A New Yorker investigation has exposed that from 2018‒20, at least 65 leading figures in the Catalan government and independence movement had their mobile phones bugged, reports Dick Nichols.
Janine Jackson interviewed EFF’s Dave Maass about transparency and journalism for the April 22, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
CounterSpin220401Maass.mp3
(image: EFF)
Janine Jackson: A functioning democracy relies on an informed citizenry. But what you read in a high school textbook, and what you see when you look up from it, are different things. Importantly, transparency—a free flow of information—should be the norm. But it isn’t. That makes even more important the role of journalists who dig out critical information the public needs to hear, whether we know it or not: information we need to challenge the powerful. And it reminds us of the need to protect that role and that ability.
Our next guest is all about transparency and public knowledge. Dave Maass is director of investigations at Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the prime mover behind the Foilies, a project out of EFF and MuckRock news involving tongue-in-cheek awards given to government agencies and others that thwart the public’s right to access information. He joins us now by phone from Reno, Nevada. Welcome to CounterSpin, Dave Maass.
Dave Maass: Oh, glad to be here.
JJ: Some folks, and especially CounterSpin listeners, may know about Sunshine Week, the yearly effort by news organizations to promote and to celebrate open government and access to information. The Foilies are connected to Sunshine Week in a way that’s funny, but kind of “laugh instead of cry” funny, because it’s about everything that matters in our lives and our relationship to power.
DM: Exactly. I think if you work in a space where you’re filing public records requests, and you’re filing Freedom of Information requests, you have a certain personality where you love the gratification of receiving records, but you also take a little bit of—I mean, you have to laugh at the various ways that government agencies will try to evade giving you that information. And the Foilies are our annual way to provide some solace, through a little bit of humor, to those who file requests, but also to make sure that the people who are using these tricks don’t get away with it, that they are publicly in the light during Sunshine Week.
JJ: Absolutely, which is what sunshine is all about. So it’s about conveying absurdity at the same time as you’re highlighting these real issues.
So what, then, for 2021, what are some recent awardees that represent the problems you’re talking about? I know, for example, that Trump and the toilet stuffed with documents was a little too “fish in the barrel” for you. Maybe that’s—maybe that metaphor’s more complicated than I realized. But in other words, you’ve done Trump, and we get that. What are some of the other things that you’re trying to lift up?
A photo of the only copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, revealed through a Freedom of Information request (BuzzFeed, 1/5/22)
DM: We’ve tried to make sure that we have a range of awards that go to local agencies and national agencies and things that are in the news, as well as things that are kind of pop culture–related. One that, from the very beginning, we knew was going to make it into the Foilies this year was the Wu-Tang Clan–related FOIA request filed by BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold. Now, if folks remember, there was a particular pharma bro whose name I can’t really pronounce, it’s gonna be a little embarrassing, but I think his name is Martin Shkreli.
JJ: Close enough.
DM: Before he was convicted of federal crimes, he successfully bid to win this Wu-Tang Clan one-of-a-kind, super-amazing album that there would only be one copy. And then he was convicted, and the US Marshals seized it. And in went some FOIA requests to find out more information about this secret Wu-Tang album that was eventually sold by the US Marshals, and the US Marshals refused to release how much money they got for this new Wu-Tang album. And they redacted a bunch of photos, so that we couldn’t see the pictures that they took in order to try to sell this on the open market. So immediately, whenever you can get Wu-Tang Clan in—the Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to F with, unless the F stands for FOIA.
JJ: Right. I can see why that would grab people, which it totally—it’s absurd. And I, at the same time, and as I know you do, know that some folks would hear that and be like, that’s rich versus rich, and I’ve got nothing to do with that. So let’s take a look at some of the other things. A street-level surveillance taking a picture of your face, and there’s all kinds of stuff that, you don’t need to be Wu-Tang, you don’t need to be Martin Shkreli, it still involves you.
DM: Right. So the one that I think is probably the most offensive of the year went to a company—now, we often get these out to government agencies, but then sometimes we give these to companies that really tried to chill the public’s access to information.
So, specifically, the company that we called out is called Clearview AI. This is a facial recognition company that has scraped the internet for photos that you have published online in order to create a database that law enforcement can use to identify you.
We know that face recognition is racially biased and makes mistakes, can pull people into the criminal justice system. This Clearview system is more offensive than others because it grabs the images that we put on the internet to share with one another to communicate with ourselves, and it uses those against us.
Now, the only reason that we know Clearview AI exists is because a couple of researchers, named Freddy Martinez and Beryl Lipton, filed public records requests around the country related to it. And Freddy Martinez, specifically, works for an organization called Open the Government, and he also is involved with a local organization called Lucy Parsons Labs in Chicago. And he had found out about Clearview and started filing tons of requests.
They pass this information on to the New York Times. It became a huge story. You’re seeing attorney generals take action on it. You’re seeing lawsuits over it. You’re seeing them being fined, both in the US and abroad. Huge controversy.
And so what does Clearview decide to do? It decides to go after Freddy Martinez. So, he had never been involved in a lawsuit with Clearview AI, but Clearview used one of the other lawsuits it’s involved in to file subpoenas to try to get all of the information that Freddy Martinez had gathered, all the journalists he’d spoken with, all the communications with journalists and nonprofit organizations, in a very clear attempt to chill Freddy Martinez’s right to get access to information, and to retaliate against him.
Now, after public outcry, Clearview withdrew those subpoenas, withdrew those legal requests. But nevertheless, you just know that they, a big company, were trying to bully an everyday researcher.
JJ: Absolutely. And, you know, you’re describing a critical relationship, which is that open-government advocates, whistleblowers, can pitch, but they do rely on journalists to catch. Folks reveal information at great effort, sometimes at peril, and I can only imagine how disappointing it is to then see journalists dismiss that information, or not run with it, in the way that is so important, and that is so necessary in terms of getting the information out to the public.
And I just wanted to ask you, with regard to that, I know that as scholar in residence at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, you work on something called the Atlas of Surveillance, and you’re very interested in that street-level surveillance that we’re talking about.
I saw you cited in connection with that project a couple years back, and you said, “If our goal is to keep neck and neck with the growth of the surveillance state, we’d lose”; you can’t keep up with it. The opacity is such that it’s difficult for investigators to keep on track of things like surveillance. And so I just wanted to ask you, what do you see as the goal, not just of that project, but of the project of the Foilies, and projects that are aimed at exposing the barriers that governments put up to transparency? What do you see as the hope of this kind of work?
Dave Maass: “We have to take the victories that are there. And we have to at least try to inform people about what’s going on.”
DM: We are kind of engaged in what the military would call asymmetrical warfare, where we are part of a small group of nonprofits and advocates up against a huge tech industry, a whole military policing complex, that just dwarfs us in funding and dwarfs us in resources. But nevertheless, by using things at our disposal, particularly transparency, we are able to have such an outsized impact.
And maybe we’re not able to always result in something that changes everything nationwide. And honestly, with Congress as it is, that, to me, is not even a huge option. To get Congress to pass anything on anything is kind of a lofty notion these days.
But we are able to have these victories in places like San Francisco and Boston. You’re able to get laws passed, you’re able to get new measures in place, that maybe don’t outlaw certain surveillance technologies, but at least gets some controls in place, or at least put the transparency measures in place that allow us to come back and say, “No, look, the police are abusing this technology, we need to stop it.” And we’ve seen it with face recognition: We started to get a lot of traction with governments moving back on it.
It is hard to keep up. But I just don’t think giving up the fight is worthwhile. We have to take the victories that are there. And we have to at least try to inform people about what’s going on. And in the process, we’re going to root out corruption, we’re going to find companies like Clearview that are going to get sued for millions and millions and millions of dollars, and are going to have contracts revoked. So I’m still optimistic, even if I’m also pessimistic, if you get what I mean.
JJ: I understand completely.
We’ve been speaking with Dave Maass; he’s director of investigations at Electronic Frontier Foundation. You can find their work, including around the Foilies, online at EFF.org. Dave Maass, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
ForUM is a network of 50 Norwegian organizations within the development, environment, peace, and human rights with a vision of a democratic and peaceful world based on fair distribution, solidarity, human rights, and sustainability. ForUM writes that together with transferring the operational activities of Telenor Myanmar to M1 Group, Telenor also sells sensitive personal data of 18 million former Telenor customers, and there is an imminent danger that this information will soon be in the hands of the country’s brutal military dictatorship. ForUM is furious at the news that the sale has been completed.
“Ever since the sale was announced last summer, we have worked to prevent it because there is a big risk that the military junta will have access to sensitive personal information and use it to persecute, torture, and kill regime critics. Incredibly, Telenor is going through with a sale that has been criticized by human rights experts, civil society, Myanmar’s government in exile, and even their own employees in the country,” says Kathrine Sund-Henriksen.
Telenor has admitted that since October last year they have known that the junta uses the M1 Group as an intermediary and that the data will soon end up in the hands of Shwe Byain Phy Group, a local conglomerate with close ties to the junta. Kathrine Sund-Henriksen believes it is only a matter of time before the sale has tragic consequences for human rights activists in the country.
“When metadata is transferred, the junta will be able to know who a user has called, how long the call has lasted, and where the call was made. All of this can be used to expose activist groups operating in secret for the junta. According to the UN, the junta has killed more than 1,600 people and more than 12,000 have been arrested since last year’s coup. Those numbers will continue to increase, and Telenor has given the junta all the information they need to expose human rights defenders,” Kathrine Sund-Henriksen says.
This week, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security released its much anticipated report on national security threats affecting the higher education and research sector.
The 171-page report found the sector is a target for foreign powers using “the full set of tools” against Australia, which can undermine our sovereignty and threaten academic freedom.
It made 27 recommendations to “harden the operating environment to deny adversaries the ability to engage in the national security risks in the sector”.
The committee’s recommendations, when correctly implemented, will go a long way towards combating the threat of espionage and foreign interference. But they are not enough to protect academic freedom.
This is because the laws that make espionage and foreign interference a crime could capture legitimate research endeavours.
National security risks to higher education and research The joint committee found there are several national security threats to the higher education and research sector. Most significant are foreign interference against students and staff, espionage and data theft.
This includes theft via talent recruitment programmes where Australian academics working on sensitive technologies are recruited to work at foreign institutions.
These threats have been occurring through cyber attacks and human means, including actors working in Australia covertly on behalf of a foreign government.
The kind of information targeted is not limited to military or defence, but includes valuable technologies or information in any domain such as as agriculture, medicine, energy and manufacturing.
What did the committee recommend? The committee stated that “awareness, acknowledgement and genuine proactive measures” are the next steps academic institutions must take to degrade the corrosive effects of these national security risks.
Of its 27 recommendations, the committee made four “headline” recommendations. These include:
adherence to the taskforce guidelines by universities. These include having frameworks for managing national security risks and implementing a cybersecurity strategy
introducing training on national security issues for staff and students
guidance for universities on how to implement penalties for foreign interference activities on campus.
New & long-awaited parliamentary report (PJCIS) on foreign interference at Australian universities. It makes strong recommendations to unis & government on ways to counter state-backed harassment & intimidation & protect students & staff. https://t.co/7I8mI52gb9pic.twitter.com/uTlMWzDCkv
Other recommendations include creation of a mechanism to allow students to anonymously report instances of foreign interference on campus and diversification of the international student population.
What about academic freedom? Espionage makes it a crime to deal with information on behalf of, or to communicate to, a foreign principal (such as a foreign government or a person acting on their behalf). The person may also need to intend to prejudice, or be reckless in prejudicing, Australia’s national security.
In the context of the espionage and foreign interference offences, “national security” means defence of Australia.
It also means Australia’s international relations with other countries. “Prejudice” means something more than mere embarrassment.
So, an academic might intend to prejudice Australia’s national security where they engage in a research project that results in criticism of Australian military or intelligence policies or practices; or catalogues Australian government misconduct in its dealings with other countries.
Because “foreign principals” are part of the larger global audience, publication of these research results could be an espionage offence.
The academic may even have committed an offence when teaching students about this research in class (because Australia has a large proportion of international students, some of whom may be acting on behalf of foreign actors), communicating with colleagues working overseas (because foreign public universities could be “foreign principals”), or simply engaging in preliminary research (because it is an offence to do things to prepare for espionage).
Even communicating about research with overseas colleagues could fall foul of espionage and foreign interference laws. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock
Foreign interference makes it a crime to engage in covert or deceptive conduct on behalf of a foreign principal where the person intends to (or is reckless as to whether they will) influence a political or governmental process, or prejudice Australia’s national security.
The covert or deceptive nature of the conduct could be in relation to any part of the person’s conduct.
So, an academic working for a foreign public university (a “foreign principal”, even if the country is one of our allies) may inadvertently commit the crime of foreign interference where they run a research project that involves anonymous survey responses to collect information to advocate for Australian electoral law reform.
The anonymous nature of the survey may be sufficient for the academic’s conduct to be “covert”.
Because it is a crime to prepare for foreign interference, the academic may also have committed an offence by simply taking any steps towards publication of the research results (including preliminary research or writing a first draft).
The kind of research criminalised by the espionage and foreign interference offences may be important public interest research. It may also produce knowledge and ideas that are necessary for the exchange of information which underpins our liberal democracy.
Criminalising this conduct risks undermining academic freedom and eroding core democratic principles.
So, how can we protect academic freedom? In addition to implementing the recommendations in the report, we must reform our national security crimes to protect academic freedom in Australia. While the committee acknowledged the adequacy of these crimes to mitigate the national security threats against the research sector, it did not consider the overreach of these laws.
Legitimate research endeavours could be better protected if a “national interest” defence to a charge of espionage or foreign interference were introduced. This would be similar to “public interest” defences and protect conduct done in the national interest.
“National interest” should be flexible enough so various liberal democratic values — including academic freedom, press freedom, government accountability, and protection of human rights — can be considered alongside national security.
In the absence of a federal bill of rights, such a defence would go a long way towards ensuring legitimate research is protected and academic freedom in Australia is upheld.
A US$1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government provides cloud services for the Israeli apartheid state to spy on Palestinians, reports Ramzy Baroud.
“We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.” This text was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military.
In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government which provides cloud services for the Israeli military and government that “allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land”.
This is called Project Nimbus. The project was announced in 2018 and went into effect in May 2021, in the first week of the Israeli war on besieged Gaza, which killed over 250 Palestinians and wounded many more.
The Google employees were not only disturbed by the fact that, by entering into this agreement with Israel, their company became directly involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but were equally outraged by the “disturbing pattern of militarization” that saw similar contracts between Google – Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants – with the US military, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other policing agencies.
In an article published in The Nation newspaper in June, three respected US academics have revealed the financial component of Amazon’s decision to get involved in such an immoral business, arguing that such military-linked contracts have “become a major source of profit for Amazon.” It is estimated, according to the article, that AWS alone was responsible for 63 percent of Amazon’s profits in 2020.
The maxim ‘people before profit’ cannot be any more appropriate than in the Palestinian context, and neither Google nor Amazon can claim ignorance. The Israeli occupation of Palestine has been in place for decades, and numerous United Nations resolutions have condemned Israel for its occupation, colonial expansion and violence against Palestinians. If all of that was not enough to wane the enthusiasm of Google and Amazon to engage in projects that specifically aimed at protecting Israel’s ‘national security’ – read: continued occupation of Palestine – a damning report by Israel’s largest human rights group, B’tselem should have served as that wake up call.
B’tselem declared Israel an apartheid state in January 2021. The international rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) followed suit in April, also denouncing the Israeli apartheid state. That was only a few weeks before Project Nimbus was declared. It was as if Google and Amazon were purposely declaring their support of apartheid. The fact that the project was signed during the Israeli war on Gaza speaks volumes about the two tech giants’ complete disregards of international law, human rights and the very freedom of the Palestinian people.
It gets worse. On March 15, hundreds of Google workers signed a petition protesting the firing of one of their colleagues, Ariel Koren, who was active in generating the October letter in protest of Project Nimbus. Koren was the product marketing manager at Google for Education, and has worked for the company for six years. However, she was the kind of employee who was not welcomed by the likes of Google, as the company is now directly involved with various military and security projects.
“For me, as a Jewish employee of Google, I feel a deep sense of intense moral responsibility,” she said in a statement last October. “When you work in a company, you have the right to be accountable and responsible for the way that your labor is actually being used,” she added.
Google quickly retaliated to that seemingly outrageous statement. The following month, her manager “presented her with an ultimatum: move to Brazil or lose her position.” Eventually, she was driven out of the company.
