Fake mobile towers in central Oslo may snoop on politicians, report reveals
RT | December 14, 2014
A network of fake base mobile stations that can snoop on leading politicians’ mobile phones, as well as ordinary people, has been discovered in central Oslo, some outside Norway’s parliament and the prime minister’s residence, according to a report.
Investigative journalists from the Aftenposten newspaper have detected a number of places in the capital with suspicious mobile activity. They teamed up with two security companies to help track down fake base stations, which confirmed that spy equipment has been used in downtown Oslo.
According to the newspaper, false base stations, known as IMSI catchers, have been most probably used to monitor the movements of high-ranking officials, specifying who enters parliament, government offices and other buildings in the area. It could also be used to snoop on phone calls of selected people in the area.
An IMSI catcher (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) is a telephony eavesdropping device for monitoring mobile phone traffic and movement of mobile phone users. IMSI catchers are used in a number of countries, including the US, by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Under Norwegian law, only the National Security Agency (NSM) and police are authorized to use eavesdropping equipment.
The Security service (PST) has launched an investigation in central Oslo, following the Aftenposten report, to find out who installed the surveillance equipment.
The Local has quoted security operatives as saying that a number of organizations could be responsible for the false base stations.
“It could be private actors or state actors,” the PST’s Arne Christian Haugstøyl said.
“I can’t on the basis of these discoveries say that it is a foreign intelligence agency, but I can say that we know that foreign intelligence agencies have this kind of capacity. And in our preventive work we advise those looking after Norwegian interests not to talk about sensitive issues on mobile phones,” he noted.
Journalist most recent victim of Israeli military violence at Kufr Qaddum
International Solidarity Movement | December 9, 2014
Kufr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – Bashar, a journalist from Palestine TV, was shot in the left leg at Kufr Qaddum on Friday the 5th of December 2014.
The weekly demonstration aims to highlight the issue of the road that has been closed to Kafr Qaddum and demands for it to be reopened. The road is closed to Palestinians but connects several illegal Israeli settlements nearby. The road was once the Palestinians’ main route to the villages of Jit and Sarra, and to the city of Nablus. Residents of Kafr Qaddum and nearby villages must now use a 14 kilometer detour on badly paved roads through olive groves. This proves especially problematic in emergency situations when ambulances are trying to get patients to Nablus hospital. Kafr Qaddum villagers state that several people have died because of the longer ambulance trip.
Bashar has been going to the Kafr Qaddum demonstrations since they began four years ago. This particular one was a special demonstration in solidarity with Patrick, an Italian activist who was shot in the chest with a .22 caliber bullet the Friday before. The demonstration began peacefully with people holding Italian and Palestinian flags. A skunk water truck, a renowned demonstration repression technique, sprayed the people who were peacefully holding flags right at the beginning of the protest. Within ten minutes, Bashar had been shot in his left leg by an Israeli sniper.
The bullet used to shoot Bashar was an expanding bullet, often called a “dum-dum”. International law has declared their use illegal in war because they are so destructive. Bashar was shot by a sniper with a weapon that is only supposed to be used when soldiers are at mortal risk and skunk water, tear gas, rubber bullets, rubber coated steel bullets, and other nonlethal weapons have all proved ineffective. This is supposed to be the last weapon soldiers use before they shoot to kill with M16s. Witnesses say that Bashar was filming as he usually did when he was shot. He was no threat to the soldiers at all. Witnesses say that there were no people in front or behind him throwing stones.
Bashar was taken by ambulance to Nablus hospital. The X-ray showed that the dum-dum bullet did as it was designed to, breaking into many pieces when it entered his leg.
Bashar had an operation on the 6th of December, the day after he was shot, to take out most of the bullet fragments.
Doctors have decided to leavein some pieces for the time being because they are very close to veins and would be dangerous to remove. Bashar will be bed bound for two weeks until the decision is made, but his condition remains stable.
Within one week at Kufr Qaddum, three people were shot with lethal, live ammunition—two with .22 caliber bullets and one with a dum-dum. One was a journalist, another an international peace activist. None of them were any threat to the soldiers. So why, then, were they shot at? To create fear for all the people who are in solidarity with the Palestinians and who want to tell the world the story of what is happening here? To physically stop peaceful resistance using the most extreme repression techniques?
