based at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, who have monitored the use of RCS throughout the world, the tool can also record Skype calls, e-mails, instant messages, and passwords typed into a Web browser. To top that off, RCS is also capable of switching on a target's web camera and microphone. Hacking Team has generated a total of 697,710 Euros ($773,226.64) from the FBI since 2011, according to the hacked spreadsheets. In 2015, the FBI spent 59,855 Euros on maintenance, and in 2014 the agency spent the same amount on license/upgrades. No expenditure was recorded for the whole of 2013. In 2012, however, the FBI allegedly spent 310,000 Euros for Hacking Team?s services, all on licenses or upgrades, and the year before it spent 268,000 Euros. Despite this expenditure on controversial surveillance technology, it appears that the FBI is only using Hacking Team's software as a back up to other tools, according to internal emails. As highlighted by Forbes, Eric Rabe, Hacking Team's communications chief, wrote in a leaked email that The FBI unit that is using our system seems like a pretty small operation and they have purchased RCS as a sort of back up to some other system they user. A final column on one of the hacked spreadsheets is entitled Exploit. For the FBI, the entry is written as Yes. Though it's unclear exactly what this means, we can infer that the FBI's version of RCS came with an exploit of some kind that could gain access to user's computers, rather than being deployed through social-engineering means. Regardless, the FBI has been known to hack the computers of criminals in the past. In fact, the agency has been using malware since at least 2002 for all sorts of criminal cases, and the FBI develops some of its own tools. In 2012, Operation Torpedo was launched, which involved loading malware onto a number of child pornography sites, and identifying the IP addresses of anyone who visited. A similar operation was launched shortly after, in order to catch users of Freedom Hosting, a dark web hosting company. Those were both broad attacks, designed to sweep up as many offenders as possible. Hacking Team's tools, on the other hand, are used for more targeted surveillance of specific individuals or groups. According to the hacked spreadsheets, the FBI has used RCS against 35 targets, although it is unclear who these targets are. The FBI did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment. One interesting tidbit from the spreadsheet is that it appears that Hacking Team has not been selling these products directly to the FBI. Though the FBI is listed as the client, its Partner/Fulfillment Vehicle is listed as CICOM USA. That name is familiar. Earlier this year, an investigation from Motherboard revealed that the Drug En-forcement Administration had been secretly purchasing surveillance technology from Hacking Team. Within that contract, $2.4 million was sent between the DEA's Office of Investigative Technology and a government contractor named Cicom USA,? according to Motherboard. An invoice with the file name Commessa019.2014. CICOM USA x FBI.xls, also included in the Hacking Team archive, lists a one year renewal for Remote Control System, charged to Cicom USA. The invoice says that the product lasts from July 1, 2014 to the June 30, 2015. The file name for the invoice explicitly includes the FBI, and not the DEA. However, the spreadsheet with the client list

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shows that the FBI is, in fact, joined by the DEA and the DOD in buying products from Hacking Team, which both also use Cicom USA as their fulfillment vehicles. Cicom USA is little more than a shell company for Hacking Team. They have the same address, they have the same telephone number, as Hacking Team's US office, Edin Omanovic, a technologist at Privacy International, told WIRED in a phone interview. As for what protections might be in place to make sure that the FBI (or any US government agency) is using this technology responsibly, it's all a bit hazy. We think they get court orders, and we have even seen a few, but the applications don't really descri-be how the software works, or how they will get it onto the target's device, Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, told WIRED in an encrypted chat. The problem is that the discussion around law enforcement using hacking as a means of information gathering has never been carried out in public. Congress has never explicitly granted law enforcement agencies the power to hack. And there have never been any congressional hearings on the topic, Soghoian continued. We need to have a national debate about whether we want law enforcement agencies to be able to hack into the computers of targets. This is too dangerous a tool for them to start using by themselves.

BRAZIL OFFICIALS’ PHONES TAPPED BY NSA Brazil Officials’ Phones Monitored by US, WikiLeaks Says ► www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-04/top-brazil-officials-phones-monitored-by-u-s-wikileaks-says ► Bloomberg Business News / by David Biller ► Stringer: Martin Rudner [ret.] / Carleton University / Ottawa / www.carleton.ca/cciss Jul 5 2015 ► Jul 5. The U.S. National Security Agency monitored the phone numbers of top Brazilian officials, WikiLeaks said, less than a week after President Dilma Rousseff visited the U.S. to mend relations derailed by earlier spying accusations. The 29 phone numbers selected for “intensive interception” included those of Rousseff aides, members of Brazil’s finance ministry, diplomats and even the satellite phone on Rousseff’s private jet, WikiLeaks said in a report titled “Bugging Brazil” posted on Saturday. WikiLeaks didn’t say when the phones were monitored, and the officials’ listed positions correspond to posts held during Rousseff’s first term, which ended in 2014. Saturday’s report is a fresh reminder of why Rousseff canceled her state visit to the U.S. in 2013 after the NSA’s monitoring of her communications came to light. It also follows just weeks after U.S. spying revelations in France. Rousseff’s trip to the U.S. in June came as her government seeks investors for infrastructure projects worth tens of billions of dollars to help recharge growth of Latin America’s largest economy. Rousseff considers the spying episode to have been “overcome,” and she trusts in President Barack Obama and the commitment he has made on that topic, according to a statement published on the website of the presidential palace on Saturday. The U.S. and Brazil will make their strategic partnership ever stronger, according to the statement. ‘Economic Espionage’ Brazil’s central bank and the Planning Ministry declined to comment on the WikiLeaks report. The NSA deferred a request for comment to the National Security Council, which declined to comment, pointing to previous general statements on Brazil spying. Among the Brazilian officials listed by WikiLeaks as having been targeted for monitoring were Luiz Awazu Pereira, a former director of international affairs at Brazil’s central bank and now director of economic policy; members of the Finance Ministry, including then-executive secretary Nelson Barbosa, who is now planning minister; and Rousseff’s former chief of staff Antonio Palocci. “The US targeted not only those closest to the President, but waged an economic espionage campaign against Brazil, spying on those responsible for managing Brazil’s economy,” WikiLeaks said. ‘Friendly Countries’ WikiLeaks didn’t say when or if the NSA intercepted calls on the targeted phone numbers. Other numbers include that of Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, formerly Brazil’s ambassador to the United Nations who was then Foreign Minister and is currently ambassador to U.S., as well as former Brazilian ambassadors to Germany and France, and other members of foreign affairs ministry. “President Obama and the U.S. government have declared, on several occasions, that they would no longer have acts of intrusion upon friendly countries,” Rousseff said in Washington June 30, according to a transcript. “I believe President Obama and, what’s more, he told me that when he wants -- should he ever need non-public information about Brazil, he will call me.”

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Saturday’s report follows recent revelations by WikiLeaks that the U.S. monitored discussions that the French government had on the Greek debt crisis, which drew swift condemnation from France, and may have spied on Germany’s economy, finance and agriculture ministries for years.

FREELANCE DIPLOMACY AND THE IRAN DEAL How Freelance Diplomacy Bankrolled by Rockefellers Has Paved the Way for an Iran Deal Advocating for an Iran truce is a loose coalition of peace groups, think tanks, and former high-ranking U.S. diplomats bound together by millions of dollars. ► www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-02/how-freelance-diplomacy-bankrolled-by-rockefellers-has-paved-the-way-for-an-iran-deal ► Bloomberg Business News / by Peter Waldman ► Stringer: Martin Rudner [ret.] / Carleton University / Ottawa / www.carleton.ca/cciss Jul 4 2015 ► Jul 2. Middle East: Cutting a nuclear deal with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be the easy part for President Obama, who must then persuade both houses of Congress to sign off on the pact. Republicans and many Democrats abhor the idea of lifting sanctions and readmitting oil-rich Iran to the global economy until it disavows all nuclear research and stops meddling through proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Advocating for an Iran truce is a loose coalition of peace groups, think tanks, and former high-ranking U.S. diplomats bound together by millions of dollars given by the Rockefeller family through its $870 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The philanthropy, which is run by a board split between family members and outsiders, has spent $4.3 million since 2003 promoting a nuclear pact with Iran, chiefly through the New York-based Iran Project, a nonprofit led by former U.S. diplomats. For more than a decade they’ve conducted a dialogue with well-placed Iranians, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, now Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator. The Americans routinely briefed officials in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, including William Burns, Obama’s former deputy secretary of state. Burns hammered out much of an interim nuclear agreement in secret 2013 talks with his Iranian counterparts that paved the way for the current summit in Vienna, where Secretary of State John Kerry leads the U.S. delegation. The Rockefellers’ Iran foray began in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks. Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, convened a board retreat at the Rockefellers’ Pocantico Center in Westchester, just north of New York City, to consider new approaches to the Islamic world at a time when the U.S. was focused on the threat from al-Qaeda. One invited speaker was Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian-American professor of comparative religion then at Georgetown University. “He got me thinking more and more about Iran, its geostrategic importance and its relationship to the Sunni world,” says Heintz. The Rockefeller fund decided to create the Iran Project in cooperation with the United Nations Association of the U.S., a nonprofit that promotes the UN’s work then headed by William Luers, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia. Luers made contact with Zarif through Iran’s mission to the UN in New York. He also recruited career diplomats Thomas Pickering, who served as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Israel and George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, and Frank G. Wisner, who served as Reagan’s ambassador to Egypt and whose father was a high-ranking officer in the Office of Strategic Services and then in the CIA. “Each of us came from a special place on the compass,” Wisner says. With encouragement from the Bush administration, says Heintz, the trio developed a relationship with Zarif, who was stationed in New York representing Iran at the UN. In early 2002, the Iran Project set up a meeting with Iranians affiliated with the Institute for Political and International Studies in Tehran, a think tank with close government ties. It was hosted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute at a small hotel outside Stockholm. The Iranians came armed with talking points, Heintz says, and the meetings were stiff and unproductive. The initial goal of developing a road map to restoring relations between Washington and Tehran, along the lines of Nixon’s 1972 Shanghai Communique preceding U.S.-China relations, proved elusive, according to Pickering. After every meeting, Heintz says, Iran Project leaders would brief staffers at the State Department or White House, including Stephen Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, his secretary of state. “As we had no contacts at all with Iran at the time, their insights were very valuable,” says R. Nicholas Burns, who served as under secretary of state for political affairs under Bush. The secret meetings in European capitals were suspended after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad won Iran’s presidency in 2005. But the group’s relationship with Zarif proved key in helping to jump-start negotiations after he was made foreign minister in 2013 by Rouhani, the newly elected president. A State Department official says the administration welcomes back-channel efforts like the Iran Project’s

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because “it proves useful both to have knowledgeable former officials and country experts engaging with their counterparts and in reinforcing our own messages when possible.” The Iran Project kept an eye on public opinion from the start. Among those invited to its events in New York was Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, who found them “helpful in framing ideas for a workable nuclear treaty,” he says. The ideas floated at the meetings included letting the Iranians keep a limited capacity for enriching uranium to save face. “But everyone knew that a huge amount depended on how far the Iranians would go.” Silvers published multiple essays detailing the proposals by Pickering and Jessica Mathews, another Iran Project participant who preceded William Burns as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Iran Project’s briefing papers have provided a counterweight to criticism from pro-Israel groups, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, opposed to a deal. For Wisner, breaking bread with Iranians exorcised a few ghosts. He was on Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s senior staff during the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis in 1979 and knew diplomats held at the embassy. “I lived that,” he says. He also remembers listening to his dad planning the military coup that removed Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, from power in 1953 and replaced him with the U.S.-backed shah, Reza Pahlavi. “They don’t trust us, and we don’t trust them,” says Wisner. He says his father’s role in the Mosaddegh coup didn’t come up in any of the Iran Project meetings. “The Iranians, like us, have made a major political decision to engage,” he says. The Rockefeller fund has given about $3.3 million to the Ploughshares Fund, a San Francisco-based disarmament group that has spent $4 million since 2010 to promote a deal with Iran and shepherded the peace groups and think tanks it supports to back Obama. “We’re trying to leverage our investments to play on our strengths,” says Joseph Cirincione, its president. On June 23, when the New York Times ran an op-ed, “The Iran Deal’s Fatal Flaw,” Ploughshares coordinated its grantees’ responses to the claim that the deal would leave Iran capable of producing a nuclear weapon within three months. The Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group established in 1971, published a rebuttal on its daily blog, which other Ploughshares-affiliated groups sent to their contacts in Congress. “The pro-deal side has done a very good job systematically co-opting what used to be the arms control community and transforming it into an absolutist, antiwar movement,” says Omri Ceren, senior adviser for strategy for the Israel Project, a nonprofit that opposes a deal. “Sometimes, if your goal is stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, you have to make the hard decision to take military action, or at least signal you’re willing to.” Cirincione says that mistakes the rationale behind the Iran Project. “Iran is the boulder in the road,” he says. “You have to resolve this issue to get to the rest of the nonproliferation agenda. That’s why we’re doing this.” This story was updated to clarify that allowing Iran to retain uranium enrichment capacity was among ideas proposed by the Iran Project, not one suggested by Robert Silvers.