Koren was not the first Google – or Amazon – employee to be fired for standing up for a good cause, nor would, sadly, be the last. In this age of militarism, surveillance, unwarranted facial recognition and censorship, speaking one’s mind and daring to fight for human rights and other basic freedoms is no longer an option.
Amazon’s warehouses can be as bad, or even worse, than a typical sweatshop. Last March, and after a brief denial, Amazon apologized for forcing its workers to pee in water bottles – and worse – so that their managers may fulfill their required quotas. The apology followed direct evidence provided by the investigative journalism website, The Intercept. However, the company which stands accused of numerous violations of worker rights – including its engagement in ‘union busting’ – is not expected to reverse course any time soon, especially when so much profits are at stake.
But profits generated from market monopoly, mistreatment of workers or other misconducts are different from profits generated from contributing directly to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Though human rights violations should be shunned everywhere, regardless of their contexts, Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, now with the direct help of such companies, remains one of the gravest injustices that continues to scar the consciousness of humankind. No amount of Google justification or Amazon rationalization can change the fact that they are facilitating Israeli war crimes in Palestine.
To be more precise, according toThe Nation, the Google-Amazon cloud service will help Israel expand its illegal Jewish settlements by “supporting data for the Israel Land Authority (ILA), the government agency that manages and allocates state land.” These settlements, which are repeatedly condemned by the international community, are built on Palestinian land and are directly linked to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Project Nimbus is the “most lucrative tender issued by Israel in recent years.” The Project, which has ignited a “secretive war” involving top Israeli army generals – all vying for a share in the profit – has also whetted the appetite of many other international tech companies, all wanting to be part of Israel’s technology drive, with the ultimate aim of keeping Palestinians entrapped, occupied and oppressed.
This is precisely why the Palestinian boycott movement is absolutely critical as it targets these international companies, which are migrating to Israel in search for profits. Israel, on the contrary, should be boycotted, not enabled, sanctioned and not rewarded. While profit generation is understandably the main goal of companies like Google and Amazon, this goal can be achieved without necessarily requiring the subjugation of a whole people, who are currently the victims of the world’s last remaining apartheid regime.
China has accused the U.S. of intensifying spying activities in the disputed South China Sea after the U.S. Navy deployed three of its ocean surveillance vessels in the region.
An aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, also entered the South China Sea on Friday, ahead of the large-scale Philippines-U.S. joint military exercise Balikatan 22.
Data provided by the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic show the ocean survey ship USNS Bowditch is currently operating in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 60 nautical miles east of Danang and about 90 nautical miles south of China’s Hainan Island.
At the same time, another ocean surveillance vessel, the USNS Effective, is in waters northwest of the Philippines, 250 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal, which China calls Huangyan Island.
The third ocean surveillance ship, USNS Loyal, is in the sea east of Taiwan.
China’s state-run Global Times said they are “spy ships” that carry out reconnaissance in support of anti-submarine warfare against China. They have been in the area since March 17, it said.
“The U.S. Navy has frequently sent spy vessels near China in recent years, but it is unusual to see so many of them present at the same time,” Global Times said.
Amid the raging war in Ukraine, the deployment of the ships may serve as an indication of the U.S. commitment in the Indo-Pacific.
A file photo showing ocean surveillance ship USNS Effective sitting in dry dock at Yokosuka, Japan, Sept. 13, 2007. The ship is currently deployed to the South China Sea. Credit: U.S. Navy
‘Spy ships’
The USNS Bowditch is a Pathfinder-class survey ship that has often been deployed in the South China Sea. The USNS Effective and USNS Loyal are both Victorious-class ocean surveillance ships.
The ships measure water conditions and deploy underwater drones that take very detailed measurements of water temperature, salinity, the acoustic environment and the water’s chemical make-up. They also conduct very detailed surveys of the ocean bottom.
“The ships’ data can be used to detect submarines and identify ships’ noises, so from China’s perspective they are spy ships,” said Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.
“China’s survey ships do similar operations so in many ways, China’s description of the American ships provides an insight into how China uses its survey ships,” he said.
MarineTraffic also shows that a Chinese survey vessel has just been deployed.
China’s homegrown third-generation, spacecraft-tracking ship Yuanwang-5 is currently in waters east of Taiwan, some 255 nautical miles from the island.
It’s unclear where the ship, described by the Chinese military as “a backbone in China’s maritime tracking and measuring network,” is heading.
China has four Yuanwang-class tracking ships in active operation, including Yuanwang-5 which entered service in 2007.
Some security analysts, like Paul Buchanan at the Auckland, New Zealand-based 36th Parallel Assessments risk consultancy, say the Yuanwang-class ships are “dual-platform spy ships.”
Buchanan has previously been quoted by the NZ Herald as saying the ships are used for intelligence collection and tracking satellites. He said 60 to 70 per cent of their work is looking for other people’s signals and 30 per cent is the satellite work. Buchanan also said the U.S. and China use their signals collection ships partly to track rival submarines.
In another development, the American expeditionary mobile base USS Miguel Keith entered the South China Sea on March 21, the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a think tank, said.
This is the first time the USS Miguel Keith entered the South China Sea since its deployment to the West Pacific in October 2021, the SCSPI said.
The 90,000-ton ship that can serve as a strategic platform and command center is the second-biggest ship type in the U.S. Navy after aircraft carriers.
It is unclear if the USS Miguel Keith will join the Balikatan 22 joint exercise between the U.S. and Philippine armies taking place from March 28 to April 8 across the Luzon Strait.
With over 5,000 U.S. military personnel and 3,800 Filipino soldiers, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said that Balikatan 22 will be “one of the largest-ever iterations of the Philippine-led annual exercise” which this year coincides with the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Philippine security cooperation.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Secret, blanket policy to take mobiles and extract data from them judged unlawful on several fronts
The Home Office operated an unlawful, secret, blanket policy to seize almost 2,000 mobile phones from asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats and then downloaded data from these phones, the high court has ruled.
The court found that the policy was unlawful on multiple fronts and breached the asylum seekers’ human rights. The judges ruled that there was no parliamentary authority for seizures and data extractions and that the legal power that Home Office officials thought they could use was the wrong one.
Spotlight regularly features a significant individual or team from the Human Rights community to answer questions put by students from the University of Essex. This month, we focus on an independent advocacy organisation, CAGE. CAGE is a campaign against injustice and oppression and fights on behalf of the survivors of human rights violations around the […]
The Washington Post‘s headline (1/20/22) seems to sum up why Western journalists saw no need to factcheck claims of Chinese cyberespionage at the Beijing Olympics.
A persistent trope in Western media coverage of China is the claim that Chinese technology is inherently compromised and used as a nefarious tool by Beijing to spy on unwitting foreigners. However, when one actually looks for evidence behind these claims or innuendos, one often finds unsubstantiated speculation.
Before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics began, there was a spate of reports alleging that China could be spying on visiting athletes and journalists. The reports had a sinister tone, implying to Western audiences that China was trying to collect private information for malicious purposes:
Quartz (1/20/22): “Beijing Winter Olympics Athletes Have Every Reason to Worry About Their Cybersecurity”
BBC (1/18/22): “Winter Olympics: Athletes Advised to Use Burner Phones in Beijing”
New York Times (1/18/22): “Security Flaws Seen in China’s Mandatory Olympics App for Athletes”
CNN (2/1/22): “FBI Urges Olympic Athletes to Leave Personal Phones at Home Ahead of Beijing Games”
Daily Mail (1/31/22): “Over 1,000 Athletes and Coaches Are Using ‘Burner’ Phones at the Winter Olympics Because the Chinese State Has ‘Crazy, Scary’ Spying Tech that Monitors Calls, Reads Texts, Tracks Movements and Can Spot ‘Illegal’ Words in Private Conversations”
Washington Post (1/20/22): “‘China Will Be China’: Why Journalists Are Taking Burner Phones to the Beijing Olympics”
Creating an anaconda
Yahoo! Sports (2/5/22) closed its article on cyberespionage at the Olympics with an analyst who compared China to an anaconda: “It doesn’t need to bite you. It doesn’t need to spit venom at you. But your behavior will change simply because you know that it exists.”
Yahoo! Sports (2/5/22) reported on a tech advisory the US Olympic Committee distributed to sports federations that discouraged athletes from bringing their personal smartphones to Beijing. “There should be no expectation of data security or privacy while operating in China,” the advisory warned, a message echoed by other Western national Olympics committees. Yahoo! cited numerous Western officials and cybersecurity experts who claimed that broader fears of Chinese cyberespionage are “absolutely rational,” setting the stage for what Yahoo! called the “Paranoia Olympics.”
Yahoo! cited a number of Western cybersecurity experts raising concerns for Olympic athletes:
Yahoo!’s report cited supposed China experts’ explanation for how the Chinese government doesn’t even need to conduct cyberespionage to deter athletes from causing disturbances:
It’s a version of what Sinologist Perry Link once termed “The Anaconda in the Chandelier.” It’s a metaphor “used to describe how the Chinese government controls dissent and speech,” explained Neil Thomas, a China analyst at the Eurasia Group. “It basically sits there as a huge anaconda in the chandelier of a room…. It doesn’t need to do anything, this anaconda. It just needs to be there. It doesn’t need to bite you. It doesn’t need to spit venom at you. But your behavior will change simply because you know that it exists.”
This raises the question: If China merely convincing athletes that it might conduct cyberespionage on them is sufficient to control their behavior, and prevent them from bringing up topics that “might trigger the Chinese government,” then wouldn’t unsubstantiated Western media allegations of a Chinese surveillance program on foreign delegations serve the same function as the supposed Chinese anaconda–regardless of whether such a program exists?
Citizen Lab’s findings
Deutsche Welle (1/18/22) set the tone for coverage of Citizen Lab’s report on the Beijing Olympics app.
Is there evidence of a Chinese surveillance program on foreign delegations? Many Western media reports (e.g., BBC, 1/18/22; CBC, 1/18/22; New York Times, 1/18/22) on China’s supposed cyberespionage efforts against foreign delegations to the Olympics can be sourced back to a report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research center best known for identifying government-authorized spyware on phones belonging to human rights activists and journalists, which was first reported by German state media outlet Deutsche Welle (1/18/22).
DW reported on some of Citizen Lab’s findings, noting that athletes, coaches, reporters and sports officials, as well as local staff, were required to put “personal information” like passport data and flight information, as well as sensitive medical information related to possible Covid-19 symptoms, onto either the My 2022 app used for the Beijing Olympics or the Olympics’ website:
The app’s SSL certificates—which are supposed to ensure that data traffic is only exchanged between trustworthy devices and servers—are not validated, meaning that the app has a serious encryption vulnerability. As a result, the app could be deceived into connecting with a malicious host, allowing information to be intercepted, or even malicious data to be sent back to the app.
Citizen Lab researcher Jeffrey Knockel says he found the vulnerability not only regarding health data, but also with other important services in the app. This includes the app service that processes all file attachments as well as transmitted voice audio…. The expert says he also discovered that for some services, data traffic in the app is not encrypted at all. This means that the metadata of the app’s own chat service can easily be read by hackers.
It also found that the app had an inactivated “censorship keyword list,” a “reporting function that allows users to report other users if they consider a chat message to be dangerous or dubious.” One option that could have been chosen (had the function been turned on) was “‘politically sensitive content,’ a phrase that is typically used in China to describe censored topics.”
DW reported that Citizen Lab confidentially reported these findings to the Beijing Organizing Committee on December 3, 2021. Citizen Lab’s cybersecurity experts, the news article said, conducted an audit on January 17 that found that “no changes were made to address the concerns raised over security vulnerabilities and the list of ‘illegal words.’”
‘A simpler explanation’
Citizen Lab (1/18/22) found that the My 2022 app’s “widespread lack of security is less likely to be the result of a vast government conspiracy but rather the result of a simpler explanation such as differing priorities for software developers in China.”
However, when one actually reads the full Citizen Lab report (1/18/22) that DW and other Western media outlets selectively cited, one quickly discovers that this reporting contained significant omissions that made My 2022’s alleged vulnerabilities seem more malicious and deliberate than they were described in the original report.
For example, Citizen Lab’s report claims that while it’s “reasonable to ask whether the encryption in this app was intentionally sabotaged for surveillance purposes or whether the defect was born of developer negligence,” it also argues that “the case for the Chinese government sabotaging My 2022’s encryption is problematic” for several reasons:
For instance, the most sensitive information being handled by this app is submitted in health customs forms, but this information is already being directly submitted to the government, and thus there would be little instrumental rationality in the government intercepting their own data, as weaknesses in the encryption of the transmission of this information would only aid other parties. While it is possible that weakness in the encryption of health customs information was collateral damage from the intentional weakening of the encryption of other types of data that the Chinese government would have an interest in intercepting, our prior work suggests that insufficient protection of user data is endemic to the Chinese app ecosystem. While some work has ascribed intentionality to poor software security discovered in Chinese apps, we believe that such a widespread lack of security is less likely to be the result of a vast government conspiracy but rather the result of a simpler explanation, such as differing priorities for software developers in China.
In other words, Citizen Lab offered plausible reasons for why My 2022’s developers left alleged security vulnerabilities to enhance functionality that have nothing to do with a malicious Chinese government conspiracy to spy on foreign delegations. Citizen Lab also pointed out that the most sensitive information about athletes would already be directly submitted to the Chinese government for Covid containment purposes, so there would be little point in using My 2022 for espionage purposes.
Ultimately, Citizen Lab concluded:
While we found glaring and easily discoverable security issues with the way that My 2022 performs encryption, we have also observed similar issues in Chinese-developed Zoom, as well as the most popular Chinese Web browsers. My 2022’s functionality to report other users for “politically sensitive” expression is common in other Chinese apps, and, while we found bundled a list of censorship keyword terms capable of stifling political expression, such lists are near ubiquitous in Chinese chat apps, live streaming apps, mobile games and even open source software. In light of previous work analyzing popular Chinese apps, our findings concerning MY2022 are, while concerning, not surprising.
Citizen Lab’s arguments and conclusions undermine the conspiratorial tone in Western media coverage, which might be why they were omitted, with the opposite impression conveyed through cherry-picked quotes. Outlets like the CBC (1/18/22), Quartz (1/20/22) and the Washington Post (1/20/22) focused on Citizen Lab’s “worst case scenarios” of all internet traffic potentially being intercepted, warning people to “pack burner digital devices” to evade the “‘devastating flaw’ that could expose users’ medical and passport information.”
Aside from a few exceptions like the Associated Press (1/18/22), which correctly noted there “was no evidence that the easily discoverable security flaws in the MY2022 app were placed intentionally by the Chinese government,” the Chinese state media outlet CGTN (1/28/22) offered more nuanced reporting, citing the major thrust of Citizen Lab’s conclusions that were omitted from most Western media accounts, where they would have contradicted the lurid narrative.
‘Two software patches ago’
There is one apparent error in Citizen Lab’s report. The group calls My 2022 “an app required to be installed by all attendees to the 2022 Olympic Games,” a claim repeated in Western media reports on My 2022’s alleged vulnerabilities. The link provided leads to a report by Fortune (12/7/22) that states attendees are “mandated to download a health app called ‘My 2022’ to input personal information and health records,” with no source provided to substantiate this claim.
But the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has directly refuted this claim, noting that it is not mandatory for attendees to download the app, and that the app’s settings can be configured to disable access to “‘files and media, calendar, camera, contacts,’ as well as a user’s location, their phone and their phone’s microphone.” The IOC has also noted that the app has been validated by Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, in addition to passing two independent assessments by cybersecurity testing organizations that found “no critical vulnerabilities.”
NBC (2/8/22) debunked the My 2022 scare stories–but still warned Olympians to be afraid.
Later, in early February, Citizen Lab (NBC, 2/8/22) noted its concerns about My 2022 were addressed “several weeks and two software patches ago,” after the developers reached out after the initial paper was published and sought advice on how to fix the identified problems. All of this indicates that there is no basis for the claim My 2022 was used by the Chinese government to spy on foreign delegations.
However, NBC argued that “focusing on that single smartphone app is a red herring” in “the context of China’s larger appetite for the personal data of people around the world.” It provided no evidence of China’s alleged appetite for the personal data of people outside its borders, instead relying on resurgent Yellow Peril hysteria in Western countries to suggest that it must be true.
Another claim about My 2022 that has gone viral on social media, spread by popular podcast host Joe Rogan and Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, is the allegation that the app constantly records audio on users’ phones. This was debunked by numerous experts, like Will Strafach, the creator of an iPhone app that blocks location trackers, who looked at My 2022’s code and found that there was nothing beyond an overt translation function that could activate the phone’s microphone.