It will not work. Patrick and many other international, Palestinian and Israeli activists will continue to nonviolently resist the confiscation of their lands in Kufr Qaddum each week. Bashar will continue to report their stories to the world. The unnecessary use of violent repression techniques will only continue to delegitimize the illegal occupation of the Palestinian people.
FBI director refuses to rule out agents posing as reporters
By Robert Bridge | RT | December 10, 2014
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation left the door open to the possibility that officers may falsely represent themselves as journalists in the course of an investigation, so long as it’s done with “significant supervision.”
Despite last month’s furor following revelations that an FBI agent had posed as an employee of the Associated Press as part of a sting operation, James Comey said he was not willing to swear off the use of such ploys in the future.
“I’m not willing to say ‘never’,” Comey told a press roundtable discussion on Tuesday, AP reported. “Just as I wouldn’t say that we would never pose as an educator or a doctor or, I don’t know, a rocket scientist.”
The response will certainly reverberate through AP, which was furious after Comey revealed in a letter to the New York Times that an FBI agent had posed as an AP journalist in 2007 during an investigation of a 15-year-old who was believed to be delivering bomb threats at a high school in Olympia, Washington.
Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, called the FBI’s covert activities “unacceptable.”
“This latest revelation of how the FBI misappropriated the trusted name of the Associated Press doubles our concern and outrage, expressed earlier to Attorney General Eric Holder, about how the agency’s unacceptable tactics undermine AP and the vital distinction between the government and the press,” Carroll said in a statement.
She said such activities serve to diminish public trust in AP’s “legacy of objectivity, truth, accuracy and integrity.”
Comey remained ambiguous about the future of such activities, saying they require “significant supervision, if it’s going to be done.”
This is not the first time the news collective has experienced problems with government agencies.
On May 13, 2013, the Associated Press said telephone records for 20 of their journalists during a two-month period in 2012 had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. The agency never provided an explanation for its demand.
READ MORE:
FBI says agent impersonated AP journalist in 2007 sting op
FBI performed three federal background checks per second on Black Friday
St. Louis police charge young protester on Ferguson Commission
Press TV – December 8, 2014
A prominent young Ferguson protester has been charged with misdemeanor assault for brief contact with law enforcement officers while trying to access the closed down city hall.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department this week convinced the local prosecutor’s office to charge Rasheen Aldridge because he allegedly made physical contact with an officer who was blocking access to St. Louis City Hall during a demonstration last month, the Huffington Post reported.
The 20-year-old activist has been protesting in and around Ferguson, where unarmed African American 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death in August by a white police officer named Darren Wilson.
Aldrige, along with a number of other demonstrators tried to enter the city hall on Nov. 26, less than 2 days after the grand jury decision not to indict Wilson was announced.
According to video footage evidence, Aldridge — who is just 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 110 pounds — was pushed by a large city marshal who shoved Aldridge, and the protester’s hand touched and perhaps pushed the official.
“The contrast that we see … between the actions of police that are caught on camera versus the actions of protesters that are caught on camera, how and whether these things are prosecuted — the disparity is remarkable,” Rev. Starsky Wilson, the co-chair of the Ferguson Commission.
“I’ve had a team of my church members who have been involved in actions, including being present for some of those actions downtown last Wednesday, and they were concerned about the level of aggression that they saw from police out on those lines, particularly from City Hall,” Wilson said.
Gov. Jay Nixon last month named Aldridge to the Ferguson Commission, a task force created to address problems in the St. Louis region in the wake of Brown’s death.
On Dec. 1, on behalf of the commission, Aldridge attended the White House to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss law enforcement relationship with local people and minorities.
He later said he left the meeting “disappointed” with Obama, whom he used to consider his “idol.”
Stingray Warrentless Wiretap by Chicago Police on Activists
The Chicago Police were listening to an activist’s phone call(s) to learn about their “movements” in the city.
Two Egyptian artists accused of treason for criticising Sisi
Khaled Abol Naga
MEMO | December 4, 2014
Egyptian Attorney General Judge Hisham Barakat yesterday ordered actor Khaled Abol Naga and singer Mohammed Attia to be investigated for charges of espionage and treason following public criticism of President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, the Anadolu Agency quoted a judicial source as saying.
According to the lawsuit filed by lawyer Hisham Ibrahim Mustafa, “Khaled Abol Naga incited against the military establishment under the pretext of opposing the military operations in Sinai and called on the people to demonstrate against the Republic’s president, disturbing the peace.”
