Zelensky now with only the dictatorship in London to support him
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 26, 2025
What is the definition of a ‘dictator’? In the days that followed Trump’s social media post calling President Zelensky one, British media seized upon the subject and ran with it for days. Various public figures were asked whether Trump was right to use the word and whether they believed Zelensky was actually one. Two figures from the right, Nigel Farage and Liz Truss both said they thought Trump was both wrong to call him one and that in fact he wasn’t one.
This remarkable endearment for Zelensky is really the core of the problem in the west in particular the UK, where its leader Sir Keir Starmer declared that he would be ready to send British troops to Ukraine – a suggestion which was quickly shot down by the elites of Germany and France as preposterous.
It’s rare that the giants of the EU put the British government in its place on world affairs but we are living in unprecedented times of sensational stupidity and perhaps ignorance from politicians which we have never seen before.
Farage’s views on the Middle East tell us he is both ignorant of what is happening there and doesn’t have any advisors covering the region. But his views on Ukraine are even more shockingly deranged. Zelensky is a leader who has shut down anything which resembles an ‘opposition’ both politically and media, he has conglomerated all TV stations into one state-owned entity so as to shut down even the slightest criticism or accountability of his own actions, he has had the few dissident voices arrested and thrown into prison, with some predicting that there are thousands of journalists and media workers. Add to that it is rapidly emerging that the level of corruption and embezzlement linked directly to Zelensky is on a scale that even hard line critics in the West could not have even imagined.
In my own investigation in October 2023, where a very angry Ben Wallace insulted me in a WhatsApp interview before blocking me, I outline how the original, more sensational claim that only about a third of all military equipment sent to Ukraine was actually making it to the battlefield was in fact realistic. This analogy was bandied about for some time and was dismissed by Wallace and others like Alecia Kearns MP as nonsense and yet turned out to be more than just realistic but likely. That is to say that 66 percent of what was being sent to Ukraine was being sold on the black market in Libya making Zelensky and his close circle billionaires.
In recent weeks now mainstream journalists and politicians are talking about the arms scandal and it is only a matter of time before we shall see the realities of this. The British government have always turned a blind eye to it, both in Ukraine and further afield. It would cost them nothing to do a study in the Sahel to evaluate how much of the equipment there funding terrorism is coming from the arms bazaars of Tripoli where all of this kit is ending up. I suggested to Wallace that his own government at the time should send some investigators there (Libya) to look at what’s available. I was more or less told to go there myself and do the job for them.
But Zelenksy support structure for so long has been that of a dictator, in particular media. The hundreds of media outlets in Ukraine which were receiving USAID funding is extensive, not to mention the hundreds of civil servants which support him being on the same payroll. If that doesn’t shock Farage and Truss, then consider the same slush fund which paid out around a 100 million dollars to movie stars to go and visit him and fake their adulation, all for the purposes of cheating the humble U.S. taxpayer by raising his profile.
Who could forget Sean Penn giving him his own Oscar, or Ben Stiller chilling with the Ukrainian leader and making small talk? Angelina Jolie is even reported to have been paid 20 million dollars to meet with him but didn’t even manage that and simply mooched about a bit in the country before jetting back to the U.S. Of course, the celebrities all dismiss these claims, through the same left-wing woke press which is part of their extended political family. But the question we should be asking ourselves is simply this: if they were not paid, then why won’t they show up now and show support at the precise moment when Zelensky needs it the most? Given that these celebrities supported Biden and are Democrats, this would be the most logical thing for them to do. In reality, the wall of silence is what we see.
Dictators don’t stand over their hired killers and watch their victims in their final moments like Idi Amin did. In reality, they only indicate and hint to the thugs on their payroll what she should do to fix problems. Do Farage and Truss actually believe that dissidents are not rounded up and thrown into jail where they are tortured and in some cases murdered? Now that the vultures are circling over Zelensky and many are wondering how many days in office he has left, more reports are emerging with details of such cases. The story of Gonzalo Lira, the American Chilean blogger whose vlogs were often well-informed and threw a very poor spotlight on Zelensky is a very sad one as he was brutally tortured while in prison and finally died. If the Zelensky cabal can do this to an American citizen, perhaps Farage and Truss will not be too surprised when in the coming weeks we will have the same Damascus prison media moment where it transpires that there are certainly hundreds, possibly thousands of journalists, commentators and political rivals in Ukraine’s prisons.
The debate, if we can call it that in the UK, over whether Zelensky is a dictator or not is a remedial one at best as it misses the point. In Britain, during the same period a man was imprisoned for posting a social media comment about a Labour official while a granny was visited by two plain clothes cops about her mere criticism of a Labour councilor’s conduct. Plain clothed detectives!
Britain has descended rapidly into a police state with Starmer as its dictator. The high ground we once had where we scolded China for arresting protestors has now been kicked away from under our feet. We have become China. Britain’s police now cannot deal with crime but prefer being the ‘Thought Police’ and threatening old biddies.
And so the talk about what is a dictator is rather fatuous if not incongruent given that those doing it are part of an elite which only claim to cherish free speech but in fact loath it. Farage cannot be taken seriously on Ukraine but his comments do steer the bumble hack towards darker questions. Who is funding him? And is his own dream of being a PM in the UK going to merely continue the present dictatorship which silences anyone who questions him? His reputation of being thin-skinned and kicking out of his party anyone who questions his ideas is already established. His own repugnance of British media also is well known. Previously in Brussels, his decision led to the closure of the only free speech, anti corruption magazine going, which he was always fearful of exposing his own infidelity while an MEP. And as for Truss, the most inept prime minister Britain has ever had in its long history, whose dictator-like style while in office crashed the economy? How should we interpret her support for Zelenksy? Do both Farage and Truss admire this dictator? The problem is not with the word ‘dictator’, it is more about the people who use it for their own purposes. It is not important whether Zelensky is one or not, rather than he is not a dictator who is servile to Trump and his cabal. Unlike Farage, Zelensky is not our kind of dictator.
America as Republic, not as Empire – Europe’s “sound and fury” after jaw-dropping pivots in U.S. policy
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 26, 2025
The bits are falling into a distinct pattern – a pre-prepared pattern.
Defence Secretary Hegseth at the Munich Security Conference gave us four ‘noes’: No to Ukraine in NATO; No to a return to pre-2014 borders; No to ‘Article 5’ peacekeeper backstops, and ‘No’ to U.S. troops in Ukraine. And in a final flourish, he added that U.S. troops in Europe are not ‘forever’ – and even placed a question mark over the continuity of NATO.
Pretty plain speaking! The U.S. clearly is cutting away from Ukraine. And they intend to normalise relations with Russia.
Then, Vice-President Vance threw his fire cracker amongst the gathered Euro-élites. He said that the élites had retreated from “shared” democratic values; they were overly reliant on repressing and censoring their peoples (prone to locking them up); and, above all, he excoriated the European Cordon Sanitaire (‘firewall’) by which European parties outside the Centre-Left are deemed non-grata politically: It’s a fake ‘threat’, he suggested. Of what are you really so frightened? Have you so little confidence in your ‘democracy’?
The U.S., he implied, will no longer support Europe if it continues to suppress political constituencies, arrest citizens for speech offenses, and particularly cancel elections as was done recently in Romania. “If you’re running in fear of your own voters”, Vance said, “there is nothing America can do for you”.
Ouch! Vance had hit them where it hurts.
