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ISIS Analysis of IAEA Report on Syria: IAEA Concludes Syria “Very Likely” Built a Reactor

August 28th, 2013

 



By Paul Branan, Institute for Science and International Security.

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released its May 24, 2011 report on the implementation of NPT safeguards in Syria. The report outlines in detail the evidence it has collected of a suspected covert nuclear reactor building under construction in Syria which was bombed by Israeli jets in September 2007.

Syria has long denied that it was building a covert nuclear reactor. Based on its analysis of the evidence, the IAEA “concludes that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor,” and that Syria should have declared it.

This safeguards report provides strong support for the IAEA Board of Governors to recommend a referral of Syria’s case to the United Nations Security Council. Such a move would send a strong signal that the international community will not tolerate egregious acts of nuclear proliferation.

In addition to this action, member states should continue to urge the IAEA Director General to call for a special inspection in Syria. Though years have passed since Syria removed and buried remnants of the reactor building and carried out other acts of concealment, a special inspection would be valuable in uncovering further evidence and accounting for the activities that took place in support of the reactor project.

Evidence

While the IAEA has assessed in previous reports that the equipment and materials associated with the destroyed building were similar to what would be expected at a reactor, it did not offer a conclusion or explain the evidence in detail until now. The report notes that the dimensions of the destroyed reactor building were similar to the dimensions of North Korea’s reactor at Yongbyon.

After locating the destroyed building in commercial satellite imagery in October of 2007, ISIS noted that the dimensions of the Syrian building, as well as what would later be revealed as the top of the main reactor hall, were very similar to those of the Yonbgyon reactor (see figure 1).

The IAEA also said that imagery of the building after the bombing showed the presence of such features as a containment structure, heat exchangers and a spent fuel pond—all of which would be expected in a nuclear reactor. In an April 2008 briefing, the US intelligence community presented a satellite image from after the bombing and highlighted some of these features (see figure 2).

The IAEA report outlines the suspicious concealment activity that took place at the site of the reactor building after the bombing. It cites commercial satellite imagery showing “Syrian efforts to recover equipment and material from the destroyed building,” and notes that whatever remained of the building was “demolished and buried.” ISIS noted in an October 2007 report that Syria had used earth from a nearby hill to bury the remaining foundation of the reactor building (see figure 3).

Figure 4 is a satellite image from the US intelligence community briefing in April 2008 showing bulldozers in the process of burying the foundation.Syria stated that the piping and pumping equipment near the reactor building was intended to supply water to a nearby water treatment facility. The Agency has assessed, however, that prior to the bombing the water pumping system was connected to the suspected reactor building, not to the water treatment facility.

It found that after the bombing, Syria “reconfigured the pumping infrastructure to remove sections of the return pipe and to install a new large diameter water pipe connection from the [Dair Alzour Site Pump House] to the [Water Treatment Facility].”

This activity can be seen in commercial satellite imagery in a January 2008 ISIS report (see figure 5). In the same report, ISIS noted that there was a faint line between the reactor building and the water treatment facility in imagery prior to the bombing and speculated that there may have been existing buried piping between the sites (see figure 6). The IAEA has assessed that there was small diameter piping between the reactor building and the water treatment facility which likely contained treated water or power lines.

US government experts also assessed that there existed buried piping between the reactor building and the water treatment facility prior to the bombing, and that it contained power lines—supplying electrical power to the reactor building.

To see all the reactors in Syria click link bellow: 

http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/ISIS_Analysis_IAEA_Report_Syria_24May2011.pdf

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Craig Holman answers vital questions about political advertising

August 28th, 2013

Interview by Jaime Ortega.



Craig Holman, Ph.D.Government Affairs Lobbyist Public Citizen’s Congress Watch

1) What is exactly a 501- (c) -4 and whats is the goal of these organizations?