More evidence-free espionage claims
Business Insider (3/16/19): “The US has upped its fight in the last year against Huawei, which it suspects of spying for the Chinese government and posing a great risk to US national security.”
The evidence-free allegations promoted by Western media about supposed Chinese cyberespionage at the Olympics fit into a larger pattern of claims that Chinese technology is inherently compromised and engineered to serve as spyware by the Chinese government.
Numerous headlines alleged that Huawei, a Chinese multinational tech corporation that created the world’s first 5G smartphone, was conducting espionage on behalf of the Chinese government:
Forbes (2/26/19): “Huawei Security Scandal: Everything You Need to Know”
Fox (2/13/20): “US Accuses Huawei of Spying on Mobile Phone Users”
NBC (2/14/20): “US Officials: Using Huawei Tech Opens Door to Chinese Spying, Censorship”
Business Insider (3/16/19): “Everything You Need to Know About Huawei, the Chinese Tech Giant Accused of Spying That the US Just Banned From Doing Business in America”
Huawei had been cleared of accusations of espionage as early as October 2012, after the White House ordered an 18-month review of security risks by suppliers to US telecommunications companies. The inquiry found no evidence that the company was an espionage asset, although predictable concerns about nebulous “security vulnerabilities” were raised (Reuters, 10/17/12).
In more recent years, Australian officials led the way in getting Western governments like the US to ban Huawei’s technology on national security grounds, after conducting simulations on the offensive espionage potential of 5G technology (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/22/19). However, when one reads past sensationalist headlines and looks for evidence that Huawei is conducting espionage on behalf of the Chinese government, one comes up dry.
For instance, the Wall Street Journal’s report headlined “US Officials Say Huawei Can Covertly Access Telecom Networks” (2/12/20) cited anonymous US officials claiming that Huawei “can covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world through ‘backdoors’ designed for use by law enforcement.” When one reads further down, however, the Journal admitted that the officials “didn’t provide details of where they believe Huawei is able to do so,” and that they “declined to say” whether the US has observed Huawei taking advantage of these supposed backdoors.
This is consistent with the US government’s assumption that it doesn’t need to show proof of malicious activity by Huawei; it’s a Chinese company, and therefore could be ordered to install backdoors or share data with the Chinese government, despite denials by both Huawei and the Chinese government of those allegations (Wall Street Journal, 1/23/19). In the absence of evidence, the US government has relied on asking foreign governments to shun Huawei’s technology based on speculative “what if” scenarios (Axios, 1/30/20).
Critics of baseless US government accusations have argued that it wouldn’t make sense for China to jeopardize their own business interests by spying through Huawei’s technology, because the US and other Western countries are China’s best customers, aside from its domestic market, and it would be catastrophic if espionage were ever discovered (ZDNet, 5/20/19). This might be why Huawei has stated they are willing to sign “no spy” agreements to reassure suspicious governments that there are no backdoors in their technology (BBC, 5/19/19).
But one doesn’t need to take Huawei or the Chinese government’s word for it, as other Western governments have confirmed there is no evidence for the US government’s allegations. The British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) reported that they haven’t seen any evidence of malicious activity by Huawei, contradicting evidence-free US government allegations (Reuters, 2/20/19).
Although German spy chief Bruno Kahl claimed that Huawei “can’t be fully trusted,” he didn’t cite any evidence of malicious activity by Huawei, and the head of Germany’s IT watchdog (Federal Office for Information Security), Arne Schönbohm, stated they had “no evidence” of Huawei conducting espionage (The Local, 12/16/18). France’s cybersecurity chief, Guillaume Poupard, the head of the national cybersecurity agency ANSSI, stated that “there is no Huawei smoking gun as of today in Europe” (South China Morning Post, 1/31/20).
‘Is TikTok Spying on You?’
Because of TikTok, a Heritage Foundation analyst told CBS (11/15/20), if China “were to try and source a human-intelligence asset, well, they know the exact type of legend or profile that they need to have.”
Other speculative headlines about Chinese cyberespionage revolved around the popular social media app TikTok:
Washington Post (7/13/20): “Is it Time to Delete TikTok? A Guide to the Rumors and the Real Privacy Risks.”
Forbes (7/25/20): “Is TikTok Spying on You For China?”
Bloomberg (5/13/21): “A Push-Up Contest on TikTok Exposed a Great Cyberespionage Threat”
CBS (11/15/20): “How TikTok Could Be Used for Disinformation and Espionage”
Although these headlines suggest that the Chinese government is using the video sharing platform to spy on users, when one actually reads these reports, it becomes apparent that there is no evidence that TikTok takes more data from users than other social media apps like Facebook, or that it shares that data with the Chinese government.
CBS (11/15/20) cited numerous claims from experts they contacted about how China could potentially share data with the Chinese government or “push disinformation” through the “For You” page on the app that recommends videos–though it doesn’t mention a single instance where TikTok actually did such those things. Forbes (7/25/20) admitted that despite “all the talk, there is no solid proof that TikTok sends any data to China, there is no solid proof that any information is pulled from users’ devices over and above the prying data grabs typical of all social media platforms.” Although Bloomberg (5/13/21) stated that claims of cyberespionage are difficult to verify, it acknowledged there’s “no publicly available evidence that TikTok has passed American data to Chinese officials.” The Washington Post (7/13/20) concluded that “TikTok doesn’t appear to grab any more personal information than Facebook,” and there is “scant evidence that TikTok is sharing our data with China.”
Critics of the insinuations used by US government officials to try to ban TikTok on national security grounds have argued that “TikTok is not fundamentally different from other social media platforms,” as DW editor Fabian Schmidt (8/8/20) put it. It is of “no importance in the end who runs the platforms where people choose to put themselves on stage,” Schmidt argued, since the users themselves are “primarily responsible for protecting their own data on social media.”
However, people need not take TikTok’s word that it is not spying on behalf of the Chinese government, as groups from Citizen Lab to the CIA have concluded that there’s no evidence that Beijing has intercepted data or used the app to access users’ devices (South China Morning Post, 3/23/21; New York Times, 8/7/20).
These accusations of Chinese hardware and software conducting espionage on foreigners on behalf of the Chinese government are ironic, since there is more evidence of the US government spying on Huawei, and using Huawei’s technology to spy on others, than there is of Huawei spying for the Chinese government. And Washington has been caught inserting secret backdoors on US hardware and embedding software on mobile apps to spy on and keep track of people’s movements, while the NSA spies on Americans and people abroad operating on a “collect it all” ethos (Der Spiegel, 12/29/13; Wall Street Journal, 8/7/20).
Motives to sully Chinese tech
Breakthrough News (10/28/20): “China hysteria has become a weapon of mass distraction for the US political establishment.”
Journalist Vijay Prashad (Breakthrough News, 10/28/20) has pointed out that the US information war on China has intensified in recent years, as China’s technology industry has either become a peer competitor to or surpassed the US in certain sectors. Huawei once surpassed Apple as the second-largest smartphone maker in 2018, and TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in the US.
Despite racist insinuations that China isn’t capable of innovating and claims that its success stems primarily from stealing intellectual property from the US, China is now in the lead regarding 5G (and potentially 6G mobile technology) and artificial intelligence, and has had a lead over the US in global patent filings since 2019. China’s status as a competitor to the US and emerging leader in the tech industry has even led US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to say that the US and Europe should work together to “slow down China’s rate of innovation” (CNBC, 9/28/21).
But whereas other East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan are politically subordinate to the US, in addition to having much smaller economies, China is politically independent of the US, and has already surpassed the US’s GDP when measured in purchasing power parity terms. Western corporate media thus have less incentives to vilify those countries compared to China, since they will not be independent countries capable of rivaling the US anytime soon.
It is admittedly possible that the Chinese government is lying about not trying to conduct cyberespionage on foreign delegations at the Olympics, or spying on people through Huawei’s technology and social media platforms like TikTok. But Western media insistence on potential cyberespionage hazards are accusations without evidence. The US’s hybrid war on China includes diplomatically isolating it in world events like the Olympics, and unsubstantiated allegations of nebulous security vulnerabilities can be used to smear and sabotage China’s increasingly competitive tech industry as well.
A new investigation reveals that federal and local law enforcement agencies have been surveilling journalists and activists involved in the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd for over a year under a secretive program known as Operation Safety Net (OSN), despite claiming to have shut the operation down last April.
Officials announced OSN in February 2021, a month before the trial for former Minneapolis police officer and murderer Derek Chauvin began. Law enforcement officials claimed that the goal of the program was to ensure that the public was able to exercise its right to free speech while making sure that things like business buildings weren’t harmed in the process.
The program has gathered a vast amount of information on activists and journalists, including pictures and documentation of their locations during the protests — moves that are antithetical to the program’s supposed goal of protecting free speech. In April 2021, when Chauvin’s verdict was handed down, OSN stopped posting on social media and officials told the public that the program was stopping after it had received criticism from civil rights advocacy groups and lawmakers like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).
But reporters have found that, at least as of February, officials were still surveilling and gathering data on activists and journalists — including people who are not suspected of committing a crime — under an operation deemed OSN 2.0.
The program involved nine agencies in Minnesota, 120 officers from out of state and at least 3,000 National Guard soldiers, Tate Ryan-Mosley and Sam Richards detailed in the MIT Technology Review. Federal agencies took part, with at least six FBI agents having aided with the program and the Department of Homeland Security offering its support.
Customs and Border Protection also helped surveil protesters and the media, lending helicopters to Minneapolis police to monitor the protests at their peak, flying high to avoid detection.
At the time, police were detaining journalists and uploading information about their location, photographs of their bodies and faces, and press passes into a surveillance tool called Intrepid Reponse. The program provides law enforcement with the geolocations of targets and colleagues, and can act as a sort of database for officials looking to control protesters.
That information was presumably entered into a watch list of protesters and journalists, which MIT Technology Review obtained. The list, compiled by the Criminal Intelligence Division of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, included photos and identifying information of people arrested by the Minnesota State Patrol.
Ryan-Mosley and Richards reviewed thousands of documents and conducted dozens of interviews. “Taken together, they reveal how advanced surveillance techniques and technologies employed by the state, sometimes in an extra-legal fashion, have changed the nature of protest in the United States, effectively bringing an end to Americans’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights anonymously in public spaces,” they wrote.
Officials claim that the operation isn’t ongoing and that OSN 2.0 doesn’t exist. But the reporters found presentations, emails and intelligence that clearly referred to the operation as OSN 2.0.
OSN was originally meant to have four phases. The first phase was for planning, the second for protests during jury selection for Chauvin’s trial, and the third for during the closing arguments and verdict. But law enforcement ended up starting phase three a week before closing arguments, and began using the planned “full deployment of law enforcement and the national guard” during this time. Officers used tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray, and more.
Further, when officials announced that OSN was in phase four in April 2021, which was meant to wind the program down, the program seemed to be still ongoing. The investigation found that the program still appears to be surveilling protests in reaction to police killing 22-year-old Amir Locke after executing a no-knock warrant last month.
“The events in Minnesota have ushered in a new era of protest policing,” Ryan-Mosley and Richards wrote. “Protests that were intended to call attention to the injustices committed by police effectively served as an opportunity for those police forces to consolidate power, bolster their inventories, solidify relationships with federal forces, and update their technology and training to achieve a far more powerful, interconnected surveillance apparatus.”
While the findings of this investigation are chilling, it lines up with anecdotal and data-driven evidence that police and the government are averse to allowing left-wing protesters to demonstrate and exercise their First Amendment rights. For instance, research has shown that police are 3.5 times more likely to use force against left-wing protesters than against right-wing protesters. Meanwhile, lawmakers across the country have introduced and passed bills limiting protesters’ rights in reaction to 2020’s uprisings.
In response to the investigation, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) criticized lawmakers who have been calling for increased funding for law enforcement. “Shout out to everyone working to explode funding for surveillance programs like these across the country under the guise of ‘fund the police’ when in fact police budgets are already at some of their highest levels in US history across the country,” she said on Thursday. “No facts, just vibes.”
This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the theologian Paul Tillich’s famous book, The Courage to Be. Widely read in the days when an educated public read books, it is long forgotten. In it, Tillich surveys the history of anxiety and fear and their relation to courage, religious faith, and the meaning of life. His closing sentence – “The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt” – became acclaimed as an astute description of the existential need to find a foundation for faith and courage when their foundations were shaking.
His writing profoundly influenced many, even when they didn’t wholly agree with him. This included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, commenting on Tillich’s death in 1965, said, “His Christian existentialism gave us a system of meaning and purpose for our lives in an age when war and doubt seriously threatened all that we had come to hold dear.”
I mention The Courage to Be not to engage in a recondite theological and philosophical analysis, which is the last thing we now need, but to contrast his call for spiritual courage with what we have been experiencing pouring forth from the mass corporate media for years There is a drumbeat of fear-mongering so intense and constant that it is almost comical if it weren’t so effective in reducing people to quaking, frightened children.
Primarily about Covid and the need to obey the authorities and submit to being jabbed with mRNA Covid “Vaccines” – the idolatrous religion of bio-security – this religion of fear goes much further and much deeper. Scenarios of fear have been rehearsed and produced for decades by the intelligence/IT/media giants on a multitude of issues, large and small. They are rooted in a spiritually nihilistic political propaganda campaign that is exponentially increasing fear, anxiety, and despondency on a vast scale, which is its intent. Fearful people are easily cowered and controlled. The elites know that regular people throughout the world are fed up with being subjected to violence and abuse in multiple forms, and if courage triumphs over their fears, they might join in worldwide solidarity and revolt, as they have been doing in various places recently. To prevent this, the authorities must use terror tactics to divide and conquer them. If people dare to rise up and even question the propaganda, they have been and will be called terrorists for doing so. Dissent is now equated with terrorism and thus it must be censored.
All this fear-mongering draws on people’s normal fears of “not to be,” meaning dead. It is, of course, understandable not wanting to be dead, but living in constant fear is a living death. Tillich, who suffered deep trauma as a chaplain in the trenches of WW I and was later dismissed from his teaching position in Germany when Hitler came to power, wrote that courage is rooted in the spiritual acceptance that underlying our individual lives is the power of Being, by which he meant God, and that fear and anxiety about our fates can be confronted only through the courage to accept in faith this foundational reality.
I think it is self-evident to anyone who glances at the mainstream media that fear is their staple. In just the last week or so, I have seen The New York Times, an official organ of propaganda if there ever were one but known historically as the Grey Lady for understatement, tell its readers in a hyperventilating style that anxiety about climate change has spawned a growing field of therapeutic treatment for sufferers, how deer in your back yard are infected with Omicron, how the Russians are coming, etc. This is the typical fear promoting propaganda that headlines all the media sites every day and has been doing so for years. Any casual observer can list them on a daily basis, from major to minor matters to fear.
Yet despite this constant, blatant propaganda, governments flip the truth and warn that anyone who questions this are conspiracy theorists intent on causing trouble and therefore must be watched and refuted. Just the other day the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” saying:
The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.
After twenty years of such obvious propaganda, you would think these people would be embarrassed, but they obviously are not and intend to propagate this bullshit for years to come. They and their media accomplices have taken their lingo lessons straight from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
On the bio-security religious front alone, Kit Knightly of Off-Guardian has recently reported that the authorities have warned us that there is a vast underdiagnosis of heart disease that may stealthily be coming to get us (not from “vaccines,” of course) and that HIV testing and vaccines look to be the next big push, for there is now the claim that a new variant of HIV is spreading in Europe. President Biden declared in December 2021 that his administration was aiming to “end the HIV/Aids epidemic by 2030.” While Covid restrictions may be easing, the mRNA “vaccine push” is not, and their promoters will only find different germs to defeat with “vaccines” and tests to ease the fears of the propagandized public, so many of whom have been turned into hypochondriacs.
The promulgation of the fear of germs and disease and foreign and domestic “threat actors” is permanent. For anyone naively thinking that there will be an easing of this elite war of lies, I would suggest they rethink that assumption. The state of siege that is the Covid crisis will be followed by many more, and this germ warfare includes a vast array of foreign variants, led by Russia and China. We are in a permanent crisis and emergency engineered by the ruling classes to maintain their control.
This elite war against regular people has no end in sight. The elites know that people get worn down over time and lose hope; thus, they plan for the long haul and keep hammering away. Paul Tillich’s book is important because of its stress on the need for courage in the face of the fear-mongering. Without a spiritual foundation to sustain one for the long haul, depression will lead to despair or surrender. History should teach us this. The evil ones often win, at least in the short run, and each of us doesn’t have a long run. Our time is brief.
