57 replies to this topic

[Black Cat]

"The US embassy cables
US diplomats spied on UN leadership

• Diplomats ordered to gather intelligence on Ban Ki-moon
• Secret directives sent to more than 30 US embassies
• Call for DNA data, computer passwords and terrorist links

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon A directive from Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to gather biometric information on the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.

Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders" as well as intelligence on Ban's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.

Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives".

The secret "national human intelligence collection directive" was sent to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome; 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow.

The operation targeted at the UN appears to have involved all of Washington's main intelligence agencies. The CIA's clandestine service, the US Secret Service and the FBI were included in the "reporting and collection needs" cable alongside the state department under the heading "collection requirements and tasking".

The leak of the directive is likely to spark questions about the legality of the operation and about whether state department diplomats are expected to spy. The level of technical and personal detail demanded about the UN top team's communication systems could be seen as laying the groundwork for surveillance or hacking operations. It requested "current technical specifications, physical layout and planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, networks and technologies used by top officials and their support staff", as well as details on private networks used for official communication, "to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys and virtual private network versions used".

The UN has previously asserted that bugging the secretary general is illegal, citing the 1946 UN convention on privileges and immunities which states: "The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action".

The 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, which covers the UN, also states that "the official correspondence of the mission shall be inviolable".

The emergence of the directive also risks undermining political trust between the UN leadership and the US, which is the former's biggest paying member, supplying almost a quarter of its budget – more than $3bn (£1.9bn) this year.

Washington wanted intelligence on the contentious issue of the "relationship or funding between UN personnel and/or missions and terrorist organisations" and links between the UN Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East, and Hamas and Hezbollah. It also wanted to know about plans by UN special rapporteurs to press for potentially embarrassing investigations into the US treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, and "details of friction" between the agencies co-ordinating UN humanitarian operations, evidence of corruption inside UNAids, the joint UN programme on HIV, and in international health organisations, including the World Health Organisation (WHO). It even called for "biographic and biometric" information on Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of WHO, as well as details of her personality, role, effectiveness, management style and influence.

The UN is not the only target. The cables reveal that since 2008 the state department has issued at least nine directives to embassies around the world which set forth "a list of priorities intended to guide participating US government agencies as they allocate resources and update plans to collect information".

They are packed with detailed orders and while embassy staff are particularly encouraged to assist in compiling biographic information, the directive on the mineral and oil-rich Great Lakes region of Africa also requested detailed military intelligence, including weapons markings and plans of army bases. A directive on "Palestinian issues" sent to Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Amman, Damascus and Riyadh demanded the exact travel plans and vehicles used by leading members of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, without explaining why.

In one directive that would test the initiative, never mind moral and legal scruples, of any diplomat, Washington ordered staff in the DRC, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to obtain biometric information of leading figures in business, politics, intelligence, military, religion and in key ethnic groups.

Fingerprints and photographs are collected as part of embassies' consular and visa operations, but it is harder to see how diplomats could justify obtaining DNA samples and iris scans. Again in central Africa, embassy officials were ordered to gather details about countries' military relations with China, Libya, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Washington assigned high priority to intelligence on the "transfer of strategic materials such as uranium", and "details of arms acquisitions and arms sales by government or insurgents, including negotiations, contracts, deliveries, terms of sale, quantity and quality of equipment, and price and payment terms".

The directives, signed simply "Clinton" or "Rice", referring to the current and former secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, form a central plank of America's intelligence effort and reveal how Washington is using its 11,500-strong foreign service to glean highly sensitive information on both allies and enemies.

They are compliant with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which is approved by the president, and issued by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence who oversees the CIA, the Defence Intelligence Agency, FBI and 13 other intelligence agencies.

Washington circulated to its Middle Eastern embassies a request for what was effectively a counter-intelligence operation against Mukhabarat, the Palestinian Authority's secret service, and Istikhbarat, its military intelligence.