501(c)(4)s are tax exempt social welfare organizations, whose “exclusive” purpose by law is supposed to be to promote social welfare. This is defined as advancing a social or political cause, but not electioneering activity for or against candidates. Some court cases moderated the statutory “exclusive” definition to “insubstantial,” but the IRS on its own initiative redefined exclusive and insubstantial to mean “not its primary purpose,” which the IRS has never defined primary purpose. With this ambiguity, and the IRS’s lack of willingness to properly enforce the tax code, groups like Americans for Job Security and Crossroads GPS have used 501(c) tax status as a haven to wage massive electioneering campaigns and keep the sources of the money secret from the public. Nonprofit groups do not disclose their donors. When used by electioneering front groups, as we have seen to an unprecedented degree in 2010 and 2012, these are known as “dark money” groups.

2) How does exactly issue adds differ from campaign ads?

The distinction between “campaign ads” and “issue ads” has evolved over time. Following the 1976 Buckley decision, the Supreme Court wrestled with this distinction, since “campaign ads” are subject to campaign finance and disclosure laws while “issue ads” are not. The Court offered a cursory answer in infamous footnote 52, saying that only if an ad uses one of eight magic words, such as “vote for” or “elect”, then it is a campaign ad. If not, it is an issue ad. This distinction was drawn on a whim, with no research or documentation behind it.

3) Mostly all 501-C-4s that run advertisements during elections seem very negative. But the major issue for some advocacy groups is that some of these organizations do not disclose the donors information or identity. Would it be legal for a senator to donate to an Issue Adds commercial, to help his campaign win?

I completed a study entitled Buying Time 2000, which was the first academic effort to measure the magic words standard. We found that nearly all genuine campaign ads do not use the magic words, not even candidate ads. That meant most campaign ads were disguised as “sham issue ads” designed to influence election yet evade the campaign finance and disclosure laws. http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/buying-time-2000-chapter

The Buying Time 2000 study helped usher through the McCain-Feingold law in 20002 that redefined campaign ads to include both express advocacy (magic words) and any ad that mentions a candidate, targets that candidate’s constituency and airs within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election (“electioneering communications”). The McCain-Feingold law was originally upheld in full by the Rehnquist Court.

When the Court majority changed with two new Bush appointees, the Roberts Court reversed most of the McCain-Feingold law in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision. However, the Roberts Court did continue to hold that “electioneering communications” are subject to disclosure (though not the other campaign finance laws). But in another reversal of policy, the Federal Election Commission approved a rule radically narrowing the disclosure requirement to apply only to donors who “earmarked” their campaign donations for a specific campaign ad – which no one does. The result is that any electioneering front group may now avoid disclosure of donors financing campaign ads – both express advocacy and electioneering communications – if they mask themselves as a 501(c) nonprofit group.

4) In your experience. Have major banks, investment firms or other large corporations ever been caught donating money to these 501-C-4s organizations to promote an ‘ad against’ a candidate that opposes a threat to their institutions ( for example: Intending to regulate bank practices)?

The dark money groups are outside groups. The campaign finance law places candidates in a strictly different situation, defining all of their activities as campaign activities subject to campaign finance laws and disclosure. A candidate could make a donation to an outside group, but it would have to be reported and disclosed by the candidate.

Since dark money groups do not disclose, these are the favorite avenues for corporate money. Many corporations want to bankroll campaigns targeted candidates and lawmakers, but they do not want their customers to know they supported a specific candidate. So they give to dark money groups. This means we do not know who they are. We do know that outside spending has increased four-fold in 2010 over the last nonpresidential election of 2006, and then increased again four-fold in 2012 over 2010. All this happened after the Citizens United decision allowing corporate political spending, so it is obvious the money is coming from corporate treasuries, we just cannot prove it.

5) In times of campaign, issue ads seem a powerful tool to influence voters by providing personal information that ‘is not’ necessarily part of the candidates campaign. In fact, issue ads look as an invasion of privacy destined to attack candidates with ruthless determination no matter where this may lead. Are the organizations promoting such ads focusing only in the political aspect of the campaign or simply invading the privacy and moral behavior of the candidate which is completely unrelated with the campaign itself?