AN AMERICAN TIP TO GERMAN SPIES An American Tip to German Spies Points to a More Complex Relationship ► www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/world/europe/an-american-tip-to-german-spies-points-to-a-more-complex-relationship.html ► NY Times / by Alison Smale, Melissa Eddy, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt ► Stringer: Frank Slijper / PAX / Utrecht NL / slijper@paxforpeace.nl Jul 4 2015 ► Jul 3. In the summer of 2011, American intelligence agencies spied on a senior German official who they concluded had been the likely source of classified information being leaked to the news media. The Obama administration authorized the top American spy in Germany to reveal to the German government the identity of the official, according to German officials and news media reports. The decision was made despite the risk of exposing that the United States was monitoring senior national security aides to Chancellor Angela Merkel. The tip-off appears to have led to a senior German intelligence official being barred from access to sensitive material. But it also raises suspicions that Ms. Merkel’s government had strong indications of the extent of American surveillance at least two years before the disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, which included the number of a cellphone used by the chancellor. The decision by the United States to risk disclosing a surveillance operation against a close ally indicates the high level of concern over the perceived security breach. It is unclear, however, what that information might have been or if it involved intelligence provided to Germany by the United States. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Friday that it believed the American effort to expose the German intelligence official arose from conversations by its own journalists. It filed a complaint with

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the federal prosecutor in Germany over espionage activity and a violation of Germany’s data protection laws. The prosecutor’s office declined to comment, other than to confirm that the filing had been received. In Washington, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Ned Price, declined on Friday to comment on the reported surveillance other than to indicate that the government does not spy on foreign journalists. “The United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security,” Mr. Price said. The disclosure is the latest intelligence revelation to shake the alliance, even though it is unclear that the National Security Agency actively listened to Ms. Merkel’s calls. Among other actions that widened the rift, the Germans last summer expelled the then-C.I.A. chief. And this week material uncovered by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks suggested that the Americans had been spying on their German allies back to the 1990s. The first hints emerged in the German media this year. The Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported that Hans Josef Vorbeck, a deputy director of the chancellery’s intelligence division, had been “put out in the cold” in 2011 after the then-C.I.A. station chief in Berlin gave information to Mr. Vorbeck’s boss, Günter Heiss. Der Spiegel said Mr. Heiss was specifically told of contacts with its journalists. Mr. Heiss, a quiet but powerful figure in German intelligence activities, was questioned for nearly six hours at an open hearing of a German parliamentary committee on Thursday. Mr. Heiss was particularly reticent when asked about Mr. Vorbeck. He repeatedly declined to answer questions about him, challenging the mandate of the committee to pose such queries, and arguing that he was not allowed to discuss a third party in public. Konstantin von Notz, a lawmaker for the opposition Green Party, which has been vocal in its criticism of Ms. Merkel and the German handling of alleged American espionage, accused Mr. Heiss of hiding behind a “cascade” of excuses. Eventually, Hans-Christian Ströbele, a longtime lawmaker for the Greens, asked Mr. Heiss whether he ever had a “concrete suspicion” that Mr. Vorbeck was leaking classified information. Mr. Heiss said there was no “concrete suspicion” that would have led to “concrete action.” He indicated the matter had been discussed in the chancellery, but declined to give specifics. But when asked whether Mr. Vorbeck had been the target of spying, Mr. Heiss declared: “No. That much I can say.” In a report in the edition it published on Saturday, Der Spiegel said Mr. Heiss had learned of the suspicions against Mr. Vorbeck in the summer of 2011, when invited by the C.I.A. station chief to take a walk. Appearing before the committee last month, Guido Müller, a senior intelligence official, at first said he could not recall Mr. Vorbeck’s transfer to a lower-level job. Mr. Müller then said he could remember it only if testifying behind closed doors. When he appeared before the committee, two days shy of his 64th birthday, Mr. Vorbeck himself was cagey. When Mr. von Notz raised the Bild am Sonntag reports and asked for more detail, the demoted intelligence officer replied that he “did not know much more than what has been in the papers,” according to a transcript on a live-blog at netzpolitik.org, a website that tracks intelligence matters. André Hahn, a lawmaker for the opposition Left party, asked Mr. Vorbeck whether he had a good relationship with Mr. Heiss — “at first,” Mr. Vorbeck answered — and whether he had ever been charged with betraying secrets. “Not then and not now,” Mr. Vorbeck replied, according to the netzpolitik blog. Mr. Vorbeck is suing the government for material damages he said he suffered as a result of being transferred to a senior archival post concerning the history of German intelligence. His lawyer declined to return a call seeking comment or access to his client. The dimensions of German anger over American espionage have been evidenced in public opinion polls and in protests against a possible trans-Atlantic trade pact. German officials have talked about creating an internal Internet so that communications among Germans do not have to pass outside the country. What makes these disclosures different is that they suggest that German publications have been either direct or indirect targets of American surveillance. “Spiegel suspects spying by U.S. secret services,” the online edition of the respected weekly Die Zeit reported Friday. The latest disclosures by WikiLeaks — a summary of an October 2011 conversation Ms. Merkel had with an adviser about the debt crisis in Greece, a document from her senior adviser on European affairs, plus a list of 69 telephone numbers of important ministries and senior officials that appeared to date back to the 1990s — had already prompted Ms. Merkel’s chief of staff on Thursday to invite the United States ambassador, John B. Emerson, to explain. A government statement following that meeting did not confirm the material, but made plain that

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violations of German laws would be prosecuted. The government defended its heightened counterintelligence operations, hinting at the depth of anger with the United States. Steffen Seibert, the German government spokesman, referred inquiries on Friday to another govern-ment spokesman who said he could not be identified by name. He reiterated that the government did not comment on personnel moves, and that it reported on intelligence services only to the relevant supervisory committee in Parliament. The spokesman added in an email that Mr. Heiss had testified on Thursday that there was no reason to take disciplinary or other action regarding Mr. Vorbeck.

CSIS RELIED ON NO-TORTURE 'ASSURANCES' FROM FOREIGN AGENCIES CSIS bound by federal policy on sharing information with foreign groups ► www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-relied-on-no-torture-assurances-from-foreign-agencies-memo-reveals-1.3136825 ► The Canadian Press / by Jim Bronskill ► Stringer: Martin Rudner [ret.] / Carleton University / Ottawa / www.carleton.ca/cciss Jul 3 2015 ► Jul 3. Newly released memos show Canada's spy agency revealed its interest in people to foreign partners in two cases after receiving assurances the individuals would not be tortured — a practice human rights advocates say shirks the law and puts vulnerable detainees at risk. In one case, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service got the green light from a high-level internal committee to interview a Canadian detained abroad as long as captors gave "proper assurances" the person would not be abused, the CSIS documents say. In another case, the spy service received the go-ahead to send information to an allied agency about a terrorist target of mutual interest if such "assurances" were provided, the internal CSIS memos reveal. The two cases were among 10 instances in which the CSIS information sharing evaluation committee applied a ministerial directive on the use and sharing of information that may have been tainted by torture or could give rise to someone being brutalized in an overseas prison cell. The Canadian Press used the Access to Information Act to obtain CSIS notes outlining the 10 cases — with names and other identifying details stripped out — as well as a spring 2014 memo to spy service director Michel Coulombe. The two cases in which CSIS sought promises that individuals would not be abused raise "a red flag," said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, who called the practice an end-run around international legal obligations. "That's always problematic from a human-rights perspective," he said in an interview. "It's not reliable. And we have been deeply concerned about the ways in which governments around the world have been increasingly relying on assurances." Many western governments have resorted to the use of "diplomatic assurances" to circumvent their obligations under international law, said Ottawa human-rights lawyer Paul Champ. Not adequate protection Courts and United Nations bodies have held — and, more tragically, experience has confirmed — that assurances are not adequate protection against torture and should not be used as an excuse for practices that might contribute to abuse, he said. "Canada's own experience in Afghanistan amply demonstrated that repeated assurances from the Afghan government did not stop Canadian-transferred detainees from being tortured." CSIS spokeswoman Tahera Mufti said the agency was "very cognizant" of its legal and ethical obligations in sharing information. "We are very careful to ensure that everything we do to keep Canadians safe is consistent not just with Canadian law but Canadian values." The federal policy on foreign information-sharing, ushered in by the Conservative government, has been roundly criticized by human-rights advocates and opposition politicians who say it effectively condones torture, contrary to international law and Canada's UN commitments. A four-page 2010 framework document, previously released under the access law, says when there is a "substantial risk" that sending information to, or soliciting information from, a foreign agency would result in torture — and it is unclear whether the risk can be managed through assurances or other means — the matter should be referred to the responsible deputy minister or agency head. In deciding what to do, the agency head will consider factors including the threat to Canada's national security and the nature and imminence of the threat; the status of Canada's relationship with — and the human rights record of — the foreign agency; and the rationale for believing that sharing the information would lead to torture.

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In one of the 10 CSIS cases, just such a scenario emerged: a two-fold CSIS request to check with foreign agencies about a Canadian target and to interview a foreign national detained abroad with knowledge of the target was referred to the CSIS director for a final decision when the committee ruled the request could well lead to someone being tortured. In the end, there was no need for the CSIS director to make the decision, as the information was acquired through other means with no perceived risk of mistreatment. CSIS, the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, National Defence and the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's electronic spy agency, are bound by the federal policy on sharing information with foreign agencies. The newly released notes discuss formal risk assessments carried out by the Mounties in 2013-14 that led to rejection of all five requests from police investigators to send or receive information. In one RCMP case, a request to interview a Canadian held in a foreign prison was denied due to the assessment that detainees face a risk of torture and other degrading abuse in order to extract confessions.

IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS WARY OF THREAT TO BUSINESS INTERESTS ► http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e88a1dae-2096-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf79.html?siteedition=intl ► Financial Times / by Najmeh Bozorgmehr ► Stringer: Martin Rudner [ret.] / Carleton University / Ottawa / www.carleton.ca/cciss Jul 2 2015 ► Jul 2. Alarm bells rang for Iranian businessmen in May when the elite Revolutionary Guards cancelled the Forum of Young Global Leaders — an annual event sponsored by the World Economic Forum — shortly before the gathering was due to take place in Tehran and Isfahan. It was a reminder to the business community that the 120,000 strong military force, known for its loyalty to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, feels increasingly insecure about what a nuclear deal could mean not just for Iran but also for its commercial empire, whose multi-billion dollar interests stretch from telecoms to construction to consumer goods imports. The elite force — designated by the US state department as a “proliferator of weapons of mass destruction” but whose interests have long extended beyond the purely military — urged organisers not to publicise the fact that it was behind the cancellation and embarrass a regime that had just reached a framework nuclear agreement. “The Guards are worried that a new phenomenon of closer relations with the west, notably the US, is happening while they don’t know how to handle it,” said one businessman involved in organising the forum. “They are paranoid about lots of communications and contacts over which they fear they have little control.” As Iran negotiates with the six major powers — US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany — in Vienna to reach a deal by the extended deadline of July 7, Iran’s hardliners led by the Guards are worried about what a post-deal Islamic Republic might look like. They fear the consequences of any deal on the country’s politics, economy and military influence in the region after more than three decades of anti-western rhetoric and international isolation. But reform-minded analysts say the hardliners’ main concern is about losing control of their vast business interests now that the country is preparing to open up its doors to foreign investment. This investment is widely seen as necessary to tackle a devastated, though oil and gas-rich economy, where youth unemployment is at least 25 per cent. It is impossible to know how much wealth the elite force has accrued because of the organisation’s opacity but independent analysts estimate it to be probably worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The eight-year presidency of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, which ended in 2013, and the tightening of international sanctions in 2011 gave the Guards a golden opportunity to capitalise on Iran’s more hostile relations with the west. During that period, the Guards profited from $120bn of privatisations. An affiliated company bought the state-run telecoms company in 2009 for about $7.8bn. Providing landline, mobile phone and internet services to a 78m-strong tech-savvy population, this business is estimated to generate income of tens of billions of dollars every year. At the same time, they received big energy and construction projects and became key importers of everything from food to sports cars. Khatam-ul-Anbia — effectively the construction arm of the Guards which has been hit by UN, US and EU sanctions — has taken over hundreds of projects in sectors as varied as oil, gas, petrochemicals, marine installations, consulting, mining, pipelines, dams, jetties, tunnels and irrigation networks.