It is difficult to say what specifically most triggered the catatonic European breakdown: Was it the fear of the U.S. and Russia joining together as a major power nexus – thus stripping Europe from ever again being able glide along on the back of American power, through the specious notion that any European state must have exceptional access to the Washington ‘ear’?
Or was it the ending of the Ukraine/Zelensky cult which was so prized amongst the Euro-élite as the ‘glue’ around which a faux European unity and identity could be enforced? Both probably contributed to the fury.
That the U.S. would in essence leave Europe to their own delusions would be a calamitous event for the Brussels technocracy.
Many may lazily assume that the U.S. double act at Munich was just another example of the well-known Trumpian fondness for dropping ‘wacky’ initiatives intended to both shock and kickover frozen paradigms. The Munich speeches did exactly that all right! Yet that does not make them accidental; but rather parts that fit into a bigger picture.
It is clear now that the Trump blitzkrieg across the American Administrative State could not have been mounted unless carefully pre-planned and prepared over the last four years.
Trump’s flurry of Presidential Executive Orders at the outset of his Presidency were not whimsical. Leading U.S. constitutional lawyer, Johnathan Turley, and other lawyers say that the Orders were well drafted legally and with the clear understanding that legal challenges would ensue. What’s more, that Trump Team welcome those challenges.
What is going on? The newly confirmed head of the Office of Budget Management (OBM), Russ Vought, says his Office will become the “on/off switch” for all Executive expenditure under the new Executive Orders. Vought calls the resulting whirlpool, the application of Constitutional radicalism. And Trump has now issued the Executive Order that reinstates the primacy of the Executive as the controlling mechanism of government.
Vaught, who was in OBM in Trump 01, is carefully selecting the ground for all-out financial war on the Deep State. It will be fought out firstly at the Supreme Court – which the Trump Team expect confidently to win (Trump has the 6-3 conservative majority). The new régime will then be applied across all agencies and departments of state. Expect shrieks of pain.
The point here is that the Administrative State – aloof from executive control – has taken to itself prerogatives such as immunity to dismissal and the self-awarded authority to shape policy – creating a dual state system, run by unelected technocrats, which, when implanted in departments such as Justice and the Pentagon, have evolved into the American Deep State.
Article Two of the Constitution however, says very bluntly: Executive power shall be vested in the U.S. President (with no ifs or buts at all.) Trump intends for his Administration to recover that lost Executive power. It was, in fact, lost long ago. Trump is re-claiming too, the Executive’s right to dismiss ‘servants of the State’, and to ‘switch off’ wasteful expenditure at his discretion, as part of a unitary executive prerequisite.
Of course, the Administrative State is fighting back. Turley’s article is headlined: They Are Taking Away Everything We Have: Democrats and Unions Launch Existential Fight. Their aim has been to cripple the Trump initiative through using politicised judges to issue restraint orders. Many mainstream lawyers believe Trump’s Unitary Executive claim to be illegal. The question is whether Congress can stand up Agencies designed to act independently of the President; and how does that square with the separation of powers and Article Two that vests unqualified executive power with one sole elected official – the U.S. President.
How did the Democrats not see this coming? Lawyer Robert Barnes essentially says that the ‘blitzkrieg’ was “exceptionally well-planned” and had been discussed in Trump circles since late 2020. The latter team had emerged from within a generational and cultural shift in the U.S.. This latter had given rise to a Libertarian/Populist wing with working class roots who often had served in the military, yet had come to despise the Neo-con lies (especially those of 9/11) that brought endless wars. They were animated more by the old John Adams adage that ‘America should not go abroad in search of monsters to slay’.
In short, they were not part of the WASP ‘Anglo’ world; they came from a different Culture that harked back to the theme of America as Republic, not as Empire. This is what you see with Vance and Hegseth – a reversion to the Republican precept that the U.S. should not become involved in European wars. Ukraine is not America’s war.
The Deep State, it seems, were not paying attention to what a posse of ‘populist’ outliers, tucked away from the rarefied Beltway talking shop, were up to: They (the outliers) were planning a concerted attack on the Federal expenditure spigot – identified as the weak spot about which a Constitutional challenge could be mounted that would derail – in its entirety – the expenditures of the Deep State.
It seems that one aspect to the surprise has been the Trump Team’s discipline: ‘no leaks’. And secondly, that those involved in the planning are not drawn from the preeminent Anglo-sphere, but rather from a strand of society that was offended by the Iraq war and which blames the ‘Anglo-sphere’ for ‘ruining’ America.
So Vance’s speech at Munich was not disruptive – merely for the sake of being disruptive; he was, in fact, encouraging the audience to recall early Republican Values. This was what is meant by his complaint that Europe had turned away from “our shared values” – i.e. the values that animated Americans seeking escape from the tyranny, prejudices and corruption of the Old World. Vance was (quite politely) chiding the Euro-élites for backsliding to old European vices.
Vance implicitly was hinting too, that European conservative libertarians should emulate Trump and act to slough-off their ‘Administrative States’, and recover control over executive power. Tear down the firewalls, he advised.
Why? Because he likely views the ‘Brussels’ Technocratic State as nothing other than a pure offshoot to the American Deep State – and therefore very likely to try to torpedo and sink Trump’s initiative to normalise relations with Moscow.
If these were Vance’s instincts, he was right. Macron almost immediately summoned an ‘emergency meeting’ of ‘the war party’ in Paris to consider how to frustrate the American initiative. It failed however, descending reportedly into quarrelling and acrimony.
It transpired that Europe could not gather a ‘sharp-end’ military force greater than 20,-000-30,000 men. Scholtz objected in principle to their involvement; Poland demurred as a close neighbour of Ukraine; and Italy stayed silent. Starmer, however, after Munich, immediately rang Zelensky to say that Britain saw Ukraine to be on an irrevocable path to NATO membership – thus directly contradicting U.S. policy and with no support from other states. Trump will not forget this, nor will he forget Britain’s former role in supporting the Russiagate slur during his first term in office.
The meeting did however, underline Europe’s divisions and impotence. Europe has been sidelined and their self-esteem is badly bruised. The U.S. would in essence leave Europe to their own delusions, which would be calamitous for the Brussels autocracy.
Yet, far more consequential than most of the happenings of the past few days was when Trump, speaking with Fox News, after attending Daytona, dismissed Zelensky’s canard of Russia wanting to invade NATO countries. “I don’t agree with that; not even a little bit”, Trump retorted.
Trump does not buy into the primary lie intended as the glue which holds this entire EU geo-political structure together. For, without the ‘Russia threat’; without the U.S. believing in the globalist linchpin lie, there can be no pretence of Europe needing to prepare for war with Russia. Europe ultimately will have to come to reconcile its future as a periphery in Eurasia.
UK’s iCloud Encryption Crackdown Explained: Your Questions Answered on Apple’s Decision
How does Apple’s UK encryption move affect your iCloud data? Even for those not in the UK, we break down security risks, government access, and privacy options.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | February 24, 2025
The UK government’s latest demand from Apple has caused a major conversation about digital privacy, encryption, and government surveillance. With Apple withdrawing its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature in the UK rather than complying with the government’s order, many users are left with questions.
- How does this affect your iCloud data, whether you’re in the UK or not?
- Can the government now access your photos, backups, and messages?
- Are alternative services like Google, Android, or Samsung any better?