Since even candidates prefer to use electioneering communications (“sham issue ads”) that do not use the magic words of “vote for” or “elect,” these types of campaign ads are more powerful than express advocacy ads. It is more influential, for example, to run an ad declaring that a candidate is a pedophile and beats his wife, than to say “don’t vote for” the candidate.

6) Should 501-C-4s be regulated? And what is the biggest pro and cons, these organizations offer for the public?

 Nonprofit groups should be required to obey the law and not spend any more than an insubstantial sum on political intervention. If a nonprofit wants to spend a significant amount of money campaigning for or against candidates, that is fine so long as they forfeit their nonprofit status and register as a section 527 political organization, subject to the campaign finance and disclosure laws.

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The FARC: the Peace Process and the Potential Criminalisation of the Guerrillas

August 27th, 2013

 

By Insight Crime.



1. Executive Summary.

Once again the possibility of ending nearly 50 years of civil conflict is being dangled before Colombia. While the vast majority of the Colombian public want to see peace, for themselves and especially for their children, the enemies of the peace negotiations appear to be strong, and the risks inherent in the peace process are high.

As soon as he took office in August 2010, President Juan Manuel Santos began to explore the possibility of peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In August 2012, he announced to the nation that exploratory dialogues had been taking place with rebel representatives in Cuba.

Formal negotiations began in October 2012, in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. These talks are continuing, once again in Havana, Cuba. According to the two negotiating teams, progress is being made. President Santos has staked most, if not all, of his political capital on these negotiations.

This political capital is being eroded as the civil conflict continues apace, while opponents of the process, including former President Alvaro Uribe, miss no opportunity to undermine the peace process. Public support is already beginning to wane. The talks face herculean hurdles, as almost five decades of civil conflict have entrenched positions, polarised society and left countless victims. Even if negotiators reach an agreement, there is a very real risk that elements of the FARC will refuse to turn themselves in, or simply criminalise and keep millions of dollars, which currently fund the revolutionary struggle, for themselves. Indeed, some form of criminalisation of rebel elements is inevitable.

The FARC fund their fight through a variety of criminal activities. Unlike the Central American revolutionary struggles of the 1980s and 1990s, the FARC never received significant support from Cuba or the Soviet Union. The FARC have always been self-financing, and have turned themselves into perhaps the richest insurgent movement in the world.

They have been accused of being one of the planet’s most powerful drug trafficking organisations, but this tells only part of the story.Income from coca base, cocaine, heroin and marijuana certainly provide the rebels with a large percentage of their income.

Since abandoning kidnapping for ransom (one of the government preconditions for sitting down to peace talks), the FARC have increased their extortion demands across the country and diversified their fundraising to include gold mining. There are no reliable figures on the FARC’s annual income. However, maintaining around 8,000 armed rural fighters and an estimated 30,000 militiamen could cost up to $200 million a year.

FARC earnings are believed to exceed that, although it is unlikely that all of this money ends up in the movement’s coffers. In their fundraising, the only thing that differentiates the FARC from organised crime is ideology, and the fact that profits are, for the most part, used for the rebel cause.However, it is not the money alone that may prompt elements of the rebel army to criminalise or refuse to hand in their weapons. FARC guerrillas have status in their predominantly rural communities.

While many have little to no formal education, they are respected and even revered. The idea of becoming subsistence farmers, or security guards in a city they do not know, will hold little appeal. The fighters who control the units on the ground, where the coca is grown and the gold is illegally mined, are not the political operators who could have prominent roles in a post conflict situation. Some are barely literate and have never been to a city, but command forces, and earn huge sums of money.