The directive asked for an assessment of the foreign agencies' "signals intercept capabilities and targets, decryption capabilities, intercept sites and collection hardware, and intercept operation successes" and information of their "efforts to illicitly collect classified, sensitive, commercial proprietary or protected technology information from US companies or government agencies".

Missions in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were asked to gather biometric information "on key Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank", as well as evidence of collusion between the PA security forces and terror groups.

Taken together, the directives provide a vivid snapshot of America's perception of foreign threats which are often dazzlingly interconnected. Paraguayan drug traffickers were suspected of supporting Hezbollah and al-Qaida, while Latin American cocaine barons were linked to criminal networks in the desert states of west Africa, who were in turn linked to Islamist terrorists in the Middle East and Asia.

High on the list of requests in an April 2009 directive covering the Saharan west African countries, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, was information about the activities of fighters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Information was wanted on "indications that international terrorist groups are seeking to take advantage of political, ethnic, tribal or religious conflict".

Diplomats were told to find out about the links between drug traffickers in the region to Latin American cocaine cartels, as well as terrorist or insurgent groups' income derived from the drugs trade.

Sometimes the directives appear linked to forthcoming diplomatic obligations of the secretary of state. In a cable to the embassy in Sofia last June, five months before Clinton hosted Bulgaria's foreign minister in Washington, the first request was about government corruption and the links between organised crime groups and "government and foreign entities, drug and human trafficking, credit card fraud, and computer-related crimes, including child pornography".

Washington also wanted to know about "corruption among senior officials, including off-budget financial flows in support of senior leaders … details about defence industry, including plans and efforts to co-operate with foreign nations and actors. Weapon system development programmes, firms and facilities. Types, production rates, and factory markings of major weapon systems".

Top tips for dealing with defectors and turncoats

One cable offered a detailed and practical guide for embassies on how to handle possible defectors, known as "walk-ins", who turned up at embassies offering to switch sides. It called for them to be treated with considerable care because they "may be sources of invaluable intelligence".

"Walk-ins may exhibit nervous or anxious behaviour, particularly because access controls and host nation security forces around many of our diplomatic posts make it difficult for walk-ins to approach our facilities discreetly," it warned. "All briefings should also stress the importance of not drawing attention to the walk-in or alerting host nation security personnel."

Embassy staff should immediately copy the person's identification papers or passport, in case they got cold feet and ran off, it said. A walk-in who possessed any object that appeared potentially dangerous should be denied access even if the item was presented "as evidence of some intelligence he offers, eg, red mercury [a possibly bogus chemical which has been claimed to be a component of nuclear weapons] presented as proof of plutonium enrichment"."

http://www.guardian....ables-spying-un

[Goatseboy]

Nothing more irksome than reading shit like this and not being able to do 'owt

[tiredoflies]

Rachel Maddow is annoying

[John]

tiredoflies, on 22 December 2010 - 07:18 PM, said:

Rachel Maddow is annoying

While I do believe the charges are bullshit, it isn't so wrong of her to be fair to the women involved.

In my speculation, they are being pressured, perhaps forced to take part in the witch hunt against Assange, so I don't want to condemn them until I know why the allegations are there.

[Punk Rock Geek]

DemocracyNow has a good debate between feminists Naomi Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman about the rape case.  

http://www.democracy...clyn_friedman_a

I side with Wolf, if it wasn't obvious.

[Punk Rock Geek]

BP accused by Azerbaijan of stealing oil worth $10bn

The president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing billions of dollars of oil from his country and using "mild blackmail" to secure the rights to develop vast gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region, according to leaked US cables.

Ilham Aliyev said the oil firm tried to exploit his country's "temporary troubles" during a gas shortage in December 2006. In return for making more gas supplies available for domestic consumption that winter, BP wanted an extension of its lucrative profit-sharing contract with the government and the go-ahead to develop Caspian gas reserves, one cable from the US embassy in Baku reports. Aliyev also threatened to make BP's alleged "cheating" public, cables show.