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Meanwhile, companies and individuals affiliated to the Guards run tens, if not hundreds, of credit institutions. While analysts expect the Guards to resist foreign investors, at least in the short term, they are divided as to how far they will go to undermine rivals. In 2004, they occupied the runway of the International Imam Khomeini Airport with tanks under the pretext of “security reasons” to stop a Turkish-led consortium, Tepe Akfen Vie, from taking over the management of the airport. “This generation of the Guards that is running the market is still the generation of war and ideology,” said one legal consultant. “But we should hope that they are gradually getting retired and hand over business to the next generation which has to compete with the private sector and foreign investors.” It is not clear if Iran’s supreme leader and ultimate decision maker, Ayatollah Khamenei, will force the Guards to rein in their business interests and go back to their garrisons after any nuclear deal. Any such move risks alienating the top leader’s most devoted force. “Resistance against reforms is the nature of Iran’s political system in which parallel organisations operate,” said a senior economist. President Hassan Rouhani, who swept to power in 2013, has tried to rein in the Guards’ economic influence. Non-competitive tenders for oil and gas projects have stopped and companies affiliated to the Guards have faced pressure to operate in legal frameworks. Meanwhile, the judiciary has brought multi-billion-dollar corruption cases against individuals believed to be close to the Guards. Some businessmen say that as long as the Guards are not cornered, they might see opportunities in Iran’s opening up to the west. Senior government officials also played down the possibility of destructive action by the Guards. Speculation will continue until nuclear negotiations, which the Guards have grudgingly supported, reach a conclusion. “The Guards also want to remain in power and keep the status quo and they know that the whole regime is at stake now,” said a businessman. “Let’s hope that like the Chinese army, the Guards will agree with opening up Iran’s doors to foreign investments.”

TARGETTING JIHADI'S ON SOCIAL MEDIA European Police to Target Islamist Radicals on Social Media Accounts ► www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/world/europe/europol-to-target-social-media-accounts-of-jihadists-islamists.html ► NY Times / by Steven Erlanger ► Stringer: Frank Slijper / PAX / Utrecht NL / slijper@paxforpeace.nl Jul 2 2015 ► Jul 1. Europol, the European police agency based in The Hague, will create a new unit next month to discover and dismantle social media accounts used by Islamist radicals to spread their message and recruit foreigners, the agency announced on Wednesday. The unit will have about 15 officers of Europol and national police forces at first, and will be gradually enlarged over the next year, the agency said. The task is to scour the Internet for accounts set up by radicals, including those from the Islamic State, for propaganda and recruitment. The number of Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts connected to the Islamic State is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, the agency said, and the Twitter accounts send out as many as 100,000 posts a day. In March, the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union mandated that Europol establish such a unit to reduce the level and impact of terrorist and violent extremist propaganda on the Internet. Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, said the agency would cooperate with member states, national intelligence and police agencies, and with social media and other private companies, to “deliver a determined response” to the problem. European nations like Britain, France, Belgium and Germany have been especially concerned by recruitment efforts that entice young Muslims to slip away from their families and travel to Syria or Iraq to join the Islamic State, as either fighters or wives. The news media in these countries have fastened on such cases, which tend to exaggerate the scale of recruitment. National governments have expressed concern that some of those Westerners who go to the Middle East to fight will return home to carry out violent attacks in the name of jihad. Just last week in both France and Tunisia, young men proclaiming allegiance to the Islamic State carried out terrorist attacks that attracted huge publicity.

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In Iraq, a 17-year-old Briton recently carried out a suicide bombing for the Islamic State, while three British sisters abandoned their husbands and took their nine children with them to join jihadists in Syria. On Wednesday, the police were investigating the possibility that a missing Muslim family of 12 from Luton, England, including a baby and two grandparents, traveled to Syria after stopping in Turkey on the way home from a monthlong visit to Bangladesh. Some European countries, including Britain and France, are working with Muslim communities to try to create “countermessaging” to dissuade young people from heeding the siren song of the radicals, which tends to concentrate on the sense of purpose in helping to build a true Muslim caliphate. Mr. Wainwright estimates that up to 5,000 people from Western Europe have traveled to Syria and Iraq, many to join the Islamic State. British officials believe that up to half of the 500 or so Britons who have done so have already returned home and are potential threats, for violence and for the recruitment of others. Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator, said the new police unit was an important part of Europe’s effort to end Islamic radicals’ exploitation of the Internet and social media “to promote their cause and to secure new recruits.”

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OBAMA'S WAR AGAINST APPLE AND GOOGLE Obama Administration War Against Apple and Google Just Got Uglier ► https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/30/obama-administration-war-apple-google-just-got-uglier/ ► The Intercept / by Jenna McLaughlin ► Source: Infowarrior / https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior Jul 31 2015 ► Jul 30. The Obama administration’s central strategy against strong encryption seems to be waging war on the companies that are providing and popularizing it: most notably Apple and Google. The intimidation campaign got a boost Thursday when a blog that frequently promotes the interests of the national security establishment raised the prospect of Apple being found liable for providing material support to a terrorist. Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of the LawFare blog, suggested that Apple could in fact face that liability if it continued to provide encryption services to a suspected terrorist. He noted that the post was in response to an idea raised by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., in a hearing earlier this month. “In the facts we considered,” wrote Wittes and his co-author, Harvard law student Zoe Bedell, “a court might — believe it or not — consider Apple as having violated the criminal prohibition against material support for terrorism.” FBI Director James Comey and others have said that end-to-end encryption makes law enforcement harder because service providers don’t have access to the actual communications, and therefore cannot turn them over when served with a warrant. Wittes and Bedell argue that Apple’s decision to “move aggressively to implement end-to-end encrypted systems, and indeed to boast about them” after being “publicly and repeatedly warned by law enforcement at the very highest levels that ISIS is recruiting Americans” — in part through the use of encrypted messaging apps — could make the company liable if “an ISIS recruit uses exactly this pattern to kill some Americans.” The blog compares Apple’s actions to a bank sending money to a charity supporting Hamas — knowing that it was a listed foreign terrorist organization. “The question ultimately turns on whether Apple’s conduct in providing encryption services could, under any circumstances, be construed as material support,” Wittes and Bedell write. The answer, they say, “may be unnerving to executives at Apple.”

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One way to avoid such liability, Wittes and Bedell argue, would be to end encrypted services to suspected terrorists. But, they acknowledge, “Cutting off service may be the last thing investigators want, as it would tip off the suspect that his activity has been noticed.” In a hearing on July 8 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Justice Department officials insisted that companies need to be able to provide them with unencrypted, clear access to people’s communications if presented with a warrant. The problem is that eliminating end-to-end encryption or providing law enforcement with some sort of special key would also create opportunities for hackers. Within minutes of the Lawfare post going up, privacy advocates and technologists expressed outrage: Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, called it a continuation in Wittes’ “brain-dead jihad against encryption,” while Jake Laperruque, a fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, wrote that Wittes’ post “equates selling a phone that’s secure from hackers with giving money to terrorists.” If Apple and Google were to cave under the pressure of being likened to terrorist-helpers, and stop making end-to-end encryption, that could be the start of a “slippery slope” that ends the mainstream availability of strong encryption, said Amie Stepanovich, U.S policy manager for Access. But even so, strong encryption will always exist, whether produced by small companies or foreign outlets. Terrorists can take their business elsewhere, while normal Americans will be left without a user-friendly, easily accessible way of protecting of their communications. “These tools are available and the government can’t get to all of them,” says Stepanovich. Wittes, while couching his post as hypothetical, left little doubt about his personal sentiment. “All that said,” he and his coauthor wrote, “it’s a bit of a puzzle how a company that knowingly provides encrypted communications services to a specific person identified to it as engaged in terrorist activity escapes liability if and when that person then kills an American in a terrorist incident that relies on that encryption.” The authors didn’t say what exactly they wanted Apple to do instead. Wittes tweeted after publishing the post that he is “not sure at all that Apple is not doing the right thing by encrypting end to end.”

THE DARK WEB ► Source: Steven Aftergood / Secrecy News / FAS / Washington / www.fas.org Jul 16 2015 ► Jul 16. A new report from the Congressional Research Service introduces the "Dark Web" and its implications for law enforcement and security. "The Dark Web is a general term that describes hidden Internet sites that users cannot access without using special software. Users access the Dark Web with the expectation of being able to share infor-mation and/or files with little risk of detection," the CRS report said. "This report illuminates information on the various layers of the Internet, with a particular focus on the Dark Web. It discusses both legitimate and illicit uses of the Dark Web, including how the government may rely upon it. Throughout, the report raises issues that policy makers may consider as they explore means to curb malicious activity online." See Dark Web, July 7, 2015.

DISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA Disinformation campaigns damage credibility of social media emergency alerts ► www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20150708-disinformation-campaigns-damage-credibility-of-social-media-emergency-alerts ► Homeland Security News Wire Jul 14 2015 ► Jul 8. Disinformation campaigns, which populate sections of social media platforms such as Twitter, are making real emergency data and notifications harder to absorb, a cybersecurity analyst argues. The spreading of emergency-related hoaxes, including those which involve conspira-cy-related topics, damages the credibility of sites that provide useful information in those circum-stances. Disinformation campaigns, which populate sections of social media platforms such as Twitter, are making real emergency data and notifications harder to absorb, a cybersecurity analyst argues. Daniel Lohrmann, the Chief Security Officer & Strategist for Security Mentor, writes in Government Technology that disinformation campaigns could become a growing trend and that their rapid advance may present problems during future emergencies.

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Lohrmann first noted that the use of social media platforms as an emergency alert has skyrocketed over the years, leading to helpful information regarding car accidents, police shootings, fires outbreaks, and disease alerts, amongst many more. “I applaud these social media efforts,” he writes, “and this emergency management communications trend has been a very good thing up to this point. But dark clouds are on the horizon. And soon, maybe you’ll need to hold-off on that retweet.” The reason, he notes, are disturbing reports, such as this one from the New York Times, which reveals the extent to which disinformation efforts could go. The report is about an office in Russia which perpetuates hoaxes and seeks to steer social media discourse for either private or state benefit. He cited the spreading of emergency-related hoaxes, including those which involve conspiracy-related topics, which damaged the credibility of sites that provide useful information in those circumstances. On Dec. 13, [wrote the NYT] two months after a handful of Ebola cases in the United States touched off a minor media panic, many of the same Twitter accounts used to spread the Columbian Chemicals hoax began to post about an outbreak of Ebola in Atlanta. The campaign followed the same pattern of fake news reports and videos, this time under the hashtag #EbolaInAtlanta, which briefly trended in Atlanta. Again, the attention to detail was remarkable, suggesting a tremendous amount of effort. …On the same day as the Ebola hoax, a totally different group of accounts began spreading a rumor that an unarmed black woman had been shot to death by police. They all used the hashtag #shockingmurder-inatlanta. Lohrmann notes that the Ebola tweets were known to have reached roughly sixty million people in the three days prior to official announcements regarding the outbreak, revealing the scope and power of influence that disinformation organizations can wield. Disinformation can lead to misdirection, and that, he notes, is where people can have their lives really affected. “There are many ways for false information to spread online that can be used by bad guys with Twitter and other sites,” Lohrmann writes. “While I won’t list all those ways in this blog, I will say that changing a few letters in a name, using shortened URLs or hyperlinking to bad information while using the label from a respected name are just a few methods used to misdirect people. The very features that make social media so popular (such as easy retweets) are the same methods that can be used to trick others to act by the bad guys.” While the potential danger of disinformation in an emergency setting is being assessed, the best solution, Lohrmann says, is to continue to vet data and double-check sources. “Will misinformation on Twitter and Facebook hoaxes or other social media fraud undermine the bene-fits offered by these excellent infrastructure tools?” he asks. “Only time will tell. For now, it all comes back to vetted sources, and Internet reputations and reliable, verifiable information. Emergency mana-gement personnel need to consistently go the extra mile to ensure that subscribers to their social me-dia alerts understand and follow appropriate procedures. Nevertheless, in an emergency situation with only seconds to spare, it always comes down to this very personal question: Can I trust that tweet? Really?”

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NEDERLAND STUURT RUSSISCHE SPION NAAR HUIS ► http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/nederland-stuurt-russische-spion-naar-huis~a4109289/ ► De Volkskrant / by Stan Putman and Huib Modderkolk Jul 29 2015 ► Jul 28. De Duitse en Nederlandse inlichtingendiensten hebben samengewerkt bij het oppakken van een Russische natuurkundige die zou spioneren voor de Russische geheime dienst. De 28-jarige Ivan A. was verbonden aan het Duitse Max Planck Instituut in de Beierse stad Erlangen en had daarna een aanstelling aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.

