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You are here: Home / Archives for Edward Snowden

EU parliament votes for dropped charges, asylum protection for Edward Snowden

October 30, 2015 by Nasheman

Resolution passed by European Parliament Thursday calls on member states to prevent whistleblower’s extradition, rendition

A sticker calling for asylum for Edward Snowden seen in Berlin. (Photo: Tony Webster/flickr/cc)

A sticker calling for asylum for Edward Snowden seen in Berlin. (Photo: Tony Webster/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

The European Parliament passed a resolution Thursday urging its nations to afford NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden protection.

Passed by a 285 to 281 vote, the resolution calls on EU member states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender.”

Snowden, who’s been residing in Russia since 2013, responded to the resolution on Twitter by calling it a “game-changer”:

Hearing reports EU just voted 285-281, overcoming huge pressure, to cancel all charges against me and prevent extradition. Game-changer.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 29, 2015

This is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends. It is a chance to move forward. pic.twitter.com/fBs5H32wyD

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 29, 2015

While the resolution is not binding, Wolfgang Kaleck, Snowden’s lawyer in Berlin, told the Daily Dot in an email, “It is an overdue step and we urge the member States to act now to implement the resolution.”

U.S.-based digital rights group Fight for the Future welcomed the news as well. Evan Greer, the organization’s campaign director, said, “We hope that this resolution leads to a binding agreement in the EU that allows Edward Snowden to move to whichever EU country he wants, and we hope he gets an epic party thrown in his honor when he arrives.”

“The battle over mass government surveillance is a decisive moment in the history of humanity, and it’s hard to think of anyone who has done more than Edward Snowden to educate the public about the grave risks that runaway spying programs pose to our basic human rights, the future of the Internet, and freedom of expression,” he added.

The World Wide Web Foundation, which advocates for an open Internet and was founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, called it a “landmark resolution.” It added in a statement, “We call on national leaders to publicly commit to respecting the will of the European people and offering Snowden asylum.”

Berners-Lee said in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session last year that Snowden “should be protected, and we should have ways of protecting people like him. Because we can try to design perfect systems of government, and they will never be perfect, and when they fail, then the whistleblower may be all that saves society.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, EU, European Union, NSA, United States, USA

White House Rejects Petition to Pardon Snowden

July 30, 2015 by Nasheman

More than 167,000 people signed letter urging Obama administration to drop its prosecution of NSA whistleblower

A petition calling for clemency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was denied on Tuesday. (Photo: August Kelm/flickr/cc)

A petition calling for clemency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was denied on Tuesday. (Photo: August Kelm/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

The White House on Tuesday formally rejected a ‘We the People’ petition to pardon Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower who has been living in exile since exposing the U.S. government’s invasive spying operation in 2013.

More than 167,000 people signed the petition urging the government to grant him clemency, stating in their petition that Snowden is “a national hero … [who] should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs.”

Not only will Snowden not be pardoned, the Obama administration said, he should face criminal charges for his actions.

“Mr. Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it,” Lisa Monaco, adviser to President Barack Obama on homeland security and counter-terrorism, said in a statement on Tuesday. The White House issued its rejection two years after the petition was delivered.

The U.S. filed espionage charges against Snowden after he leaked a cache of NSA documents to journalists, revealing the agency’s vast and invasive collection of Americans’ phone and internet activity and prompting an ongoing global debate over the role of government surveillance and the nature of individual privacy.

The revelations also opened the door for surveillance reform, particularly through the passage of the USA Freedom Act and the sunsetting of Section 215 and other controversial provisions in the USA Patriot Act.

Snowden currently lives in political asylum in Russia and has repeatedly expressed his desire to come home—and his doubts that he would get a fair trial if he did.

In many ways, the response by the White House is not unexpected. Despite pledging to protect whistleblowers during his campaign for office, Obama has cracked down more on those who expose government misdeeds than any previous president.

Monaco said on Tuesday that if Snowden “felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and—importantly—accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers—not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he’s running away from the consequences of his actions.”