The great dissenters and rebels of the past, even when not overtly religious, kept faith with their comrades and causes because they felt a deep, unbreakable, invincible connection. It is called different names or none at all. Maybe faith is the best word. Faith in what? Some call it God, as I do. Words can’t explain it; I feel it. Others say nothing and just carry on, sustained by the invisible. Some call it faith in human solidarity. The names don’t matter. It is not about naming but experiencing. The poet D.H. Lawrence said wisely that we are transmitters of life, “and when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us.” And he added in his inimitable style: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.” It is not easy, but fear helps us fall out.
There were those who called Tillich an atheist because his philosophical explanation sounded too abstruse, which is true. But he made a fundamental point about how as human beings we participate in Being, which is the ground of our existence. We are part of something that is far larger than our puny selves – beings in the sea of Being. Who can deny that? His call to courage hit a resonant cord with believers, agnostics, and atheists alike. Not a poet but a German trained immigrant scholar who emigrated to the U.S.A., his language was steeped in heavy philosophical verbiage, yet it found a wide audience in its analysis of fear, anxiety, and especially courage because it was about fundamental truths. Courage is fundamental, as is faith.
The Spanish poet Antonio Machado put it less philosophically and more elegantly:
I talk always to the man who walks along with me;
– men who talk to themselves hope to talk to God
Someday –
My soliloquies amount to discussions with this friend,
Who taught me the secret of loving human beings.
….
And when the day arrives for the last leaving of all,
And the ship that never returns to port is ready to go,
You’ll find me on board, light, with few belongings,
Almost naked like the children of the sea.
We are children of the sea and courage keeps us afloat.
Humor also helps, for we are funny creatures.
It is not often that one escapes an unintended assassination attempt. I am glad to say that I have.
This is an example of the power of fear. Where I live, the winter has been quite cold and there was a recent ice storm with thick ice everywhere on top of snow. My wife was fearful of falling and so had bought hiking poles for herself and me as Christmas gifts. I said I didn’t want them and wouldn’t use them; that I wasn’t afraid, that I had faith in my ability to sustain myself. So I didn’t use them, which angered her. One day when the ice in the driveway and on the car was inches thick, she cajoled me into using the sticks to reach the car. She set them for me with their clips at the proper height, since they are adjustable. We toddled down the pathway to the car, setting one pole out ahead of the other in turn. I exaggerated my need for them, bending far over as if I were in great need of the crutches. Approaching the driveway, I extended my right hand pole out in front and it collapsed because the clips weren’t set tight and I went flying face forward onto the ice. She looked at me in fear, not sure if I was dead or hurt or if her fear had made her into an accidental assassin. She needn’t worry. It was funny.
We all fall eventually, but in the meantime, worrying about it is self-defeating. It is a reaction to fear. Worrying is a form of preying on oneself (etymology: to seize by the throat with one’s teeth and kill), and it can be induced – and is – by the campaigns of fear that we are being subjected to.
The courage to be was Tillich’s way of saying that we are upheld by far more than we know. Call it Being, Tao, the Great Spirit, or God. Courage is contagious and will carry us on. It is what we need to resist the fear-mongers who are at our throats.
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
— Frank Zappa, Interview with Jim Ladd, “Zappa On Air,” April 1977.
We are no longer free.
We are living in a world carefully crafted to resemble a representative democracy, but it’s an illusion.
We think we have the freedom to elect our leaders, but we’re only allowed to participate in the reassurance ritual of voting. There can be no true electoral choice or real representation when we’re limited in our options to one of two candidates culled from two parties that both march in lockstep with the Deep State and answer to an oligarchic elite.
We think we have freedom of speech, but we’re only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners allow.
We think we have the right to freely exercise our religious beliefs, but those rights are quickly overruled if and when they conflict with the government’s priorities, whether it’s COVID-19 mandates or societal values about gender equality, sex and marriage.
We think we have the freedom to go where we want and move about freely, but at every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. Punitive programs strip citizens of their passports and right to travel over unpaid taxes.
We think we have property interests in our homes and our bodies, but there can be no such freedom when the government can seize your property, raid your home, and dictate what you do with your bodies.
We think we have the freedom to defend ourselves against outside threats, but there is no right to self-defense against militarized police who are authorized to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, and granted immunity from accountability with the general blessing of the courts. Certainly, there can be no right to gun ownership in the face of red flag gun laws which allow the police to remove guns from people merely suspected of being threats.
We think we have the right to due process, but that assurance of justice has been stripped of its power by a judicial system hardwired to act as judge, jury and jailer, leaving us with little recourse for appeal. A perfect example of this rush to judgment can be found in the proliferation of profit-driven speed and red light cameras that do little for safety while padding the pockets of government agencies.
We have been saddled with a government that pays lip service to the nation’s freedom principles while working overtime to shred the Constitution.
By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect the constitutional rights of the citizenry while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
Aided and abetted by the legislatures, the courts and Corporate America, the government has been busily rewriting the contract (a.k.a. the Constitution) that establishes the citizenry as the masters and agents of the government as the servants.
We are now only as good as we are useful, and our usefulness is calculated on an economic scale by how much we are worth—in terms of profit and resale value—to our “owners.”
Under the new terms of this revised, one-sided agreement, the government and its many operatives have all the privileges and rights and “we the people” have none.
Only in our case, sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, we’ve allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.
The problem with these devil’s bargains, however, is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.
We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.” In exchange for the promise of safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, lower taxes, lower crime rates, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, over-criminalization and government corruption.
In the end, such bargains always turn sour.
We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day. For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.
We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.
We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”
We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red-light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in hefty fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.
We’re being subjected to the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, “we the people” are being reminded that we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis.
Indeed, there are chilling parallels between the authoritarian prison that is life in the American police state and The Prisoner, a dystopian television series that first broadcast in Great Britain more than 50 years ago.
The series centers around a British secret agent (played by Patrick McGoohan) who finds himself imprisoned, monitored by militarized drones, and interrogated in a mysterious, self-contained, cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic retirement community known only as The Village. While luxurious and resort-like, the Village is a virtual prison disguised as a seaside paradise: its inhabitants have no true freedom, they cannot leave the Village, they are under constant surveillance, their movements are tracked by surveillance drones, and they are stripped of their individuality and identified only by numbers.
Much like the American Police State, The Prisoner’s Village gives the illusion of freedom while functioning all the while like a prison: controlled, watchful, inflexible, punitive, deadly and inescapable.
Described as “an allegory of the individual, aiming to find peace and freedom in a dystopia masquerading as a utopia,” The Prisoner is a chilling lesson about how difficult it is to gain one’s freedom in a society in which prison walls are disguised within the trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and so-called democracy.
Perhaps the best visual debate ever on individuality and freedom, The Prisoner confronted societal themes that are still relevant today: the rise of a police state, the freedom of the individual, round-the-clock surveillance, the corruption of government, totalitarianism, weaponization, group think, mass marketing, and the tendency of mankind to meekly accept his lot in life as a prisoner in a prison of his own making.
The Prisoner is an operations manual for how you condition a populace to life as prisoners in a police state: by brainwashing them into believing they are free so that they will march in lockstep with the state and be incapable of recognizing the prison walls that surround them.
We can no longer maintain the illusion of freedom.
New York, January 31, 2022–Botswana authorities should retract or reform a bill that could help police and other investigators intercept journalists’ communications without oversight, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.
The Criminal Procedure and Evidence (Controlled Investigation) Bill was published in the government gazette on January 12, according to a press release by local media groups condemning the bill and media reports. Spencer Mogapi, a newspaper editor and chair of the Botswana Editors Forum, which collaborated on the press release, told CPJ by phone on Friday, January 28, that the bill could be expedited through parliament and signed into law by President Mokgweetsi Masisi this week. CPJ reviewed a copy of the bill shared by Tefo Phatshwane, the director of the Botswana chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).
The bill would grant investigators the power to intercept communications without a warrant for up to 14 days if authorized by the head of an investigatory authority to probe offenses or prevent them from being committed, according to CPJ’s review of the bill. CPJ has documented the arrest and prosecution of journalists in Botswana, and local police’s use of digital forensics tools in 2019 and 2020 to extract thousands of files from journalists’ devices, including communications and contacts, in efforts to identify sources of their reporting.
Companies that facilitate communication could see their directors imprisoned for up to 10 years if they fail to install hardware or software to enable interception; anyone that does not provide decryption keys so authorities can access encrypted information could be jailed for up to six years.
“Botswana’s parliament should scrap the controlled investigation bill, which threatens journalists’ ability to communicate privately with sources,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Authorities should implement laws that protect journalists’ privacy and safety, not expose them to surveillance without oversight.”
Jovial Rantao, chairperson of regional press association The African Editors Forum, described the bill in a statement as the “worst piece of legislation to have emerged in Botswana, the Southern African region and the rest of the continent in recent history.” The Southern Africa Editors’ Forum expressed similar alarm over the bill.
Reached by phone and messaging app on Friday, Batlhalefi Leagajang, Masisi’s press secretary, told CPJ the bill was “not under the ambit of the presidency” and the president would allow the parliamentary process to proceed before acting.
Botswana government spokesperson John-Thomas Dipowe acknowledged CPJ’s emailed questions about the bill on Friday, January 28, but did not respond before publication.
According to social media posts related to the bill on January 27, Botswana’s minister of defence, justice and security, Kagiso Thomas Mmusi, said there was a need to have a law that could plug legal and security gaps relating to issues of money laundering and financing of terrorism.
The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is a community group rooted in the Skid Row community on Tongva/Gabrielino land, stolen territory known as Los Angeles. Over the past decade, we have been working to build power to abolish LAPD surveillance. This report grew out of that organizing and examines the relationships of policing and surveillance to displacement, gentrification, and real estate development. We study those relationships with a focus on the process that has always bound policing and capitalism together: colonization.
We often hear that police are an occupying army in our communities. Throughout the history of imperialism and colonization, occupying forces have used surveillance to monitor and contain populations they deem threatening, all for the purpose of maintaining their violent rule.
Guardian RFID is a virtually unknown, but rapidly growing, company that sells digital technology to jails. It makes ID cards and bracelets that can be scanned by guards when doing head counts, meal distribution and suicide checks.
Guardian RFID is yet another prison profiteer among the ever-expanding number of companies that operate as what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “parasites,” feeding off of the prison-industrial complex. What is most disturbing about Guardian RFID are its plans for super-surveillance in the carceral environment. Guardian RFID was named by Inc. magazine as the 396th fastest-growing private company in 2021, increasing its revenue by 126 percent in three years. Guardian RFID has been around for 20 years selling its products to jails, prisons and juvenile detention centers. The company claims to provide technology for 75,000 correctional officers, who they call “Warriors” protecting “America’s Thin Gray Line.”
As mass incarceration is adapting to respond to crises of legitimacy, companies like Guardian RFID are always ready to sell new solutions to the problem of how to contain and control people. Emerging technologies present previously unimagined levels of surveillance. This system views humans like numbers, or like bar codes to be scanned and counted, not as individuals with families, histories and a future.
Weapons of Mass Data Collection
Guardian RFID sells high-tech tools that enable tight surveillance in jails. Carceral personnel deploy the hand-held Spartan 3 which is basically an Android phone with apps created for basic jail functions. The Spartan scans ID cards and wristbands worn by those incarcerated. The data is then stored on a remote cloud that, according to a Guardian RFID spokesperson, is “F*#@ing Magic.” The company says it builds artificial intelligence systems with “predictive and prescriptive insights” that will give guards “constant surveillance capabilities.”
Guardian RFID uses slick imagery and hyper-militarized language to sell its products, mostly to sheriffs in rural counties throughout the South, Midwest, and other remote areas of the U.S. where the sheriffs are powerful political figures. As it says on the Guardian RFID website, the Spartan 3 is to work with the speed and precision of a “surgical strike” — like “ISIS strongholds turned to glass.” It is a “weapon of mass data collection.” The goal is achieving “operational dominance,” what is described in further hyperbole, as “a powerful synonym for waterboarding” — a form of torture.
Guardian RFID is headquartered in Maple Grove, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. It was founded in 2001 by Ken Dalley, the company’s self-described “Chief Warrior,” a recent finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Heartland Award. Guardian RFID takes pride in being “Warrior led” but it’s not clear whether Dalley was ever a corrections officer. He did not respond to Truthout’s request for an interview. The company aims to track “every inmate” and estimates its technology tracks more than 10 percent of people incarcerated in the United States. Guardian RFID wants to “digitally transform” jails, prisons and juvenile detention centers.
Guardian RFID won its first contract in 2005 at the Hardin County Jail in Eldora, Iowa, a 107-bed facility. Located 75 miles north of Des Moines, the jail was until recently best known as the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Iowa for two decades. There, the Jail Administrator Nick Whitmore touted the Guardian RFID system for protecting his office from a lawsuit. “If there is an investigation on an assault or suicide occurrence,” said Whitmore, “we’re able to document and prove in court that there was one-on-one contact between the individual detainee and jail guard.”
After the death of Sandra Bland on July 13, 2015, Guardian RFID actively promoted its technology to jails in Texas, attempting to take advantage of reforms made in the wake of national protests. The Sandra Bland Act was passed by legislators in Texas two years after her apparent suicide. Among its requirements was that jails have “automated electronic sensors to ensure accurate and timely cell checks.” Guardian RFID lobbied sheriffs in the counties near where Bland died, winning contracts in Fort Bend County, Bezos County and Wharton County, all suburbs of Houston within an hour of the Waller County Jail where she was found hanging in her cell. Guardian RFID’s system was recently installed at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center in San Antonio, Texas, as part of a $20 million technology modernization effort, in part, to “demonstrate continuous compliance” with the Sandra Bland Act. Dallas, Texas, likely signed a million-dollar deal with Guardian RFID to be in accordance with the new state law. On Guardian RFID’s blog, there’s an entire post about the Sandra Bland Act, instructing jails how to maximize “compliance.”
Moreover, Guardian RFID will surely get more contracts after high-profile news stories like the Jeffrey Epstein scandal where guards fell asleep on the job. A wealthy financier held on federal charges of sex trafficking, Epstein hung himself with a bedsheet at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, which has since been temporarily shuttered due to security and infrastructure issues. Guards were supposed to check on Epstein every 30 minutes the night of his death. As was captured on camera, officers Michael Thomas and Tova Noel left Epstein alone for eight hours while they were napping and shopping online. Authorities charged the pair with falsifying the paper log books — but charges were dropped after the guards performed community service. Guardian RFID argues that its digital system is superior to the old paper method and thus prevents “liabilities.”
One of Guardian RFID’s largest contracts is with Sheriff Marian Brown who runs the Dallas County Jail in Texas, the seventh-largest jail in the U.S. with an average daily population of 6,000 people. The three-year contract, approved on December 15, 2020, was for a total of $1.1 million. The dollar amount for the first year was $477,770, with $391,475 coming from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2 trillion stimulus bill passed in March 2020. What carceral surveillance has to do with COVID relief was not articulated in the proposal before the Dallas County Commissioner’s Court. The remainder of the bill — $86,295 — was to be paid from commissions the sheriff makes off the commissary fund, the money that comes from the inflated prices people at the jail pay for personal items like toothpaste, deodorant and socks. The cost was $314,979 for the subsequent two years of the contract. There is big money to be made in selling total surveillance technology.
Automating Repression
At the Polk County Jail System in central Florida, Guardian RFID provides the ID tags that are required for everyone in custody who enters through the jail gates. There are nearly 4,000 people incarcerated in three separate jails — Central County Jail, South County Jail and Central Booking. Guardian RFID makes the audacious claim that people “take pride in their ID cards and even feel important having to wear them.” Guardian RFID founder Dalley took a tour of Polk’s modern processing center, what he says is by far the “most impressive and groundbreaking” of its kind. With the help of Guardian RFID technology, Polk’s guards collect 42 million log entries in a year to “automate” compliance with Florida Model Jail Standards, guidelines established by the Florida Sheriff’s Association. But to Guardian RFID, it seems, the thousands of people they tag are not real people. They are just data points.
The massive data collection project at the Polk County Jail did not prevent the death of Shaun Seaman, who on May 13, 2020, was beaten to death while on suicide watch. The guards were supposed to check the cell every 15 minutes, as was protocol, but failed to physically check on Seaman for four and a half hours after the attack. The family filed a civil lawsuit and is being represented by high-profile civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.
The website for the DeSoto County Adult Detention Facility in Mississippi, says Guardian RFID’s technology is approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), radio frequency levels are similar to those in consumer electronics, and the devices are hypoallergenic. Those who refuse to wear the “non-implantable devices” will be “subject to fines and disciplinary action, including prosecution.”