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Ivan A. bezocht als gastonderzoeker het Max Planck Instituut drie maal voor een periode van een paar maanden. Dit gebeurde tussen 2009 en 2011. Hij deed daar onderzoek naar kwantumfysica en nanofotonica, een onderzoeksgebied dat lichtstralen op nanoschaal onderzoekt en van belang is voor de ontwikkeling van supercomputers. Een oud-collega herinnert Iwan als een 'hoogst getalenteerde onderzoeker', zegt hij tegen Der Spiegel. In oktober 2013 kreeg A. een aanstelling aan de Technische Universiteit in Eindhoven. Kort daarna kwam de Duitse inlichtingendienst per toeval op het spoor van de spionerende natuurkundige. Bij het schaduwen van een Russische diplomaat uit Bonn ontdekte de dienst dat de diplomaat Ivan A. maan-delijks trof in een koffiezaak in de Duitse stad Aken, net over de grens bij Maastricht. Tijdens deze ontmoetingen gaf de diplomaat geld aan de Rus. In ruil daarvoor zou hij geheime infor-matie over het onderzoek verschaft hebben. Volgens Ivan A. zou het gaan om 800 euro voor een ap-partement in Moskou dat hij verhuurde aan vrienden van de in Bonn gestationeerde diplomaat. De Duitse inlichtingendienst meldde de verdenking van Ivan A. aan de Nederlandse AIVD, die ver-volgens een onderzoek begon. In 2014 is Ivan A. samen met zijn vrouw aangehouden op het vliegveld van Düsseldorf. Zijn laptop, telefoon en e-reader werden geconfisqueerd door de Duitse politie en na ondervraging werden ze vrijgelaten. Wel werd het stel gefotografeerd en werden vingerafdrukken afgenomen. Er is een formeel onderzoek naar spionageactiviteiten gestart. Bij terugkomst in Eindhoven werd het Schengenvisum van Ivan A. ingetrokken door het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, dit betekent dat hij niet meer in Nederland en de landen die het Schengen-akkoord hebben ondertekend mag verblijven. Ivan A. keerde terug naar Rusland en ontkent tot op de dag van vandaag de beschuldigingen van spionage. Toename spionage Een woordvoerder van de AIVD bevestigt dat de dienst vorig jaar juli een ambtsbericht aan de TU Eindhoven heeft gestuurd. Daarin stond dat A. een 'risico voor de veiligheid van Nederland' vormde. Volgens de woordvoerder heeft de universiteit vervolgens 'adequaat' gehandeld door de arbeidsover-eenkomst met A. te ontbinden. Ook is een intern onderzoek gestart naar de zaak. Een woordvoerder van de universiteit laat weten over de uitkomst van dit onderzoek niks te kunnen melden. De AIVD meldde in het jaarverslag over 2014 dat Russische inlichtingenoperaties in Nederland na de onrust in Oekraïne zijn toegenomen. 'Wederom', schrijft de geheime dienst, 'is vastgesteld dat Russi-sche inlichtingendiensten in Nederland agenten aansturen voor het verkrijgen van politieke en weten-schappelijke inlichtingen.' De Russen verzamelen daarbij vertrouwelijke informatie, waaronder ook wetenschappelijke kennis, geheime inlichtingen en militaire technologie. De Russische activiteiten tasten volgens de AIVD de 'politieke, militaire en economische positie' van Nederland aan.

NEUTRALISEREN VAN ONGEWENSTE DRONES Overheid wil ongewenste drones kunnen neutraliseren ► https://www.security.nl/posting/436439/Overheid+wil+ongewenste+drones+kunnen+neutraliseren ► Security NL Jul 22 2015 ► Jul 21.De overheid wil ongewenste drones kunnen opsporen en neutraliseren en heeft daarom vier ondernemers de opdracht gegeven om een oplossing te ontwikkelen. Halverwege vol-gend jaar moeten prototypes van de oplossingen worden gedemonstreerd, zo meldt de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV) van het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie. Volgens de NCTV zijn drones tegenwoordig relatief goedkoop en gemakkelijk verkrijgbaar. "Ze kun-nen worden gebruikt om bijvoorbeeld de openbare orde te verstoren of om verboden goederen binnen te smokkelen in een afgesloten omgeving", aldus de terreurbestrijder. Samen met de Koninklijke Ma-rechaussee en de Nationale Politie heeft de NCTV ondernemers uitgedaagd om nieuwe producten te ontwikkelen voor de bescherming tegen drones. Voorstellen Uit de ideeën die ondernemers aandroegen zijn nu vier voorstellen geselecteerd. Twee voorstellen richten zich op de detectie van drones, de overige twee gaan over het neutraliseren. De voorstellen voor detectie bestaan uit een radarsysteem dat drones op grote afstanden detecteert en identificeert en een oplossing die naar drones kan "luisteren". Deze laatste oplossing is bedoeld voor locaties die niet door radar in kaart zijn te brengen. Om tegen gedetecteerde drones op te kunnen treden ontwikkelde COBBS Industries de 'High Power Microwave' technologie. Het bedrijf heeft tijdens het haalbaarheidsonderzoek onderbouwd dat deze technologie veilig kan worden ingezet om drones uit te schakelen, aldus de NCTV. Delft Dynamics past een andere methode toe. Het bedrijf werkt met een schietnet onder een eigen drone. Deze drone vliegt naar het doel toe en vangt de 'vijandige' drone. Volgens de NCTV zijn deze vier voorstellen

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dusdanig de moeite waard, dat ze zijn geselecteerd voor de ontwikkeling van prototypes. Voor het project heeft de overheid 1,75 miljoen euro uitgetrokken.

SREBRENICA: HOE VOORHOEVE DE AANDACHT AFLEIDT ► http://www.oneworld.nl/vrede-veiligheid/srebrenica-hoe-voorhoeve-aandacht-afleidt ► Vrede & Veiligheid / by Dieuwertje Kuijpers Jul 19 2015 ► Jan Gruijters van vredesorganisatie PAX omschrijft in zijn laatste artikel dat de Ameri-kaanse inlichtingendienst, de CIA, de val van de Srebrenica enclave 'bijna live kon volgen'. Tel dit op bij de lezing dat 'uit in Washington vrijgegeven documenten blijkt dat de VS, Frankrijk en het Verenigd Koninkrijk al voor de val van de moslimenclave Srebrenica heimelijk besloten geen luchtsteun te geven aan de Nederlandse Dutchbatters', en het is bijna onmogelijk om niet kwaad te worden op die rot-Yanks. Helaas is deze lezing van Srebrenica het resultaat van teveel films kijken en te snel meegaan in 'het waren de Amerikanen'-verklaring. Een lezing die, niet in de laatste plaats, de wereld in is geholpen door voormalig minister van Defensie Joris Voorhoeve. De man die ten tijde van Srebrenica politiek verantwoordelijken was voor de inzet van Dutchbat. De CIA is niet altijd lief. Maar suggereren dat ze bijna live hebben zitten meekijken naar de 'killing fields van Srebrenica' is haast grotesk. Hoewel we in de betere actiefilms vaak close-ups te zien krijgen van spannende undercover operaties, waarin we real time militairen een gebouw binnen zien gaan, gaat het in de echte wereld een stukje moeilijker. De enige manier voor een satelliet om stationair te blijven hangen boven een gebied, is via zogenaamde Geostationary (GEO) satellieten. Deze zitten echter wel op 36.000 kilometer hoogte boven de aarde, en uiteraard heeft die gevolgen voor de kwaliteit van de resolutie. Zeker, de Verenigde Staten zijn in staat om beelden met een hoge resolutie te verkrijgen via een satelliet – maar deze hangen laag en vliegen te snel langs de aarde om bewegende beelden te krijgen. Kortom: het beeld dat de Amerikanen - nog net niet met cola en chips - live de val van de enclave hebben zitten te kijken is onrealistisch met de huidige technologie. Laat staan die van 1995. De fluisterende samenzweerderige thriller-toon is tot daar aan toe, maar het staken van kritische be-vraging zodra een (voor de journalist of opiniemaker) bevredigende reconstructie wordt gepresenteerd is ernstig. De afgelopen weken is het moeilijk om jezelf van de indruk te onttrekken dat journalisten en opiniemakers kritiekloos mee springen op de Voorhoeve-bandwagon inzake Srebrenica. Slechts één(!) journalist van Trouw nam de moeite om de beweringen van Joris Voorhoeve, die hij zowel in zijn boek als in de VPRO-documentaire Argos uit de doeken deed, te checken. De, mijns inziens, terechte conclusie van Marno de Boer luidt: de documenten geven géén nieuw inzicht in de Val van Srebrenica. Toch doen diverse krantenartikelen en opinieartikels ons anders geloven. Inschattingen, geen conclusies Maar zit er dan toch niet, stiekem, een kern van waarheid in? Helaas. In ieder geval niet voldoende om de grootste aantijgingen aan het adres van onze bondgenoten te rechtvaardigen. De Amerikaanse documenten waarop deze bewering wordt gebaseerd betreffen namelijk inschattingen (zeg maar: werkdocumenten met potentiële scenario's) van algemene Servische oorlogsdoelstellingen, en dus geen stevige conclusies van inlichtingenanalyses. Er is dus geen enkele reden om helemaal 'aluhoed-je' te gaan op de Amerikanen, en met samenzweerderige verklaringen (of “hypotheses” zoals Voor-hoeve het zelf noemt) aan te komen. Hij zou nota bene als voormalig minister beter moeten weten. Inlichtingendiensten beschikken over alle informatie, waaronder de juiste – wordt wel eens geksche-rend gezegd. Dergelijke rapporten verschijnen (zeker in oorlogstijd) met tientallen per dag. Diverse invalshoeken, verkenningen en ervaringen worden zoveel mogelijk verzameld om deze vervolgens te prioriteren en daar beleid op te baseren. De informatie hebben is een stap, deze op waarde schatten is een tweede. Het verleden heeft al uitgewezen (9/11 is hier een voorbeeld van) dat ondanks alle tijd en kennis die in een analyse wordt geïnvesteerd, er nooit een 100% score te behalen is. Achteraf, en dus met hindsight bias, beweren dat ze het ‘hadden moeten weten’ is simplistisch en laat een gebrek aan kennis over de inlichtingenwereld zien. De goedbedoelde journalisten van Argos en opiniemakers als Jan Gruiters kun je hooguit ervan betichten dat ze het verhaal te mooi vinden om kapot te check-en, maar Joris Voorhoeve wéét dit als voormalig minister van Defensie. Voorhoeve weet wat voor documenten het zijn en hoe ze op waarde geschat dienen te worden. Hij laat Argos geloven dat ze een smoking gun hebben gevonden, en remt ze ook op geen enkele wijze af, maar voedt juist de wilde conclusies en theorieën. Dan ben je toch niet bezig met waarheids-vinding, maar met de aandacht afleiden van je eigen rol in het geheel?

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Overgeschreven staatsgeheimen Afgezien van de vrijgegeven Amerikaanse documenten uit 2013 baseert Joris Voorhoeve zich op aantekeningen vanuit geheime documenten die in zijn bezit zijn. Wat hier in staat en wat de inhoud hier van is, kan hij niet zeggen – maar blijkbaar is het geen enkel probleem om iedereen te laten weten dat hij geheime documenten heeft verkregen en aan zijn persoonlijke aantekeningen conclusies kan verbinden. Het is, op zijn zachts gezegd, vrij dubieus om de volgens hem cruciale zin uit geheime documenten te citeren om daar vervolgens mee te lopen pochen. Zeker aangezien gerubriceerd materiaal maar één juiste plek heeft, en dat is op het ministerie van Defensie en niet overgeschreven in de bureaula van een oud-minister die bezig is met een boekje. Ook dit moet Joris Voorhoeve weten als voormalig minister van Defensie. De suggestie dat de Amerikanen opzettelijk Srebrenica en daarbij de inwoners en Dutchbat hebben geofferd om vervolgens een vredesplan te kunnen doordrukken is buitengewoon cynisch. Het legt de nare Nederlandse politieke gewoonte bloot om te wijzen naar Amerika als grote, boze wolf, om vervol-gens zelf de laffe handen in onschuld te wassen. Dat Nederlandse journalisten hier vrij gemakkelijk in mee gaan wekt niet veel verbazing: deze schieten wel vaker door in hun 'kritische blik' tegenover de Verenigde Staten. Toch hebben zij de plicht om ook in dit geval door te vragen. Zeker wanneer deze informatie de wereld in wordt geslingerd door iemand die destijds als minister van Defensie politieke verantwoordelijkheid droeg voor de Nederlandse militaire inzet in Srebrenica. En zeker wanneer die-zelfde persoon de Amerikanen gebrek aan transparantie verwijt, maar zelf ook nog de nodige docu-menten achter slot en grendel heeft geplaatst. Dat de Nederlandse regering slechts een verdwaald, sympathiek Kameleon-bootje was te midden van een storm op een woeste geopolitieke zee, die in al haar goedbedoelde naïviteit genaaid is door die rot-Yanks klinkt heel verleidelijk. Zeker als deze bewering wordt gestaafd door een voormalig minister die grote Bambi-ogen opzet en met heilige verontwaardiging zegt 'niet op de hoogte' te zijn geweest. Zeer verleidelijk, maar te makkelijk. De media is ervoor om de macht te bevragen, en niet als bezems om smerige straatjes schoon te vegen.