But journalist Glenn Greenwald, who along with Laura Poitras and Ewan MacAskill helped publish the NSA files in 2013, has previously noted that Snowden would be barred under the Espionage Act from publicly arguing that his actions were justified. “[A]nyone who has even casually watched the post-9/11 American judicial system knows what an absurdity it is to claim that Snowden would receive a fair trial,” he wrote in June.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, United States, USA

'He should get the Nobel Peace Prize': Ellsberg champions Snowden's profound impact

June 3, 2015 by Nasheman

“[T]he first time…this mass surveillance that’s been going on is subjected to a genuine debate, it didn’t stand up.”

Renowned whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg spoke with The Guardian about the changing landscape of U.S. surveillance. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

Renowned whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg spoke with The Guardian about the changing landscape of U.S. surveillance. (Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should be credited with helping change U.S. surveillance law, Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said Monday in an interview with The Guardian.

“It’s interesting to see that the first time… this mass surveillance that’s been going on is subjected to a genuine debate, it didn’t stand up,” he said.

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act for disclosing secret U.S. military documents related to the Vietnam War in 1971. Snowden, who leaked a trove of classified NSA documents in 2013 and has been living in political asylum in Russia for the past three years, also faces prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Asked what should happen to Snowden, Ellsberg replied, “He should get the Nobel peace prize and he should get asylum in a west European country.”

Although “there is much more support for him month by month as people come to realise how little substance in the charges that he caused harm to us…that does not mean the intelligence community will ever forgive him for having exposed what they were doing,” Ellsberg continued.

Ellsberg is currently on a week-long European speaking tour with several other renowned U.S. whistleblowers, including Thomas Drake, who helped expose fraud and abuse in the NSA’s Trailblazer program; Coleen Rowley, who testified about the FBI’s mishandling of information related to the September 11 attacks; and Jesselyn Radack, who disclosed ethics violations committed by the FBI and currently serves as the director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project.

Although the sunset of the Patriot Act on Sunday has forced the NSA to end its domestic phone records collection program, the agency will likely retain much of its surveillance power with the expected passage of the USA Freedom Act, a “compromise” bill which would renew modified versions of Section 215 and other provisions.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized” under the Patriot Act. Referring to that decision, Ellsberg said Monday that “even the USA Freedom Act, which is better than the Patriot Act, still doesn’t really reflect the full weight of the circuit court opinion that these provisions have been unconstitutional from their beginning and what the government has been doing is illegal.”

Drake also spoke to The Guardian on Monday, stating, “This is the first time in almost 14 years that we stopped certain provisions… The national security mindset was unable to prevail.”

The USA Freedom Act, meanwhile, “effectively codifies all the secret interpretations, a lot of the other authorities they claimed were enabled by the previous legislation, including the Patriot Act,” Drake continued.

In a press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that despite the sunset of the Patriot Act, the Obama administration would not change its view that Snowden “committed very serious crimes.”

But the importance of the Senate’s rejection of the legislation cannot be discounted, said Ellsberg, and Snowden’s influence on the changing political landscape in the U.S. deserves credit.

“This is the first time, thanks to Snowden, that the Senate really stood up and realized they have been complicit in the violation of our rights all along—unconstitutional action,” Ellsberg said. “The Senate and the House have been passive up until now and derelict in their responsibilities. At last there was opposition.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, NSA

Obama administration still after Edward Snowden

June 2, 2015 by Nasheman

A man holds a placard with a portrait of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. | Photo: Reuters

A man holds a placard with a portrait of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

The White House said Snowden must still face prosecution, despite the expiration of the surveillance program under the Patriot Act.

Former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed a mass spy program ruled illegal by U.S. federal courts, must still face prosecution despite the expiration of the Patriot Act, the White House said Monday.

“The fact is that Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the U.S. government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them,” White House Josh Earnest said during a press briefing Monday.