The leaks reveal the extent of the company's power over Azerbaijan's government. BP controls the country's crucial energy projects and is its largest foreign investor. One cable reveals BP was so concerned about a terrorist attack on its offshore facilities, and about the lack of protection offered by the government, that it provided Azerbaijan's naval forces with "off-the-shelf" anti-collision radar to cover the company's platforms – "the best one that the navy currently has", according to BP.

Aliyev's hostility towards the company vanished, say the cables, after Russia invaded neighbouring Georgia in August 2008. The invasion – and a major explosion caused by Kurdish rebels on Azerbaijan's Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, controlled by BP – heightened the Aliyev government's insecurity in an unstable region.

According to one cable shortly after the invasion, "Aliyev's expressed intention to reopen discussion with BP … after a long period of inaction, is significant, and likely a result of a new appreciation for the security benefits of a significant western presence in the energy sector in the wake of regional developments."

BP is the biggest shareholder in the regionally strategic $4bn (£2.6bn) Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, which carries more than 1m barrels of oil a day on a 1,000-mile journey from the Caspian to Turkey. BP is also the largest shareholder and operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi field, Azerbaijan's largest producing oilfield in the Caspian reserve, where vast undeveloped gas reserves also lie.

http://www.guardian....jan-bp-oil-10bn

[Punk Rock Geek]

The CIA have set up a Wikileaks Task Force, known as WTF.

http://www.washingto...ml?hpid=topnews

WTF indeed.

[Black Cat]

Punk Rock Geek, on 22 December 2010 - 09:50 PM, said:

DemocracyNow has a good debate between feminists Naomi Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman about the rape case.  

http://www.democracy...clyn_friedman_a

I side with Wolf, if it wasn't obvious.

I liked this article by Andrea Grimes:

http://hayladies.wor...o-will-rape-me/

No one knows, what has really happened between those two women and Assange, but the majority of people is willing to not only believe in his innocence, but to make their opinion about those "silly" women public. They had been pressured, were part of a plot to smear Assange, they were a shame for real rape victims and so on. I like how the article sets things in perspective a bit by addressing the point, that often this public opinion might not be based on a strong believe in "innocent until proven guilty", but more on sexist bias and misinformation on the concept of rape.

[John]

Punk Rock Geek, on 26 December 2010 - 09:40 PM, said:

The CIA have set up a Wikileaks Task Force, known as WTF.

http://www.washingto...ml?hpid=topnews

WTF indeed.

Even Dubya watched his acronyms after realizing Operation Iraqi Liberation spelled his intentions. The CIA perhaps see the comic value?

[Punk Rock Geek]

Something is about to go down.

Assange: I'll reveal info that will spark Arab world coups

Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, said he holds the names of senior officials in the Arab world who visit US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily "to establish links" with the CIA.

"These officials are spies for the US in their countries," Assange said in the second part of his interview with Arab television network Al Jazeera. He said the leaked documents in his possession show that Arab officials reveal sensitive information on their colleagues and respective countries.

The WikiLeaks founder said the website would consider exposing the names of the Arab officials only if it would be certain it would not lead to their death.

Assange warned that the revelations may lead to dangerous coups in the Arab world. He added that WikiLeaks plans to reveal some 7,000 documents related to Egypt and its president, Hosni Mubarak.

Other leaked documents, he said, reveal information on the oil industry in the Arab world over the past few decades.

http://www.ynetnews....4006990,00.html

[Dopamino]

Quote

The WikiLeaks founder said the website would consider exposing the names of the Arab officials only if it would be certain it would not lead to their death.

What's the point then?

[Loki]

Dopamino, on 30 December 2010 - 09:09 PM, said:

What's the point then?

It seems like a warning to the C.I.A, do anything to me and I expose some of your middle east contacts. Pretty smart.