Mustafa said the incidents occurred before the November 28 protests, which means that Abol Naga has contacts with foreign intelligence services.
Further, Mustafa said that singer Mohamed Attia joined protests against the acquittal of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his aides in Abdel Moneim Riad Square, Cairo, in violation of the Penal Code and is also in contact with foreign intelligence agencies.
On Facebook, Attia denounced the espionage charges against him.
Egypt has witnessed tens of angry protests against the Cairo Criminal Court’s decision to dismiss all criminal charges of killing peaceful demonstrators during the January 25 Revolution made against Mubarak, his two sons, Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly and six of Al-Adly’s senior aides as well as businessman Hussein Salem. Attorney General Hisham Barakat Ali appealed the ruling.
In November, lawyer Samir Sabri filed another lawsuit against Khaled Abol Naga accusing him of high treason and disturbing the peace after the actor condemned the displacement of the Sinai residents to create a military buffer zone with Gaza and criticised Al-Sisi.
Egyptian authorities claimed the operations aimed to “stop terrorist infiltration” into the country after the attack on a military post on October 24 which led to the killing of at least 31 people and which injured 30 more, according to official figures.
A group of Egyptian filmmakers and writers signed a statement of solidarity with Abol Naga condemning the lawsuit. The signatories of the statement said they stand in solidarity with his right to express his opinion without being terrorised by people who “appoint themselves guardians of Egyptian patriotism”.
In response to the reports, Abol Naga wrote on Twitter: “I do not accept defamatory statements by some television hosts against me or my family.”
Obama appeals order to publish Guantanamo force-feeding tapes
Reprieve | December 2, 2014
The Obama administration has today appealed against a federal judge’s ruling that videotapes showing force-feeding of a Guantanamo prisoner should be released.
The ruling, made by Judge Gladys Kessler in October this year, was the first of its kind and came after sixteen major US media organizations, including the New York Times, AP, and McClatchy newspapers, asked for the tapes to be made public under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The tapes show the force-feeding and ‘forcible cell extraction’ of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who has long been cleared for release. Mr Dhiab is represented by international human rights NGO Reprieve. Reprieve lawyers are virtually the only people outside government to have seen the footage and have described it as ‘disturbing’, but are forbidden under classification rules from revealing its contents.
Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve and Mr Dhiab’s attorney, said: “President Obama promised us the most transparent administration in history – at this point is that promise anything other than a joke? You have to ask who actually watched this footage when making the decision to hide this evidence from the American people. It boggles the mind that the same President who makes speeches asking whether force-feeding is ‘who we are’ can ask a Court, with a straight face, to hide the reality of force-feeding from the press and public.”
“The tapes are a national scandal – but the best approach is to rip off the Band-Aid, confess the mistake, and fix the abuse going on at the base. Obama made the wrong call today, but Reprieve will keep fighting to get the truth in these videotapes out. We believe Americans can handle the truth. They have the right to see the tapes.”
The US Government’s brief is available here.
Anti-Defamation League creates blacklist of groups that link Ferguson to Palestine
By Cecilie Surasky | MuzzleWatch | December 1, 2014
Wow. The ADL below considers the photo below a hateful message.
File this under “You can’t make this up.”
Abe Foxman, whose $688,000 annual salary makes him one of the most over-paid pro-Israel lobbyists in the country, recently embarrassed himself (again) by actually releasing a press statement lecturing NFL star Reggie Bush on his Twitter feed— Bush had dared compared Ferguson and Gaza.
But it gets worse.
The Anti-Defamation League, which leverages its reputation as a fighter of bigotry to silence human rights critics of the Israeli government (thereby actually perpetuating bigotry and worse), has published a defacto blacklist of groups that dared to link Ferguson with Palestine.
I mean, what could the militarization of U.S. police forces and repeated, unaccountable killing of unarmed people of color possibly have to do with Palestine? According to the ADL—daring to make the connection is purely cynical at best, and a form of hate at worst.
But here is where the ADL gets the chutzpah award: singled out for particular opprobrium are those who link what’s happening in Ferguson to the training of police in Israel. The ADL, for example, calls out the inimitable Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). for this Tweet:
“Wondering why the excessive police violence? Here’s a guess: #Ferguson police chief got training in Israel…#Gaza.”
They also call out someone for holding a sign at a protest that says “Google It!!! Israel trains the NYPD.”