The surveillance program terminated after the Senate failed to reauthorize parts of the Patriot Act which expired Sunday, although the lawmakers did vote to advance the White House-backed Freedom Act so a new form of data collection is likely to be approved in the coming days, according to BBC.

If #Section215 of the #PatriotAct expires tonight, even temporarily – it is thanks to Edward Snowden

— ACLU National (@ACLU) May 31, 2015

Now that the government is storing all my emails and storing my phone records I feel much safer. #PatriotAct pic.twitter.com/Acrg3iXRPV

— Markeece Young (@YoungBLKRepub) May 31, 2015

WARNING: Sections of the #PatriotAct expire at midnight, putting all of us in extreme danger of actually having basic constitutional rights.

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) June 1, 2015

The Freedom Act will curtail the phone records program by forcing the NSA to get a narrower set of records from private phone companies. The bill also requires the agency to get warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and phone call records will be maintained by the telephone companies, rather than being stored by NSA. In May, a federal appeals court rejected the government’s long-standing claim that such bulk collection was permissible under the Patriot Act, ruling instead that the NSA acted without congressional approval. However, NSA critics have expressed concern that that the bill does not go far enough to protect civil liberties of U.S. citizens, as it would still allow the intelligence agency to track calls made by people. The Freedom Act is the only legislative reform that has resulted from the Snowden’s leaks which caused public concern and debate over privacy violation by government agencies. In a series of leaked documents, Snowden revealed in 2013 that the NSA collects data from almost all U.S. phone calls, along with harvesting millions of emails and other forms of electronic communication.

Now more than ever: he made them change their laws and practices… https://t.co/HyJrnH1U95

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 1, 2015

U.S. federal prosecutors have accused Snowden of espionage and for exposing the NSA program, but escaped prosecution when granted political asylum in Russia where he currently resides.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, NSA, United States, USA

Edward Snowden a 'Total Hero,' says Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak

May 28, 2015 by Nasheman

“It’s almost like you can’t have any secrets anymore,” Steve Wozniak says. “And the modern generation just accepts this as the status quo.”

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and says NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is a 'total hero.' (Photo: Getty)

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and says NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is a ‘total hero.’ (Photo: Getty)

by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

Privacy advocate and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak considers NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be a “total hero” and laments a missed opportunity to build more privacy protections into modern computer operating systems, according to a recent interview.

Asked about Snowden in an interview with the Middle East technology website ITP.netpublished late last week, “Woz” said: “Total hero to me; total hero. Not necessarily [for] what he exposed, but the fact that he internally came from his own heart, his own belief in the United States Constitution, what democracy and freedom was about. And now a federal judge has said that NSA data collection was unconstitutional.”

Regarding today’s privacy protections—or lack thereof—the inventor, engineer, and programmer, who designed both the Apple I and Apple II computers in the late 1970s, is unimpressed.

“It’s almost impossible [to protect yourself] because today’s operating systems generally get so huge that they can only come from a few sources, like Microsoft, Google and Apple,” he said. “And those operating systems have so many millions of lines of code in them, built by tens of thousands of engineers over time, that it’s so difficult to go back and detect anything in it that’s spying on you. It’s like having a house with 50,000 doors and windows and you have no idea where there might be a tiny little camera.”

“It’s almost like you can’t have any secrets anymore,” he added. “And the modern generation just accepts this as the status quo.”

Wozniak, known to many by his nickname Woz, also lashed out at mega-corporations like Google and Facebook, which he said “are trying to make money off knowing things about you.”

As Yoni Heisler notes for the tech website BGR, “Woz’s own views on digital privacy are particularly intriguing because Woz’s own work on the Apple I and Apple II helped kickstart the personal computing revolution, helping to establish the framework for the connected world we live in today.”

During the interview, conducted during an international tech conference in Dubai, U.A.E., Wozniak also claimed the U.S. would look like Dubai—a city known for infrastructure spending, ultra-modern architecture, and lavish wealth—if it pursued different spending priorities.