- What are the risks, and what are your options for securing your data?
With this Q&A feature, we break down the key details, security implications, and next steps for UK users—and why this could be a turning point for global encryption policy.
What exactly did the UK government demand from Apple?
The specific details of the Technical Capability Notice (TCN) issued to Apple are not public due to the secretive nature of the Investigatory Powers Act (2016), which was amended in 2023 to expand government access to encrypted data. Reports from the Washington Post suggest the UK Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanded compliance with the order by creating a backdoor into their encryption.
Why did Apple choose to withdraw ADP instead of complying?
Apple has consistently opposed government backdoors, arguing that any compromise in encryption, even for one government, creates a security risk for all users globally. If Apple built a decryption tool, it could be exploited by hackers or demanded by authoritarian regimes. By withdrawing ADP in the UK, Apple likely aims to avoid setting a precedent and to pressure the UK government while reinforcing its brand as a privacy-focused company. It’s also possible that Apple privately negotiated with the UK government but couldn’t reach a compromise.
What happens to UK users who already enabled ADP?
Existing UK users with ADP won’t lose encryption immediately, but Apple has confirmed they will eventually need to disable the feature. The exact timeline remains unclear — Apple’s February 21 announcement did not specify specific dates, suggesting a phased approach. Users might receive notifications asking them to opt out voluntarily or could face automatic disabling via a future software update. Until then, their data remains end-to-end encrypted.
What data can governments access without ADP?
Without ADP, most iCloud data reverts to Apple’s standard encryption, meaning Apple can decrypt and provide access if compelled by a legal order. This includes:
- Photos, videos, documents, notes, and device backups
- Email content (if using iCloud Mail or a different provider but the account is backed up to iCloud)
- iMessage chats (if iCloud backups are turned on)
Some data, like real-time iMessages and Health data, may still retain end-to-end encryption depending on user settings.
Losing ADP increases UK users’ vulnerability to data breaches because their iCloud data, once decrypted by Apple, could be exposed if Apple’s systems are hacked. Standard iCloud encryption is robust against external threats, but high-profile breaches (e.g., past celebrity iCloud leaks) show it’s not infallible. Foreign entities could also target this data if they penetrate Apple’s infrastructure, though there’s no evidence of state-sponsored hacks yet. The risk isn’t immediate for most users but grows over time as cybercriminals adapt, making UK users a softer target compared to those with ADP elsewhere.
What are the Security Risks for UK Users?
Losing ADP increases UK users’ vulnerability to data breaches because their iCloud data, once decrypted by Apple, could be exposed if Apple’s systems are hacked. Standard iCloud encryption is robust against external threats, but high-profile breaches (e.g., past celebrity iCloud leaks) show it’s not infallible. Foreign entities could also target this data if they penetrate Apple’s infrastructure, though there’s no evidence of state-sponsored hacks yet. The risk isn’t immediate for most users but grows over time as cybercriminals adapt, making UK users a softer target compared to those with ADP elsewhere.
Governments aside, what are the UK government’s next steps?
The UK government could escalate by fining Apple for non-compliance, though Apple’s removal of ADP might technically satisfy the notice by removing the contested capability. The government may also target other encrypted services like WhatsApp, Signal, or ProtonMail with similar demands. The 2023 amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act allow the UK to issue preemptive decryption demands on tech firms, meaning broader enforcement is possible. However, political backlash and pushback from the tech industry might slow down aggressive enforcement. That’s why challenging the UK government is important.
What legal basis does the UK have for this demand?
The Investigatory Powers Act (2016)—sometimes called the Snooper’s Charter—was updated in 2023 to expand government power to issue Technical Capability Notices. These notices require companies to remove encryption or other security measures if deemed necessary for national security and proportionate. This appears to be the first major use of the amended law against a tech giant like Apple, setting a precedent that could encourage other countries, such as EU nations or Australia, to follow suit. This is a test case for global encryption policy, though secrecy limits transparency.
Why hasn’t Apple explicitly confirmed the UK order?
Apple has not officially confirmed receiving a Technical Capability Notice, likely due to a gag order under the Investigatory Powers Act. This law prohibits companies from disclosing such requests to avoid tipping off targets or causing public backlash. However, Apple’s decision to withdraw ADP and its statement expressing disappointment strongly imply that it received a legally binding order. Silence could also be a strategic choice, keeping the focus on the impact of withdrawal rather than escalating a legal battle it cannot win.
What does this mean for US-UK relations?
This could strain US-UK tech relations, particularly given comments from figures like JD Vance criticizing European overreach on American firms. The US and UK share intelligence via the Five Eyes alliance, but this dispute (at least, as far as it looks) highlights divergent views on privacy versus security. Apple might lobby the US government to pressure the UK, especially if it sees this as a threat to America’s tech dominance. Diplomatic fallout seems unlikely to escalate significantly, but it could complicate future transatlantic tech policy talks, especially if other EU nations follow suit.
Do any lawmakers in the US want to ban this type of encryption?
Yes, some US lawmakers have pushed to limit or effectively end strong encryption, particularly end-to-end encryption, by requiring tech companies to provide law enforcement access to encrypted data. While they don’t always frame it as “ending encryption” outright, their proposals would undermine its effectiveness by mandating backdoors or weaker standards, which many experts argue amounts to the same thing. This has been a recurring theme in Congress over the years.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC): Graham has been a key figure, co-sponsoring the EARN IT Act (2020) with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and introducing the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act (LAED Act) in 2020 with Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Both bills aimed to force tech companies to unlock encrypted data under court orders, effectively targeting E2EE.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): Co-sponsor of the EARN IT Act, which critics say indirectly threatens encryption by tying legal protections to government-approved “best practices” that could ban E2EE.
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): Co-sponsors of the LAED Act, which explicitly sought to outlaw “warrant-proof” encryption—systems where only users hold the keys. These efforts often have bipartisan support, driven by concerns over crime and national security.
Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) have also recently called for a crackdown on end-to-end encryption, using the fight against fentanyl as a justification.
Should global Apple users be concerned about the UK’s move against encryption?
Yes, global users should be concerned because the UK’s action sets a dangerous precedent that could inspire other governments to demand similar backdoors, weakening digital privacy worldwide. If Apple complies with one government’s demand to weaken encryption, it may face pressure from other nations, including the EU, Australia, India, or China, to do the same. This risks creating a domino effect where end-to-end encryption is gradually eroded across multiple jurisdictions.
Moreover, any security loophole introduced for the UK could be exploited by hackers or authoritarian regimes, endangering global Apple users. Apple’s current refusal to comply suggests it is drawing a line to protect its security model worldwide, but if the UK succeeds in enforcing its demands, Apple and other tech companies may struggle to resist similar pressures elsewhere.
For now, users outside the UK still benefit from full encryption protections, but privacy advocates worry that if this case goes unchallenged, governments may target other encrypted services, such as WhatsApp, Signal, or Google Drive, making digital privacy harder to maintain globally.
What about those iCloud users that didn’t have Advanced Data Protection (ADP) turned on?
For most users, this change doesn’t affect them because the majority of iCloud users never had ADP enabled in the first place. Apple’s standard iCloud encryption, which was always the default, means Apple already holds the keys to decrypt most stored data and can provide access when legally required. This means that users who never switched on ADP were always using the less secure version of iCloud storage, and their data was already accessible to Apple and, by extension, law enforcement with a legal order.
