jhein.net

Snowden unlikely to ‘man up’ in face of Espionage Act, legal adviser says

In a television appearance on Wednesday morning, Kerry said that if Snowden were a “patriot”, he would return to the United States from Russia to face criminal charges. Snowden was charged last June with three felonies under the 1917 Espionage Act. “This is a man who has betrayed his country,” Kerry told CBS News. “He should man up and come back to the US.”

But

“The laws under which Snowden is charged don’t distinguish between sharing information with the press in the public interest, and selling secrets to a foreign enemy,” Wizner said. “The laws would not provide him any opportunity to say that the information never should have been withheld from the public in the first place. And the fact that the disclosures have led to the highest journalism rewards, have led to historic reforms in the US and around the world – all of that would be irrelevant in a prosecution under the espionage laws in the United States.”

(Picture CC from AK Rockefeller)

Digitale Aufrüstung: BND will soziale Netzwerke in Echtzeit ausforschen (SpOn)

Der Bundesnachrichtendienst will sofort wissen, was getwittert und gepostet wird: Um soziale Netzwerke in Echtzeit ausforschen zu können, rüstet der Geheimdienst laut “Süddeutscher Zeitung” digital auf – und investiert dafür 300 Millionen Euro. (…)

(…) Dabei mache sich der BND auch Argumente des US-Geheimdienstes NSA zu eigen: Die Analyse von Metadaten sei ein weniger starker Eingriff in die Privatsphäre, weil man im Gegenzug auf das massenhafte Ausspähen von Inhalten zunächst verzichten könne. (…)

(…) Der deutsche Geheimdienst verwies laut “Süddeutscher Zeitung” im Gespräch mit Parlamentariern auch darauf, dass befreundete Nachrichtendienste aus dem Ausland methodisch deutlich weiter seien als der BND, insbesondere die NSA und der britische Geheimdienst GCHQ. Wenn nicht bald strategisch digital aufgerüstet werde, drohe der Bundesnachrichtendienst hinter die italienischen und spanischen Geheimdienste zurückzufallen. (…)

Das darf natürlich nicht sein, dass wir von den Italienern oder gar den Spaniern (Gott bewahre) beim Überwachen unserer Bürger abgehängt werden. Ja wo kämen wir denn da hin?

(Bild CC von Frerk Meyer)

Secrets, lies and Snowden’s email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit (The Guardian)

(…) If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only a matter of time before you or a loved one find yourself in a position like I did – standing in a secret courtroom, alone, and without any of the meaningful protections that were always supposed to be the people’s defense against an abuse of the state’s power.

(via, via, Bild CC Tony Webster)

NSA Said to Exploit Heartbleed Bug for Intelligence for Years (Bloomberg):

The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.

The NSA’s decision to keep the bug secret in pursuit of national security interests threatens to renew the rancorous debate over the role of the government’s top computer experts.

U.S. now bugging German ministers in place of Merkel (Reuters):

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by Barack Obama to halt its spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag paper reported on Sunday. Revelations last year about mass U.S. surveillance in Germany, in particular of Merkel’s mobile phone, shocked Germans and sparked the most serious dispute between the transatlantic allies in a decade. Bild am Sonntag said its information stemmed from a high-ranking NSA employee in Germany and that those being spied on included Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, a close confidant of Merkel. (…)

(Image CC, via)

French journalist “hacks” govt by inputting correct URL, later fined $4,000+

(…) Laurelli initiated a Google search on other subjects, but what he stumbled on was perhaps more interesting: a link that led to 7.7 Gb of internal documents from the French National Agency for Food Safety, Environment, and Labor (the acronym is ANSES in French). Although the documents were openly indexed by Google, Laurelli would soon be in the French government’s crosshairs for publishing them. He eventually faced criminal charges, though he was later acquitted of those. However, a separate government agency pursued a civil appeal. And last Tuesday, a French appeals court fined Laurelli 3,000 Euros (or a little over $4,000), meaning he likely made one of the more expensive Google searches to date. (…)

(Image CC)

Police will have ‘backdoor’ access to health records despite opt-out, says MP

The database that will store all of England’s health records has a series of “backdoors” that will allow police and government bodies to access people’s medical data.

David Davis MP, a former shadow home secretary, told the Guardian he has established that police will be able to access the health records of patients when investigating serious crimes even if they had opted out of the new database, which will hold the entire population’s medical data in a single repository for the first time from May.

In the past, Davis said, police would need to track down the GP who held a suspect’s records and go to court for a disclosure order. Now, they would be able to simply approach the new arms-length NHS information centre, which will hold the records. “The idea that police will be able to request information from a central database without a warrant totally undermines a long-held belief in the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship,” he said.

(Image CC, via)