With the dismantling of the Medellín, Cali and Norte del Valle Cartels, and the demobilisation of the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), the FARC are the most powerful illegal army still standing. Should the rebels, or even elements of the group, decide to go into business for themselves, they could quickly become the most powerful criminal syndicate in Colombia.This paper will explore three scenarios for the potential fragmentation of the FARC and the possible criminalisation of elements of the organisation.

1. The first possible fragmentation scenario is during negotiations, if elements within the
FARC decide either that their interests are not being represented at peace talks or that the
leadership is “selling out the organisation”. There is precedent for this, with a faction of the
Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación– EPL) refusing to join negotiations
that ended with the demobilisation of that group in 1991.

2. The second scenario is once a peace agreement is negotiated, and could occur if certain
rebel elements believe that the agreement is unsatisfactory, that it does not justify the
sacrifice of those who have died in the revolutionary fight, or that continuing the armed
struggle is preferable. There is a risk of this if the interests of particular units or leaders do
not get addressed during talks.

3. The last scenario is once an agreement is signed, and after demobilisation of the rebel army
occurs, in which elements of the FARC criminalise, returning to the same illegal activities as
before, but now keeping the money for themselves. The example of the AUC post-2006
provides a solid precedent for this, with numerous cases of former paramilitaries, and even
entire units, moving back into organized crime, particularly drug trafficking.

During previous peace negotiations, there was never a significant concern of FARC fragmentation. What has changed and why are the conditions different in 2013? Part of the answer to this lies in the fact that the conditions are now more favourable for peace than they were in the past. In 1999, when the last round of peace talks were launched, the FARC were atthe zenith of their power.

They had inflicted a series of defeats on the Colombian military and were circling the principal cities of Bogotá, Medellín and Cali. They had moved from a traditional guerrilla war to a war of movement and, in accordance with the 1982 FARC strategic plan, they were planning to move to a war of positions, which would divide the country in two along the line of the Eastern Cordillera (Andes mountain range) and threaten Bogotá. The FARC were negotiating from a position of strength and believed that taking power by force of arms was a real possibility. They never really negotiated in earnest.

Today it is the government that has the upper hand. Indeed, it could safely be argued that the FARC have been strategically defeated by the US-backed security forces. Certainly their stated aim of overthrowing the government and imposing a socialist regime is now nothing but a pipe dream.

Some analysts have insisted the rebels are now in terminal decline. Regardless of the varying interpretations of the FARC’s current position, the rebel group has just a small percentage of the territorial influence or military capacity that it boasted in 1999. President Juan Manuel Santos is negotiating from a position of strength, and even as talks progress, the military continues its campaign to consolidate territory around the country and take down guerrilla commanders.However, it is precisely the decimation of the FARC’s leadership, particularly its more ideologically committed and politically active leaders, that has increased the risk of fragmentation and criminalisation of elements of the rebel army.

Added to this is a weakening of the command structure and the breakdown of units, often into groups of less than six fighters, which inevitably has an effect on discipline. Finally, there is the existence of agreements, and perhaps even alliances, between the FARC and the new generation drug trafficking groups that emerged after the demobilisation of the AUC, known by the government as “BACRIM” (from the Spanish “bandas criminales” – criminal groups).

Since the breakdown of last peace talks and the end of the safe haven in 2002, the FARC have not been able to maintain centralised training camps and new recruits have not undergone the same military training or political education as their predecessors. High levels of desertion have shown the ideological weakness of many FARC members. All of this means that the government is presently dealing with a very different FARC to that of 1999, and even more so compared to the organisation that engaged in earlier negotiations in the 1980s and early 1990s.

There are several factors that might lead FARC units to break away or criminalise, and these will be explored in the paper:
 Lack of contact with the Secretariat or even bloc commanders
 Close relationship with the BACRIM or other criminal groups
 Presence of coca, marijuana or poppy crops in area of operation
 Involvement in drug exportation
 Location along the borders and/or near potential embarkation points for drug shipments
 Presence of illegal gold mining in area of operation
 Lack of political instruction or ideology within unit
 Lack of representation of interests by negotiators
 Poor leadership, discipline and training

There is a significant risk of elements of the FARC breaking away or criminalising. The government must be aware of this during peace negotiations, once any agreement has been signed and, even more so, should the rebel army demobilise. This risk must be analysed, steps taken to prevent the break-up of the rebels, and measures enacted to ensure any fragmentation or criminalisation does not destroy the chances of ending the nearly five decade civil conflict.