However, for privacy-conscious users in the UK who did enable ADP, this decision does impact their security. Without ADP, their iCloud data will eventually revert to standard encryption, meaning Apple can access it again if compelled. While this is currently a UK-specific change, privacy advocates worry that it could set a precedent for other governments to demand similar access, potentially eroding encryption protections worldwide over time.
If ADP is available in your region, you should turn it on.
Even WITH Apple’s Advanced Data Protection turned on, what data could Apple and the government potentially see?
Quite a lot.
Here are the parts that were never end-to-end encrypted:
- iCloud Mail
- Contacts
- Calendars
- iCloud Data on the Web (Apple says, “You have the option to turn on data access on iCloud.com, which allows the web browser that you’re using and Apple to have temporary access to data-specific encryption keys provided by your device to decrypt and view your information.
- Metadata and usage information, including “dates and times when a file or object was modified are used to sort your information, and checksums of file and photo data” (which “are used to help Apple de-duplicate and optimize your iCloud and device storage — all without having access to the files and photos themselves.”). Specific examples of the app specific metadata and usage information that was never end-to-end encrypted includes:
- iCloud Backup:
- Name, model, color, and serial number of the device associated with each backup
- List of apps and file formats that are included in the backup
- Date, time, and size of each backup snapshot
- iCloud Drive:
- The raw byte checksums of the file content and the file name
- Type of file, when it was created, last modified, or last opened
- Whether the file has been marked as a favorite
- Size of the file
- Signature of any app installers (.pkg signature) and bundle signature
- Whether a synced file is an executable
- Photos:
- The raw byte checksum of the photo or video
- Whether an item has been marked as a favorite, hidden, or marked as deleted
- When the item was originally created on the device
- When the item was originally imported and modified
- How many times an item has been viewed
- Notes:
- Date and time when the note was created, last modified, or last viewed
- Whether the note has been pinned or marked as deleted
- Whether the note contains a drawing or handwriting
- The raw byte checksum of content from an imported or migrated note
- Safari Bookmarks:
- Whether the bookmark resides in the favorites folder
- When the bookmark was last modified
- Whether the bookmark has been marked as deleted
- Messages in iCloud:
- When the last sync was completed and whether syncing has been disabled
- Date when content was last modified
- Error codes
- Type of message, such as a normal iMessage, SMS, or tapback
- iCloud Backup:
- iWork collaboration
- The Shared Albums feature in Photos
- Content shared via the “anyone with the link” feature
- Any data that was shared with an Apple user that doesn’t have end-to-end encryption enabled e.g. Messages sent to someone that has iCloud Backup enabled but not Advanced Data Protection, Notes shared with someone that has iCloud Backup enabled but not Advanced Data Protection.
I’m thinking of switching to Google or Android because of the UK’s encryption dispute with Apple. Is that a better move for privacy?
Not necessarily. Google or Android isn’t a monolith — Google’s services (like Drive and Photos) and Android’s open ecosystem differ from what Samsung or other manufacturers layer on top.
Privacy-wise, none of these options universally outshine Apple, especially if end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is your priority. Google’s core services don’t use E2EE by default for Drive, Photos, or backups, meaning Google can access your data and comply with law enforcement requests.
Android’s encryption varies by implementation, and Samsung adds its own features, but they don’t fully match Apple’s default E2EE across key services (like iMessage or Health data) that remain intact even without Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK.
What about Samsung?
Samsung, as a major Android manufacturer, uses Google’s ecosystem for services like Google Drive, Google Photos, and phone backups, but it also layers its own features on top. Like other Android devices, Samsung phones don’t get end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Google Drive or Google Photos—those services encrypt data in transit and at rest, but Google holds the keys, making them accessible to Google or law enforcement. For phone backups, Samsung relies on Google’s E2EE system (since Android 9 Pie), which encrypts app data and settings using your credentials, not Google’s. However, Samsung offers Samsung Cloud, which provides an optional E2EE feature called Enhanced Data Protection (introduced with One UI 5.1.1 in 2023). If you enable it, your backups to Samsung Cloud—like contacts or calendar data—can be E2EE, unlike Google’s broader cloud services. So, Samsung gives you somewhat of an extra encrypted option, but it’s not default and doesn’t cover everything (e.g., photos synced to Google Photos).
Does Google Drive use end-to-end encryption?
No, Google Drive does not offer true end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Files are encrypted in transit (using TLS) and at rest (with AES-256), but Google holds the encryption keys. This means Google can decrypt your files if required—say, for a legal warrant—or if their systems are breached, a hacker could potentially access unencrypted data after compromising Google’s infrastructure. You can add client-side encryption via third-party tools (like Cryptomator) or Google Workspace’s enterprise option, but that’s not standard for personal users. Compared to Apple’s iCloud with ADP (now unavailable in the UK), where users control the keys, Google Drive is less private by design.
What about Huawei or other major Android smartphones? Do they change the encryption picture?
Huawei, a Chinese Android player, doesn’t rely on Google services due to US sanctions (post-2019), so it skips Google Drive, Photos, and Google backups entirely. Instead, Huawei uses its own Huawei Mobile Cloud, which offers encrypted backups for photos, contacts, and more, but it’s not E2EE by default—Huawei holds the keys unless you use specific encryption settings. Huawei’s HiSuite software for PC backups also encrypts data, sometimes with user-set passwords, but research shows these can be decrypted with effort, suggesting weaker protection. Unlike Samsung, Huawei lacks Google’s E2EE phone backup system and faces scrutiny over potential Chinese government access, though no hard evidence confirms backdoors. End-to-end encryption is banned in China anyway so using Chinese services is inherently less secure in terms of privacy.
I keep hearing about Google Drive, Google Photos, and phone backups. Are they all the same thing?
No, they’re distinct services with different purposes, even though they’re all tied to your Google account. Google Drive is a cloud storage platform for files—like documents, videos, or anything you manually upload. Google Photos is a specialized service for storing and organizing your pictures and videos, often syncing automatically from your phone. Phone backups, on the other hand, are a feature of Android that saves device-specific data—like settings, app data, and call logs—to Google’s servers. Think of Drive as a general file locker, Photos as your photo album, and backups as a snapshot of your phone’s configuration and data.
Regarding Google, what kind of stuff gets stored in each one?
Here’s the breakdown:
Google Drive: Anything you choose to upload—PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, random videos, or even folders. It’s manual unless you set up syncing from your device or apps.
Google Photos: Primarily photos and videos from your phone’s camera roll, synced automatically if you enable it (via the Google Photos app). You can also upload other images manually, but it’s built for media.
Phone Backups: Device-specific data like app settings, Wi-Fi passwords, call history, SMS (if enabled), and some app data (if developers opt in). It doesn’t include your full photo library or random files unless they’re part of an app’s backup scope.
They overlap a bit—e.g., a photo could be in Photos and Drive if you upload it twice—but they’re designed for different needs.
Is everything encrypted the same way across these services?
No, encryption differs:
Google Drive: Encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES-256), but Google holds the keys. They can decrypt your files if needed (e.g., for law enforcement). No end-to-end encryption (E2EE) unless you add it manually with tools.
Google Photos: Same deal—encrypted in transit and at rest, but Google has the keys. No E2EE, so your photos aren’t fully private from Google or legal requests.