Guardian RFID has a contract for the Sherburne County Jail, a 732-bed jail, one of the largest jails in the Twin Cities area of St. Paul-Minneapolis, not far from Guardian RFID’s headquarters. Sheriff Joel Brott runs a “forward-thinking” office said Guardian RFID President Dalley. The jail also generates extra revenue by housing 500 people detained by ICE and U.S. Marshals, as well as individuals from local and regional jails. Sheriff Brott used these extra income flows to pay for upgrading the facility — in this case, installing Guardian RFID’s system. Like many sheriffs, Brott further monetizes incarceration to pay for his jail. Some are more imaginative than others, like one sheriff in Kentucky.
A “Self-Sufficient” Jail
Jailer Jamie Mosley has developed what he says is the first “self-sufficient” jail. In January 2020, Mosley opened the Laurel County Correctional Center, based in London, Kentucky. The new $24 million jail holds twice the capacity of the previous facility. The new jail came in under budget — due to the unpaid labor of individuals in custody. “The flooring in the hallways, and all of the stone work in the showers was done by the inmates,” Mosley told the local press.
Due to a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, the county is reimbursed $54 per day for each person at the Laurel County jail, plus any medical costs. The federal detainees come from the Eastern District of Kentucky, as well as the larger cities of Knoxville, Chattanooga, Greenville and Nashville. Mosley said thejail is self-sufficient and operates on zero tax dollars. With the extra revenue, Mosley contracted with Guardian RFID, which he says, “gives us so much more accountability than we had before.”
The jail also generated even more revenue for Mosley, who founded his own company called Crossbar to sell bendable e-cigarettes to those in his custody, as well as in other jails. According to a report by Vice, Crossbar sold its e-cigs to 33 jails and in 2018 was expected to make $35 million. Mosley has been unashamed about his exploitation of those he holds under lock and key. “I remind our staff,” he told a local newspaper, “that most of the time our job is to take better care of people than they were taking of themselves.”
Guardian RFID disguises some of its profiteering through what it promotes as humanitarian work. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guardian RFID formed Warrior Foundation, a nonprofit organization to raise money to purchase masks for guards whose “sacrificial and heroic efforts are unseen.” The Warrior Foundation launched “Operation: Swift Mask” with two other major prison profiteers, Securus Technologies and GTL, that provide phone calls for over-priced rates. They raised money to send 250,000 masks inside to jails and prisons.
On one level, the overall mission of Guardian RFID is nothing new — making money off of locking people up. But by combining more traditional elements of overcharging for services with a cutting-edge surveillance system inside jails, Guardian RFID is opening a new frontier of tightening the screws on a population that already faces systematic repression and dehumanization.
Within a day of the massive volcanic eruption that rocked Tonga and severed the archipelago’s communications with the rest of the world, a handful of countries vying for influence in the region pledged financial aid.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, 60 km north of the capital Nuku’alofa, blew up on January 15, sending tsunami waves across the Pacific and shock waves around the world.
The eruption cut the tiny kingdom’s only fibre-optic cable, to Fiji, 800 km to the west, leaving its 110,000 residents without internet or voice connections to the world.
New Zealand has sent two naval ships equipped with desalination equipment and aid materials to Tonga, which is covid-free and has effectively closed its borders. Only fully vaccinated personnel are allowed to enter the country.
Within hours of the eruption, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced an immediate grant of NZ$100,000 (US$68,000) and mobilised naval and air forces to rush help to Tonga.
Australia followed, and a day later China pledged $100,000. The US followed shortly thereafter, with all donors making it clear it was the first round of aid.
Heavy debt to Beijing
Siaosi Sovaleni, Tonga’s newly elected prime minister, knows his islands have little money and a heavy debt to Beijing. After political riots in 2006 that resulted in the destruction of Nuku’alofa’s central business districts, China was the only country willing to help rebuild, but only through a loan, not aid.
Tonga still owes $108 million to the Export-Import Bank of China, equivalent to about 25 percent of its gross domestic product and about $1000 per Tongan.
The debt at times has threatened to bankrupt Tonga, one of the Pacific’s poorest countries, but China repeatedly declines to write it off.
Suspicion around Beijing’s agenda has grown with the construction of a lavish and large embassy in Nuku’alofa. Surveillance pictures suggest it was undamaged by the tsunami.
The Chinese Embassy in Tonga … photographed before the volcano eruption and tsunami. Image: Wikimedia/GNU Free Documentation Licence
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tweeted that Australia must be first to give Tonga assistance.
“Failing that,” he said, “China will be there in spades.” He added that large Australian warships should be sent immediately: “It’s why we built them.”
China’s Global Times, the English language mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial saying, “Tonga is in need of emergency aid, and China said it is willing to help.”
Huawei interests in Pacific
It noted that the volcano had taken out Tonga’s submarine cable and refers to attempts by Huawei to operate in the South Pacific.
“It is important to note that in addition to providing necessary supplies, China is capable of helping Pacific island nations with their reconstruction work,” the Global Times said.
“In fact, in recent years, Chinese companies such as technology giant Huawei have been actively pursuing infrastructure projects in Pacific island nations, of which the construction of submarine fibre optic cables is an important part.”
Huawei had attempted to be involved in cables in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, but Australia succeeded in blocking the bids.
The Global Times said some Western countries, led by the US, are trying to block such cooperation as they see Pacific island nations “as a place for competing for geopolitical influence and publicly claim to counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific”.
The tabloid added Pacific island nations did not want to be forced to pick sides between China and the US.
The Nuku’alofa riot occurred on 16 November 2006 when the country was under a royal and noble-dominated regime that essentially ruled out democracy. Following the ascension to the throne of the late King Tupou V, pro-democracy and criminal groups set fire to the capital.
A P-3K2 Orion surveillance aircraft flies over Nomuka island in the Ha’apai group of the kingdom of Tonga, showing extensive ash damage from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano. Image: NZ Defence Force
Consequences of ‘soft loan’
Then Prime Minister Fred Sevele asked China for $100 million in aid but instead received a soft loan of $112 million to fund the rebuilding of Nuku’alofa, repayable over 20 years.
The consequences of the loan were profound for Tonga, and a subsequent prime minister, the late ‘Akilisi Pohiva, used the matter to win elections.
In 2013 Pohiva said the kingdom had debts it could never repay: “Our hands and feet have already been tied,” he said.
“We need a government by the people that can work this out with the Chinese government in a way Tongans now and in the future will not suffer catastrophic consequences.”
He said he feared the Chinese would take over the running of Tonga.
“If we fail to meet the requirements and conditions set out in the agreement,” he said, “we have to pay the cost for our failure to meet the conditions.”
Help less flat-footed
Jonathan Pryke, director of the Pacific Islands Programme at Australia’s Lowy Institute, said help to Tonga from Australia and New Zealand had been less flat-footed than it was during the recent anti-China riots in the Solomon Islands. Pryke wondered if Tonga was different because of the nature of the crisis.
“While valuable in its own right, the support Australia and New Zealand provide is not entirely altruistic,” Pryke said. “This support generates a lot of goodwill and ‘soft power’ in the region, and gives Australian and New Zealand defence assets the chance to ‘get into the field.’”
Pryke said Australia and New Zealand were both eager, now more than ever, in light of the geostrategic competition with China, to show the region that they were its best and most reliable foreign partners.
“With that said, Tongan officials are much wiser now in what support they will accept from China than in 2006, as repayments on that debt continue to be pushed off but will be monumentally costly for the government when they finally do come due.”
New Zealand-based security consultant Dr Paul Buchanan of 36th-Parallel.com said he wondered why China was being slow in its reaction. It previously sent a navy hospital ship to Tonga, but not this time.
He noted the cable had only recently gone into Tonga and that two years ago it was damaged by a ship’s anchor. While coincidental, the latest severing offers an opportunity for China.
Opportunity for China’s signals fleet
“Getting involved in the process of repair/replacement of the branch cables linking Suva to Nuku’alofa… allows [China’s] signals fleet to get involved in a way that it has not been able to do before,” Dr Buchanan said.
Noting Beijing’s unexpectedly large embassy in Tonga, Dr Buchanan said China might act in its own self-interest rather than out of a sense of humanitarianism.
“Perhaps the kingdom knows this and will try to leverage the PRC’s slow response in favour of more favorable reconstruction terms,” Dr Buchanan said. “But I am not sure that the king and his court play that way.
“New Zealand and Australia seem to have responded as could be expected, but if my read is correct, [China] seems willing to cede [the] diplomatic initiative to the ‘traditional’ patrons on the issue of immediate humanitarian relief.”
Michael Field is an independent New Zealand journalist and co-editor of The Pacific Newsroom. This article was first published by Nikkei Asia and is republished with permission.
A World Health Organisation representative in Tonga says the international airport has been cleared of volcanic ash which will allow humanitarian aid flights to arrive.
Hundreds of volunteers, workers and Tongan Defence Force personnel have been clearing the debris from the runway by hand.
WHO liaison officer in Tonga Dr Yutaro Setoya, who is in the capital Nuku’alofa on the main island Tongatapu, said there had been a thick layer of ash on the runway preventing planes from landing.
“The runway, I understand, was cleared to be able to be used from outside [the country]. I understand humanitarian flights are coming in,” Dr Setoya told RNZ by satellite phone.
A New Zealand Defence Force C-130 Hercules is on standby and will be able to to take off once the all clear has been given, bringing supplies of water, hygiene kits and other goods.
Two Australian Air Force Hercules are also ready to depart.
One of Tonga’s main communications providers, Digicel, said it had restored international calls to Tonga via satellite.
Undersea communications cable delay
But until the undersea communications cable is restored its network services will not be fully operational, it said.
It is expected to take at least a month to complete repairs on the cable that carries the bulk of internet and phone communications to Tonga.
Digicel Tonga is giving out free sim cards from Thursday morning, with the company saying it knows how desperate family and friends overseas are to connect with relatives.
Three people are confirmed to have died after Saturday’s massive volcanic eruption and tsunami.
‘Contactless’ aid
Their first task is to offload desperately needed water, but distributing supplies will be complicated by the need to maintain covid-19 protocols.
Tonga is free of the virus, and Tongan and New Zealand officials are still working out how foreign assistance can be done in a contactless way.
A second New Zealand Defence Force P3 Orion surveillance flight was carried out on Wednesday and also included Fiji’s southern Lau Islands, at the request of the government of Fiji.
The Tongan government has begun a huge cleanup operation in the capital.
Dr Setoya said Tonga needed access to emergency funding and immediate humanitarian supplies from overseas, but he believed most of the response to the devastating volcanic eruption could be handled domestically.
He said people affected by the volcanic eruption were resilient and strong and were helping others clean up.
“Tongan people are strong and very quick to react,” he said.
“People are cleaning ashes from the ground and the roof … hand in hand, cleaning the houses together. So I think there’s a good energy in Tonga.”
He said Tonga needed rain to wash away the ash.
“Because ash is everywhere and has to be washed away before we get clean water [from roofs] … many people depend on rain water in Tonga.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New images appear to show the majority of structures on the Tongan island of Atatā have been wiped out after a volcanic eruption and tsunami last weekend.
The New Zealand Defence Force has described the damage to the island of Atatā as “catastrophic” in its surveillance photo, which was posted online by a resort based there.
The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) also released an image of Atatā island on January 18, with an assessment that 72 structures had been damaged and the entire island covered in ash.
The UN Institute for Training and Research image of Atatā island on January 18, with an assessment that 72 structures had been damaged and the entire island covered in ash. Image: RNZ/UNITAR
However, it noted it was a preliminary analysis and had not yet been validated on the ground.
The Royal Sunset Island resort posted on Facebook that all residents had now been evacuated to the mainland.
The resort was fully submerged by the tsunami and it was not expected there would be much left.
Other satellite imagery circulating online also appeared to show major damage on the island.
The ships were sent before an official request for help from the Tongan government, but the statement from Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta’s office this afternoon confirmed the vessels — expected to arrive by Friday, depending on weather — had been approved.
So hard to tell what’s going on here at the Vakaloa Beach Resort… maybe this is just completely covered in ash. You can see the outline of the wall on the left, and a line along the sand where the building is/was… could conceivably be completely covered in ash. pic.twitter.com/F3ZRwAkmTr
The eruption was likely the world’s largest in the past three decades, and support and aid efforts have been stymied by communications outages after the blast.
US company SubCom expected repairs to the undersea cable, which carries most of Tonga’s communications, would take at least four weeks.
A mobile network was expected to be established using the University of South Pacific’s satellite dish today, though the connection would likely be limited and patchy.
Volcanic activity and tsunami risk continues to be monitored.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Tongan government has confirmed that all houses on the island of Mango were wiped out in the tsunami that followed Saturday’s volcanic eruption.
It confirmed that three people are now known to have died: a 65-year-old woman in Mango and a 49-year-old man in Nomuka, both in the outlying Ha’apai island group; as well as British national Angela Glover in Tongatapu.
The Tongan navy had deployed with health teams and water, food and tents to the Ha’apai islands.
One aerial image taken by the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) showed Mango and described the damage there as “catastrophic”.
No houses, but just a few temporary tarpaulin shelters could be seen.
A view over Nomuka in Tonga from a New Zealand Defence Force P-3K2 Orion surveillance flight after the islands were hit by a tsunami triggered by an undersea volcanic eruption. Image: RNZ/NZ Defence Force
The Tongan government said Mango, Atata, and Fonoifua islands were being evacuated, and that water supplies in Tonga were seriously affected. It said all houses were destroyed on Mango Island, only two houses remained on Fonoifua and extensive damage occurred on Nomuka Island.
The government also said there were multiple injuries.
First official Tongan statement
It is the first official statement the kingdom has made about the disaster to international media.
The government said parts of the western side of Tongatapu, including Kanokupolu, were being evacuated after dozens of houses were damaged, and that in the central district many houses were damaged in Kolomotu’a and on the island of ‘Eua.
A diplomat, Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie, earlier described the images taken by the NZDF reconnaissance flight as “alarming”, saying they showed numerous buildings missing on Atata island as well.
“People panic, people run and get injuries,” Tu’ihalangingie told Reuters. “Possibly there will be more deaths and we just pray that is not the case.”
With communications in the South Pacific island nation cut, the true extent of casualties is still not clear.
Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said conditions on other outer islands were “very tough, we understand, with many houses being destroyed in the tsunami”.
The Tongan navy reported the area was hit by waves estimated to be 5m-10m high, said the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Fonoifua Island in Ha’apai, Tonga, as seen from an NZDF P-3 Orion reconnaissance flight after the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai. The image caption says all but the largest buildings were destroyed or severely damaged. Image: RNZ/NZDF
Atata and Mango are between 50km and 70km from the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2300km away in New Zealand when it erupted on Saturday.
Atata has a population of about 100 people and Mango about 50 people.
“It is very alarming to see the wave possibly went through Atata from one end to the other,” Tu’ihalangingie said.
Workers on airport runway
The NZDF images were posted unofficially on a Facebook site and confirmed by Tu’ihalangingie.
Fua’amotu International Airport in Tonga as seen from a New Zealand Defence Force P-3 Orion reconnaisance flight, after the eruption of Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai. The image caption says workers are using shovels and wheelbarrows to clear volcanic ash from the runway. Image: Crown copyright 2022/NZDF/RNZ
Taken from a P-3K2 Orion plane, they also showed workers on the runway clearing volcanic ash at Fua’amotu International Airport, the country’s main airfield.
One caption described the runway as “unserviceable” because of the layer of ash on it, meaning aircraft cannot land there.
It said the clearance operation was being done with shovels and wheelbarrows, and that “no heavy excavation machinery was observed”.
The Tongan government said wharves were also damaged in the eruption.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Nomuka Island in Ha’apai, Tonga, as seen from an NZDF P-3 Orion reconnaisance flight after the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai. The image caption says extensive damage was observed through the village with most coastal buildings destroyed. Image: RNZ/NZDF
An RNZAF P-3K2 Orion aircraft flies over the small Tongan island of Nomuka showing the heavy ash fall from last Saturday’s volcanic eruption on Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.
Five Squadron crew worked on board while flying overhead to gather vital information to send back to New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and other government agencies.
Serious damage has been reported from the west coast of Tongatapu and a state of emergency has been declared.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed two deaths so far, but Fiji-based United Nations Coordinator Jonathan Veitch said there were still areas that had not been contacted.