Scenarios of Possible FARC Fragmentation or Criminalisation Three possible scenarios for the fragmentation and/or criminalisation of the FARC are studied in this paper. The first could occur during peace talks, the second once an agreement is reached, and the last once the group has demobilised and elements of the rebels stay in, or return to, the field, continuing with the same illicit activities in which the FARC currently engage.

There are those who argue that the FARC are already divided, and that elements have already criminalised. Military intelligence believes that of the 67-odd fronts of the rebel movement, only 15 still strictly follow the orders of the Secretariat.1 There may be some truth in this, although it does not mean that the other fronts have broken away from the FARC, but rather that their contact with the Secretariat is sporadic.

There are certainly many remote fronts that have not seen a member of the Secretariat for over a decade. Command and control has been greatly weakened since the end of the safe haven in February 2002 and the launching of the government’s Democratic Security Policy.

The guerrillas have broken down into small units known as Tactical Combat Units (Unidades Tácticas de Combate), sometimes with as few as four fighters in each. Even in a conventional army, maintaining discipline with such small and disperse units, and such a decentralised command, would be a challenge. The inability of the FARC to concentrate in any one place for even a small period of time for fear of aerial bombardment has affected all aspects of command and control.

The rebels were unable to physically gather together for their Ninth Conference in 2006, and it apparently had to be carried out virtually, using emails.2 These conferences are extremely important events for the FARC, as they are when appointments to the Central General Staff are made and replacement figures for the Secretariat designated. It is during these meetings that FARC doctrine and strategy are set out.

Levels of desertion also reveal a rebel army in crisis. The worst year for the FARC, in every sense, was 2008. During that year almost 3,500 guerrillas deserted, taking with them a treasure trove of intelligence on the organisation for the intelligence services to pick through. Since 2008, desertion levels have fallen significantly, with around 1,000 cases reported in 2012.

One of the ways the FARC have reduced the number of desertions is to pay more attention to their recruitment, falling back on their traditional areas of influence, and recruiting people from communities, or families, with close guerrilla ties

The two-month unilateral ceasefire declared by the FARC from November 2012 to January 2013 suggests that there is still discipline, along with basic command and control of the fighters. Even the harshest critics of the ceasefire cannot deny that hostile actions by the FARC fell by more than 80 percent over the two months.

The ceasefire showed that none of the seven FARC blocs or fighting divisions were openly opposed to talks and, with a few exceptions, the ceasefire was respected across the country. The department with the most violations of the ceasefire was Cauca (at least 11 major violations). This should come as no surprise. Cauca has seen the highest level of conflict over the last year, with the powerful 6th Front and the Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column carrying out sustained operations to counter the increasing deployment of Colombian security forces.

Most of the “violations,” then, could be seen as defensive actions by the FARC, who were reacting to army operations. Indeed, the 6th Front released a communiqué stating that they were respecting the ceasefire, but that the army had launched “a massive military operation” against them.

Perhaps the most worrying violations took place in Antioquia, home to the Northwestern Bloc, or Iván Ríos Bloc, where five major violations were registered during the ceasefire. Here, just two days into the truce, the 36th Front blew up two electricity pylons in a direct violation of the ceasefire, which pledged to halt attacks on infrastructure. The 36th Front later issued communiqué admitting responsibility for the attack, but claiming that the ceasefire order had not reached the unit which carried out the action.5 Either the 36th Front was sending a message to the FARC high command (see the section “Case Study: Iván Ríos Bloc” for more details on this), or communication between FARC units in the region is extremely poor.