PLANS FOR DRAGNET SURVEILLANCE ► Source: Edrigram / www.edri.org / by Ton Siedsma [Bits of Freedom, Netherlands] Jul 15 2015 ► Jul 15. Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch Minister of the Interior, wants to make sure that the Dutch secret services have the powers to spy on the behaviour of all citizens and gain insight in all of their communications: phone calls, emails, chat messages and website visits. This much is clear after he published an update of the 2002 secret services bill and put it into online consultation on 2 July. Dutch digital rights organisation, EDRi member Bits of Freedom will scrutinise the bill and provide input for the consultation. Three things immediately jump out as very worrying on a first inspection: The secret services will gain the power to use a dragnet form of surveillance. The Minister has given assurances that the dragnet will only be used for specific purposes, but has not provided adequate sa-feguards limiting the mass surveillance of unsuspected citizens. There is no guarantee that these po-wers will only be used to target a specific group of people instead of a much broader and ill-defined group, like all persons in the Netherlands who are in contact with, for example, Syria. What if the ser-vices want to do the same for Morocco, France, or the United States? And do this all at the same time? If there is a suspicion that someone wants to do harm, then it's already possible to put them under surveillance, if necessary and proportionate. The Dutch services currently have the option to wiretap all communications of their targets. Using this dragnet to identify or monitor possible threats for the Dutch national security will inevitably ensnare many innocent people, breaching their rights in the pro-cess. There hasn't been any discussion in the Netherlands about the necessity of these powers. A second issue in the proposed bill is access to this bulk data by foreign services. Data which has been intercepted in bulk by the Dutch secret services can be shared in bulk with foreign services, even before the data has been evaluated. Anybody can be put under surveillance as soon as the Dutch se-cret service learns that they have previously been under surveillance by a foreign service, regardless of whether this person would be considered dangerous under Dutch law. A final issue is the expansion of the hacking powers of the secret services. Since 2002, they have been allowed to hack into devices of a subject (which could also mean the servers of a forum). In this proposal, this power will be expanded to include subjects that are in some way, even if only technical-ly, connected to the actual subject, in order to get to the actual subject. This could mean that an un-suspecting user of a server might be hacked to gain access to another user of that same server.

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The proposed bill obviously also affects non-Dutch citizens and does not provide any answers to the global problem of state surveillance. Rather, it could be seen as an attempt to bring the Netherlands into the surveillance game. Instead of making an effort to end mass surveillance this bill only increases the number of mass surveilling states. The online consultation will be open till 1 September 2015. The online consultation for the law (only in Dutch) https://www.internetconsultatie.nl/wiv/reageren/ Dutch intel bill proposes non-specific (“bulk”) interception powers for “any form of telecom or data transfer”, incl. domestic, plus required cooperation from “providers of communication services” (02.07.2015) https://blog.cyberwar.nl/2015/07/dutch-intelligence-bill-proposes-non-specific-bulk-interception-powers-for-any-form-of-telecom-or-data-transfer-incl-domestic/

CIEIVD: JAARVERSLAG 2014 Verslag van de commissie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten over haar werkzaam-heden in 2014 ► Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal [34 213] / by Zijlstra [vz] and Van der Leeden [griffier] Jul 14 2015 ► May 28. De commissie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten heeft de eer verslag uit te brengen over haar werkzaamheden in 2014. Samenstelling van de commissie Ingevolge artikel 22 van het Reglement van Orde bestaat de com missie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten uit de voorzitters van de fracties. De voorzitters van de fracties waren in 2014: Zijlstra (VVD), voorzitter van de commissie, Samsom (PvdA), Wilders (PVV), Roemer (SP), Van Haersma Buma (CDA), Pechtold (D66), Van Ojik (GroenLinks), Slob (ChristenUnie), Thieme (PvdD) en Van der Staaij (SGP) en alleen in het begin van 2014 Klein (50PLUS). Beknopt overzicht van de in de verslagperiode verrichte werkzaamheden De commissie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (hierna: commissie) is in 2014 achttien maal bijeengekomen om te overleggen met de ministers van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijks-relaties (BZK), van Defensie en van Veiligheid en Justitie (V&J) en over interne aangelegen-heden. De Minister van BZK wordt in de vergaderingen bijgestaan door de directeur- generaal van de Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) en de secretaris-generaal van het ministerie, de Minister van Defensie door de directeur van de Militaire Inlichtingen- en Veiligheids-dienst (MIVD) en de secretaris-generaal van het ministerie en de Minister van Veiligheid en Justitie (V&J) door de Nationaal Coördinator Terroris-mebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV). In het jaarverslag wordt ingegaan op geagendeerde onderwerpen en stukken die de commissie heeft ontvangen en die de in de commissie zijn besproken. Het jaarverslag is, mede als gevolg van het staatsgeheime karakter van de gedeelde informatie, geen limitatieve opsomming van de onderwerpen die in de commissie aan de orde zijn geweest. De opkomst bij de vergaderingen in 2014 is met een gemiddelde opkomstpercentage van 70% goed te noemen. Op 30 januari 2014 heeft de commissie, mede naar aanleiding van het rapport van de Commissie evaluatie Wet op de inlichtingen- en veilig-heidsdiensten 2002 (commissie Dessens) – gesproken over de huidige werkwijze van de commissie en de mogelijkheden en behoefte om die in de toekomst te versterken en aan te scherpen. Op 5, 13 en 18 februari en 6 en 13 maart 2014 is de commissie bijeen geweest om in het licht van het plenair debat over het verzamelen van 1,8 miljoen metadata van telefoonverkeer door de Nederlandse veiligheids-diensten te spreken over de informatievoorziening aan de commissie betreffende dit onderwerp. Op 13 februari heeft de voorzitter van de commissie namens de commissie in het openbaar een reactie gegeven op dit onderwerp. Op 18 februari 2014 heeft de commissie vervolgens een verklaring uitgebracht waarin de commissie is ingegaan op de wijze waarop zij over de verzameling van 1,8 miljoen records metadata door Nederlandse inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten is geïnformeerd. Op 27 maart 2014 heeft de commissie gesproken over het Dreigingsbeeld Terrorisme Nederland (dit is een globale analyse van de nationale en internationale terroristische dreiging tegen Nederland en Nederlandse belangen in het buitenland ten behoeve van de ambtelijke en politieke leiding en beleidsmakers) het Nationaal Inlichtingenbeeld (dit is een gezamenlijk product van de AIVD en MIVD ten behoeve van het onder-steunen van de politieke en beleidsmatige besluitvorming waarin wordt teruggekeken op ontwikkelingen en verwachtingen voor de toekomst worden aangegeven) en de Driemaandelijkse Rapportage AIVD over het vierde kwartaal 2013 (dit betreft een verantwoording van activiteiten van de AIVD die zijn uitgevoerd op grond van het jaarplan, over de resultaten van onderzoeken en activiteiten en acties die AIVD daarop heeft genomen). In het kader van het Dreigingsbeeld Terrorisme

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Nederland, het Nationaal Inlichtingenbeeld en de Driemaandelijkse Rapportage AIVD over het vierde kwartaal 2013 is voornamelijk gesproken over de problematiek en de stand van zaken betreffende de terugkeerders van en uitreizigers naar Syrië. Gesproken is o.a. over het beslag dat het legt op de capaciteit van de AIVD, de samenwerking tussen de AIVD, andere overheidsdiensten en de lokale autoriteiten en de genomen maatregelen. Ook is gesproken over samenwerking tussen de inlichtingendiensten op Europees niveau. Verder is in deze vergadering het Toezichtsrapport van de CTIVD over gegevensverwerking op het gebied van telecommunicatie door de AIVD en MIVD (rapport 38) en de verschillende opties betreffende veilig bellen aan de orde geweest. Tijdens deze vergadering heeft de commissie overleg gevoerd met de ministers van BZK, Defensie en V&J. Op 7 april 2014 heeft de een gesprek gehad met de Commissie van Toezicht betreffende de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (hierna: CTIVD) en de Commissie evaluatie Wet op de inlichtingen- en veiligheids-diensten 2002 (commissie Dessens) over de conclusies en aanbevelingen van het onderzoeksrapport van de commissie Dessens die zich met name richten op de CIVD en de reactie van CTIVD op dit rapport. In dit overleg is o.a. gesproken over de wijze waarop het functioneren van de CIVD en de wisselwerking tussen de CIVD en CTIVD verder kan worden versterkt. In de vergadering van 22 mei 2014 heeft de commissie met de Minister van BZK gesproken over de Driemaandelijkse Rapportage AIVD over het eerste kwartaal 2014. In dit kader is o.a. gesproken de samenwerking en informatie-uitwisseling tussen de AIVD en de MIVD (in de vorm van gezamenlijke teams, projectmatige samenwerking en de Joint Sigint Cyber Unit), de informatiepositie van de AIVD met betrekking tot de terugkeerders en de stand van zaken met betrekking tot de ontvoerde Nederlander. Daarnaast werd de commissie met betrekking tot de problematiek van uitreizigers en terugkeerders geïnformeerd over de werkwijze en informatiepositie van de AIVD en de samenwerking tussen de AIVD, politie en OM om de problematiek van de terugkeerders aan te pakken. Verder is de commissie geïnformeerd vanuit de ervaringen die zijn opgedaan in Frankrijk en het Verenigd Koninkrijk over de problematiek van de zogenaamde «sleepers» (personen die nu niet in actie zijn, maar zich in een later stadium kunnen manifesteren. Tenslotte is de commissie geïnformeerd over onderzoek naar aanslagplannen en de inlichtingenpo-sitie van de AIVD. Tijdens deze vergadering is ook het geheime Jaarverslag van de AIVD over 2013 (dit geeft inzicht in realisatie van de doelen van het jaarplan 2013) besproken. In dit kader is gesproken over de achtergrond van de toe- en afname van de inzet van bijzondere bevoegdheden en inlichtin-genmiddelen, alsmede de producten van de AIVD. Tenslotte is in deze vergadering gesproken over een voorstel tot het uitvoeren van onderzoek naar de parlementaire controle op het functio-neren van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten. Besloten is met voorstellen te komen om de werkwijze van de commissie verder vorm te geven en zo mogelijk aan te scherpen en daarbij gebruik maken van de expertise van de CTIVD en de commissie Dessens. Op 5 juni 2014 heeft de commissie met de ministers van BZK en Defensie gesproken over de uitwisseling van gegevens met buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten. In dit kader is toegezegd dat de commissie nader zal worden geïnformeerd over de richtsnoeren die gelden bij het delen van informatie met buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten. Verder is in deze vergadering de commissie geïnformeerd over de stand van zaken van de bezuinigingen bij de AIVD. Opgemerkt werd dat de bezuiniging bij de AIVD van € 34 miljoen ongeveer een zesde van het totale budget omvat. Voor een groot deel kan de bezuiniging worden opgevangen door efficiency-maatregelen en door co-locatie (AIVD en MIVD op dezelfde locatie). Vanwege de ontwikkelingen in het jihadisme zal er niet worden bezuinigd op de taken radicalisering en extremisme en digitale spionage. In de vergadering is o.a. van gedachten gewisseld over het tijdbeslag van de besluitvorming over de invulling van de bezuiniging, de wijze waarop de bezuiniging in overleg met andere partijen inhoud en vorm wordt gegeven, het stellen van prioriteiten binnen de AIVD, de mogelijkheden van het behalen van efficiencywinst door het delen van informatie met andere landen en samenwerking met buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten. Toegezegd is dat de commissie zal worden geïnfor-meerd over de wijze waarop de afbouw van enkele taken en teams zal worden ingevuld en wat de operationele gevolgen (de gevolgen voor operaties, kennisniveau, informatiepositie) hiervan zullen zijn. Op 3 juli 2014 heeft de commissie gesproken met de ministers van BZK, Defensie en V&J. Het eerste onderwerp dat aan de orde kwam was het Dreigingsbeeld Terrorisme Nederland nr. 36. In dit kader is wederom uitvoerig gesproken over de problematiek van uitreizigers en terugkeerders. Verder is gesproken over de fondswerving voor de jihad door internationale netwerken, de (ook in Nederland) oplaaiende spanning tussen soennieten en sjiieten, het onder druk staan van de weerbaarheid van de moslimbe-volking door intimiderend optreden van een kleine groep jihadistische jongeren, het actieplan tegen de jihad, transnationale netwerken van jihadisten, de EU-samenwerking tegen de jihad in EU-context, de invulling en onderbouwing c.q. nadere specificering van de intensivering van € 25 miljoen bij de AIVD en de invulling van de reeds gerealiseerde bezui-niging. Verder is in de vergadering gesproken over het geheime Jaarverslag MIVD 2013 (het jaarverslag informeert over uitvoering Jaarplan 2013 en