Phone Backups: Encrypted end-to-end since Android 9 Pie (2018). The key is tied to your Google account password and device lock screen credentials, stored in Google’s Titan Security Module. Google can’t decrypt this without your input, unlike Drive or Photos.
So, if I switch from Apple’s Advanced Protection version of iCloud to Google’s suite of products, I would be less protected?
Yes.
If I switch to Android and use these, am I safer from the UK government than with Apple?
Not really. The UK’s issue with Apple was about iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which offered E2EE. Without ADP, iCloud’s standard encryption (Apple holds the keys) is like Google Drive and Photos—accessible to the company and thus to governments with warrants. Android phone backups are E2EE, which is safer from Google or the UK snooping without your credentials, but Drive and Photos aren’t, leaving most of your cloud data as vulnerable as non-ADP iCloud. You’re not dodging the problem—just shifting where it applies.
Do de-googled phones come with their own encrypted cloud backups?
No, de-googled phones—like those running GrapheneOS or LineageOS—don’t include built-in cloud services with encryption. Unlike Samsung (with Samsung Cloud’s optional E2EE) or Google (with non-E2EE Drive), they strip out Google’s ecosystem entirely and don’t replace it with a default cloud. You’re left to back up locally (e.g., to a computer with manual encryption) or pick your own cloud service. There’s no out-of-the-box E2EE cloud solution baked in.
Does switching to a de-googled phone help if I use cloud services anyway?
Not much, if you pick non-E2EE clouds like Google Drive or Dropbox. De-googled phones avoid Google’s data harvesting, but they don’t fix the encryption gap—Drive, Photos, or Huawei’s Mobile Cloud (non-E2EE by default) still let the provider decrypt your data. Switching from, say, a Samsung phone with Google’s non-E2EE services to a de-googled one is useless for privacy if you just plug in the same unencrypted clouds. You’re back to square one, with your backups exposed to companies or governments.
Do you have any recommendations for keeping my documents and photos securely backed up?
Yes, check out our recommendations here.
We also have a members post with recommendations for specific photos apps.
This battle is far from over—whether Apple will face further pressure, how other tech companies will respond, and whether legal challenges arise remain key questions in the fight for encryption.
For users concerned about privacy, this situation underscores the need to take control of their own data security. Whether that means using end-to-end encrypted services, backing up data locally, or switching to alternative platforms, individuals must weigh the risks and make informed choices. As governments push for more access and tech giants weigh their responses, one thing is clear: the future of digital privacy is at a crossroads, and what happens next in the UK could shape encryption policies worldwide.
Ukraine conflict was ‘provoked’ – Trump adviser
RT | February 24, 2025
The Ukraine conflict was “provoked” and it is wrong to solely blame Russia, Steve Witkoff, a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, has said. Moscow had to respond to a security threat created by the West’s promises to accept Ukraine into NATO, he stated.
Witkoff made the remarks in an interview published by CNN on Tuesday, in which he was asked whether Washington was choosing the right side by holding talks with Moscow instead of continuing to funnel aid to Kiev.
The situation is not black-and-white, with Russians being “the bad guys,” Witkoff told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“The war didn’t need to happen, it was provoked,” he added. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians.”
According to Witkoff, “there were all kinds of conversations… about Ukraine joining NATO” prior to the conflict that were treated by Moscow as a direct threat to its security and prompted it to respond.
The US official also spoke about Russia’s readiness to swiftly end the conflict through negotiations, pointing to the talks held in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow began its military campaign.
The peace process came to an abrupt end in May of that year when Kiev withdrew from the talks after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged it to continue fighting.
Russian officials “have indicated that they are responsive” to ending the conflict by engaging in “cogent and substantive negotiations” in Istanbul, Witkoff said, adding that the two sides “came very, very close to signing something.”
The Türkiye-facilitated Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in 2022 resulted in a preliminary agreement for a treaty that would have seen Ukraine become a neutral nation with a limited military, backed by security guarantees from major world powers, including Russia.
According to Witkoff, the preliminary Istanbul agreement could be used by Washington as a framework and a “guidepost” for a future peace deal.
Last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky described the Istanbul talks as “an important reference point and the platform where the parties came closest to an agreement.” He also named Türkiye an “ideal host” for potential negotiations between Kiev, Moscow, and Washington.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly referred to the Istanbul agreements as a potential basis for any future peace deal with Kiev.
Wales Becomes First UK Testbed for Citywide AI-Powered Facial Recognition Surveillance
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 22, 2025
Wales is that part of the UK the authorities have picked as the testbed for the first citywide deployment of what some consider to currently be the most radical form of mass biometric surveillance in public places – “AI”-powered live facial recognition.
What is likely to be the reason behind the “trial,” privacy campaigners are warning, is the eventual permanent deployment of this type of biometric surveillance throughout the country.
South Wales Police said that Cardiff will be covered by a network of CCTV cameras with facial recognition tech embedded in them, while the excuse is providing security during the international Six Nations rugby event. But the police also characterized the move as “semi-permanent.”
This appears to be a distinction between what the police in the UK have used thus far to carry out surveillance based on live facial recognition: vans with one camera.
The decision to move to position a host of cameras in the central zone of Cardiff makes this a significant expansion of the technique.
And while the police are reassuring citizens that expanding live facial recognition “really enhances” law enforcement’s ability to do their job – the Big Brother Watch privacy group slammed the move as a “shocking” development and the creation of an “Orwellian biometric surveillance zone.”
And while capturing everyone’s biometric data, and in that way, according to Big Brother Watch’s Senior Advocacy Officer Madeleine Stone, turning Brits into “walking barcodes” and “a nation of suspects” – in terms of solving crime, this is proving to be a waste of public money.
“This network of facial recognition cameras will make it impossible for Cardiff residents and visitors to opt out of a biometric police identity check,” Stone underlined.
And yet, over the three years that live facial recognition has been in use at sporting venues (only) – the use of the technology has not led to any arrests.
“No other democracy in the world spies on its population with live facial recognition in this cavalier and chilling way,” Stone warned, adding, “South Wales Police must immediately stop this dystopian trial.”
The technology works by capturing the faces of every person passing through an area covered, in real time, to then compare them to a database of those described in reports as “wanted criminals.”
However, when South Wales Police spoke about who is on their “watchlist,” it also included people “banned from the area” and those “who pose a risk to the public.”
More: UK Government Fast-Tracking Bill to Monitor Bank Accounts, Revoke Licenses, and Search Homes
Britain’s working class will never fight Starmer’s war for Ukraine
By Dr Lisa McKenzie | RT | February 23, 2025
Following the Munich Security Conference last week, European Union leaders appeared shell-shocked by US Vice President J.D. Vance’s scathing attack on Europe.
He criticized the continent for multiple reasons, including the lack of free speech, arrests of European citizens for inflammatory social media posts, insufficient commitment to security, and destabilization due to both legal and illegal migration. Although Vance seemed to address Western European politicians and officials, it is likely he was speaking over their heads, directly to the public. His words resonated with widespread discontent about politics and politicians across the region, aligning with the prevailing sense of unfairness felt by many ordinary citizens.
Western European leaders, including British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, appeared agitated and uncomfortable with Washington’s tone. Perhaps the hard truths Vance presented have forced them to reconsider their consistently underfunded armed forces. Vance’s warnings made it clear that they cannot indefinitely rely on the US for military power and financial aid, particularly regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky also heard that signal and immediately called for a ‘European Armed Force’. Western European leaders arranged an emergency meeting in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and, astonishingly, Starmer indicated British soldiers could be sent to the Ukraine to enforce any peace deal.