The possibility that they had not received the order seems unlikely, as the ceasefire had been announced well before it was put into effect.A second violation by the same bloc occurred in December 2012, when elements of the 34th Front attacked the municipal police station in Murindó, Antioquia. Some reports received by In Sight Crime suggest that the attack was a distraction intended to allow a drug shipment to move through Chocó.

Whatever the motivation, it was a direct and unprovoked violation of the ceasefire.While there are varying tendencies and philosophies within the FARC, the command structure, organisation and unified leadership of the movement has been one of its greatest strengths, and has allowed it to survive 49 years with no major divisions.

At the heart of the FARC are two structures. The Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central), which has around 30 members, and the seven-man ruling body, the Secretariat. Even in the darkest days of the FARC, in 2008, when the movement’s founder, commander-in-chief and Secretariat member, Pedro Antonio Marín, alias “Manuel Marulanda”, died and two other Secretariat members were killed (Luis Edgar Devia Silva, alias “Raúl Reyes” and José Juvenal Velandia, alias “Iván Ríos”), there was no interruption in the leadership or operations of the FARC. The fallen Secretariat members were quickly replaced.

Not only are there clearly defined command positions at every level, with detailed responsibilities; there are also designated replacements. It is this structure that has maintained discipline within the rebel army and prevented any notable fragmentation.

To continue reading this great report please go to http://www.insightcrime.org/specials/farc_peace_crime.pdf

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Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons and Missiles: Status and Trends

August 25th, 2013

 

 

By FAS.



 

Background

In the mid-1990s, the primary threat posed by NBC weapons to the United States shifted from an all-out U.S.-Russian strategic exchange to less overwhelming, but more numerous and perhaps less predictable threats.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union had turned some Russian weapons of mass destruction (WMD) strengths into weaknesses and the fear of “loose nukes”prompted the U.S. government to help shore up the safety and security of Russian WMD infrastructure.

Around the same time, U.N. inspections uncovered Iraq’s massive NBC weapons programs and a crisis erupted over the North Korean nuclear weapons program. It could no longer be assumed that the United States would face symmetric or parallel threats. A “paradox of the new strategic environment,” according to then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen, was that “American [conventional] military superiority actually increases the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical attack against us by creating incentives for adversaries to challenge us asymmetrically.”

Accordingly, Congress has been concerned about the countries and groups that have nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons, are developing or trying to acquire them, and about those who have or seek missile delivery systems.

The heightened sense of vulnerability to terrorism since the attacks in September 2001, coupled with reports of al Qaeda pursuing research on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons, has focused attention on the connection between terrorism and WMD.

In March 2002, President Bush stated that “… every nation in our coalition must take seriously the growing threat of terror on a catastrophic scale — terror armed with biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.” The unpredictability of terrorist efforts to acquire NBC weapons and a potentially higher probability of use pose a serious challenge to global stability and security.

In particular, the Bush Administration has singled out state sponsors of terrorism with NBC weapons programs as particular security threats. U.S. and allied leaders and analysts continue to debate the exact nature and extent of the WMD threat.

The status of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons worldwide has changed only slowly over time. In absolute numbers, stockpiles are actually decreasing. Some U.S. and foreign analysts emphasize the positive impact of the demise of the Soviet Union and progress made in U.S.-Russian arms control and international arms control.

Others emphasize the negative impact of the nuclear tests by India, Pakistan and North Korea; missile tests by North Korea, Iran, India, and Pakistan; continuing transfers of dangerous technology by states such as China, Russia, and North Korea; the activities of clandestine procurement networks; and a growing interest in NBC weapons among terrorists.

This report focuses on the current threat and trends in nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and missiles.