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ontwikkelingen van inlichtingenpositie van de MIVD). Hierbij kwamen o.a. de volgende onderwerpen aan de orde: het gebruik van door Nederlandse inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten verstrekte data aan buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten, de informatiepositie in Afghanistan, taalcapaciteit, samenwerking tussen de MIVD en AIVD en de informatiepositie in Syrië. In het kader van Nationaal Inlichtingenbeeld mei 2014 is gesproken over de vrijlating van vier Franse gijzelaars in Mali, de proof of life van gijzelaars, waaronder de ontvoerde Nederlander, de inlichtingencapaciteit van de AIVD en MIVD in het licht van de ontwikkelingen van ISIS en het kalifaat en de machtsverschuivingen in Libië en Tunesië en de verplaatsing naar Maghreb. Tenslotte is gesproken over het Toezichtsrapport nr. 37 van de CTIVD inzake de inzet van enkele langlopende agentenoperaties door de AIVD. De vergaderingen van 29 juli en 15 augustus 2014 van de commissie in aanwezigheid van de ministers van BZK, Defensie en V&J stonden in het teken van de MH17 ramp. De commissie is op de hoogte gebracht van de stand van zaken en ontwikkelingen in het onderzoek (op de crashsite), en de informatie- en inlichtingenpositie van de Nederlandse inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten en de samenwerking met andere diensten. Vervolgens is de commissie bijeengeweest in de vergadering van 11 september 2014. In aanwezigheid van de ministers van BZK en Defensie is o.a. gesproken over de ontwikkelingen ten aanzien van IS en de Russische Federatie en Oekraïne. In dit kader zijn diverse vragen vanuit de commissie – over Rusland en Oekraine, het effect van de sancties tegen Rusland, de relatie tussen IS met de gematigde groeperingen en de oppositie in Syrië, de controverse tussen IS en Jabhat al Nusra, de strafrechtelijke en bestuursrechtelijke en civielrechtelijke aspecten van de arrestatie van enkele gezinnen uit Huizen – beantwoord. Verder is in deze vergadering gesproken over het niveau van samen-werking met buitenlandse inlichtingendiensten. In het kader van het Nationaal Inlichtingenbeeld september 2014 is van gedachten gewisseld naar aanleiding van vragen vanuit de commissie o.a. over de aanwijzingen voor aanslagvoorbereidingen in Europa, de dreiging van personen die in contact staan met jihadistische netwerken in Syrië, de aanwezigheid van slapende cellen van IS in Europa om aanslagen uit te voeren, de machtsverhoudingen in Oekraïne en de aanwezigheid van marineschepen in de wateren van Aruba. Bij dit agendapunt is langer stilgestaan bij de situatie in Nederland en de dreiging in Europa m.b.t. het jihadisme (uitreizigers en terugkeer-ders) en de situatie in het Midden-Oosten en Noord-Afrika. Verder is de commissie nader geïnfor-meerd over de invulling van de bezuinigingen en investeringen bij de AIVD. Tenslotte heeft de commissie gesproken over de Eerste Voortgangsrap-portage AIVD 2014 (dit betreft een rapportage over uitvoering jaarplannen en ontwikkeling inlichtingenpositie). In dit kader is van gedachten gewis-seld over de extra capaciteitsinzet om meer dekking te krijgen op jihadisme en uitreizigers en denk-richtingen met betrekking tot kabelge-bonden communicatie. In de vergadering op 9 oktober 2014 met de Minister van BZK en de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid is gesproken over de uitwisseling van vertrouwelijke en geheime informatie en (on)veilige communicatie met telefoons. Daarnaast is de commissie uitvoerig geïnformeerd over de ontwikkelingen en stand van zaken van IS, de uitreizigers en terugkeerders. In dit kader is o.a. gesproken over de complexiteit van de geopolitieke context van de dreiging vanuit Syrië en Irak, de focus op de terugkeerders (de achter-kant van het probleem) en hoe om te gaan met de duizenden sympathisanten en de snelle radicalise-ringsprocessen (voorkant van het probleem), de effectiviteit van de brede aanpak (waarbij gemeenten, welzijn, scholen, politie betrokken zijn), de dreigementen van ISIS tegen het Westen en de oproep van ISIS tot het plegen van aanslagen in het Westen, de aantrek-kingskracht van ISIS en de problematiek van sleepers cellen, lone wolves en snelle radicaliseringen. Tenslotte is de commissie geïnformeerd over de betekenis van het dreigingsniveau substantieel. De commissie heeft op 6 november 2014 in aanwezigheid van de ministers van BZK en V&J gesproken over de aard en (groei) van de omvang van geldstromen naar strijders in Syrië en de aanpak van terrorismefinanciering. Vervolgens is de commissie geïnformeerd over de stand van zaken van de (militaire aspecten) van het onderzoek naar de ramp met de MH17. In dit kader is gesproken over de informatieverstrekking vanuit de Nederlandse inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten richting het OM en het delen van informatie met luchtvaartmaat-schappijen. Daarnaast is gesproken over het Toezichtsrapport nr. 40 van de CTIVD inzake de inzet van de afluisterbevoegdheid en van de bevoegdheid tot de selectie van sigint door de AIVD. Met de Minister van BZK is gesproken over de wenselijkheid van het wel of niet openbaar maken van het aan-tal taps in het licht van andere modi operandi, zoals insluipingen, richtmicro-foons, etc. In de vergadering van 13 november 2014 heeft de commissie gesproken met de ministers van BZK en V&J. In deze vergadering stond het Dreigingsbeeld Terrorisme Nederland nr. 37 centraal. Op verzoek van de leden van de commissie zijn enkele passages uit het dreigingsbeeld – zoals de voorbereiding van aanslagen in Europa, de steeds omvangrijkere rol van Nederland, jihadisten die niet (kunnen) uitreizen en in Nederland solitair aanslagen kunnen plegen, oproepen van Nederlanders in de strijdgebieden oproepen om een daad te stellen tegen Nederland, de extra beveiliging van het Tweede Kamergebouw – nader toegelicht. Opgemerkt werd dat het dreigingsbeeld in de afgelopen

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twee jaar breder en diffuser is geworden, door terugkerende strijders met een opdracht, netwerken in Syrië die aanslagen in Europa plannen en sympathisanten en aanhangers van IS in Nederland die aanslagen plannen. Verder is een toelichting gegeven op de situatie in het Midden-Oosten en Noord-Afrika, de strijd tussen Al Qaida en ISIS, het mediabericht over een zelfmoord-aanslag door een Nederlander in Bagdad, de dreiging in Jemen, aanslag-plots in Nederland, de risicoschatting van en de inzet van inlichtingenmid-delen tegen de terugkeerders, het onderkennen en verijdelen van concrete dreigingen en de bedreigingen. Tenslotte heeft de commissie gevraagd naar de situatie van ontvoerde Nederlander. De laatste vergadering in 2014 vond plaats op 11 december 2014. In deze vergadering met de ministers van BZK en Defensie is gesproken over de terugkeerders uit Syrië. De commissie heeft een overzicht gekregen van de terugkeerders, welk risico ze vormen, hun intenties en de aanpak van deze groep. In dit kader is opgemerkt dat er tussen de inlichtingendiensten van de betrokken Europese landen veel informatie wordt uitgewisseld en er sprake is van een repressieve aanpak. Er vindt uitwisseling plaats van best practices, zodat de aanpak van de terug-keerders kan worden versterkt. Daarnaast is in deze vergadering gesproken over Tweede Voortgangsrap-portage van de AIVD in 2014. In dit kader is de commissie geïnformeerd over de realisatie van de beoogde dekkingsgraden, doelstellingen en inlichtingenpositie op diverse onderwerpen en landen (en specifiek naar de opgebouwde humint), herprioritering binnen de AIVD naar aanleiding van ontwikkelingen in Syrië (ISIS), Rusland en Oekraïne. De commissie is uiteengezet dat het niet behalen van een dekkingsgraad met betrekking tot een bepaald onderwerp (bijvoorbeeld rekruterende activiteiten, uitrei-zigers, cyber of sociale media) of land het gevolg kan zijn van beperktere capaciteit, maar ook van een andere werkwijze of wijziging in de informa-tieoverdracht. Vervolgens is de commissie geïnformeerd over de ontwikkelingen en stand van zaken betreffende het onderzoek van de MIVD en AIVD naar de MH17 ramp. Tenslotte heeft de commissie in afwezigheid van de ministers het rapport «Traject versterking functioneren CIVD» – dat in opdracht van de commissie is opgesteld door de griffier en twee externe deskundigen – besproken. De behandeling van brieven van derden De commissie behandelde enkele brieven van burgers en instellingen.

AIVD EN MIVD MOGEN STRAKS MEER DATA AFTAPPEN ► http://nos.nl/artikel/2044702-aivd-en-mivd-mogen-straks-meer-data-aftappen.html ► NOS Jul 3 2015 ► Jul 2. De veiligheidsdiensten AIVD en MIVD krijgen meer bevoegdheden om terroristen op te sporen. Dat blijkt uit het wetsvoorstel voor de Wet inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten dat van-daag openbaar is gemaakt. In de huidige wet, die dateert uit 2002, mogen de geheime diensten alleen communicatie onderschep-pen die via de ether loopt. De nieuwe wet biedt meer mogelijkheden. Ook het dataverkeer dat via (glasvezel)kabels loopt mag onderschept worden. Het gaat onder andere om mobiele telefonie en e-mail. In december 2013 concludeerde de commissie-Dessens, die de wet evalueerde, dat het onderscheid tussen kabelgebonden en draadloos kabelverkeer verouderd was. In de nieuwe wet vervalt dit onder-scheid. Verscherpt toezicht Omdat de inlichtingendiensten straks meer mogen aftappen, wordt het toezicht verscherpt. De minis-ter moet op diverse momenten tijdens en na het aftappen van grote hoeveelheden data toestemming geven voor bijvoorbeeld het lezen van e-mails. De afgetapte gegevens mogen drie jaar bewaard blijven. Ook het onafhankelijke toezicht op de veiligheidsdiensten via de CTIVD (de Commissie van Toezicht betreffende de Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdiensten) wordt strenger. De commissie controleert de beslissingen van de minister. Als de commissie het oneens is met de minister moet er opnieuw naar gekeken worden. De CTIVD gaat ook functioneren als een klachteninstantie. Spionage tegengaan De nieuwe wet moet helpen om terroristische dreigingen beter te onderkennen, spionage tegen te gaan, en meer bescherming te bieden tegen cyberaanvallen. Tot 1 september kunnen burgers, bedrijven en instellingen hun mening geven over het wetsvoorstel. Na eventuele aanpassingen gaat de wet naar de Tweede Kamer.

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AIVD MUST STOP BUGGING LAWYERS Court: Intelligence agencies must stop bugging lawyers’ offices ► http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/07/01/court-intelligence-agencies-must-stop-bugging-lawyers-offices/ ► NL Times / by Janene Van Jaarsveldt ► Stringer: Martin Rudner [ret.] / Carleton University / Ottawa / www.carleton.ca/cciss Jul 1 2015 ► Jul 1. Intelligence agencies must stop eavesdropping on confidential conversations between lawyers and their clients, the court in The Hague ruled on Wednesday morning. The court also ruled that the state should discontinue this practice within 6 months and independent supervision must be arranged, ANP reports. Law firm Prakken d’Oliveira and the Dutch Association of Defense Council filed a lawsuit against the Dutch State after it was revealed that the General Intelligence and Security Service, AIVD, had been tapping conversations between lawyers and clients at the firm for years. This was evident from a response Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs sent to the firm in December after a complaint. According to Prakken d’Oliveira, several of their clients now refuse to correspond with their lawyers by telephone or email because they fear they are being bugged. The lawyers wanted the eavesdropping to stop, or at least that an independent judge determine beforehand whether the eavesdropping is necessary. They believe that this practice infringes to the right to a fair trial. According to the lawyers, everyone should be able to assume that conversations with their lawyers are confidential.

AIVD MOET STOPPEN MET AFLUISTEREN ADVOCATEN ► www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4492/Nederland/article/detail/4092127/2015/07/01/AIVD-moet-stoppen-met-afluisteren-advocaten.dhtml ► Trouw Jul 1 2015 ► Jul 1. De inlichtingendiensten AIVD en MIVD moeten binnen zes maanden stoppen met het afluisteren van vertrouwelijke gesprekken tussen advocaten en hun cliënten. Dat heeft de rechter in Den Haag woensdag beslist. Ook moet er worden gezorgd voor onafhankelijk toezicht. Advocaten hadden de zaak aangespannen omdat ze vinden dat dat iedereen ervan uit moet kunnen gaan dat de communicatie met een advocaat vertrouwelijk is. Een verdachte moet namelijk vrij en in vertrouwen over zijn zaak kunnen spreken. In december werd bekend dat gesprekken tussen advocaten en cliënten van het Amsterdamse advocatenkantoor Prakken d'Oliveira 'langdurig' zijn afgeluisterd door de AIVD. Het kantoor staat onder anderen terrorismeverdachten bij. Afluisteren onder voorwaarden De Tweede Kamer is verdeeld over de mogelijkheid van inlichtingendiensten om gesprekken tussen advocaten en hun cliënten af te luisteren. De VVD wil dat afluisteren onder strikte voorwaarden wel mogelijk blijft. De PvdA wil het vonnis nog bestuderen. Oppositiepartijen D66 en GroenLinks zijn blij met de uitspraak en vinden dat de diensten er mee moeten stoppen. VVD-Kamerlid Ockje Tellegen vindt dat een terreurverdachte die een bedreiging vormt voor de natio-nale veiligheid moet kunnen worden getapt, ook als die een gesprek voert met zijn advocaat. "De minister kan inschatten wanneer de veiligheid in het geding is en afluisteren noodzakelijk en propor-tioneel is", aldus Tellegen. De PvdA wil eerst nog bekijken wat de uitspraak precies betekent voor de huidige regeling. "Het is goed dat de rechter het grote belang dat een advocaat in alle vertrouwen met zijn cliënt kan spreken weer heeft bevestigd. Wat dit precies voor de huidige regeling betekent weet ik nog niet", zegt PvdA-Kamerlid Jeroen Recourt. Hij wil de minister om een reactie vragen. D66 en GroenLinks zijn tevreden met het vonnis. Ze vinden onder meer dat afluisteren schadelijk is voor het vertrouwen in de rechtspraak. GroenLinks wijst erop dat het in deze kwestie om het funda-ment van de rechtstaat gaat en dat daar niet aan mag worden getornd.