The British public and Parliament were caught off guard by what many see as a reckless proposal from their PM. He announced the possibility of “British boots on the ground” just hours after the Munich meeting ended. This decision, or threat, appears to be a unilateral move by Starmer. It is unlikely to gain widespread support across the country and is already sparking outrage, particularly in the “Red Wall” – Britain’s former industrial heartlands. A poll in The Times just last week showed that only 11% of young people in the UK would consider fighting for their country, showing what we all know: that the UK is deeply divided over class, race, and region.
This is a problem for Starmer and the British liberals who have yet again found their war drums that were put away following the disastrous follies in Iraq and Afghanistan. What was once the Labour heartlands, the de-industrialized parts of the country, have also been the typical recruiting fields for the British Soldier – the white working class. These communities have been badly let down by all politicians have become deeply resentful and detached from what is happening within the politics, media and chattering classes of London.
It is no coincidence that those beating the war drums in London are the same individuals who supported the Iraq invasion and opposed the outcome of the EU referendum that led to Brexit. There has been a distinct division throughout the country since Brexit and I suspect Starmer’s reckless offering up of our military to “peacekeep” for the EU is a signal that he wants a closer relationship with the bloc. Unfortunately for Starmer, his brand of Labour – middle-class metropolitan liberals – will never offer up their own children for military service and will look north towards the very people they have spent the nine years since the Brexit referendum accusing of being racists, bigots, and xenophobes.
Starmer and Macron are deeply unpopular in their own countries. Perhaps they think they can paint over the damage done in their countries by successive neo-liberal governments by pulling the patriotic chord through the threat of war. But Starmer must realise that this will never be his Falklands War moment – when an unpopular Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government turned around their unpopularity by going to war with Argentina in 1982. Working-class populations outside the big metropolitan cities, in places like Blyth, Sunderland, Mansfield and Stoke-on-Trent, have traditionally been patriotic and supported the British military, but they will not follow Starmer and the failed EU leaders into a battle they see as ‘not theirs’.
The lesson here for the Western European political leaders is that ignoring sections of the population, allowing deep divisions and inequalities to fester, and then banging the war drums and expecting the working class to go and fight a war for you is not going to work. They can see right through this, and Vance’s words spoke to them more directly than a despised European elite class ever could.
Dr Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic. She grew up in a coal-mining town in Nottinghamshire and became politicized through the 1984 miners’ strike with her family. At 31, she went to the University of Nottingham and did an undergraduate degree in sociology. Dr McKenzie is the author of ‘Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain.’ She’s a political activist, writer and thinker.
Petroleum demand will rise despite push for renewables: OPEC chief
Press TV – February 22, 2025
Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) says that petroleum demand will continue to increase in the coming decades despite a global move toward renewable energies.
In an interview with the Iranian Oil Ministry’s news service Shana, published on Saturday, Haitham al-Ghais said that the OPEC believes that oil and gas will continue to be the key element in the global energy trends even after 2050, the year in which many countries have pledged to phase out the use of fossil fuels as part of the so-called net zero campaign.
Ghais said that demand for oil and gas will fall in Europe in the coming decades while it will remain almost flat in the United States.
However, he said that the rest of the world will see a rise in petroleum demand as many countries in Asia and Africa will need hydrocarbon resources to meet their economic growth targets.
“… the unrealistic sense that was given to people about oil demand dropping by 75 million barrels per day by 2050, which we believe is really unrealistic,” he said.
The OPEC chief said that some European governments that are seriously opposed to the increasing consumption of fossil fuels have resumed using oil, gas and even coal to respond to their energy needs.
“… we believe that the problem is the net zero scenario, and it is quite dangerous actually, because it has, unfortunately, caused many governments to be misled into putting into place policies that have become much more expensive for their consumers.
Electronic Intifada director’s violent arrest and MI6 infiltration into ‘neutral’ Switzerland
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 22, 2025
On January 25th, prominent Palestinian-American journalist and activist Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, was violently arrested by undercover operatives in Switzerland, en route to a speaking event.
He proceeded to spend three days and two nights in jail completely cut off from the outside world, during which he was interrogated by local defense ministry intelligence apparatchiks without access to a lawyer or even being informed why he was being imprisoned.
Abunimah was then deported in the manner of a dangerous, violent criminal.
Abunimah’s ordeal caused widespread outcry, not least due to Switzerland being the oldest ‘neutral’ state in the world. Such is Bern’s apparently indomitable commitment to this principle, that it initially refused to join the UN lest its neutrality be compromised, only becoming a member in September 2022, following a public referendum.
Moreover, the country routinely scores highly – if not highest – in Western human rights rankings, and has provided a safe haven for foreign journalists and human rights activists fleeing repression.
Abunimah’s flagrantly political persecution and ruthless treatment, undoubtedly motivated by his indefatigable solidarity with Palestine, stands at total odds with Swiss neutrality.
So too Bern’s secret, little-known involvement in Operation Gladio. Under the auspices of this monstrous Cold War connivance, the CIA and MI6 constructed underground shadow armies of fascist paramilitaries that wreaked havoc across Europe, carrying out false flag terror attacks, robberies, and assassinations to discredit the left, install right-wing governments, and justify crackdowns on dissent.
Switzerland’s Gladio unit was known as Projekt-26, the numerals referring to the country’s separate cantons. Its existence was uncovered in November 1990, as a result of an unrelated Swiss parliamentary investigation triggered months earlier.
This probe was launched after it was revealed local security services had kept detailed secret files on 900,000 citizens, almost one-seventh of the country’s total population, throughout the Cold War.
The inquiry found during the same period, P-26 operated “outside political control”, and specifically targeted “domestic subversion”. Its membership ran to around 400, with “most” being “experts” in “weapons, telecommunications and psychological warfare.”
The unit moreover “maintained a network of mostly underground installations throughout Switzerland,” and was commanded by “a private citizen who could mobilize the force without consulting [the] army or government.”
Parliamentarians also concluded that P-26 “cooperated with an unidentified NATO country.”
It was some time before that “NATO country” was confirmed to be Britain. Subsequent investigations shed significant light on London’s mephitic relationship with P-26, and the unit’s role within the wider Operation Gladio conspiracy.
Much remains unknown about the extent of its activities, and will most certainly never emerge. But while P-26 was officially disbanded after its public exposure, the recent persecution of Abunimah strongly suggests MI6 continues to exert unseen influence over Switzerland’s politics, intelligence, military and security apparatus today.
‘A Scandal’
Discovery of P-26 prompted a dedicated inquiry into Switzerland’s “stay behind” network, overseen by local judge Pierre Cornu. It was not until April 2018 that a truncated version of his 100-page-long report was released, in French.
No English translation has emerged since, and a dedicated multi-page section on P-26’s relationship with US and British intelligence is wholly redacted.
Still, the report acknowledged the unit’s operatives were trained in Britain – Gladio’s secret “headquarters” – and remained in regular, covert contact with London’s embassy in Bern.
Oddly, a 13-page summary of Cornu’s report, published in September 1991, was far more revealing. It noted that British intelligence “collaborated closely” with P-26, “regularly” tutoring its militants in “combat, communications, and sabotage” on its home soil. British advisers – likely SAS fighters – also visited secret military sites in Switzerland.
