Il programma della CIA che spia illegalmente i dati dei propri cittadini

 Senators: CIA has secret program that collects American data

FILE - This April 13, 2016, Two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee say the CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, Sens. Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich allege the CIA has long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.

By Nomaan Merchant | AP

The Washington Post, February 11, 2022 at 3:44 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON — The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details about the program to be declassified. Large parts of the letter, which was sent in April 2021 and declassified Thursday, and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated “outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.”

There have long been concerns about what information the intelligence community collects domestically, driven in part by previous violations of Americans’ civil liberties. The CIA and National Security Agency have a foreign mission and are generally barred from investigating Americans or U.S. businesses. But the spy agencies’ sprawling collection of foreign communications often snares Americans’ messages and data incidentally.

Intelligence agencies are required to take steps to protect U.S. information, including redacting the names of any Americans from reports unless they are deemed relevant to an investigation. The process of removing redactions is known as “unmasking.”

The CIA on Friday said the program highlighted by the senators and another disclosed this week are “repositories of information about the activities of foreign governments and foreign nationals.” In a statement, the agency said the programs were classified to stop adversaries from compromising them.

The agency also said it kept members of congressional oversight committees “fully and currently informed of its classified activities related to these two programs.”

“In the course of any lawful collection, CIA may incidentally acquire information about Americans who are in contact with foreign nationals,” the agency statement said. “When the CIA acquires information about Americans, it safeguards that information in accordance with procedures approved by the Attorney General, which restrict the CIA’s ability to collect, retain, use, and disseminate the information.”

The CIA released a series of redacted recommendations about the program issued by an oversight panel known as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. According to the document, a pop-up box warns CIA analysts using the program that seeking any information about U.S. citizens or others covered by privacy laws requires a foreign intelligence purpose.

“However, analysts are not required to memorialize the justification for their queries,” the board said.

Additional documents released Thursday also revealed limited details about a program to collect financial data against the Islamic State. That program also has incidentally snared some records held by Americans.

Both Wyden and Heinrich have long pushed for more transparency from the intelligence agencies. Nearly a decade ago, a question Wyden posed to the nation’s spy chief presaged critical revelations about the NSA’s mass-surveillance programs.

In 2013, Wyden asked then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” Clapper initially responded, “No.” He later said, “Not wittingly.”

Former systems administrator Edward Snowden later that year revealed the NSA’s access to bulk data through U.S. internet companies and hundreds of millions of call records from telecommunications providers. Those revelations sparked worldwide controversy and new legislation in Congress.

Clapper would later apologize in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling his response to Wyden “clearly erroneous.”

According to Wyden and Heinrich’s letter, the CIA’s bulk collection program operates outside of laws passed and reformed by Congress, but under the authority of Executive Order 12333, the document that broadly governs intelligence community activity and was first signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

“It is critical that Congress not legislate without awareness of a ... CIA program, and that the American public not be misled into believe that the reforms in any reauthorization legislation fully cover the IC’s collection of their records,” the senators wrote in their letter. There was a redaction in the letter before “CIA program.”

Intelligence agencies are subject to guidelines on the handling and destruction of Americans’ data. Those guidelines and laws governing intelligence activity have evolved over time in response to previous revelations about domestic spying.

The FBI spied on the U.S. civil rights movement and secretly recorded the conversations of Dr. Martin Luther King. The CIA, in what was called Operation Chaos, investigated whether the movement opposing the Vietnam War had links to foreign countries.

“These reports raise serious questions about the kinds of information the CIA is vacuuming up in bulk and how the agency exploits that information to spy on Americans,” Patrick Toomey, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “The CIA conducts these sweeping surveillance activities without any court approval, and with few, if any, safeguards imposed by Congress.”

Link originale: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senators-cia-has-secret-program-that-collects-american-data/2022/02/10/017b6932-8ad8-11ec-838f-0cfdf69cce3c_story.html

A giudizio Meta in Texas per il riconoscimento facciale

Il Texas cita in giudizio Meta: controversie per il riconoscimento facciale di Facebook con possibile multa record

By Sebastiano Spinelli - Computermagazine.it, Febbraio 17, 2022

Facebook sta per subire una punizione senza precedenti e che crediamo non dimenticherà per un bel po’ di tempo. Ma come mai è stata multata, e quali sono le motivazioni a carico?

Il riconoscimento facciale aveva già portato alla luce numerosi problemi non indifferenti, provocati principalmente da Facebook e che, per l’appunto, non smettono di continuare ad esistere per ovvie ragioni. Meta aveva tentato di disabilitarlo del tutto, ma sembra che non sia tra i suoi piani rimuovere il sistema in maniera definitiva.