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►►►►►►►►►► in the Fringe

INTERVIEW WITH JULIAN ASSANGE SPIEGEL Interview with Julian Assange: ‘We Are Drowning in Material’ ► Der Spiegel / Interview Conducted by Michael Sontheimer ► http://www.matthewaid.com/post/124561659021/interview-with-julian-assange ► Source: Matthew Aid / Matthew Aid Blog / US / www.matthewaid.com Jul 20 2015 ► Jul 2. SPIEGEL: Mr. Assange, WikiLeaks is back, publishing documents which prove the United States has been surveilling the French government, publishing Saudi diplomatic cables and posting evidence of the massive surveillance of the German government by US secret services. What are the reasons for this comeback? Assange: Yes, WikiLeaks has been publishing a lot of material in the last few months. We have been publishing right through, but sometimes it has been material which does not concern the West and the Western media – documents about Syria, for example. But you have to consider that there was, and still is, a conflict with the United States government which started in earnest in 2010 after we began publishing a variety of classified US documents. SPIEGEL: What did this mean for you and for WikiLeaks? Assange: The result was a series of legal cases, blockades, PR attacks and so on. With a banking blockade, WikiLeaks had been cut off from more than 90 percent of its finances. The blockade happened in a completely extra judicial manner. We took legal measures against the blockade and we have been victorious in the courts, so people can send us donations again. SPIEGEL: What difficulties did you have to overcome? Assange: There had been attacks on our technical infrastructure. And our staff had to take a 40 percent pay cut, but we have been able to keep things together without having to fire anybody, which I am quite proud of. We became a bit like Cuba, working out ways around this blockade. Various groups like Germany’s Wau Holland Foundation collected donations for us during the blockade. SPIEGEL: What did you do with the donations you got? Assange: They enabled us to pay for new infrastructure, which was needed. I have been publishing about the NSA for almost 20 years now, so I was aware of the NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance. We required a next-generation submission system in order to protect our sources. SPIEGEL: And is it in place now? Assange: Yes, a few months back we launched a next-generation submission system and also integrated it with our publications. SPIEGEL: So we can expect new publications? Assange: We are drowning in material now. Economically, the challenge for WikiLeaks is whether we can scale up our income in proportion to the amount of material we have to process. SPIEGEL: Nine years ago, when WikiLeaks was founded, you could read on its website: “The goal is justice. The method is transparency.” This is the old idea of Enlightenment born in the 18th century. But if you look at brutal political regimes and ruthless big corporations, isn’t that slogan too idealistic? Is transparency enough? Assange: To be honest, I don’t like the word transparency; cold dead glass is transparent. I prefer education or understanding, which are more human. SPIEGEL: The work of WikiLeaks seems to have changed. In the beginning it just published secret documents. More recently, you have also been providing context for the documents. Assange: We have always done this. I have personally written thousands of pages of analysis. WikiLeaks is a giant library of the world’s most persecuted documents. We give asylum to these documents, analyze them, promote them and obtain more. WikiLeaks has more than 10 million documents and associated analyses now. SPIEGEL: Are the personnel of the US government and the US Army still technically blocked from using your library. Assange: WikiLeaks is still a taboo object for some parts of the government. Firewalls were set up. Every federal government employee and every contractor received an e-mail stating that if they read

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something from WikiLeaks including through the New York Times website, they have to remove this from their computer immediately and self-report. They had to cleanse and confess. That’s a new McCarthy hysteria. SPIEGEL: Do you know something about your readers? Assange: Not much, we don’t spy on them. But what we do know is that most of our readers come from India, closely followed by the United States. We also have quite a number of readers who search for persons. The sister is getting married and someone wants to check the groom. Or someone is negotiating a business deal and wants to know something about his potential partner or a bureaucrat he has to talk to. SPIEGEL: Did WikiLeaks change its ways of cooperating with journalists and the media over the years? Assange: We use a lot more contracts now. SPIEGEL: Why? Assange: That’s due to a few bad experiences, principally in London. We have contracts now with more than a hundred media organizations all around the world. We have a unique perspective on the global media. We put together various consortiums of journalists and media organizations on different levels and try to maximize the impact of our sources. We now have six years of experience with Western European media, American media, Indian media, Arab media and seeing what they do with the same material. Their results are unbelievably different. SPIEGEL: Edward Snowden said that many journalists got interesting stories from his documents, but the only organization that really cared about him and helped him to escape from Hong Kong was WikiLeaks. Assange: Most of the media organizations do burn sources. Edward Snowden was abandoned in Hong Kong, especially by the Guardian, which had run his stories exclusively. But we thought that it was very important that a star source like Edward Snowden was not put in prison. Because that would have created a tremendous chilling effect on other sources coming forward. SPIEGEL: It would surely have been a deterrence for other sources. But most of the journalists insist on being independent and objective. They also like to stress that they are not political activists. Assange: All they show is that they are activists for the way things are. SPIEGEL: Haven’t you also met journalists who dig deep into complex issues and work hard to deliver a proper analysis? Assange: In the United Kingdom at various stages, journalism has been the profession of gentlemen amateurs. And some of them even pride themselves on being amateurs. Their quality is not comparable with the quality of intelligence services even if most of them harbor a remarkable degree of corruption and incompetence. But they still have a certain ideal of professionalism. In order to protect sources now, extreme diligence and professionalism is required. SPIEGEL: In October, a book will be published called “The WikiLeaks Files. The World According to the US Empire” for which you wrote the foreword. Do you try to develop the contextualization, the analysis and the counter-narrative which the documents provided by WikiLeaks need? Assange: Generally there is not enough systematic understanding. This has to do with media economics, the short-term news cycles, but actually I don’t blame the media for that failure. There is a terrible failing in academia in understanding current geopolitical and technical developments and the intersection between these two areas. WikiLeaks has a very public conflict with the United States, which is still on-going and in which many young people have gotten involved. They suddenly saw the Internet as a place where politics and geopolitics happen. It’s not just a place where you gossip about what happened at school. But where were the young professors stepping forward trying to make sense of it all? Where is the new Michel Foucault who tries to explain how modern power is exercised? Absurdly, Noam Chomski was making some of the best comments and he is now 86. SPIEGEL: Maybe young professors presume it might not be very helpful for their careers to address this subject because it is highly controversial. Assange: Exactly. It is inherently controversial. At the same time, the relationships of the major intelligence agencies is a one of the great structuring factors of the modern world. It is the core of non-economic relationships between states. I worry most about academia and the particular part of academia that is dealing with international relations. WikiLeaks has published over 2 million diplomatic cables. It is the single largest repository for international relations of primary source materials, all searchable. It is the cannon for international relations. It is the biggest dog in the room. There has been some research published in Spanish and in Asian languages. But where are the American and English journals? There is a concrete explanation: They act as feeder schools for the US State Department. The US association that controls the big five international relations journals, the ISA, has a quiet, official policy of not accepting any paper that is derived from WikiLeaks’ materials.

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SPIEGEL: Let’s talk about politicians. Why have politicians – who had to learn, thanks to WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, that their phones are tapped and their emails are read by English-speaking spies – reacted in such a timid, slow and lame way to these revelations? Assange: Why are they playing it down? Angela Merkel had to look tough because she didn’t want to be seen as a weak leader, but I reckon she came to the conclusion the Americans aren’t going to change. All that US intelligence information is very valuable for the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst. Please imagine for a moment the German government complains about being spied on and the Americans just say: Okay, we will give you more stuff, which they have stolen from France. When the French complain they get more stuff, which was stolen from Germany. The NSA spends a lot of resources obtaining information, but throwing a few crumbs to France and Germany when they start whining about being victims costs nothing, digital copies cost nothing. SPIEGEL: If it worked like that, it would be utterly embarrassing for the German and the French governments. Assange: It’s sad. It seems like German politicians think this debate makes us look weak and creates conflict with the Americans. So we better play the surveillance issue down. If you knew as a German politician that American intelligence agencies have been collecting intensively on 125 top-level politicians and officials over decades, you would recall some of the conversations you had in all these years and you would then understand that the United States has all those conversations, and that it could take down the Merkel cabinet any time it feels like it, by simply leaking portions of those conversations to journalists. SPIEGEL: Do you see a potential blackmail situation? Assange: They wouldn’t leak transcripts of tapped phone calls as that would draw focus to the spying itself. The way intelligence services launder intercepts is to extract the facts expressed during conversations; for example to say to their contacts in the media, “I think you should look into this connection between this politician and that person, what they did on that particular day.” SPIEGEL: Have you got a documented example in which this sort of tactic has been used? Assange: We haven’t published one yet about a German politician, but there are examples of prominent Muslims in different countries about whom it was leaked that they had been browsing porn. Blackmail or representational destruction from intercepts is part of the repertoire used. SPIEGEL: Who uses these methods? Assange: The British GCHQ has its own department for such methods called JTRIG. They include blackmail, fabricating videos, fabricating SMS texts in bulk, even creating fake businesses under the same names of a real business the United Kingdom wants to marginalize in some region of the world, and encouraging people to order from the fake business and selling them inferior products, so that the business gets a bad reputation. That sounds like a lunatic conspiracy theory, but it is concretely documented in the GCHQ material allegedly provided by Edward Snowden. SPIEGEL: Snowdon is trapped in Moscow, Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for submitting classified documents to WikiLeaks. Did this not deter other potential whistleblowers? Assange: It was designed to be a very strong deterrent. However, a number of people have come forward subsequent to that and these acts of repression have a mixed effect. Obviously, sentencing someone to 35 years in prison does have some deterrent effect. But it also erodes the perception of the US Government as a legitimate authority. Being perceived as a just authority is the key to legitamacy. Edward Snowden told me they had abused Manning in a way that contributed to his decision to become a whistleblower, because it shows the system is incapable of reforming itself. SPIEGEL: Did you get more cautious? Assange: The US government is pursuing five different types of charges against me. I don’t know how many charges altogether, but five types of charges: espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, computer fraud and abuse, theft of secrets and general conspiracy. Even if there were only one charge of each type, which there wouldn’t be, that would be 45 years and the Espionage Act has life imprisonment and death penalty provisions as well. So it would be absurd for me to worry about the consequences of our next publication. Saudi officials came out after we started publishing the Saudi cables and said that spreading and publishing government information carries a penalty of 20 years in prison. Only 20 years! So if it’s a choice between being extradited to Saudi Arabia or the US, then I should go to Saudi Arabia, a land famous for its judicial moderation. SPIEGEL: When you started WikiLeaks in 2006, did you ever expect to end up in the kind of situation you are in now? Assange: Not this precise situation. But I did expect significant difficulties, of this type. Of course I did.

