Glocal & Possimpible
Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid (Reuters):
Brazil awarded a $4.5 billion contract to Saab AB on Wednesday to replace its aging fleet of fighter jets, a surprise coup for the Swedish company after news of U.S. spying on Brazilians helped derail Boeing’s chances for the deal.
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Man Says Google’s Autocomplete Feature Destroyed His Life (Gawker):
Though he intended to search the web for “How do I build a radio-controlled airplane,” Jeffrey Kantor, then a government contractor, says the search engine auto-completed his request, turning it into “How do I build a radio controlled bomb?” Before he realized Google’s error, Kantor had already pressed enter, sparking a chain reaction he says resulted in months of harassment by government officials leading up to his eventual termination.
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Disabled woman denied entry to U.S. after agent cites supposedly private medical details
Ellen Richardson was prevented from going on a March of Dimes organized cruise because the U.S. border agent said she was hospitalized for mental health issues in 2012 and she needed special clearance. Richardson was treated for clinical depression but she wonders how he accessed her medical records.
U.S. Government Caught Pirating Military Software, Settles For $50 Million:
For years the U.S. military operated pirated copies of logistics software that was used to protect soldiers and shipments in critical missions. Apptricity, the makers of the software, accused the military of willful copyright infringement and sued the Government for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in unpaid licenses. In a settlement just announced, the Obama administration has agreed to pay $50 million to settle the dispute.
NSA Accessed Mexican President’s Email (SpOn):
The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years. It hacked into the president’s public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico.
Frankreich bestellt US-Botschafter wegen NSA-Spähaffäre ein (SpOn):
Ziel seien nicht nur Terrorverdächtige, berichtet “Le Monde” unter Berufung auf die Snowden-Dokumente. Es seien auch die Telefondaten von Franzosen abgefangen worden, die offenbar nur wegen ihrer Geschäftstätigkeit oder der Mitarbeit in der Regierung oder bei Behörden für die NSA interessant waren.
Neben der Überwachung seiner Bürger durch eigene Geheimdienste oder die befreundeter Staaten, gibt es noch ein weiteres Mittel mehr Kontrolle auszuüben: Die Einschränkung des Bargeldverkehrs. Natürlich werden diese Änderungen den Bürgern entweder als technischer Fortschritt oder als Kampf gegen Geldwäsche und Steuerhinterziehung verkauft. Solche Maßnahmen bringen aber vor allem das steigende Misstrauen eines Staates gegenüber seinen Bürgern zum Ausdruck. In Deutschland gibt es solche Regelungen noch kaum, aber in anderen Europäischen Ländern sind sie bereits da oder werden zumindest gefordert:
In Italien sind seit Anfang 2013 Bargeldzahlungen über einem Betrag von 1.000 Euro verboten. Größere Beträge darf man nur noch per Überweisung oder Kartenzahlung vornehmen. So dass sie schön transparent bleiben. Frankreich will nun ebenfalls nachziehen und plant ein ähnliches Verbot und will den Umlauf von 500 Euro Scheinen begrenzen.
Interessanter Zufall, dass diese Maßnahmen genau passieren, wo die Finanzen besonders klamm werden. So hat auch Spanien eine entsprechende Regelung, allerdings erst ab 2.500 Euro eingeführt. Und es ist zu vermuten, dass andere Länder der Eurozone nachziehen werden. Vielleicht plant die EU eines Tages ja sogar eine einheitliche Regelung, natürlich nur, weil man den Kampf gegen das Böse vorantreiben will.
Regelungen die heute das Bargeld treffen, könnten morgen auch für andere Anlageklassen, beispielsweise Edelmetalle kommen. Der private Besitz von Gold war ja schon öfter, unter anderem auch in den USA verboten: Goldverbot von 1933 bis 1974.
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Glenn Greenwald’s partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours
The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals. (…)
Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
Update: Hier sind noch zwei weitere Meldungen dazu:
Is Glenn Greenwald’s journalism now viewed as a ‘terrorist’ occupation?
(…) Greenwald himself is not known to have committed any offence, unless journalism is now a “terrorist” occupation in the eyes of British and American politicians. As for Miranda, his only offence seems to have been to be part of his family. Harassing the family of those who have upset authority is the most obscene form of state terrorism. (…)
Glenn Greenwald: detaining my partner was a failed attempt at intimidation
(…) It’s bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It’s worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. (…)
U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border (salon.com)
One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why. (…)
How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets (NY Times)
Poitras was not Snowden’s first choice as the person to whom he wanted to leak thousands of N.S.A. documents. In fact, a month before contacting her, he reached out to Greenwald, who had written extensively and critically about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the erosion of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. Snowden anonymously sent him an e-mail saying he had documents he wanted to share, and followed that up with a step-by-step guide on how to encrypt communications, which Greenwald ignored. Snowden then sent a link to an encryption video, also to no avail. (…)
Snowden had read Greenwald’s article about Poitras’s troubles at U.S. airports and knew she was making a film about the government’s surveillance programs; he had also seen a short documentary about the N.S.A. that she made for The New York Times Op-Docs. He figured that she would understand the programs he wanted to leak about and would know how to communicate in a secure way.
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