Acting High Commissioner for New Zealand in Tonga Peter Lund told Tagata Pasifika he could see rubble, large rocks and damaged buildings, with serious damage along the west coast of Tongatapu.
“There is a huge clean-up operation underway, the town has been blanketed in a thick blanket of volcanic dust, but look they’re making progress… roads are being cleared,” he said.
“I have worked in a lot of emergencies but this is one of the hardest in terms of communicating and trying to get information from there. With the severing of the cable that comes from Fiji they’re just cut off completely,” he said.
“We’re relying 100 percent on satellite phones.
‘Bit of a struggle’
“We’ve been discussing with New Zealand and Australia and UN colleagues … and we hope to have this [cable] back up and running relatively soon, but it’s been a bit of a struggle.”
It had been “a lot more difficult” than regular operations, Veitch said.
One of the biggest concerns in the crisis was clean water, he said.
“I think one of the first things that can be done is if those aircraft or those ships that both New Zealand and Australia have offered can provide bottled drinking water. That’s a very small, short-term solution.
“We need to ensure that the desalination plants are functioning well and properly … and we need to send a lot of testing kits and other material over there so people can treat their own water, because as you know, the vast majority of the population in Tonga is reliant on rainwater.
“And with the ash as it currently is, it has been a bit acidic, so we’re not sure of the quality of the water right now.”
Access in ‘covid-free nation’
Another issue was access.
“Tonga is one of the few lucky countries in the world that hasn’t had covid … so we’ll have to operate rather remotely. So we’ll be supporting the government to do the implementation and then working very much through local organisations.”
For those in Tonga who were cut off, Veitch said the main message was “everybody is working day and night on this. We are putting our supplies together. We are ready to move.
“We have teams on the ground. We are coming up with cash and other supply solutions … so help is on its way”.
Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie, said Tonga was concerned that aid deliveries could spread covid-19 to the covid-free nation.
“We don’t want to bring in another wave — a tsunami of covid-19,” Tu’ihalangingie told a news agency by telephone, urging the public to wait for a disaster relief fund to donate.
Aid needs to be quarantined
Any aid sent to Tonga would need to be quarantined, and it was likely no foreign personnel would be allowed to disembark aircraft, he said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there had been no contact from the Ha’apai group of islands and there was “particular concern” about two small low-lying islands — Fonoi and Mango, where an active distress beacon had been detected.
According to the Tonga government, 36 people live on Mango and 69 on Fonoi.
Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja said Tongan officials were planning to evacuate people from outer islands where “they’re doing it very tough, we understand, with many houses being destroyed in the tsunami”.
Royal New Zealand Air Force aircrew in the P-3K2 Orion aircraft monitoring the Tongan tsunami damage on yesterday’s surveillance flight. Image: RNZDF/Licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0
The NZ Defence Force reports that following the successful surveillance and reconnaissance flight of and RNZAF Orion yesterday, “imagery and details have been sent to relevant authorities in Tonga by the NZ government” to help decisions about aid needed.
“Images showed ashfall on Nuku’alofa airport runway that must be cleared before our Hercules aircraft can land,” the Defence Force media release said.
Royal New Zealand Navy ships HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa are departing New Zealand today so they can respond quickly if called upon by the Tongan government.
HMNZS Wellington will be carrying hydrographic survey and diving teams and a Seasprite helicopter. HMNZS Aotearoa will carry bulk water supplies and humanitarian and disaster relief stores.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. It may include some agency content.
It is a sad fact that it requires a major anniversary, two decades on from the arrival of the first prisoners in hoods and orange jumpsuits at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray prison, for the media and the U.S. public to pay attention to Guantánamo and the 39 men who remain imprisoned there.
The 741 men who have been released have been almost entirely forgotten by the public. The truth is that the U.S. has largely washed its hands of those it tortured and imprisoned without charge or trial for years on end, outsourcing its responsibility to support the reentry of these men to other countries, usually in the Global South, in some cases with fatal consequences.
I work for the only project in the world that is solely dedicated to assisting people formerly imprisoned in Guantánamo to rebuild their lives — a project run by the human rights charity Reprieve. Many of the men we’ve assisted have been dropped by the U.S. into a country they’ve never been to before, where they have no contacts or networks and possibly don’t even speak the language.
Our research shows that almost one in three detainees who have been resettled in third countries have not been granted legal status documents. And even those who are granted residency find that rather than receive the support they need, they are stigmatized and kept under surveillance.
Often, host countries don’t allow the family of the former detainee to join him or even visit, after families have already been kept apart for so long. In one of the most heart-breaking cases I’ve worked on, the host country refused visit requests from the former detainee’s mother for five years, and by the time they finally acquiesced, she had died, having not seen her son for more than 20 years.
Deprived of citizenship or residency rights, people who were previously imprisoned in Guantánamo cannot get a job, access health care (including psychological support), education and other vital services. They may not be able to open a bank account, get a driver’s license, and if living in a country with checkpoints, can’t pass through them. Without this most basic passport to participation in society, they are effectively confined to the shadows.
The program that I work for, called “Life After Guantánamo,” tries to help survivors of Guantánamo living in these dire circumstances. Founded by Reprieve in 2009, the program has helped 130 men living in 29 countries.
Reprieve has legally represented more than 80 Guantánamo detainees and helped more people secure release from the prison than any other organization. Through the Life After Guantánamo program, we request that governments give people who were formerly held in the prison the tools needed to rebuild their lives, or, failing that, we seek to do so ourselves. With support, many detainees, whether repatriated to their home countries or resettled in host countries, have been able to start that process.
Yet even detainees with those comparative “success stories” continue to be haunted by the time they spent in U.S. custody. “It feels like I am still there, I just changed for the big Guantánamo,” one former prisoner told me. “When I close my eyes I am back in Guantánamo, so I can’t sleep,” confided another.
I visited one detainee after he’d been resettled who wouldn’t leave his new apartment. Although physically he was a free man, mentally he was still imprisoned. Detained in Guantánamo for 15 years since he was only 18 years old, he had become so institutionalized that he couldn’t cope with freedom. With support, he’s now learned the language of his new home country, formed friendships and is undergoing vocational training.
Many aren’t given that chance. In some cases, men are released from Guantánamo only to be immediately imprisoned again. Twenty-three men were transferred to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), expecting to live as free men, but were detained upon their arrival in horrific conditions when the UAE reneged on assurances given to the U.S. Most of them have been forcibly repatriated to Yemen, despite concerns about their safety. One man, Ravil Mingazov, could be repatriated to Russia where he faces persecution and, as confirmed by the United Nations, a “substantial risk of torture.”
When Senegal deported two former detainees to Libya, they immediately disappeared into militia-run prisons. Although they have since been found and released, they are at risk of being detained again. Former detainees resettled in Kazakhstan and Mauritania died of medical problems because they could not access health care as they had not been afforded basic rights.
Most resettlements were negotiated during Barack Obama’s presidency, and once Donald Trump took over, the U.S. appeared to completely disengage from what was happening to them once resettled, giving host countries license to mistreat and abuse them.
President Joe Biden can end the lottery that determines whether people formerly imprisoned in Guantánamo are given any chance at life. He can ensure that resettlements and repatriations are done safely, without former detainees being put at risk of imprisonment or persecution, that they are afforded citizenship or rights as residents and that their loved ones are able to join them. These demands should be central to the campaign to close Guantánamo, because Guantánamo can continue to imprison, and even kill, after men escape its four walls.
Disgracefully, the U.S. offers no compensation to these men for the unspeakable horrors they suffered in U.S. custody. The very least the Biden administration can do is ensure that once released from Guantánamo, former prisoners are actually given the opportunity to know freedom.
CPJ is concerned that U.S. President Joe Biden has not addressed many of the Obama and Trump-era limitations on press freedom. In ‘Night and Day’, a CPJ special report on the Biden administration’s relationship with the press during its first year in office, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. found that while some progress has been made, key problems outlined in his reports on the previous two administrations remained. These range from freedom of information requests that remain backlogged, stymieing reporters’ ability to cover matters of public interest; limited access to the southern border; and the use of the Espionage Act against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Embrace good practice and transparency in dealing with the press by speaking to reporters on the record and avoiding overuse of on background briefings and quote approval. Make the president more accessible to reporters.
Instruct all government departments to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in a timely manner without regard to the media organizations or reporters filing those requests. Enforce prompt and less restrictive responses to FOIA requests to facilitate greater transparency.
Implement restrictions that would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to obtain warrants before searching electronic devices. Require both agencies to release transparency reports about such searches.
Prohibit DHS and CBP agents from intimidating and singling out journalists for questioning and/ or asking journalists about their work .
Codify the new DOJ policy restricting federal prosecutors’ ability to obtain journalists’ phone and email records in government leak investigations.
Prioritize and support passage of legislation – such as Senator Ron Wyden’s PRESS Act – that would protect journalists’ First Amendment rights against government prosecution for using and receiving confidential and classified information. The legislation should expansively define journalists, and shield reporters’ communication records, ensuring that the government cannot compel journalists to disclose sources or unpublished reporting information.
Stop the misuse of the Espionage Act to hinder press freedom: Drop the espionage charges against Julian Assange and cease efforts to extradite him to the U.S. Put into place legislation that would prevent the use of the Espionage Act as a means to halt news gathering activity.
Ensure that U.S. companies or individuals are not contributing to the secret surveillance of journalists abroad, and that foreign companies face targeted sanctions for enabling authoritarian governments to spy on journalists.
Take action against impunity in the murder of journalists: Impose sanctions on Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, holding the leader to account for his role in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Process P-2 visa applications for Afghan journalists as rapidly as possible and be communicative about which cases are being processed; allow P-2 processing for individuals who have reached the U.S.; and provide support and protection to journalists still in Afghanistan or who have escaped to third countries.
Support the creation of an emergency visa for journalists at-risk around the world (such as in section 6 of the International Press Freedom Act of 2021) to ensure solutions are in place for future crises like the one in Afghanistan.
After talking and writing about it, I finally ditched my smartphone and switched to a flip phone, with the aim of being rid of a cell phone altogether.
It’s only been a few days, but the psychological and spiritual effect has been uplifting. I had come to view the stupid smartphone as one of the principal portals into our individual and collective imprisonment. Vaccine passports, digital ID’s, constant surveillance and control, all rely on us remaining chained to a gadget less than two decades old.
So chucking it felt not only necessary but cleansing, a Detox from addiction and dependency, a small step away from the increasingly repressive biosecurity state, which is confident that the masses will never get rid of this particular digital technology because, don’t you know, we simply can’t live without it.
I totally get the difficulties, though. For millions of people, the smartphone is a vital component to one’s job or education. I’m one of the fortunate ones where this doesn’t apply, and only for the grace have I been able to opt out relatively easy. I only got a cell phone five years ago; and a smartphone two years ago, mainly because of family members who virtually lived on text. I was also traveling a lot, and apps like Google Maps were a God-send.
But mainly I hated the thing, hated the feeling that I was growing used to it, embracing it even, eyes and ears magnetized to the screen. When the COVID nightmare came along, with its dystopian plans for an AI and QR future, my smartphone mutated into what it perhaps always was: a shackle. An instrument from which the powers-that-be were sneering at me, another fly trapped in their web.
I knew there existed plenty of warriors working on wresting control of digital technology from the ruling elite, and I fully support those efforts. Personally, however, I hungered for another route. I wanted off the express train, or to at least move towards that goal. Last year, I wrote an article about why I’m often a Luddite wannabe, and one of the questions I posed then was: Is it time to ditch the smartphone? At the time, I had purchased an unlocked Acatel flip phone on Ebay for less than $100, but never got around to doing the switch.
A week ago, I made the leap. It was surprisingly straight-forward. Here’s how it went down:
Since I’m a Verizon customer, I went to the dealership where I first set up a cell account a few years ago. Luckily, the workers there weren’t mask crazy, so I kept mine under my nose. It turned out I couldn’t just transfer my phone number because I was changing devices. Fine, I said. My current account still had a few days left, so I would just text the few people I used the phone for and let them know.
The young clerk at the counter was very nice and supportive. At one point, he told me that a lot of people were changing to flip phones because they were “easier to use.” Privately, I wondered if some of these people were as wary of the COVID bullshit and surveillance as I was.
I smiled and said, “Slow and simple is a better life style.” He nodded and agreed. I paid the activation fee, tested my new toy, and all was well.
“Have a happy holiday,” he said as we shook hands.
“You too,” I said.
Outside I pumped my fist in the air, as if I had scored a game-winning touchdown. I realized, of course, that this wasn’t some earth-shattering event. Yet it felt good to have moved in the right direction, a small step back to the slow and simple, which, paradoxically, could very well speed up resistance to the COVID agenda.
The Olympic Winter Games take place in Beijing, China from February 4-20, 2022. Journalists covering the event are likely to face a range of challenges from coronavirus restrictions to digital surveillance.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern about the ability of the press to work freely during the event. China has been the world’s worst jailer of journalists for three years running. Domestic journalists in mainland China face increasing censorship and control while the international media are operating in a hostile environment; the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) noted that the international media have been unable to attend press conferences and cover Games preparation, such as the arrival of the Olympic torch, for reasons including a requirement to submit COVID-19 test results within an impossible time frame. In March 2021, the FCCC said 20 international journalists had been expelled in the preceding year, while reporters are frequently followed and interviewees scared to engage. In the past, CPJ documented foreign journalists facing harassment and threats in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics.
Zero COVID-19 policy
China is enforcing strict anti-COVID-19 measures across the country. As of January 11, Chinese officials had reported outbreaks of the omicron variant of the virus and locked down some cities to try and contain it, though the closed loop was unaffected. The situation is fluid, so monitor news reports before departure.
The Winter Games will take place within a “closed loop” or bubble that has already been put into place. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published a playbook for broadcasters and the press with the following guidance:
Travel to Beijing will only be possible if you have valid Games accreditation or a visa supported by a Beijing 2022 invitation letter. You must have all the necessary pre-departure testing conducted by a Chinese Embassy-approved provider. If you have previously contracted COVID-19, you need to complete an additional vetting process at least eight days before departure.
You are advised to download the My 2022 smartphone app at least 14 days before traveling to China. (See digital security information below).
Anyone entering the bubble must be fully vaccinated or face a 21-day quarantine. You are not allowed to leave the closed loop. Everyone will be tested daily and must wear face masks at all times.
Visitors can only use dedicated Games transportation to enter or move within the closed loop, as well as to exit, which is permitted only to leave the country.
As part of your organization’s registration, you will be assigned a COVID-19 Liaison Officer. They are your point of contact for information or if you contract COVID-19 at any stage of travel or within the bubble.
If you are confirmed to have a positive test for COVID-19, you will not be able to participate further. If symptomatic, you will be isolated at a designated hospital. If asymptomatic, you will be placed in an isolation facility.
Digital security
China and the IOC have promised a free and open internet inside the closed loop, but restrictions are possible in practice. The internet in China is strictly controlled by the government, meaning that services and websites are frequently blocked. People use virtual private networks to bypass censorship though China has technically banned unlicensed VPNs.
If you are travelling to Beijing, assume your devices and online activity will be monitored. The more you can do in advance of travel to prepare your accounts and devices, the safer your data will be.
Top digital security tips for journalists at the Beijing Olympics
Leave your devices home. Wipe an old phone and laptop or purchase new ones for the trip.
In case of restrictions, ask journalists in China which apps and VPNs work for them.
Create a new work email specifically for the trip.
Assume your hotel room is under surveillance.
Keep your devices with you and avoid leaving them unattended.
Wipe all devices on your return.
Risk assessment
Conduct a risk assessment before travel; use CPJ’s template if you need one.
Staff journalists should ask newsroom IT support or security teams for organizational digital safety guidance.
Prepare your devices
Phones and laptops could be contaminated with malware while in China, and you should leave both personal and work devices at home. Use an old phone and laptop or buy new devices for the assignment.
Prepare your devices for airport security and border crossings following guidance in CPJ’s Digital Safety Kit.
Wipe old devices before you travel. (Back up anything you might need first.)
Delete all inessential apps and services.
Install or update essential apps and services immediately before travel to make sure you have the latest software.
Check your phone and mobile internet service will work in China.
Data and accounts
Your online accounts hold a lot of information about you – including your work, your sources, and your family – so plan to use as few as possible on your trip.
Understand that all data stored in online services – public and private – could be vulnerable should you log into an account while in China.
Limit which social media and messaging platforms you will use to those that are essential for contacting work or family. Consider having a backup way to reach people in case one does not work in practice.