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SPIEGEL : On the other hand, WikiLeaks has become a global brand within less than nine years, a household name even. Does this compensate for the substantial problems you are having? Assange: No. But other things do. The conflict has made us much tougher, producing the WikiLeaks you see today. This great library built from the courage and sweat of many has had a five-year confrontation with a super power without losing a single “book.” At the same time, these “books” have educated many, and in some cases, in a literal sense, let the innocent go free. SPIEGEL : That’s not a bad conclusion. Especially given that you chose to go up against the most powerful enemies available on Earth. Or what is more powerful than the US government and its military and secret services? Assange: Physics. Mathematics. The underpinnings of physical reality are harsh and could do with adjustment but it is not clear how. SPIEGEL: You mentioned the US investigations. A Swedish state prosecutor is also investigating you for alleged lesser-degree rape and sexual molestation of two Swedish women. And the British would like to lock you up because they say you breached the bail conditions by applying for asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Are there any other investigations against you and WikiLeaks? Assange: The US is still proceeding against me and WikiLeaks more broadly according to a court filing by the US government this year. A “WikiLeaks War Room” was erected by the Pentagon and staffed with an admitted 120 US Intelligence and FBI officers. The center of it has moved from the Pentagon to the Justice Department, with the FBI continuing to provide “boots on the ground.” In their communications with Australian diplomats, US officials have said that it was an investigation of “unprecedented scale and nature” – over a dozen different US agencies ranging from the US State Department to the NSA have been involved. SPIEGEL: What do you regard as the most threatening case of all? Assange: We have a dozen different legal proceedings. From a journalistic point of view, as the largest international espionage case against a publisher in history, it is a very sexy case, which the media has reasons to protest every day. But there is one thing that is still sexier than an espionage case and that’s a sex case no matter how bogus. There is another investigation, which has to do with the role of WikiLeaks in Edward Snowden’s asylum. And there is the Anti Terror Act in Great Britain, which is the reason that Sarah Harrison, our investigations editor, has to be based in Berlin. Australia, my home country, has also announced a criminal investigation against us this week for revealing a gag order used to cover up a major international bribery case involving heads of state. SPIEGEL: In March, the Swedish prosecutor announced that she would finally come to London to interview you in the embassy, but this ultimately didn’t happen. Assange: The Swedish “preliminary investigation,” which arose during the heat of the US conflict, has been dormant for almost five years now. There are no charges. In 40 other cases Swedish prosecutors have interviewed people in Britain during those five years. They have not done that in my case and they placed me under a grueling bail situation. SPIEGEL: You had to pay £200,000 and report to the police every day. Assange: Yes, for almost 600 days. And I had to wear a monitoring unit around my ankle. Alleged war criminals from the former Yugoslavia being held on bail here in Britain don’t have such conditions. SPIEGEL: How many lawyers do you employ? Assange: WikiLeaks has received legal advice from about 150 lawyers across all these cases. SPIEGEL: Are you experiencing greater support or solidarity as a result of the continuing persecution against you? Assange: The persecution was used to create desolidarization. Partly it reached the opposite but partly in the Western countries it made the rhetorical attacks on us easier. But the climate has shifted positively. It never affected the majority of the Spanish-, French- or Italian-speaking worlds and obviously not the Russian-speaking world. Even in the United States we have support from the majority of people under 35 now. SPIEGEL: What is your impression of the reputation of WikiLeaks in Germany? Assange: The transition of the German public opinion is interesting. A study in 2010 found that 88 percent of Germans appreciate the US government; after the disclosure about the NSA, the rate dropped to 43 percent. That is a healthy shift in the German view of the United States, which has been starry-eyed. Japan suffered the same problem. At the same time, German public support for WikiLeaks is significant and even quite mainstream. SPIEGEL: Does that have something to do with the fact that Sarah Harrison, your investigations editor, is working in Berlin and sometimes makes public appearances there? Assange: Sarah has had an impact, but it is more the other way around. Sarah is staying in Berlin because it’s a friendly environment. And a number of other people connected with WikLeaks are there for the same reason.

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SPIEGEL: You yourself visited Berlin in 2009. You visited the annual hacker congress of the Chaos Computer Club. Assange: The CCC is a unique phenomenon. There are some big American conferences, but they are almost entirely depoliticized. SPIEGEL: Already back in the 1980s, Dr. Wau, the founder of the Chaos Computer Club, came up with the slogan: Protect private data, use public data. That has been quite farsighted. Back then Wau and CCC members were consultants to the parliamentary group of the Greens in the German parliament, the Bundestag. Today, Green Party member of parliament Christian Ströbele and other MPs with the Greens and the Left Party are working hard in a committee of inquiry to reveal the truth about the nature and scope of the US surveillance in Germany. What do you think about this committee? Assange: As an analyst, I tend to be cynical about such committees because they are normally set up to bury rather than open debate. However, the Bundestag’s committee of inquiry is foraging out some interesting facts and there are members like Christian Ströbele and other members of the Green and Left parties who definitely want to find out the truth about US surveillance in Germany. SPIEGEL: Would you be willing to support them? Assange: Yes. If they need a witness I would be happy if they would come here and ask me their questions. SPIEGEL: What issues could you talk about with members of the of inquiry committee? Assange: We have documents about US surveillance of top German politicians including the chancellor and the foreign minister. We can’t reveal our sources but we can state the reasons we believe the documents are authentic and assist with interpretation. SPIEGEL: You only published the list with the last four digits on the numbers redacted. Would you provide the German MPs with the full numbers? Assange: Yes. Legally, that table we have published with the 125 phone numbers of politicians and officials is great. The German federal prosecutor dropped his investigation because he claimed not to have found evidence of actual surveillance that would stand up in court. We also published memos written on the basis of intercepts of Merkel and a number of others, precisely to provide this evidence. SPIEGEL: Who put the German politicians on the list? Assange: James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, formally approved the policy to target the German government. There were three areas that were targeted in the material we have published so far: German political affairs, Eurpoean policies and economic affairs. That is explicitly listed in the table. None of the 125 number we released is listed as being targeted for “terrorism” or military affairs. The US is in the business of managing an extended empire. The ability to prevent Merkel from constructing a BRICS bailout fund for the euro zone by intercepting the idea at an early stage is an example. SPIEGEL : Erich Mielke, the infamous head of East Germany’s Stasi secret police, liked to say, “We have to know everything.” The US spies, for their part, appeared to focus on specific areas. Assange: The intercepts that we published were from the Global Signals Intelligence Highlights (Executive Edition). That’s the executive version; it’s not the lower-level boring stuff. It’s the Academy Awards. When something is said that is in some way “interesting,” it starts passing up through the intelligence food chain. If it is very “interesting,” it gets into the Global SIGINT Highlights. When it is so “interesting” that it helps a Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the head of the DNI, the head of the Department of Commerce or Trade make a decision, then it gets into the executive version. SPIEGEL: So you think you can learn something about the political priorities of the US government? Assange: Yes, you can observe real policies – that the United States government was very interested in the idea that Germany would propose a greater role for China in the International Monetary Fund, for example. An executive decision can be taken: Kill that idea of Merkel’s before it learns to crawl, because the US sees China helping Europe as a threat to its dominance. SPIEGEL: Well, we’ve talked about politicians. And about secret services. We didn’t talk about the big private corporations. You met Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. Do you think he is a dangerous man. Assange: If you ask “Does Google collect more information than the National Security Agency?,” the answer is “no,” because NSA also collects information from Google. The same applies to Facebook and other Silicon Valley-based companies. They still collect a lot of information and they are using a new economic model which academics call “surveillance capitalism.” General information about individuals is worth little, but when you group together a billion individuals, it becomes strategic like an oil or gas pipeline. SPIEGEL : Secret services are perceived as potential criminals but the big IT corporations are perceived at least in an ambiguous way. Apple produces beautiful computers. Google is a useful search engine.

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Assange: Until the 1980s, computers were big machines designed for the military or scientists, but then the personal computers were developed and companies had to start rebranding them as being machines that were helpful for individual human beings. Organizations like Google, whose business model is “voluntary” mass surveillance, appear to be giving it away for free. Free e-mail, free search, etc. Therefore it seems that they’re not a corporation, because corporations don’t do things for free. It falsley seems like they are part of civil society. SPIEGEL : And they shape the thinking of billions of users? Assange: They are also exporting a specific mindset of culture. You can use the old term of “cultural imperialism” or call it the “Disneylandization” of the Internet. Maybe “digital colonization” is the best terminology. SPIEGEL: What does this “colonization” look like? Assange: These corporations establish new societal rules about what activities are permitted and what information can be transmitted. Right down to how much nipple you can show. Down to really basic matters, which are normally a function of public debate and parliaments making laws. Once something becomes sufficiently controversial, it’s banned by these organizations. Or, even if it is not so controversial, but it affects the interests that they’re close to, then it’s banned or partially banned or just not promoted. SPIEGEL: So in the long run, cultural diversity is endangered? Assange: The long-term effect is a tendency towards conformity, because controversy is eliminated. An American mindset is being fostered and spread to the rest of the world because they find this mindset to be uncontroversial among themselves. That is literally a type of digital colonialism; non-US cultures are being colonized by a mindset of what is tolerable to the staff and investors of a few Silicon Valley companies. The cultural standard of what is a taboo and what is not becomes a US standard, where US exceptionalism is uncontroversial. SPIEGEL: Cultural politics is not the core business of WikiLeaks. Which issues will you focus on in the future? Assange: Over the last two years, we already have become specialists for the three extremely important trade agreements, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TP). WikiLeaks has become the place to go to leak parts of these agreements that are now under negotiation. These agreements are a package that the US is using to reposition itself in the world against China by constructing a new grand enclosure. We are seeing something that would result in a tighter economic and legal integration with the United States, which draws Western Europe’s center of gravity away from Eurasia and towards the United States, when the greatest chance for long-term peace in Eurasia is its economic intergration. SPIEGEL:If you look at yourself, you have paid a high price for what you did. And you’re still paying; you have been sitting here in this embassy for more than three years now and you have lost your freedom of movement. Did these experiences change your attitude, your political points of view or your readiness to act politically? Assange: It is said that you get less radical as you get older. I just have turned 44 now, but I feel I have not become less radical. SPIEGEL: Mr. Assange, we thank you for this interview.

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About the editor/publisher: Roger Vleugels In 1986 I started my own office and began working as an acting lawyer and lecturer specialized in freedom of information and intelligence. In 1991 I added lecturing on investigative journalism and in 2001 the publishing of the Fringe journals to my activities. Lecturing on freedom of information I do at journalism schools, universities, in company and in own free registration courses till now for students in or from Argentina, Aruba, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Iran, Ireland, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Since 1986, I have as acting lawyer filed for or with my clients 5,000 Wob-requests [Wob is the Dutch FOIA]. Most of my clients are journalists living in the Netherlands but also special interest groups, NGOs, researchers and private persons. My specialties are filing Wob test cases and FOA/Wob litigation tactics.

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Early 2015 I decided to focus my work completely on freedom of information and both Fringe Journals, so I terminated my intelli-gence work and the lecturing on investigative journalism.

The format of the Fringe journals The main goal of the Fringe journals is: not being a regular magazine. The journals are purely a research tool. Articles are not selected for their content but for the facts or trends within them. One of the consequences is that Fringe does not dis-criminate between information and disinformation. Other goals are, trying to publish news in early stages, before the news is established with an overall focus on next to main-stream. After doing so Fringe will not cover such a topic further, unless there is again something special, and above all: Fringe hopes to be a bit wayward.

Surfing, searching, stringers and sources Articles are gathered for Fringe by a small group of Dutch and foreign stringers, some of whom work covertly. Without the work of these stringers Fringe would not be possible. Additionally I do some gathering on my own, mainly by surfing and maintaining a range of subscriptions and alerts. Some of the more specialized sources are: Access Info Europe, Article 19, BeSpacific, Bits of Freedom, Centre for Law & Democracy, Cryptogram, CFOI, Cryptome, the Daily Beast, EDRi-gram, EFF, EPIC, FOIANet, FreedomInfo, Geheim, Infowarrior, Intelforum, Intelligence Online, Memory Hole, Mother Jones, National Security Archive, Nato-Watch, NISA, Privacy International, RCFP, Secrecy News, StateWatch and Wired.

Two Fringe journals Fringe Intelligence gathers intelligence news articles in established media and outlets beyond the mainstream. The journal offers articles covering classical intelligence and counterintelligence, criminal and private espionage and more. The main focus is on forensic and operational information, and not on bureaucracy, politics and the formal/legal aspects of intelligence. Special sections highlight NARINT, or Natural Resources Intelligence [dealing with energy, rare earth, water and climate intelligence], and Intelligence 2.0 [IT sector-generated private intelligence]. These sections look beyond jihad, cyber and other previous or present threats. Fringe Spitting publishes for freedom of information [FOI] specialists, investigative journalists and other researchers, with a spe-cial focus on FOI practitioners and requesters, news on caseload, jurisprudence, litigation, tools and trends. Space is also devo-ted to recently disclosed “old news” on intelligence, revealed by FOI requests. Taken together, the two monthly journals contain about 100 articles per month selected from a variety of media sources. Almost all articles are internet downloads. Over 90% are in English. Less than 10% are focused on the Netherlands.

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LinkedIn, Twitter an Facebook Please feel free to mail me directly, or to contact me via LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. My postings are in Dutch; breaking news and internationally important FOIA news I post in English. On Linked In I manage five groups: - FOIA Specialists [FOIAs worldwide][English] 2,100+ members - Wob Specialists [FOIA in NL][Dutch] 500+ members - Dutch Intelligence Specialists [Dutch/English] 200+ members - NARINT: Natural Resources Intel [English] 300+ members - Intelligence 2.0 [English] 200+ members

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The meaning of the ► symbol At the start of an article you will find several ►. They identify the source and the date of the article. The source: after one or more ► you will find the source [the first source mentioned is the original one, the latter source is the publication or stringer from which/whom Fringe received the article]. The date: before ► you will see the date on which Fringe received the article; after ► the original publication date [if known].

Subscriptions are free of charge and include both journals Subscribers receive both journals free of charge. A voluntary contribution is very welcome, however. Producing Fringe is a time-consuming project. Each year in January I ask subscribers for a voluntary contribution. Copyright law [see the Fair Use Restriction at the bottom of this colophon] forbids to charge for journals like Fringe. Therefore, the only way to collect enough money to keep this service going is by voluntary contributions or donations. To guarantee the service 400-500 paying subscribers are needed. This number is now about 200. So please consider paying the voluntary contribution every year or once in every 2, 3 or 4 years. To start a subscription email 'Start Fringe', and to stop/unsubscribe 'Stop Fringe', in the subject line, to roger.vleugels@planet.nl

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