Ed è proprio a causa di questa scelta che lo Stato del Texas abbia voluto chiamare in giudizio la società in questione, accusandola di aver violato le leggi locali perpetrate principalmente dal sui software di riconoscimento facciale. Ma che cosa è successo con precisione? Approfondiamo subito la questione.

Le ragioni della denuncia

A portare avanti la battaglia legale è stato l’Avvocato Generale Ken Paxton, il quale ha accusato Meta di aver violato il CUBI Act, acronimo di Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier, in vigore nel Texas dal 2009. L’emendamento stabilisce delle regole precise riguardo l’uso dei dati biometrici dei cittadini texani.

Adesso, pare che sia stato preteso un risarcimento economico che l’accusa quantifica in 25.000 dollari per ogni violazione del CUBI e altri 10.000 dollari per ogni violazione del Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, il quale si occupa di regolare eventuali comportamenti commerciali ingannevoli da parte delle compagnie prese in esame.

Sembrano “spiccioli” se pensiamo a quale azienda sia stata richiamata, ma attenzione: viene specificato proprio “per ogni violazione“, e vi possiamo assicurare che siano tantissime quelle citate dall’avvocato. Questo significa che Meta sarà quasi del tutto costretta a pagare diverse centinaia di miliardi di dollari al Texas, il che vale a dire che possa essere una multa così tanto salata da fargli spendere un mucchio di denaro in un istante.

Ma dobbiamo ricordare che non sia la prima volta che Facebook viene accusata di questo, difatti ha già avuto a che fare con situazioni del genere in passato. Se dovessimo fare un esempio concreto e pari a quello del caso del Texas, potremmo prendere in considerazione anche lo stato dell’Illinois, il quale ha multato la società di Mark Zuckerberg per 650 milioni di dollari. Il motivo? Semplice: pure allora il sistema di riconoscimento facciale aveva violato le sue leggi.

Link originale: https://www.computermagazine.it/2022/02/17/il-texas-cita-in-giudizio-meta-controversie-per-il-riconoscimento-facciale-di-facebook-con-possibile-multa-record/

Online la presentazione di "Uropia il protocollo Maynards" sul canale Rumble di LibertàdiPensiero-MeglioDiNiente

È finalmente di nuovo disponibile online la presentazione di "Uropia il protocollo Maynards" sul canale LibertàdiPensiero-MeglioDiNiente:

Link: https://rumble.com/vv64r5-uropia-pietro-bargagli-stoffi.html

A causa della unilaterale ed ingiustificata chiusura del profilo LibertàdiPensieroMDN da parte di YouTube (da una parte con un'imprecisata accusa di pornografia, quanto mai improbabile per chi conosce il canale da anni; dall'altra invece con un vago riferimento a violazione di diritti d'autore) tutti i contenuti - interviste, presentazioni, rubriche - sono diventati indisponibili.

Ma LibertàdiPensiero-MDN non si lascia intimidire, e come una fenice rinasce, con un nuovo profilo Youtube, un profilo su Rumble, uno su Twitch e la storica pagina su Facebook.

Bentornati!

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Bosch rivoluziona l'industria delle telecamere di sorveglianza. E forse anche il suo abuso.

Kitchen Appliance Maker Wants to Revolutionize Video Surveillance

A platform run by the Bosch-owned startup Azena has the potential to transform the surveillance camera industry. Experts worry it is ripe for abuse.

Zach Campbell, Chris Jones, February 11 2022, 6:45 p.m.

In partnership with Lighthouse Reports

Bosch, the German multinational most famous for its toasters, drills, and refrigerators, is also one of the world’s leading developers of surveillance cameras. Over the last three years, the company has poured tens of millions of euros into its own startup, Azena, which has the potential to completely transform the surveillance camera industry.

Via Azena, Bosch has led the development of a line of surveillance cameras that relies on edge computing — where each camera has its own processor, operating system, and internet connection — to provide “smart” surveillance of people, objects, and places. Like smartphones, these cameras connect to an app store, run by Azena, where customers can purchase apps from a selection of cutting-edge video analytics tools. These apps allow camera owners to analyze video feeds for different security and commercial purposes.

Here, the devil is in the details: In its documentation for developers, Azena states that it will only carry out basic auditing related to the security and functionality of the software available in its app store. According to the company, responsibility for the ethics and legality of the apps rests squarely on the shoulders of developers and users.

In the rapidly advancing field of video analytics, there is a growing market for software that can transform a video feed into a set of data points about individuals, objects, and locations. Apps currently available in the Azena store offer ethnicity detection, gender recognition, face recognition, emotion analysis, and suspicious behavior detection, among other things, despite well-documented concerns about the discriminatory and intrusive nature of such technologies.

