Resistance News

Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies"

2009-05-24T14:22:00Z

reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ's New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush's

2009-04-07T21:40:39Z

We had hoped this would go differently.

Friday evening, in a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration's made two deeply troubling arguments.

First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.

It's an especially disappointing argument to hear from the Obama Administration. As a candidate, Senator Obama lamented that the Bush Administration "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court." He was right then, and we're dismayed that he and his team seem to have forgotten.

Sad as that is, it's the Department Of Justice's second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying — that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.

This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one — not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration — has ever interpreted the law this way.

Previously, the Bush Administration has argued that the U.S. possesses "sovereign immunity" from suit for conducting electronic surveillance that violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, FISA is only one of several laws that restrict the government's ability to wiretap. The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Adminstration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.

Again, the gulf between Candidate Obama and President Obama is striking. As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ's radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama's own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws.

This isn't change we can believe in. This is change for the worse.

For further reading, we suggest Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald and The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder.

Army Intelligence on the Twitter Threat

2008-10-27T17:58:29Z

Could terrorists use Twitter, the instant messaging and micro-blogging service? Presumably so, just as they could use credit cards and can openers.

The potential use of Twitter and other communications technologies by terrorists is considered in a new draft Army intelligence paper, based on a review of jihadist web sites and other public sources.

The Army paper on “al Qaida-Like Mobile Discussions & Potential Creative Uses” was dissected by Noah Shachtman in “Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists,” Danger Room, October 24. A copy of the paper itself, which is more like a student exercise than a finished intelligence assessment, is available here (large pdf, for official use only).

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Researchers find problems with RFID passport cards - ITworld.com

2008-10-27T19:12:37Z

Researchers find problems with RFID passport cards
ITworld.com, MA - 19 hours ago
by Stephen Lawson RFID tags used in two new types of border-crossing documents in the US are vulnerable to snooping and copying, a researcher said on ...
Researchers Show PASS Card RFID Vulnerabilities eWeek
Researchers Clone US RFID Passports IT Business Edge
all 4 news articles

Police State Stomps on Iraq Veteran’s Face as McBama Sanctions Attack on Freedom of Speech: The Story of the Hempstead 15 (Part 1/2)

2008-10-26T05:50:42Z

What? Yet another event the media completely missed? After multiple attempts to engage McBama to answer their questions, the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) led a peaceful march on the last McCain-Presidential Debate and were met with 30 mounted police and a horde of others in riot gear. The mounted police stamped on an Iraq war veteran’s face and attacked the crowd. Ron Paul supporter and veteran Adam Kokesh was arrested as well. by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally publ

'Spy pigeons' not just possible, but real

2008-10-25T19:26:33Z

This week's report that Iran had found "spy pigeons" near one of its nuclear faculties looked ridiculous. The very idea of using pigeons for intelligence gathering is obviously crazy. But is it crazy enough to be true?

Report: Votes flip from Repub to Dem in TN

2008-10-23T19:39:23Z

Elsewhere, Wisconsin judge dismisses GOP attorney general's voter case.

ES&S Voting Machines in Tennessee Flip Votes

2008-10-23T18:10:55Z

Touch-screen voting machines used in Decatur County, Tennessee, have been giving early voters problems this week by registering their votes for Republican presidential candidate John McCain as votes for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

At least three voters complained of the problem while casting their ballot in early voting last Saturday.

It's the same problem early voters in several West Virginia counties reported having this week when they tried to vote, except their votes for Obama and other Democratic candidates were switched to McCain and other Republican candidates.

As I reported Monday, early voters in at least three West Virginia counties complained that when they tried to vote for Democratic candidates in the presidential, gubernatorial and senate races, the machines registered their votes for other, Republican, candidates instead.

The machines in question are all iVotronic touch-screen machines made by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting machine company in the country, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska. West Virginia's ES&S touch-screen machines produce a voter-verified paper audit trail that voters can review as they make their selections; the machines in Tennessee do not have a paper trail. All of the machines in West Virginia and Tennessee do, however, provide a review screen for voters to check their selections before casting their ballot.

The problems the voters described can occur when machines are miscalibrated or lose their calibration with transport, jostling and other conditions. West Virginia counties have re-calibrated their machines to address the issue they were having. But Teresa Bedingfield, deputy director of elections for Decatur County said two technicians examined the three machines they used for early voting and found nothing wrong with them. She told Threat Level the problem was voters who inadvertently touched the wrong part of the screen to cast their ballot. She said voters are supposed to touch a small box next to a candidate's name but that the voters who complained their vote was flipped didn't touch the center of the box.