Ask journalists already in China to recommend a functioning VPN and try to find a few options in case you encounter internet restrictions. Note that accessing an unlicensed VPN could be used against you if officials are looking for an excuse to penalize you.
Avoid installing the Chinese app WeChat on your devices, since it is likely to collect a lot of data, including messages and calls.
Review accounts on the services you have chosen and remove any content that you would not want others to see, such as contact details for sensitive sources, or personal photos and messages.
Create a new work email account specifically for China and use it for the duration of your trip. Avoid logging into your regular work services like email completely in case the content is exposed, and prepare colleagues and away messages accordingly.
Review what information is available about you via your online profiles and remove anything that you are uncomfortable having in the public domain. (See CPJ’s guide to removing personal data from the internet.)
Chinese officials may monitor social media and take offense at comments or activities that could be construed as being critical of China.
COVID-19 App and QR codes
All journalists accredited to cover the Beijing Winter Olympics are required to download the My 2022 app to monitor health, and to register online for two QR codes. The IOC playbook notes that you will need to log into the Beijing 2022 Health Monitoring System and start inputting the required information 14 days prior to travel. The playbook details how to install and set up the app (page 62); data collected by the app (page 66); and how to log into and use the QR codes (pages 64-65).
Only install the app on the device you have selected specifically for your China trip; keep it off your personal or work phone.
Once the app is installed, avoid using the device or carrying it with you until you are ready to leave.
While in China
Keep your devices on your person and avoid leaving them unattended.
Assume that everything you do online will be monitored.
Any call made using a hotel landline or cell phone is not encrypted and can be intercepted.
Be aware that you may not have Wi-Fi in your hotel room.
Any conversation you have in your hotel room may be subject to eavesdropping.
Internet access will be provided if you have to isolate because of COVID-19, according to the IOC playbook.
On your return
Staff journalists should debrief with IT or security colleagues and follow their guidance.
Remove SIM cards from phones.
Wipe or factory reset all phones and computers. This is not guaranteed to erase all malware, so stop using them altogether if you can.
Change passwords on all accounts you accessed from China.
Monitor accounts and devices for any activity that is out of the ordinary and consult an IT professional if you have concerns.
Tyranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.
— An academic study into pathocracy
Disgruntled mobs. Martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. A Constitution in tatters.
Between the riots, lockdowns, political theater, and COVID-19 mandates, 2021 was one for the history books.
In our ongoing pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, here were some of the stumbling blocks that kept us fettered:
Riots, martial law, and the Deep State’s coup. A simmering pot of political tensions boiled over on January 6, 2021, when protesters stormed the Capitol because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. It took no time at all for the nation’s capital to be placed under a military lockdown, online speech forums restricted, and individuals with subversive or controversial viewpoints ferreted out, investigated, shamed and/or shunned. The subsequent military occupation of the nation’s capital by 25,000 troops as part of the so-called “peaceful” transfer of power from one administration to the next was little more than martial law disguised as national security. The January 6 attempt to storm the Capitol by so-called insurrectionists created the perfect crisis for the Deep State—a.k.a. the Police State a.k.a. the Military Industrial Complex a.k.a. the Techno-Corporate State a.k.a. the Surveillance State—to swoop in and take control.
The imperial president. All of the imperial powers amassed by Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Joe Biden, the nation’s 46th president.
The Surveillance State. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business was monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted. Consider that it took days, if not hours or minutes, for the FBI to begin the process of identifying, tracking and rounding up those suspected of being part of the Capitol riots. Imagine how quickly government agents could target and round up any segment of society they wanted to based on the digital trails and digital footprints we leave behind.
A new war on terror. “Domestic terrorism,” used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous,” became the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties. As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to wage war on so-called political extremism, ushering in what investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald described as “a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.
Culture wars. Political correctness gave way to a more insidious form of group think and mob rule which, coupled with government and corporate censors and a cancel culture determined not to offend “certain” viewpoints, was all too willing to eradicate views that do not conform. Critical race theory also moved to the forefront of the culture wars.
Bodily integrity. Caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, concerns about COVID-19 mandates and bodily integrity remained part of a much larger debate over the ongoing power struggle between the citizenry and the government over our property “interest” in our bodies. This debate over bodily integrity covered broad territory, ranging from abortion and forced vaccinations to biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these were just a few ways in which Americans continued to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.
COVID-19. What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) became yet another means by which world governments (including our own) expanded their powers, abused their authority, and further oppressed their constituents. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., it remains to be seen how the rights of the individual will hold up in the face of long-term COVID-19 authoritarianism.
Financial tyranny. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) exceeded $29 trillion and is growing. That translates to almost $230,000 per taxpayer. The amount this country owes is now greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). That debt is also growing exponentially: it is expected to be twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2051. Meanwhile, the government continued to spend taxpayer money it didn’t have on programs it couldn’t afford; businesses shuttered for lack of customers, resources and employees; and consumers continued to encounter global supply chain shortages (and skyrocketing prices) on everything from computer chips and cars to construction materials.
Global Deep State. Owing in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations, it became increasingly obvious that we had entered into a new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations. We’ve been inching closer to this global world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which saw governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, shifted this transformation into high gear. Fascism became a global menace.
20 years of crises. Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn: The Great Depression. The World Wars. The 9/11 terror attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the government’s (mis)management of various states of emergency in the past 20 years from 9/11 to COVID-19 has spawned a massive security-industrial complex the likes of which have never been seen before.
The state of our nation. There may have been a new guy in charge this year, but for the most part, nothing changed. The nation remained politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. Over the past year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans found themselves repeatedly subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.
Silicon Valley has become infamous for its role in the surveillance ecosystem, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bosses are increasingly using an array of tech industry tools to keep constant tabs on their employees working from home, despite statistics showing that those who work remotely are more productive than their counterparts toiling away in office buildings.
But one woman who worked for the tech industry’s biggest company is fighting back. Ashley Gjovik, a former Apple project manager who was fired in September after speaking out about workplace safety concerns, has asked labor regulators to rule that the company employs illegal surveillance tactics. In October, Gjovik filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accusing Apple of a number of unfair labor practices, including keeping tabs on employees in a manner that prevents them from exercising their right to discuss working conditions.
Gjovik also alleged that the company violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by retaliating against her for voicing concerns about workplace safety stemming from the fact that Apple’s office building in Sunnyvale, California, is situated on top of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-designated Superfund site, an area contaminated by hazardous industrial waste that is supposed to have been cleaned up and contained if humans are in the vicinity. If Gjovik prevails, the NLRB could issue a ruling curtailing employers’ abilities to surveil workers and chill their speech.
Gjovik has filed numerous other complaints with several environmental and workplace safety regulators, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and has been meticulous in documenting her experience, as demonstrated by her personal website.
This week, the Department of Labor ruled that Gjovik’s complaints had merit, and that the agency’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would be investigating her whistleblower retaliation complaints. Whistleblowing law expert Stephen Kohn told the Financial Times that it was unusual for OSHA to investigate such allegations because companies often “silence and intimidate” employees and because those filing charges must establish that their case is likely to succeed.
“Most of us know that there’s some level of pollution in our day-to-day lives, but there’s still a lot of trust in the government and companies to do the right thing when it comes to poisoning people,” she told Truthout.
In her NLRB complaint alleging illegal surveillance by Apple, Gjovik cited the company’s handbook, which reserves the right to search employees’ work equipment and their personal devices “to protect Apple confidential and sensitive information.” The company defines its proprietary information to include “compensation, training, recruiting, and other human resource information.”
Under federal labor law, all employees have the right to discuss their working conditions “for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” The NLRB has ruled that management cannot spy on employees exercising their rights.
The Apple handbook includes a footnote stating that the company is not attempting to restrict its employees’ “rights to speak freely about wages, hours, or working conditions as legally permitted.” But Apple policy also generally forbids employees from making any public disclosures without prior approval, including statements to the press, and it orders employees to refrain from discussing “compensation, training, recruiting, and other human resource information” after leaving the company, which it attempts to enforce through non-disclosure agreements. The handbook also bars employees from sharing information about their coworkers’ “compensation, health information, or performance and disciplinary matters” without any footnotes about “rights to speak freely about wages, hours, or working conditions,” according to Gjovik’s complaint.
Charges that Gjovik filed with the NLRB also cite a memo circulated by Apple CEO Tim Cook after details of a meeting featuring discussion of pay equity was leaked to the press. Cook responded to the disclosure by vowing “to identify those who leaked” and by saying “people who leak confidential information do not belong here,” contradicting any stated policy granting employees the right to discuss their working conditions.
Gjovik also told Truthout that when she informed someone on Apple’s employee resources team that she had the legal right to speak publicly about working conditions, he replied, “Most people don’t figure that out.”
In response to questions about Gjovik and Apple workplace activists, Apple has typically declined to make specific comments. For example, the company told Slate: “We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”
Apple has not responded to Truthout’s request for comment on Gjovik’s claim that a member of its employee resources team told her that the majority of Apple employees aren’t aware of their rights in the workplace.
Gjovik’s conflict with Apple management started in March, when an administrative assistant emailed her team about the company’s Environmental Health and Safety division wanting to conduct a “vapor intrusion survey” in the Sunnyvale office. The phrase set off “alarm bells” for Gjovik, who had spent the last six months battling her apartment’s property managers after becoming ill and learning that the residence was built on top of another EPA Superfund site.
“My body was just going crazy. It was such a nightmare. I was buying books on terminal illness,” Gjovik said.
When she applied what she learned from her struggle at home, things started going south. Gjovik responded to the administrative assistant’s email by asking her management team if Apple had conducted comprehensive air quality tests, citing an Atlantic article from 2013 which documented how their Sunnyvale building was next to three separate triple fund sites. Apple started leasing the property in 2015, hadn’t conducted any tests since moving in, and did not inform employees of the hazardous waste underneath them, Gjovik alleged, noting that she herself discovered the lack of testing in public records after learning how to do research through her apartment ordeal. She said that management claimed that they didn’t have to inform employees of the situation because there was no evidence of air quality issues. Gjovik replied that they lacked the evidence because they didn’t perform proper tests.
Meanwhile, evidence of retaliation against Gjovik by management started to mount. HR opened a sexual harassment investigation into one of Gjovik’s superiors that she did not want initiated out of fear that hostility from above would worsen. She started getting bombarded with an unrealistic number of work assignments. One boss cited Gjovik’s “mental health issues” in urging her to drop her concerns about the Superfund site. Additionally, she says, superiors told her not to raise questions about workplace safety — always over the phone or in person. Gjovik attempted to document those statements by replying in emails with notes about the conversations, asking if she missed anything.
By the middle of summer, things began to escalate. On July 23, Gjovik made The New York Times quote of the day for questioning why Apple management wanted its employees to return to office work as the Delta variant of COVID-19 started to spread throughout the country. Around the same time, she took to the company’s messaging platform, Slack, to ask her coworkers if they have had negative experiences dealing with HR, receiving numerous responses in the affirmative. In early August, after informing employee resources, Gjovik asked colleagues working in the office to document cracks in the floor — a sign that vapor intrusion may be occurring. They took photographs and sent them to Gjovik, and she planned to go into the office the next day to gather evidence herself. On the day of her planned trip to the office, however, she was informed that she was being put on paid administrative leave. On September 9, after Gjovik received a request from Apple management to cooperate with an investigation about “a sensitive Intellectual Property matter,” she agreed to cooperate but never found out what it is they were trying to discover. Gjovik asked that the inquiry be conducted in writing over email. Subsequently, she was fired.
The night before Gjovik was fired, she received a direct message on Twitter from a random helpful follower urging her to take steps to protect her privacy, in a general warning that invoked his own experience with private sector surveillance. Hours later, she asked her Twitter followers if it would be “over-paranoid” to worry about the security of her messages on Apple’s iCloud. Soon after, she began taking her personal information off of servers controlled by Apple and, as she told the tech publication Protocol, Gjovik began to unplug smart devices in her home. She told Truthout that she has no proof of the company using non-public information against her, but noted that internet trolls defending Apple have used information that she has not shared about her health and compensation to insult her, calling the matter a “nightmare sandwich.” Gjovik has also documented how supervisors at Apple were warning her to be wary of private-sector surveillance when she told them how she was locking horns with her property management company.
Still, there is an end to the nightmare in sight and a silver lining. Gjovik is hoping that complaints she has filed with workplace regulators will prevent Apple and other massive companies from bullying and mistreating employees, especially workers who aren’t as well-compensated as she was. Already, it appears that the complaints she filed after being put on administrative leave have the potential to bear fruit. In addition to the Department of Labor advancing her case, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told Gjovik in September that she has the right to sue Apple in state court for creating a hostile work environment. Experts familiar with the NLRA, including former NLRB officials, have said that Gjovik has a strong case against Apple — especially her complaint about CEO Cook threatening the employees who leaked details about the meeting concerning pay equity.
“What he’s saying here goes too far,” NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman told Bloomberg about the Cook memo. “It’s restrictive of people’s ability to talk about employment policies.” Mark Gaston Pearce, another former NLRB chair who, like Liebman, led the Board during the Obama administration, tweeted that Gjovik’s case could be “a vehicle” to reverse pro-management rulings by the Board under the Trump administration. NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has the power to direct Board agents to advance cases that could set precedent, has asked regional offices to pursue cases designed to expand the definition of “concerted activity,” which was narrowed under Trump, including those involving handbook policies like the ones flagged by Gjovik. Abruzzo also noted on November 4 the Board has ruled that concerted activity includes “protesting unsafe working conditions and asserting statutory rights, like filing a claim with [OSHA].”
As far as her complaint to the SEC is concerned, Gjovik said she wants to stop the company from misrepresenting how it treats its employees. The complaint centers around a shareholder, Nia Impact Capital, who alleged that Apple is exposing itself to employment litigation risk by enforcing a culture of secrecy beyond that which is necessary to protect its trade secrets. The company responded by claiming that “Apple does not limit employees’ and contractors’ ability to speak freely about harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful acts in the workplace.” Gjovik’s SEC complaint alleges that these are “false & misleading statements of material importance” by Apple, citing an agency commissioner who warned in September 2020 against companies engaged in “woke-washing where companies attempt to portray themselves in a light they believe will be advantageous for them on issues like diversity.”
Not that any of this has brought Gjovik much pleasure. She told Gizmodo that working for Apple was a “dream” job, and although she held a high-pressure position, she was paid well and proud of her work. But since she was put in a situation where she feared for her health and safety, and got significant push back from the company for raising concerns about it, she wants to take the opportunity to stand up for herself and others.
“I was a very senior employee who gave them my blood, sweat and tears. If they’re doing it to me, what the fuck are they doing to retail?” she asked rhetorically. “I’m going to file as much shit as I can.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story said that in early August, Gjovik went into the Sunnyvale office herself to take photos of cracks in the floor.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of a little known but influential arm of Canada’s foreign policy apparatus. An entity called the Communications Security Establishment was established to spy internationally in 1946, operating secretly in its first four decades.
With an annual budget of $780 million and 3000 employees, the CSE has a variety of high-tech gadgets, including surveillance planes. In 2011 CSE moved into a new $1.2 billion home. The seven-building, 110,000 square metre complex is connected to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) headquarters in Ottawa.
Unlike CSIS, CSE is largely foreign focused. It seeks to “protect the computer networks and information of greatest importance to Canada” from international attack. CSE also gathers international signals intelligence (SIGINT), which it defines as “intelligence acquired through the collection of electromagnetic signals.” Historically, CSE largely intercepted electronic communications between embassies in Ottawa and other nations’ capitals. Today, CSE monitors phone calls, radio, microwave and satellite, as well as emails, chat rooms and other Internet exchanges. It engages in various forms of data hacking, sifting through millions of videos and online documents daily. Or, as Vice reporter Patrick McGuire put it, CSE “listens in on phone calls and emails to secretly learn about things the Canadian government wants to secretly learn about.”
After WWII the government established the Communications Branch of the National Research Council, which was renamed Communications Security Establishment three decades later. In Cautious Beginnings: Canadian Foreign Intelligence, 1939-51 Kurt Jensen explains: “the Gouzenko story [a Soviet diplomat who defected in September 1945, alleging widespread Russian spying in Canada] is almost entirely absent from the debate on Canadian postwar foreign intelligence. While the Soviet Union figured prominently in Canadian foreign intelligence interests, it was not an exclusive focus. The available evidence suggests that Canada had broad foreign intelligence interests that reflected current Canadian foreign policy interests.”