 

# Implications for U.S. Policy Decisions

Potential NBC weapons threats to U.S. security interests affect important national security and foreign policy decisions, including:

* the size and nature of the U.S. military force structure

* U.S. weapons and equipment acquisition

* U.S. doctrine and strategy for homeland defense and military operations abroad, including U.S. training for NBC environments

* foreign policy and economic policy toward countries of proliferation
concern and their neighbors.

 

In addition, the status and trends of these weapons are key factors in national and international debates regarding:

* the character of the threat to U.S. security posed by nuclear, chemical and biological weapons delivered by terrorists, missiles, aircraft, or ships

* whether states or groups are acquiring NBC weapons and missiles to deter or to attack regional powers or the United States

* whether intelligence estimates should be based on the capability and/or intent of countries and terrorist groups to use NBC weapons and missiles

* whether U.S. intelligence collection and analysis resources are adequate

* whether the United States should emphasize a strategy of deterrence, preemption, or national defense

* the appropriate mix of defense (active and passive), export control, assistance, and arms control

* the appropriate mix of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral approaches.

 

In the last decade, the U.S. government has taken many steps to address NBC weapons proliferation. For example, in December 2002, the White House released the “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which divided relevant policy into three pillars: counter proliferation to combat WMD use; strengthened nonproliferation to combat WMD proliferation; and consequence management to respond to WMD use.”

Counter proliferation efforts include interdicting WMD materials, expertise and technology to hostile states and terrorist organizations, as well as deterrence, defense and mitigation. According to the 2002 strategy, these efforts also include preemptive actions to “detect and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these weapons are used.”

Strengthened nonproliferation includes active diplomacy, multilateral regimes, threat reduction assistance, nuclear material and export controls, and nonproliferation sanctions. Finally, consequence management entails homeland defense against WMD threats.

 

# Proliferation and Risk of Use

Several factors appear to facilitate the spread of dangerous technology to additional countries and groups. These same factors also might increase the likelihood that NBC weapons will be used (either militarily or for blackmail):

 

* Technological developments (in NBC, computer, and production technology).

* Increasingly free flow of information, people and goods.

* Growing disparities in conventional military capabilities.

* Growing disparities in strategic defenses.

* Continued prestige of nuclear power.

* Growing prestige of missile capabilities.

* Perceived utility of NBC threats to deter U.S. intervention.

* Perceived disdain by major powers for certain arms control agreements and international cooperation on nonproliferation.

 

Threat assessments are highly debated exercises and necessarily subjective because they must assess not only technical capabilities (quantity and quality of weapons and control thereof) but also the intentions of the state or group that possesses the weapons (including options and thresholds for use). The connection between the existence of the technology or weapon and risk of use is not always clear.

One school of thought is that the risk of use is directly proportional to the size of stockpiles or diffusion of technology or material. An opposing view is that the weapons themselves are manageable on a case-by-case basis.

In general terms, the reduction of global and regional tension helps reduce the perceived need for weapons of mass destruction.

Economic and political integration are also thought to reduce incentives for proliferation. The strong and credible U.S. deterrent capability might weaken the likelihood that some hostile countries will acquire or use WMD. Analysts debate whether U.S. development of a National Missile Defense system would deter the proliferation and use of WMD or would incite further proliferation.

The NBC threat emanating from terrorist groups is even more complicated to assess. It is frequently argued that terrorist groups will find it easier to cross thresholds of NBC use than even some rogue states and that they will not adhere to traditional notions of deterrence. President Bush stated in a March 11, 2002, speech, “Some states that sponsor terror are seeking or already possess weapons of mass destruction; terrorist groups are hungry for these weapons, and would use them without a hint of conscience.

And we know that these weapons, in the hands of terrorists, would unleash blackmail and genocide and chaos.” The strong connection between the further spread of NBC capabilities to states and potential availability of technology to terrorists is not new.

In the National Security Strategy for a New Century (2000), the Clinton Administration noted that the “proliferation of advanced weapons and technologies threatens to provide rogue states, terrorists and international crime organizations with the means to inflict terrible damage on the United States, our allies, and U.S. citizens and troops abroad.”