“Everything is first-class,” he said of Dubai. “The United States used to talk, when I was growing up, like that’s what we were. The U.S. would look like this if we didn’t spend all our money on the military.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, NSA, Steve Wozniak

'Citizenfour' triumphs: Snowden documentary nabs Oscar

February 24, 2015 by Nasheman

‘Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers,’ says director Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras (second from left) speaks after accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for "Citizenfour" at the 87th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 22, 2015. The others, from left to right, producer Dirk Wilutzky, journalist Glenn Greenwald,  Snowden's girlfriend Lindsay Mills, and producer Mathilde Bonnefoy. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake)

Laura Poitras (second from left) speaks after accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for “Citizenfour” at the 87th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 22, 2015. The others, from left to right, producer Dirk Wilutzky, journalist Glenn Greenwald, Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, and producer Mathilde Bonnefoy. (Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Citizenfour, the film chronicling the decision made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose wrongdoing to the world by leaking details of the agency’s top-secret global surveillance operation to journalists, was awarded the Best Documentary Film award at Sunday night’s Academy Award.

The award was accepted by the film’s director Laura Poitras alongside its producers, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky. Joining them on stage was journalist Glenn Greenwald and Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, both of whom are featured in the film.

“Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers,” Poitras said as she accepted the award.

“The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” she added. “When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control.”

Snowden himself, of course, was not at the ceremony as he remains in Russia where he has lived since 2013 under protective asylum. However, through his attorneys at the ACLU, Snowden did release an official statement in reaction to the Oscar win.

“When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant,” Snowden stated. “I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”

In a congratulatory post on the blog of the digital freedom advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, Rainey Reitman, the group’s director of activism, said the award “recognizes not only the incredible cinematography of Poitras, but also her daring work with a high-stakes whistleblower and the journalism that kick-started a worldwide debate about surveillance and government transparency.”

Describing why the Oscar victory has import beyond the prestige of the trophy, Reitman continued:

This award means that more people will be no doubt be watching CITIZENFOUR, and thus learning about both Snowden’s sacrifice and the surveillance abuses by the United States government. For those watching the movie for the first time, there’s often a sense of urgency to get involved and fight back against mass untargeted surveillance. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

  1. Tell President Obama to amend Executive Order 12333, which is the primary legal authority the NSA uses to engage in surveillance of people worldwide.
  2. Start using encryption when communicating digitally.
  3. Speak out against reauthorization of a much-abused section of the Patriot Act which is set to expire this summer.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Big Brother, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, NSA

Explosive New Snowden Doc: NSA/GCHQ stole vital cell phone encryption keys

February 20, 2015 by Nasheman

New reporting by The Intercept, based on documents leaked by whistleblower, reveals how spy agencies hacked world’s largest SIM card manufacturer

'One of the biggest Snowden stories yet,' says journalist Glenn Greenwald. (Image: The Intercept)

‘One of the biggest Snowden stories yet,’ says journalist Glenn Greenwald. (Image: The Intercept)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Explosive new reporting by The Intercept published Thursday, based on documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals how the U.S. spy agency and their British counterpart, the GCHQ, worked together in order to hack into the computer systems of the world’s largest manufacturer of cell phone SIM cards – giving government spies access to highly-guarded encryption codes and unparalleled abilities to monitor the global communications of those with phones using the cards.

Following its publication, journalist Glenn Greenwald called it “one of the biggest Snowden stories yet.”

According to fellow journalists Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley, who did the reporting on the top-secret documents and detail the implications of the program, the target of the government hacking operation was a company called Gemalto, based in the Netherlands, which makes SIM cards for some of the best known makers of cell phones and other portable electronic products, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and hundreds of other global brands. The acronym SIM stands for “subscriber identity module” and is a small intergrated circuit within a phone that is used to authenticate users and relay key information to the network on which the phone is operating.

As Scahill and Begley report:

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ — with support from the NSA — mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries.