"But (the machine) gives you several opportunities to go back and change any time you want to, and it has a review page," Bedingfield said.

Franklin Boroughs and his cousin Barney Blasingim, two of the voters who complained about the problem disputed this and said they were touching the center of the box. Both told Threat Level they were able to fix the problem the second time they touched the screen. They said election officials told them the problem was the design of the ballot -- the races were too close together -- and the height of the voters. Voters who are too tall don't have a good view of the ballot and might think they're touching the center of the box when they're not.

"(The machine) would be ideal for someone who is five foot tall," Blasingim said, "but if you're taller than that, even though you're touching (the box) in the center like you should. . . . That's what they told me."

Election Commissioner Grafton Dodd told the Decatur County Chronicle that he blamed the issue on poor software design and said the screens likely had sensitivity issues as well. He advised voters to review their choices carefully on the review screen at the end of the ballot. Voters are also being given the option of using a pointer tool to make their selections instead of using their fingers.

ES&S has not yet responded to a call for comment.

ES&S touch-screen machines have a history of problems, some of them having to do with calibration. In 2003, a Florida county returned more than 1,000 ES&S touchscreens because calibration problems caused the machines to think voters were touching one part of the screen when they were touching a different part.

In 2006 in Sarasota County, Florida, ES&S touchscreen machines were at the center of a disputed congressional race in which 18,000 ballots showed no vote cast in the U.S. Representatives 13th Congressional District race between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan. The undervote rate in the race was five times what is considered normal.

Calibration issues were suspected as the problem. Documents that Wired.com obtained showed that hundreds of voters had complained to officials throughout the day that the machines weren't registering their vote when they tried to vote for Jennings or registered a vote for Buchanan instead. Jennings lost the race by fewer than 400 votes.

Months before the election, ES&S had sent a memo to Florida counties saying the machines had a flaw that sometimes caused them to respond slowly to a voter's touch, but the county did little to address the issue before the election.

Jennings sued to uncover what went wrong with the machines but an investigation by the Government Accountability Office concluded that while investigators couldn't provide "absolute assurance" that the voting machines didn't play a role in the excessive number of undervotes that appeared in that race, the GAO's testing "significantly reduced the possibility" that the machines were responsible. Election officials blamed the design of the ballot, and said the location of the 13th District Congressional race on the page had caused voters to miss it.

[By the way, I want to remind voters who have problems casting ballots this year to send us their reports at vote@wired.com or add it to our election map so we can track and investigate issues that come up. If you're adding info to the map, please provide as much detail as you can to make it possible for us to verify the information. If you can provide us with your name and contact information to follow-up with you and get more details, that would be even better. If you don't feel comfortable putting your name on the map, contact us at vote@wired.com.]

See also:

Dan Rather Investigates Voting Machines -- Uncovers New Surprises ...

ES&S to be Rebuked, Fined and Possibly Banned in CA?

Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice

2008-10-23T15:19:54Z

Via: Yahoo / Health Day: It sounds like science fiction, by scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. Using a complex genetic approach, U.S. and Chinese researchers believe they have done just that in mice, but the feat is far from being tested on humans. Study co-author [...]

ACLU Assails 100-Mile Border Zone as 'Constitution-Free'

2008-10-22T17:16:00Z

Under a little known post-9/11 power, border agents can stop and question people up to 100 miles from the border without any cause. Though the courts approve, the ACLU says it's unconstitutional and that Congress needs to step in.

AIG Seeking More Cash From Commercial Paper Program and Federal Reserve

2008-10-19T15:41:16Z

American International Group Inc., the insurer bailed out by the U.S., may seek a third source of government cash by tapping a Federal Reserve program that buys commercial paper, according to a person familiar with the matter. AIG probably will borrow less than $10 billion through the new commercial paper program, said the person, who declined [...]

Hungry For Freedom

2008-10-18T22:36:00Z

It's a Ron Paul Caturday Freedom Feast

A Wikipedia Conspiracy and the Wall Street Meltdown

2008-10-05T21:14:00Z

PatrickByrne writes "This is The Register's world-class investigative piece concerning one aspect of the meltdown on Wall Street ('naked short selling') and how the criminals engaged a journalist to distort Wikipedia to confuse the discourse. The article explicitly and formally accuses a well-known US financial journalist, Gary Weiss, of lying about his efforts to distort a Wikipedia page under assumed names, and accuses the Powers That Be in Wikipedia (right up to and including Jimbo Wales) of complicity in protecting Weiss. This is not another story about a 15-year-old farm kid in Iowa pretending to be a professor. This is like the worst Chomskian view of Elites manipulating mass opinion. But it is all documented." We discussed the alleged Wikipedia manipulation when The Register first wrote about it last December. The submitter is the CEO of Overstock.com and a major player in this drama from the beginning.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gov't Database Errors Leading To Unconstitutional Searches?