Numerous formal agreements were signed between the clandestine organization and London, the last being inked in 1987. These covered training, and supply of weapons and other equipment.
Describing collaboration between British intelligence and P-26 as “intense”, the summary was deeply scathing of this cloak-and-dagger bond, describing it as wholly lacking “political or legal legitimacy” or oversight, and thus “intolerable” from a democratic perspective.
Until P-26’s November 1990 exposure, elected Swiss officials were purportedly completely unaware of the unit’s existence, let alone its operations. “It is alarming [MI6] knew more about P-26 than the Swiss government did,” the summary appraised.
P-26 was moreover backed by P-27, a private foreign-sponsored spying agency, partly funded by an elite Swiss army intelligence unit. The latter was responsible for monitoring and building up files on “suspect persons” within the country, including; “leftists”; “bill stickers”, Jehovah’s Witnesses, citizens with “abnormal tendencies”; and anti-nuclear demonstrators.
To what purpose this information was put isn’t clear. Many documents detailing the activities of both P-26 and P-27 and the pair’s coordination with British intelligence, apparently couldn’t be located while Cornu conducted his investigation.
Obfuscating the picture even further, in February 2018 it was confirmed 27 separate folders and dossiers amassed during Cornu’s probe had since mysteriously vanished.
Local suspicions this trove was deliberately misplaced or outright destroyed to prevent embarrassing disclosures about “neutral” Switzerland’s relationship with US and British intelligence, and NATO, emerging abound to this day.
At the time, Josef Lang, a left-leaning former Swiss lawmaker and historian, who had long called for the Cornu report to be released in unredacted form, declared:
“There are three possibilities: the papers were shredded, hidden, or lost, in that order of likelihood. But even if the most innocent option is the case, that’s also a scandal.”
‘Clandestine Networks’
The unsolved murder of Herbert Alboth amply reinforces the conclusion that shadowy elements within and without Switzerland were sure that certain facts about the country’s involvement with Operation Gladio would never be known.
A senior intelligence operative who commanded the “stay behind” unit during the early 1970s, in March 1990 Alboth secretly wrote to then-Defence Minister Kaspar Villiger, promising that “as an insider” he could reveal “the whole truth” about P-26. This was right when Swiss parliamentarians began investigating the secret maintenance of files on “subversives”.
Alboth never had an opportunity to testify. A month later, he was found dead in his Bern apartment, having been repeatedly stabbed in the stomach with his own military bayonet.
Contemporary media reports noted a series of indecipherable characters were scrawled on his chest in felt pen, leaving police “puzzled”.
Strewn around his home were photographs of senior P-26 members, “stay behind” training course documents, “exercise plans of a conspiratorial character,” and the names and addresses of fellow Swiss spies.
On November 22nd, 1990, one day after P-26 was formally dissolved, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Operation Gladio.
It called for the then-European Community, and all its member states, to conduct official investigations “into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned,” their involvement in “serious cases of terrorism and crime,” and “collusion” with Western spying agencies.
The resolution warned:
“These organizations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters… For over 40 years [Operation Gladio] has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO… Such clandestine networks may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states or may still do so.”
Yet, outside formal inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance subsequently materialized. Today, we are left to ponder whether Gladio’s constellation of European “stay behind” armies was ever truly demobilized, and if British intelligence still directs the activities of foreign security and spying agencies under the noses of elected governments.
Given London’s intimate, active complicity in the Gaza genocide and ever-ratcheting war on Palestine solidarity at home, Abunimah is an obvious target for the MI6 spy agency.
So too Richard Medhurst, a British-born, Vienna-residing independent journalist arrested upon arrival at London’s Heathrow airport in August 2024 on uncertain “counter-terror” charges.
On February 3rd, Austrian police and intelligence operatives ransacked his home and studio, confiscating many of his possessions, including all his journalistic materials and tools, before detaining and questioning him for hours.
Believing this to be no coincidence, Medhurst asked the officers if London had ordered the raid. An officer replied, “No, Britain doesn’t talk to us.”
Coincidentally, Austria is another ostensibly “neutral” country in which MI6 was embroiled in Operation Gladio. Following World War II, British intelligence armed and trained a local “stay behind” cell comprised of thousands of former SS personnel and Neo-Nazis.
Innocently named the Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society, like its Swiss counterpart, the unit operated with such secrecy that “only very, very highly positioned politicians” were aware.
For his part, Medhurst is absolutely convinced London is behind his persecution:
“Some of these Austrian accusations are very similar to the British ones… I think it’s being coordinated with Britain… British police seized a Graphene OS device from me and [it’s] very unlikely they’d be able to crack it… I suppose that’s why Britain asked the Austrians to raid me, grab anything they could find and go on this massive fishing expedition,” he said.
“The warrant even mentions my arrest in London to try and bolster their case.”
BBC blasted for pulling documentary on Gaza children after Israel lobby pressure
Press TV – February 21, 2025
The BBC has faced significant criticism after removing a documentary about Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip from its iPlayer platform.
The documentary, titled, “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone,” came under intense scrutiny after it was revealed that one of the featured children, 13-year-old Abdullah Alyazouri, was the son of Dr. Ayman Alyazouri, a deputy minister in the government in the coastal territory.
The territory is ruled by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which has historically defended it in the face of deadly Israeli atrocities, including the regime’s recent 15-month-plus-long war of genocide that has claimed the lives of more than 48,300 Palestinians, mostly women and minors.
The BBC’s decision to pull the documentary followed mounting pressure from pro-Israeli advocates, including the Israeli ambassador to the UK, and statements from British government officials, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who had indicated she would be engaging in discussions with the BBC over the matter.
While the BBC stated it was conducting “further due diligence” on the production, the decision has sparked a fierce debate over media impartiality and the portrayal of Palestinians in the United Kingdom and its various apparatuses.
The British broadcaster said the film “features important stories” about the experiences of children in Gaza, which had to be told, but added that the documentary would not be available on iPlayer while the so-called review was ongoing.
The uproar intensified when it was revealed that the documentary’s minor narrator, Abdullah Alyazouri, was the Palestinian official.
According to reports, Dr. Ayman Alyazouri, deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza, had an academic and professional background that included working with the United Arab Emirates’ government and studying at British universities.
The information prompted a group of 45 Jewish journalists, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, to send a letter demanding the removal of the documentary, labeling Alyazouri as a “terrorist leader.”
Many, however, have come to the defense of the documentary.
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), expressed regret over the BBC’s decision, calling it “a shame” that the documentary was removed under pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who, he argued, had shown little empathy for the suffering of Palestinians in the coastal sliver.
Doyle emphasized that the film offered “valuable insights into what life is like in this horrific warzone” and praised its high-quality production, urging the broadcaster to reinstate the documentary as soon as possible.
The controversy also raised alarms about the BBC’s editorial independence.
Prominent film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who has worked on documentaries about Gaza for Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network, called the move a “cowardly decision.”
He warned that if the BBC caved in to pressure from pro-Israeli lobbyists, it would set a “dangerous precedent” for how Palestinian stories were covered in the media.
The film, which depicts the realities that are faced by Palestinian children living under the constant threat of Israeli bombardments, has been described as a means of “humanizing” the plight of the youngest victims of Israeli aggression.
The controversy comes as Gaza continues to endure a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the Israeli regime’s incessant violations of ceasefire agreement that is supposed to end the genocidal war and a stifling siege imposed by Tel Aviv.