So, who do you think is responsible for an awful lot of those free police trainings in Israel? The Anti-Defamation League, natch. Which I guess is why they are condemning people as opportunists and bigots for saying, well, the obvious.
As Kristian Davis Bailey wrote in Ebony Magazine in August:
The St. Louis County Police Department that killed Michael Brown and initially placed Ferguson on siege has trained with the Israeli military. Former County Police Chief Timothy Fitch was one of 15 American officials to participate in a weeklong training in Israel three years ago.
The April 2011 National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS) was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). It brought together leaders from the largest American police departments, the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with members of the Israeli National Police, Israel Defense Forces and other intelligence organizations.
Oddly, the quick-to-issue-a-statement ADL was too busy to respond to Bailey’s requests for comment. Bailey went on:
Over 9,000 American officials have trained with Israeli police and military units on responding to civilian protests and terrorism. These operations reflect failure to distinguish between the apparent duty of police to protect civilians and military responses to war. This fusion has had life-costing implications for Americans, specifically black, Muslim and Arab people.
Normally, the ADL boasts about training lots and lots and lots of police officers , which includes special trips for US police officials to Israel for training in counter-terrorism tactics (which are then deployed against American citizens.)
I guess that in this case, they have decided that the best defense is a good offense. Reggie Bush, a running back, probably knows all about that.
Texas State Board Of Education Votes To Approve Biased Textbooks
By Sarah Jones | Wall of Separation | November 24, 2014
On Friday, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 10-5 to approve 89 new social studies textbooks for use in public classrooms. The vote, which split cleanly on party lines, ends public hearings on the subject. But controversy over the books’ content is likely to linger: Critics allege the books contain multiple errors and exaggerations designed to portray the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation.
As reported previously in Church & State, the textbooks as proposed overplayed the influence of Mosaic law on the Founding Fathers, cast doubt on the constitutionality of separation of church and state and skewed discussions of existing legal precedent on prayer in schools. Although publishers did make many corrections to the books – such was watering down inflammatory and inaccurate information about Islam – “Christian nation” myths unfortunately remain in the material.
And that’s thanks to the SBOE, which in 2010 passed a series of curriculum standards that mandated instruction that emphasized the country’s Christian heritage. Those standards, and the flawed review process itself, finally proved too much for one publisher. According to the Texas Tribune, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt pulled its government textbook from consideration after being asked to “add greater coverage of Judeo-Christian influence – including Moses – on America’s founding fathers.”
The SBOE also rejected curriculum from WorldView Software, and there’s evidence the decision was politically motivated. Prior to the final vote, WorldView issued a strongly worded statement in response to public testimony from Barbara Lamontagne, who informed the SBOE last week that the material called the late General Douglas MacArthur “racist” and lionized communist figures at the expense of President Ronald Reagan.
WorldView slammed the comments as “very serious and patently false allegations” and noted that Lamontagne admitted in her testimony that she had not read the material before preparing her remarks. Despite this, the SBOE ruled that WorldView had not done enough to address her criticisms, and rejected the company’s curriculum.
Even without the Houghton Mifflin Harcout and WorldView materials, the SBOE had hundreds of pages of edits to review in less than a week. As a few members noted, the vote’s timing made it impossible for the SBOE to read all edits under consideration. But a motion to delay the final vote failed, rejected by the fundamentalist Christian officials who dominate the board.
Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), slammed the review process in a press statement. “And once again the state’s process for approving textbooks was revealed to be a sham, as state board members voted for last-minute changes that they had never even read,” she said. “Those changes were approved without any input whatsoever from historians and experts.”
TFN had appointed its own review panel to identify errors and suggest corrections in the books. Scholars expressed serious concern over the books’ slant, only for those concerns to be largely dismissed by the SBOE.
Americans United also opposed the books. We launched a petition in partnership with TFN and People For the American Way; our organizations combined collected over 30,000 signatures to demand that publishers produce accurate textbooks for Texas students.
Activist Zack Kopplin testified on our behalf before the SBOE earlier this month to reiterate our concerns that the books presented a flawed, fundamentalist version of American history with little to no basis in evidence.
The SBOE didn’t respond kindly to Kopplin’s testimony, with one member asking him if he’d been paid to testify (the answer, of course, is no).
With the board’s vote, the textbooks are set to enter public classrooms in 2015, where they will be used for the next decade. Local school districts do have the option to reject the books and use alternative curriculum, a move recommended on Friday by moderate members of the SBOE. Based on the evidence, it’s a move we recommend as well.