In a series of tweets, both Scahill and Greenwald offered context for the latest reporting:

NEW: One of the biggest Snowden stories yet: NSA/GCHQ hacked into company producing SIM cards for cellphones https://t.co/a4tajJ3WVn

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 19, 2015

The NSA & GCHQ covertly stole millions of encryption keys used to protect your mobile phone communications: http://t.co/dVjLuxl4k3

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 19, 2015

This is basically what the NSA & GCHQ are doing to cell phone “privacy” http://t.co/dVjLuxl4k3 pic.twitter.com/9ovQvJdzNs

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 19, 2015

Remember how Obama says NSA only monitors private comms of bad guys? Yeah, that’s BS. They cyberstalk engineers http://t.co/dVjLuxl4k3

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 19, 2015

“People were specifically hunted & targeted by intel agencies, not b/c they did anything wrong, but b/c they could be used” — @csoghoian

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 19, 2015

This top secret document is so damn creepy. Look at how they spied on innocent people working for a SIM card company https://t.co/vtyWP9ed1o

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 19, 2015

For its part, Gemalto told The Intercept it was totally unaware of the security breach or that the encryption keys to any of its cards had been compromised. In fact, after being reached for comment on the operation, Gemalto directed its own security team to investigate the situation, but told the journalists they could find no trace of the hack. However, according to the top-secret document detailing the program leaked by Snowden, an operative with the NSA boasted, “[We] believe we have their entire network.”

Technology experts who spoke with Scahill and Begley said the theft of the encryption keys was highly troubling. Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the idea that the NSA has stolen these encryption keys “will send a shock wave through the security community.”

Told about the program, Gerard Schouw, a member of the Dutch Parliament, said the revelation was “unbelievable.” And repeated: “Unbelievable.”

According to The Intercept:

Last November, the Dutch government amended its constitution to include explicit protection for the privacy of digital communications, including those made on mobile devices. “We have, in the Netherlands, a law on the [activities] of secret services. And hacking is not allowed,” he said. Under Dutch law, the interior minister would have to sign off on such operations by foreign governments’ intelligence agencies. “I don’t believe that he has given his permission for these kind of actions.”

The U.S. and British intelligence agencies pulled off the encryption key heist in great stealth, giving them the ability to intercept and decrypt communications without alerting the wireless network provider, the foreign government or the individual user that they have been targeted. “Gaining access to a database of keys is pretty much game over for cellular encryption,” says Matthew Green, a cryptography specialist at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. The massive key theft is “bad news for phone security. Really bad news.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, GCHQ, NSA, The Intercept, United States, USA

Military-Grade Malware linked to U.S and British Intelligence Agencies

November 26, 2014 by Nasheman

With ‘degree of technical competence rarely seen,’ Regin technology found infecting government and telecom systems in Russia and Saudi Arabia

Symantec, which published a technical whitepaper on the malware Sunday, says it's likely "one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state." (Photo: Grant Hutchinson/flickr/cc)

Symantec, which published a technical whitepaper on the malware Sunday, says it’s likely “one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state.” (Photo: Grant Hutchinson/flickr/cc)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

Security researchers have recently exposed a sophisticated new “military grade” malware program which is specifically targeting governments, academics and telecoms and, according to new reports, is suspected as being the handiwork of U.S. and British intelligence agencies.

According to security analysts with the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, which has been tracking the malware known as “Regin” for two years, the technology has two main objectives: intelligence gathering and facilitating other types of attacks.

Perhaps most notable, security researchers point out, is that none of the targets are based in either the U.S. or U.K. According to the Guardian, 28 percent of victims are based in Russia and 24 percent are based in Saudi Arabia. Ireland, with 9 percent of detected infections, has the third highest number of targets.

Since initial signs of the malicious software emerged in 2008, there have only been 100 or so victims uncovered globally. These include telecom operators, government institutions, multi-national political bodies, financial institutions, research institutions, and individuals involved in advanced mathematical/cryptographical research.