Privacy and human rights researchers expressed concern that by decentralizing and facilitating the creation of powerful surveillance software able to analyze people’s traits and activities without their knowledge, Azena has exponentially raised the possibility for abuse. Should we be worried?

Azena says no.

Developers and users “must be compliant with the law,” said Hartmut Schaper, Azena’s CEO. “If we find out that this is not adhered to, we first of all ask for fixes, and then — depending on how severe the violation of the contract is — we can take apps out of the app store or revoke the user’s license.”

Unlike its parent company, Azena doesn’t produce cameras or develop video analytics tools. Instead, it provides a platform for companies and individual developers to distribute their own applications and takes a cut of the sales — much like the Apple and Google app stores, but for surveillance software. According to Schaper, Google’s app store is the direct inspiration for Azena: Within just a few years of releasing the Android operating system, Schaper noted, Google had revolutionized how smartphones were used and achieved domination over the market. With their new surveillance app store, Azena and Bosch hope to do the same.

And like Google’s integration of Android with other smartphone manufacturers around the world, Bosch and Azena are working with a number of companies that produce surveillance cameras running their operating system. Schaper thinks this will lead to drastic changes in the surveillance economy: “In the end, there will be just two or three operating systems for cameras that dominate the market,” he said, “just as is the case in the smartphone market.”

So far, the strategy has resulted in swift growth: The Azena store currently contains over 100 apps, and Schaper has boasted of how the business model made it possible to provide “the first face mask detection app within two weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning.” Other apps directed at shops and public spaces promise crowd and line counting alongside more intrusive offers of individual identification, face recognition, and biometric detection.

The company has also actively courted new types of software: Azena’s “App Challenge 2021,” which was judged by representatives from a host of major security companies, resulted in apps claiming to detect violence or aggression and offering the ability to track individual movements across multiple cameras.

Applications for video analytics can broadly be divided into two categories, explained Gemma Galdon Clavell, a technologist and director of the Eticas Foundation. The more basic applications involve identifying people, objects, barriers like doors or fences, and locations, then sending an alarm when certain conditions apply: someone passing an object to another person, leaving a bag on a train platform, or entering a restricted area.

Attentatori al servizio dell'intelligence? Un retroscena che i lettori di Uropia conoscono bene

 Spanish intelligence helped mastermind of 2017 attacks become imam, say reports

Secret services recruited Abdelbaki Es Satty as informant in exchange for not deporting him

18 July 2019 11:34 AM

 

by

ACN | Barcelona

The Spanish intelligence center (CNI) helped the mastermind of the 2017 Barcelona terror attacks to become an imam in Ripoll, where the subsequent cell was based, three years before the incidents, according to a report by the ‘Público’ digital newspaper.

Spain's secret services recruited Abdelbaki Es Satty as an informant in 2014, in exchange for not deporting him, says the same source.

These are the main items in the media outlet’s third report on the links between the CNI and Es Satty, which lays out evidence that the mastermind of the attacks was an informer for the secret services right up until the events on La Rambla.

The report also states that a paper written by the secret services shows that some cell members were tracked and their conversations tapped until five days before the deadly incidents, although they were unable to prevent the 16 fatalities caused by the events on August 17, 2017.

Jailed for drug dealing

In its third report, ‘Público’ says that Es Satty spent four years in jail from 2010 to 2014 for drug dealing, and it is during this period that he was hired as an informant.

Mentioning sources of CNI itself, he was told that if he collaborated, he would not be deported – when he finished his sentence, the government seat decided to send him back to his country, Morocco, but a judge overturned the decision.

Infiltrating in European jihadist networks

Carlos Enrique Bayo, the journalist signing the article, also states that the secret service “fixed recommendations and guarantors” so that he could be admitted as imam in Ripoll, where presumably he created the cell.

CNI’s intention, reads the text, was for him to infiltrate in the European jihadist networks.  

Esquerra party asks EU to take action

The report has sparked outrage in the past few days among Catalan politicians. On Thursday, pro-independence ERC called on the European Council and Commission to ask Spain for an explanation over the issue.

Through a parliamentary question, MEP Diana Riba has also called for the Catalan police, Mossos d’Esquadra, to be granted access to international bodies such as Interpol, Europol and Sirene.

Request for a meeting with Spain’s vice president

Also on Thursday, the Catalan government spokesperson sent a letter to Spain’s executive second-in-command to ask her for a meeting over the controversy.

She urges Madrid an “explanation” on Es Satty so that it can “put an end to social unrest.”

Link originale: https://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/spanish-intelligence-helped-mastermind-of-2017-attacks-become-imam-say-reports