2008-10-05T15:30:00Z

Wired is running a story about a case the Supreme Court will be hearing on Tuesday that relates to searches based on erroneous information in government databases. In the case of Herring vs. US 07-513, the defendant was followed and pulled over based on a records indicating he had a warrant out for his arrest. Upon further review, the local county clerk found the records were in error, and the warrant notification should have been removed months prior. Unfortunately for Herring, he had already been arrested and his car searched. Police found a small amount of drugs and a firearm, for which Herring was subsequently prosecuted. Several friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed to argue this case, some calling for "an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents [PDF] who rely on criminal justice information systems," and others defending such searches as good-faith exceptions [PDF].

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Supremes Mull Whether Bad Databases Make for Illegal Searches

2008-10-04T21:26:00Z

If a false entry in a database leads to an unconstitutional police search that reveals illegal drugs, does the government get to hold it against you? That's the question the Supreme Court will tackle on Tuesday.

Wired.com

Israel switches to home-made cluster bombs - PRESS TV

2008-10-01T10:12:35Z

AFP

Israel switches to home-made cluster bombs
PRESS TV, Iran - 17 hours ago
During the last three days of the Israeli 33-day war against Lebanon in 2006, Israel showered south Lebanon with millions of US-made cluster shells, each ...
IDF to halt use of US cluster bombs Ynetnews
Israel switches from US cluster bombs, buys local Reuters India
Israel Buying Safer Bomblets to Avoid Repeat of Casualties during ... Naharnet
all 18 news articles

A Simple Plan to ID Every Creature on Earth

2008-10-02T04:00:00Z

The utopian lepidopterist holds a pin in each hand. His style is ambidextrous and probably unique. He catches two forewings of a dead moth simultaneously and pins them to his drying board, and then, in a continuous sweep, he does the same with the hind wings. He repeats these motions again and again, like a conductor with tiny batons. Outside, it is hot and bright. Inside, it is hot and dark. The lepidopterist, whose name is Dan Janzen, has been working here in this Costa Rican forest for more than 40 years. He is married to his research partner, Winnie Hallwachs, and the two of them occupy a small house with a roof of corrugated metal whose eaves cast deep shade. During the day they work under artificial light. At night bats flit through the gaps at the top of the wall, do hairpin turns in the air, and exit again without slowing. The utopian lepidopterist's aim is to put names on all the moths and butterflies in the forest. He wants to know more than just the names, of course; he wants to know who lives where and who eats whom and to unravel the mysteries of the ecosystem. But his first question is always the most basic one. This moth, here on the drying board: What is it called? All over the world, farmers, port inspectors, game wardens, exterminators, building contractors, and, of course, professional biologists are staring at some form of plant or animal life and wondering helplessly what it is. Matching living things to their names is so notoriously difficult that the...

Wired.com

How journalism failed America at a most critical time

2008-09-30T02:35:36Z

In the days prior today’s bailout vote, you could surf through Google news and find any number of stories that told us that the U.S. economy is in a crisis, and that spending $700 billion to bail out Wall Street bankers was unavoidable. Or you could turn on the television and watch just about any news show and hear the same thing. What you rarely found or heard was any serious questioning of whether the crisis was anywhere near the proportion George W. Bush said it was, or if the bailout was

Now Is Not The Time To Stop Calling, Faxing and Emailing

2008-09-30T05:37:46Z

Now is the time to put it into high gear, because they will be back on Thursday and will try to sell us out yet again.

Won't they be surprised to hear from us so soon after the vote? But after so many of their games we are now onto their little tricks.

Better to keep on them, don't let them catch their breath.

Here's a link to the phone numbers

http://www.visi.com/juan/...

MI6 Terror Photos, Data Accidentally Sold On Ebay

2008-09-30T14:29:00Z

Barence writes "In what's turning out to be a bad week for security in the UK, confidential MI6 documents, fingerprints and photos relating to suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists have been found in the memory of the second-hand Nikon Coolpix camera, which was bought on eBay for only £17. The buyer immediately went to the police, who initially treated it as a joke; when they realised he was serious, they swooped on his home and seized his camera and PC. Remember, this is the same MI6 which plans to recruit new members via Facebook, a userbase not exactly famous for its dedication to privacy, security and discretion. The news comes on the back of yesterday's embarrassment over a local council whose VPN device ended up on eBay with confidential login details left on it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.