Described as highly complex, the malware works by disguising itself as Microsoft software and then stealing data through such channels as “capturing screenshots, taking control of the mouse’s point-and-click functions, stealing passwords, monitoring the victim’s web activity and retrieving deleted files,” according to Guardian reporter Tom Fox-Brewster.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, told Fox-Brewster that his firm does not believe Regin was made by Russia or China, “the usual suspects.” According to Fox-Brewster, this leaves the U.S., U.K. or Israel as the “most likely candidates,” an assumption that Symantec threat researcher Candid Wueest said was “probable.”

On Monday, Intercept reporters Morgan Marquis-Boire, Claudio Guarnieri, and Ryan Gallagher published the first of an investigative series on Regin. Specifically, they note, Regin is the suspected technology behind both a GCHQ surveillance attack on Belgium telecom operator Belacom as well as an infection of European Union computer systems carried out by the National Security Agency. Both attacks were revealed last year through documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

On Sunday, Symantec was the first to report on the technology, publishing a technical whitepaper which described Regin as “a complex piece of malware whose structure displays a degree of technical competence rarely seen.”

“Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state,” the paper continues.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, GCHQ, Malware, NSA, Rights, United States, USA

Edward Snowden receives Stuttgart Peace Prize 2014

November 25, 2014 by Nasheman

Edward Snowden has been awarded Stuttgart Peace Prize 2014, but could not attend the ceremony and sent a message via a video, urging to fight for the observation of human rights.

Edward Snowden Stuttgart Peace Prize

by Sputnik News

Berlin: US whistleblower Edward Snowden has been awarded Stuttgart Peace Prize 2014, established by citizens’ initiative Die AnStifter, the group said Sunday on its website.

Snowden could not attend the ceremony, but sent a message via a video, urging to fight for the observation of human rights.

“If we are to live in a liberal society, we must stand and defend liberal values,” Snowden said.

The whistleblower added that it was important to defend human rights and demand that even the most senior officials observe them, as government and democracy should be founded on people’s trust.

In 2013, Snowden leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA), concerning electronic surveillance programs, conducted by US authorities around the world, which included eavesdropping on US citizens and foreign leaders.

Following the incident, the whistleblower was charged with espionage in the United States, with his passport being revoked. In August 2013, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year. The asylum period was extended by the Russian government for three more years in August 2014.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Edward Snowden, National Security Agency, NSA, Russia, Stuttgart Peace Prize, United States, USA, Whistleblower

World ominously close to nuclear war: Noam Chomsky

November 8, 2014 by Nasheman

Philosopher Noam Chomsky is professor of the MIT Institute of Linguistics (Emeritus). (Photo: teleSUR/file)

Philosopher Noam Chomsky is professor of the MIT Institute of Linguistics (Emeritus). (Photo: teleSUR/file)

by RT

The world has come ominously close to a nuclear war in the past and it could happen again as Russia and the West have slipped back into what seems like another Cold War, world-renowned scholar Noam Chomsky tells RT’s Sophie&Co.

Once NATO has expanded its borders all the way to reach Russia, its mission has very much changed since it was initially established, Chomsky said. Now, its aim is to take control of global energy systems rather than maintaining intergovernmental military balance.

The world has never been closer to a nuclear war that could wipe out all of its initiators, and the threat is no longer a thing of history, according to Chomsky.

“The worst-case scenario, of course, would be a nuclear war, which would be terrible. Both states that initiate it will be wiped out by the consequences. That’s the worst-case. And it’s come ominously close several times in the past, dramatically close. And it could happen again, but not planned, but just by the accidental interactions that take place – that has almost happened,” Chomsky told Sophie Shevardnadze.

The overall situation of international instability was worsened by US involvement in the Middle Eastern affairs and damaging regional conflicts, Chomsky says, comparing its actions in Iraq to a hit with a “sledgehammer.”

Chomsky went on to discuss with RT the former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the US’ ever-expanding global spying that are having a dangerous impact on the domestic population and is inspiring other governments worldwide to do the same.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cold War, Conflict, Edward Snowden, Noam Chomsky, Nuclear War, Russia, United States, USA, War

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