It’s clear that the SBOE has carefully constructed curriculum standards and a shoddy review process designed to erode the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, their latest victory means that thousands of students will receive biased and inaccurate information about the development of our democracy. And that, of course, has been the SBOE’s goal all along: Indoctrinating “culture warriors” has officially taken precedence over preparing students for higher education and work.
Live Streamer gets Camera Stolen Covering Ferguson Protests
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | November 25, 2014
A live streamer named BassemMasri vowed to his viewers that he would continue covering the protests in St. Louis County, “24/7 … unless I’m in jail.”
Or unless he gets his camera stolen, which is what happened less than ten seconds after he made that promise.
The person who stole the camera continued running for almost two minutes for several blocks while the camera continued recording.
BassemMasri took to twitter to say he believes it was a police agitator who stole his phone, which is something he should easily be able to determine if he had any sort of tracking app on the phone.
Despite the setback, BassemMasri continued tweeting and posting photos of fires from his back-up phone.
Sophisticated ‘state-sponsored’ spying tool targeted govts, infrastructure for years
RT | November 24, 2014
A sophisticated malware dubbed Regin has been used to spy on governments, infrastructure operators and other high-profile targets, security company Symantec has revealed. It also targeted private individuals and businesses, particularly in Russia.
A back door-type Trojan displays a “degree of technical competence rarely seen,” Symantec said in a press release. The complexity of the virus enabled the intruder to create a framework for mass surveillance. Targets include private companies, government entities and research think tanks. Attacks on telecoms companies were allegedly carried out to gain access to calls being routed through their infrastructure.
The company believes that the Trojan was likely developed by a nation state as it took months, if not years to develop such a piece of software and cover up its tracks. Analyzing its further capabilities the company has drawn a conclusion that Regin could be one of the main cyber espionage tools used by the implicated nation state.
Almost a third of the confirmed infections were discovered in Russia with a further 24 percent in Saudi Arabia. Mexico, Ireland, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Belgium, Austria and Pakistan are also on the list.
“Regin is a highly complex threat which has been used in systematic data collection or intelligence gathering campaigns. The development and operation of this malware would have required a significant investment of time and resources,” Symantec said.
Symantec found that the virus has been used between 2008 and 2011, before being suddenly withdrawn until a new version of the malware resurfaced from 2013 onwards.
Regin uses a modular approach allowing it to load features that exactly fit the target, enabling a customized spying.“Its design makes it highly suited for persistent, long-term surveillance operations against targets,” the security company says.
And it’s five-stage loading architecture with special and hidden encryption at each stage makes it similar to Duqu/Stuxnet threats, Symantec said. “Executing the first stage starts a domino chain of decryption and loading of each subsequent stage for a total of five stages. Each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Only by acquiring all five stages is it possible to analyze and understand the threat,” the press release reads. Furthermore Regin is equipped with a number of stealth features so that even after Trojan’s presence is detected, it is “very difficult to ascertain what it is doing.”
Researchers say many components of the virus remain undiscovered while the threat of additional functionality and versions may still exist.
Pro-Israel activists ask MPs to halt non-violent BDS protests
MEMO | November 24, 2014
Zionist activists have urged British MPs to implement new legislation that police could use to stop non-violent, pro-BDS protests.
Manchester-based group North-West Friends of Israel have urged politicians to give police more power to stop boycotts of businesses by pro-Palestine solidarity activists.
As cited in a report by The Jewish Chronicle, the group’s co-chair Anthony Dennison wants the Public Order Act amended “to allow police to halt non-violent protests, if they disrupted ‘the lawful right of customers and shops to trade’.”
Dennison commented: “Peaceful protest can be intimidating, if demonstrators are stood outside a shop, holding placards with horrible images, are customers really going into that shop?”
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Because no animal reservoir has been found for SARS-CoV-2, it cannot properly be termed a zoonosis.* Should we call it a labnosis? And what does that mean?
By Meryl Nass, MD | July 12, 2021
After a year and a half of seeking but not finding SARS-2 in any wildlife anywhere (apart from domesticated or zoo animals that appear to have caught it from humans) is it time to say, yes, it didn’t just escape from a lab. It was created, built, assembled in a lab. Or many labs
Coronavirus scientists have been constructing new viruses out of bits and pieces of other viruses for a long time.
Why did they do it? … continue
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