[Black Cat]

"US wants Twitter details of Wikileaks activists

The US government has subpoenaed the social networking site Twitter for personal details of people connected to Wikileaks, court documents show.

The US District Court in Virginia said it wanted information including user names, addresses, connection records, telephone numbers and payment details.

Those named include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an Icelandic MP.

The US is examining possible charges against Mr Assange over the leaking of 250,000 classified diplomatic cables.

Reports indicate the Department of Justice may seek to indict him on charges of conspiring to steal documents with Private First Class Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst.

Mr Manning is facing a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for allegedly sending Wikileaks the diplomatic cables, as well military logs about incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq and a classified military video.

According to the court order issued on 14 December by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the US Attorney's Office has provided evidence to show that the information held by Twitter is "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation".

The San Francisco-based website was given three days to respond was also told not to disclose that it had been served the subpoena, or the existence of the investigation.

However, the same court removed those restrictions on Wednesday and authorised Twitter to disclose the order to its customers.

The subpoena requested the details of Mr Assange, Pfc Manning and Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, as well as Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have previously worked with Wikileaks.

The information sought includes mailing addresses and billing information, connection records and session times, IP addresses used to access Twitter, email accounts, as well as the "means and source of payment".

Mr Assange condemned the court order on Saturday, saying it amounted to harassment.

"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he said in a statement.

The order was unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter", he added.

Twitter has declined comment on the claim, saying only: "To help users protect their rights, it's our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so."

Ms Jonsdottir, who until recently was a vocal supporter of Wikileaks, revealed on Friday that the Department of Justice had asked Twitter for her personal details and all of her tweets since November 2009.

She said she had 10 days to appeal against the subpoena.

Ms Jonsdottir wrote on her Twitter feed: "USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since 1 November 2009. Do they realise I am a member of parliament in Iceland?"

She said that she would call Iceland's justice minister to discuss the request.

"I think I am being given a message, almost like someone breathing in a phone," she said.

Ms Jonsdottir was the chief sponsor of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) law, which made Iceland an international haven for investigative journalism and free speech.

She has said she helped to produce a video for Wikileaks showing a US Apache helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq in 2007.

The classified video, released by Wikileaks last April, brought the whistle-blowing website to the world's attention.

The website's founder, Julian Assange, is currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning as part of an inquiry into alleged sex offences.

Ms Jonsdottir reportedly left Wikileaks late last year after she argued unsuccessfully that Mr Assange should take a low-profile role until his legal troubles were resolved."

http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-12141530

[Punk Rock Geek]

Swiss man fined $6000 for handing Wikileaks details of "rich tax evaders."

http://ca.news.yahoo...084100-941.html

[Black Cat]

Punk Rock Geek, on 19 January 2011 - 01:05 PM, said:

Swiss man fined $6000 for handing Wikileaks details of "rich tax evaders."

http://ca.news.yahoo...084100-941.html

I hope, they will publish names of the tax evaders soon. It is said, there were German politicians among them. At the moment people are quite unpleased due to major cuts into our social security and health care system. A politician, who brings their money, which they have earned from bribes of lobby groups to Switzerland to avoid it being used for the community, might hopefully fuel this anger.

[Goatseboy]

Same, I have extremely high hopes of there being a large amount of labour, tory and lib-dem politicians who've been feretting away their taxes so that when shit kicks off, everyone can appreciate how bastardly the bastarding bastards are

[Ⓐwesomenacho]

Skaz, on 06 December 2010 - 03:40 PM, said:

Fuck Paypal and Amazon too, unbelievable how quickly companies fall into line without even being asked to.

Read a history of the NSA. It gets worse. YOU. HAVE. NO. PRIVACY. AS A CUSTOMER.

[Black Cat]

What's going on there? When I heard about the release of the unredacted cables yesterday, they said wikileaks had been hacked or at least that the release had not been intended. Now they say, it was on purpose?

http://www.guardian....ralia-wikileaks