Since its creation CSE has been part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing framework though Ottawa didn’t admit its Five Eyes relationship until 1995. The main contributors to the Washington-led Five Eyes are the US’s NSA, Australian Signals Directorate, New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau, British Government Communications Headquarters and CSE. A series of post-WWII accords, beginning with the 1946 UKUSA intelligence agreement, created the “AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US EYES ONLY” arrangement.
CSE established SIGINT posts on the east and west coasts as well as in the north. According to a table produced by blogger Jerry Proc, there have been more than 50 Canadian SIGINT stations opened during the past century.
Canadian diplomatic posts have long housed SIGINT equipment. According to a NSA document released by whistleblower Edward Snowden, CSE operated clandestine surveillance activities in “approximately 20 high-priority countries.” In his 1994 book former CSE agent Mike Frost describes CSE listening posts at a number of embassies or consular posts while two papers in the early 2000s cite Beijing, Abidjan, New Delhi, Bucharest, Rabat, Kingston (Jamaica), Mexico City, Rome, San Jose (Costa Rica), Warsaw and Tokyo as diplomatic posts where CSE (probably) collected information.
Since the start of the 1960s CSE has listened to Cuban leaders’ conversations from an interception post inside the embassy in Havana. (Ottawa maintained diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba after its 1959 revolution, reports Three Nights in Havana, partly because “the United States secretly urged [Prime Minister] Diefenbaker to maintain normal relations because it was thought that Canada would be well positioned to gather intelligence on the island.”) Canada also spied on Cuba from a diplomatic post outside that country. In the early 1980s CSE wanted to establish a communications post in Jamaica, notes Frost, to intercept “communications from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, which would please NSA to no end.”
CSE also gathered intelligence on Palestinians for Israel. Frost notes, “[former Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman] Yasser Arafat’s name, for instance, was on every [CSE] key word list. NSA was happy about that.” According to files released by Snowden, CSE spied on Israel’s enemies and shared the intelligence with that country’s SIGINT National Unit. “Palestinians” was a “specific intelligence topic” of an NSA-GCHQ-CSE project shared with their Israeli counterpart.
In the late 1980s the Soviets jammed US and British listening operations in Moscow. In response, they asked CSE to take up the slack. “From summer 1987 to summer 1989”, notes Frost, “it was Canada that was providing the most powerful Western nations with the intelligence that had been so crucial to them and, in fact, to the whole Western Alliance.”
Economic espionage is a significant and growing component of CSE’s focus. In 1995 the agency began hiring more individuals with economics, commerce and international business qualifications “to build up its own analytical capacity in economic intelligence.” As part of the Snowden revelations, it came to light that CSE spied on Brazil’s Department of Mines and Energy.
In 1985 the government asked CSE to gather intelligence that could help a Canadian firm bidding for a major pipeline contract in India. A few years earlier the CSE overheard the US ambassador in Ottawa detailing his country’s negotiating position on a US$5 billion wheat sale to China, which helped Canada win the contract. CSE is also thought to have secured information useful to negotiating the mid-1990s North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization.
CSE has contributed intelligence to Canada and its allies’ wars. The agency’s sophisticated equipment and analytical and linguistic resources contributed significantly to the 2001-14 occupation of Afghanistan. The agency’s website says it played a “vital role” in the central Asian country and CSE head John Adams boasted that they were responsible for more than half the “actionable intelligence” Canadian soldiers used in Afghanistan. That included monitoring Taliban forces and leaders as well as allied Afghan government officials. Information CSE provided protected Canadian troops from attack and helped special forces assassinate Afghans.
As the Internet came onto the scene CSE was instructed to conduct Computer Network Exploitation. It went from intercepting communications (“data in motion”) to seeking information on foreign computer systems (“data at rest”). According to CSE expert Bill Robinson, “it became a hunter as well as a gatherer.” CSE could hack into computer systems, implant malware and copy information.
In 2017 CSE was further empowered to carry out offensive operations against foreign actors. The Communications Security Establishment Act authorized CSE “to degrade, disrupt, influence, respond to or interfere with the capabilities, intentions or activities” of international targets. In effect the intelligence agency could seek to take a government offline, shutter a power plant, knock a drone out of the sky or interfere in court proceedings and elections in countries Ottawa doesn’t deem “democratic”. There is no requirement that the target threaten Canadian security.
The legislation forbids offensive cyber activities that could cause injury or death or “obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice or democracy.” But, these limitations don’t apply if CSE conducts cyber-attacks on behalf of a Canadian military operation or receives approval of the foreign minister. Additionally, there is no independent oversight of CSE’s new offensive capabilities and CSE is allowed to do “anything that is reasonably necessary to maintain the covert nature of the activity.”
To mark the 75th anniversary of the Communications Security Establishment, it’s time to place this clandestine organization under far greater scrutiny.
• On December 15 the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute will be hosting a webinar on “Canada and the Five Eyes”.
A shocking exposé reveals how a secretive Customs and Border Protection division investigated as many as 20 journalists and their contacts by using government databases intended to track terrorists. Those investigated include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza, along with others at The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. We speak to Jana Winter, the investigative correspondent who broke the story at Yahoo News, who says it’s unclear if the surveillance program was discontinued. “These were career officials who are still running this secretive unit with no rules and no procedures for how they access these databases,” says Winter. “They target Americans who are located in the United States who are not suspected of any crime whatsoever.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMYGOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a shocking Yahoo Newsexposé about a secretive Customs and Border Protection unit that investigated as many as 20 journalists and their contacts by using government databases intended to track terrorists. Those investigated by CBP’s so-called Counter Network Division include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza, along with others at The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Members of Congress and their staff may have also been targeted.
The explosive revelations are detailed in a 500-page report by the Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog unit, the Office of Inspector General. It opened the probe after news reports that a Border Patrol agent named Jeffrey Rambo conducted a leak investigation in 2017 by accessing government travel records of the reporter Ali Watkins, who was with Politico at the time and now works for The New York Times. Rambo also shared the information he gathered with the FBI.
In response to the report, the Justice Department declined to pursue criminal charges for misuse of government databases and lying to investigators, citing, quote, “the lack of CBP policies and procedures concerning Rambo’s duties.”
On Monday, the AP demanded an explanation. In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, AP Executive Editor Julie Pace wrote, quote, “This is a flagrant example of a federal agency using its power to examine the contacts of journalists. While the actions detailed in the inspector general’s report occurred under a previous administration, the practices were described as routine,” unquote.
An AP spokesperson told Democracy Now!, quote, “We are deeply concerned about this apparent abuse of power. This appears to be an example of journalists being targeted for simply doing their jobs, which is a violation of the First Amendment,” they said.
For more, we’re joined by Jana Winter, the investigative correspondent for Yahoo News whose major new exposé is headlined “Operation Whistle Pig: Inside the secret CBP unit with no rules that investigates Americans.”
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jana. Take us through what took place and why this was called Operation Whistle Pig.
JANAWINTER: First, thanks for having me on. Second, there’s a lot of tentacles here, so just bear with me.
Operation Whistle Pig was a leak investigation started by a Border Patrol agent named Jeffrey Rambo, who was detailed to CBP’s Counter Network Division. And initially, his leak investigation targeted Ali Watkins and Senate staffer James Wolfe, but it spread to as many as 20 other journalists.
And I’d also like to mention that we have no information that this is not occurring today. The same people are in charge. The same people are regularly — air quotes — kind of “vetting” journalists who they think might have information they would like to have or who they want to reach out to.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jana, if you could, could you talk about why they began targeting Ali Watkins and the Senate Intelligence Committee staffer and how they originally — how this Rambo initially contacted her?
JANAWINTER: Well, it began, as one definitely would not suspect, with an order from the White House to look at forced labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically about what companies were using cobalt mined by child labor to produce consumer goods, like phones in China. So, Rambo gets a tasking to come up with a plan to find these data points to give to the White House, who would then, in theory, hit them, hit the companies, with sanctions under a Tariff Act of 1930.
So Rambo puts together a list of reporters and NGO workers and government officials from other agencies and people from academia who might provide information on these data points about what companies are using forced labor. On that initial list are reporters who specialize in this kind of reporting, like Martha Mendoza from the AP.
Rambo also created another list. He was looking for a national security reporter with buzz who could, unbeknownst to the reporter herself, publish articles that were not necessarily accurate, that would overstate the capabilities of U.S. law enforcement, to essentially trick these companies into altering their shipping patterns, which would be enough evidence to hit them with sanctions under the Tariff Act of 1930. So that’s where Ali Watkins comes in. He saw — Rambo saw her article trending on Twitter and thought, “OK, I’ll use Ali Watkins.” And that’s how it happened.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of Rambo himself, any sense of how high up in the chain of command the knowledge of this surveillance of reporters’ activities went?
JANAWINTER: Yeah, I want to be really clear. I mean, Rambo is obviously the fall guy here. There was a Washington Post story a long time ago that talked about him being this rogue agent — and if only. I mean, now we know, based on all of these documents, that everything he did, on every single step of the way, from his plan targeting journalists to reaching out to journalists, to the vetting of journalists, to looking into their sources, to contacting the FBI, to running a leak investigation in-house, to then contacting the FBI again — all of this was done with the knowledge and under the orders of his boss, Dan White, who was referred for criminal prosecution for multiple things, including making false statements to investigators. And he is now back at his job running his division, and DHS will not talk about this or say anything publicly about what is going on.
But this goes all the way up. This is not — these aren’t political appointees who were tasked with something at CBP; these were career officials who are still running this secretive unit with no rules and no procedures for how they access these databases, and they target — you know, targeting Americans who are located in the United States who are not suspected of any crime whatsoever.
AMYGOODMAN: But let’s be clear, Jana, talking about it not being a rogue operation, as you point out in your piece, one of the keepsakes that Rambo has from his time in the Washington area is a large glass globe with cobalt blue oceans and clear land, an award from CBP for his work that came with a cash bonus. The globe is a reminder that before the press coverage, before the press coverage, he was lauded for his work at the National Targeting Center, including on the Watkins/Wolfe case.
JANAWINTER: Yeah.
AMYGOODMAN: The plaque on the globe reads: “Jeffrey Rambo — In Honor and Recognition of Your Dedication to the National Targeting Center Counter Network Division [in] 2017.” And at his going-away party, his boss even cited his work on the leak investigation. Jana?
JANAWINTER: Yeah, he was a hero inside CBP, until this became public. So, he definitely has been thrown under the bus here, whether — not saying what he did was great at all, but this was something that — I mean, they also made him the Five Eyes representative for all of DHS. There’s one person that does that for their annual or biannual, or something, meeting. He was a hero internally and was completely blindsided by them throwing him under the bus and saying, you know, “Oh, we’re going to investigate this guy. We have no idea what this is. This is a completely rogue agent who did all of these things.” And his life has been severely impacted by this.
But I think it’s important to — I mean, no offense, but not to focus on Rambo here. I mean, this is much bigger than him. It’s going on today. The administration is silent, burying their heads in the sand like we won’t notice. And the same people, despite criminal referrals, are back at work doing these same things.
AMYGOODMAN: So, Jana, let’s go back. In response to your Yahoo Newsreport, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has called on DHS’s inspector general to turn over its investigation to Congress immediately. Wyden said in a statement Sunday, “If multiple government agencies were aware of this conduct and took no action to stop it, there needs to be serious consequences for every official involved, and DHS and the Justice Department must explain what actions they are taking to prevent this unacceptable conduct in the future.” Of course, Senator Wyden is chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Can you talk about even the report, this 500-page report that you got a hold of, that the senators are saying they can’t get?
JANAWINTER: I mean, first of all, that’s ridiculous. I just think — I mean, personally, just as a regular person, I’m super disappointed with many aspects of this, including the oversight aspect. I think CBP launched an investigation into one of their own. DHS inspector general did what they do, which is launch an investigation to follow up. And they recommended things for prosecution. I don’t know — they did not answer my questions about if they had provided this report to Congress.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, I was going to ask.
JANAWINTER: Yeah, they didn’t answer that. I don’t want to be too negative on them, because they were literally the only agency that got back to me, out of everyone, under deadline, and actually said something that was responsive to something I asked — not this particular question. But so, I don’t really know if they were supposed to hand it over to Congress. I imagine they should have done that.
But there are so many — I think we’re looking at this from the wrong end. I think that this is by design. I think this is not some, “Oh, of course, all the agencies knew about this, and that was a mistake.” It’s, no, this was a division created to avoid, you know, the pesky bureaucracy involved with sharing sensitive information and databases. The person running the team, Rambo’s boss, who, again, was referred for criminal prosecution and is back at work running the same team, told investigators during all this that their division pushes the limits, they are the guidelines, there are no other ones, they’re the ones making the decisions, they’re the ones making the rules. And DOJ was certainly involved, because this material was passed on to the FBI, and it was — there’s no way to say that it wasn’t used during the prosecution of James Wolfe, the Senate aide. It’s just not possible. You can see the travel records. He lied about the travel records. He went to jail for lying about these things. There’s a direct connection. DHS oversees this. The White House right now — this is not just a Trump political moment. This is an ongoing division that exists to skirt these rules. And the people who run it said as much to OIG investigators.
So this is not — you know, I just think — I don’t know. I’m interested to see if Wyden can get any traction, obviously, since we have been ignored in every capacity. And frankly, his office has been ignored in this exact capacity for quite a while.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jana?
JANAWINTER: And the [inaudible] — no, you go ahead. Sorry.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You mentioned the FBI. Could you talk about their involvement in this? And also you mentioned the case against Wolfe. I don’t know if many listeners of our program are aware of that. Could you talk about that case specifically?
JANAWINTER: Sure. So, James Wolfe used to be the director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee. And he went to jail for — went to prison for two months for — after pleading guilty to charges — I guess, in the beginning, here’s what happened. So, Rambo is looking into contacting these reporters. He’s looking at Ali Watkins, who’s then a Politico rising star national security reporter. He vets her, meaning he runs all of her travel — you know, looks at her travel, sees that she’s traveling with this older gentleman, older by more than 30 years, who he later identifies as this Senate aide. This is James Wolfe. So, Rambo starts this leak investigation.
Before he even arranges to meet Ali Watkins, under an alias and all sorts of other weird things, he reaches out to an FBI contact of his who’s now at headquarters, and says, “I’ve got something I think is in your swim lane. Please call me immediately.” So, Rambo is working with the FBI very early on this, on what he sees is a reporter who is getting classified information from this man that he thinks she is dating. Ali Watkins continues to say that she did not receive information from that person, and James Wolfe was never convicted or even charged with leaking classified information, just to be clear. But the FBI, Jeff Rambo passed along all of Ali’s travel records, Facebook posts, all sorts of other data that they had run from her, her connections to the terror watchlist, which dragged up Arianna Huffington — who is objectively not a terrorist, I think we all know — and continued to pull all of these records. And he wanted to hand over — Rambo wanted to hand over all of this information to the FBI the day after he met with Ali Watkins. He said, you know, “I believe that she is leaking information” — I mean, “she’s receiving leaked information from him. Let’s pass this to the FBI as a leak investigation.”
His boss, Dan White, again, the same one who’s still there now, he said, “No, no, no, why don’t we just take him in it and continue to investigate her in-house? Let’s see if she has any sources within the Department of Homeland Security.” So they ran a whole other investigation, which is Operation Whistle Pig, named after the whiskey that Rambo drank when he was meeting with Ali Watkins at the bar. There are so many parts of this where, yeah.
So, over time, Rambo has amped up his investigation, but he finds out that the FBI is actually not pursuing his probe, until he gets back to San Diego at the end of his detail to the Targeting Center, and he gets a call that says, “Hey, it’s the FBI. We have just opened up a new leak investigation unit in-house, and we would love all this information again.” So, they make him sign —
AMYGOODMAN: Jana, we have 30 seconds.
JANAWINTER: OK. So, basically, we have no idea how many other reporters have been investigated by the FBI, thanks to this unit that has no rules and no procedures and continues to operate today.
AMYGOODMAN: Jana Winter, investigative correspondent for Yahoo News. We will link to your major new exposé, “Operation Whistle Pig: Inside the secret CBP unit with no rules that investigates Americans.”
When we come back, we speak with one of the workers at a Buffalo Starbucks that just won a historic victory after they voted to unionize last week, making them the first to do so among Starbucks’ 9,000 stores in the United States, then to Memphis to speak with one of 1,400 Kellogg’s workers who have now been on strike for two months. Stay with us.
The NZ Government has released an update on New Zealand’s support to #Tonga 
https://t.co/01JrI41gNx#Force4NZ #NZAirForce pic.twitter.com/TeYAvdRJMR
Disgruntled mobs. Martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. A Constitution in tatters.