Since the beginning of the siege, thousands of Palestinian civilians, including children, have lost their lives, while many others suffer from severe shortages of food, water, and medical supplies, prompting international human rights organizations to describe the situation there as among the worst in the world.
As part of an ongoing campaign to silence Palestinian voices and diminish international sympathy, pro-Israeli figures, however, have often targeted media coverage that potentially portrays Palestinians in a humanizing light, including in the context of Gaza’s children.
These efforts are seen by many as part of a broader strategy to shield the regime from scrutiny over its barbaric violations across the Palestinian territories.
Apple pulls UK Citizens’ privacy protections after the UK is the first country to demand a backdoor into your private data
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | February 21, 2025
Apple has effectively told the UK government to get lost when it comes to inserting a worldwide surveillance backdoor into its iCloud encryption. Instead of playing along with Britain’s ever-expanding digital police state, the tech giant has chosen to pull its most secure data protection feature — Advanced Data Protection (ADP) — for users in the UK. Because nothing says “we respect your privacy” like stripping away the very feature designed to protect it.
The whole mess started when the British government, wielding the notoriously invasive Investigatory Powers Act (a law that might as well be named the “We Own Your Data Act”), demanded that Apple sabotage its own encryption. The UK’s authorities wanted a golden key to every citizen’s iCloud storage, under the guise of “public safety.” But here’s the wider issue: the directive wouldn’t only affect Brits — it would have compromised Apple’s encryption system worldwide.
This was an attempt to strong-arm one of the world’s most powerful tech companies into submission, setting a precedent that could crack open user privacy like an egg.
Rather than comply, Apple responded with a very diplomatic version of hell no. Instead of weakening encryption for everyone, the company opted to remove ADP from the UK entirely. In a statement that practically oozed frustration, Apple declared:
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by Advanced Data Protection will not be available to our customers in the United Kingdom, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy.”
They continued, insisting that they remain committed to offering users “the highest level of security” and expressing “hope” that they’ll be able to restore ADP in the UK at some point in the future. That’s corporate-speak for, maybe when your current government stops acting like the digital arm of Big Brother.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection settings, explaining the use of end-to-end encryption for iCloud data.
The UK government’s demand is just the latest chapter in the global war on encryption. Law enforcement agencies love to claim they need backdoors to stop criminals and terrorists. But here’s the problem: a backdoor for the “good guys” is a backdoor for everyone. Hackers, foreign spies, rogue governments — once you build the skeleton key, you can’t control who picks it up.
So, who benefits from Apple kneecapping its own encryption? Certainly not the average British citizen, who now has weaker privacy protections. Certainly not journalists, activists, or anyone who has ever dared to challenge authority. The only real winners are intelligence agencies and bureaucrats who believe the solution to crime is universal surveillance.
British Apple users who activated Advanced Data Protection (ADP) are now being shoved into an ultimatum straight out of a dystopian novel.
Apple, for its part, has played the game with a stiff upper lip, carefully avoiding any public mention of the UK Home Office’s directive. That’s not because they’re being coy — it’s because acknowledging the order is literally a crime under British law. That’s right: even saying “Hey, the government told us to do this” could land Apple in legal hot water.
But Apple saw this coming. The company had warned Parliament in advance that this exact scenario was likely to unfold. And now that it has, Apple isn’t bending.
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a back door or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will,” the company reiterated in a statement Friday.
That’s as close as you’ll get to a tech giant saying, “Get lost.”
Naturally, the UK government has nothing meaningful to say about all this. When asked about the order, a Home Office spokesperson gave the standard, sterile response:
“We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”
Apple has a long track record of resisting government attempts to weaken encryption, and this move lets it sidestep the demand without technically breaking the law. It’s a clever, if imperfect, workaround. Apple hasn’t outright complied with the UK order, but it also hasn’t directly defied it.
The UK government is, of course, justifying its demands with the usual talking points: criminals, terrorists, child abusers—all the greatest hits. And sure, no one’s arguing that law enforcement shouldn’t go after criminals. The problem is that this strategy treats everyone like a suspect. Remember, this is the same government that plans to spy on everyone’s bank accounts.
The United Kingdom’s latest assault on digital privacy is a national crisis — but it’s also a flashing red warning sign for the rest of the world. By forcing Apple to disable its strongest encryption feature, the UK government has cracked open the door for every surveillance-hungry state on the planet.
And let’s be clear: if Britain, a country that still pretends to value democracy, can do this, then every other government with authoritarian tendencies is taking notes.
A Playbook for Mass Surveillance
This isn’t just about Apple or the UK. This is about setting a precedent. Britain has handed world governments a blueprint for coercing tech companies into submission—secret legal directives, gag orders, and the threat of criminal penalties for even acknowledging government interference.
It’s a dream scenario for regimes that see encryption as an obstacle to control. Once Apple caves in the UK, what’s stopping other countries from making the same demands? The moment a company demonstrates that it will roll back security for one government, it becomes open season for every other government to demand the same—or worse.
The Investigatory Powers Act, lovingly known as the “Snooper’s Charter,” was already one of the most extreme surveillance laws in the Western world. But British lawmakers didn’t stop there. They wanted more power, more access, more control—because in the minds of surveillance bureaucrats, there’s no such thing as too much spying.
By forcing Apple to kneecap Advanced Data Protection, they’ve ensured that British citizens—regular, law-abiding people—are now more vulnerable than ever to cyber criminals, rogue states, and corporate data exploitation. Their personal lives, once protected by some of the strongest encryption available, are now open to abuse.
The real tragedy here isn’t only the immediate impact on Apple users — it’s what this signals for the future. The UK is laying the groundwork for a world where privacy isn’t a right, but a privilege granted at the discretion of the overreaching state.
And that’s the endgame of every surveillance regime. Once you normalize backdoors, once you force companies into secret compliance, once you criminalize even discussing government interference — you’re no longer living in a democracy. You’re living in a managed information state where privacy exists only when the government allows it.
For now, Apple has resisted the worst-case scenario. They didn’t build a backdoor, and they didn’t weaken global encryption — as far as we know. But the moment they concede ground to any government, they’ve set the precedent that encryption is negotiable.
And if encryption is negotiable, privacy itself is negotiable.
The UK’s decision will embolden others. And unless users—especially those in so-called democratic nations—start demanding better, this is only the beginning. Because once you let governments dictate who deserves privacy, the answer will always be the same:
Not you.
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Blood Passover, English Version
The Bloody Satanic Sacrifice Rituals of the Jewish Race
Ariel Toaff | 2016
The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
Dr. Toaff is uniquely qualified to write this book, being thoroughly familiar with the derivative literature in English, French, German and Italian, as well as the original documentary sources in Latin, Medieval Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish. This is not something he worked on in secret. On the contrary, he worked on it openly with his university students and colleagues in Israel for several years; one of his students was even going to publish a paper on the subject. The author is extremely careful about what he says, and his conclusions must be taken seriously. It reads like a detective story.
If it had been published in Israel, in Hebrew, no one would have cared. There are large bodies of literature in Hebrew that Jews do not wish Gentiles to know about. But Dr. Toaff’s announcement of its publication in Italy, in Italian, raised a worldwide firestorm of fury.
Under unbearable pressure, the book was withdrawn from publication. Come in out of the darkness, and strike a blow for the light.
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