Two years later, the U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation remarked to the NPT Preparatory Committee that

“The spread of nuclear weapons to additional states not only increases the risk of nuclear war among nations, but also increases the risk of nuclear terrorism.

The nuclear weapon program of a proliferating state, from the design of a weapon to its assembly, offers new opportunities for exploitation by terrorists. New stockpiles of weapons-grade nuclear material present a tempting target. Nations seeking nuclear weapons who also harbor terrorists represent a particularly severe threat to the civilized world.”

On the other hand, analysts debate whether rogue states themselves plan to use WMD against the United States. Some analysts doubt these countries would overtly attack the United States with WMD because of the U.S. ability to conduct an overwhelming counterattack.

But others contend NBC weapons might nevertheless be seen by these countries as useful to limit U.S. military options and as a weapon of last resort, particularly where regime survival is at stake.

The United States government works hard to decrease the risk of WMD use, the spread of such weapons and capabilities, and the U.S. vulnerability to the weapons…..

 

To read more about this great report: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL30699.pdf

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Eastern Congo: Why Stabilisation Failed

August 23rd, 2013

 

 

 

By the International Crisis Group.



 

Since Bosco Ntaganda’s mutiny in April 2012 and the subsequent creation of the 23 March rebel movement (M23), violence has returned to the Kivus. However today’s crisis bears the same hallmarks as yesterday’s, a consequence of the failure to implement the 2008 framework for resolution of the conflict.

Rather than effectively implementing the 23 March 2009 peace agreement signed by the government and the CNDP (National Council for the Defence of the People), the Congolese authorities have instead only feigned the integration of the CNDP into political institutions, and likewise the group appears to have only pretended to integrate into the Congolese army. Furthermore in the absence of the agreed army reform, military pressure on armed groups had only a temporary effect and, moreover, post-conflict reconstruction has not been accompanied by essential governance reforms and political dialogue.

To move away from crisis management and truly resolve this two-decade-old conflict, donors should put pressure on both Kigali and Kinshasa. The M23 is behaving in a similar fashion to previous rebel movements by creating its own administration and its own financing system in parts of North Kivu. Meanwhile, Mai-Mai groups are expanding in rural areas where they commit atrocities that exacerbate inter-ethnic tensions.

In July this year, in accordance with the peace and security architecture, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) organised a regional dialogue to avoid conflict between Rwanda and the DRC. Unfortunately, the outcome of this was an unrealistic and ineffective solution: the deployment of a 4,000-strong neutral force at the border between Rwanda and the DRC.

If international donors and African mediators persist in managing the crisis rather than solving it, it will be impossible to avoid such repetitive cycles of rebellions in the Kivus and the risk of large-scale violence will remain. Instead, to finally resolve this conflict, it is essential that Rwanda ends its involvement in Congolese affairs and that the reconstruction plan and the political agreements signed in the Kivus are properly implemented.

For these things to happen Western donors should maintain aid suspension against Rwanda until the release of the next report of the UN group of experts, in addition to issuing a clear warning to the Congolese authorities that they will not provide funding for stabilisation and institutional support until the government improves political dialogue and governance in both the administration and in the army in the east, as recommended by Crisis Group on several previous occasions.

In the short term, this crisis can be dealt with through the following initiatives:

 the negotiation and monitoring of a ceasefire between the Congolese authorities and the M23 by the UN;

 the reactivation of an effective and permanent joint verification mechanism for the DRC and Rwandan border, as envisaged by the ICGLR, which should be provided with the necessary technical and human resources;

 the addition of the individuals and entities that supported the M23 and other armed groups to the UN sanctions list and the consideration of an embargo on weapons sales to Rwanda;

 the joint evaluation of the 23 March 2009 agreement in the framework of the international follow-up committee it established and this assessment should be the basis for resumption of dialogue between the government and the CNDP;

 the launch of local peace initiatives in Walikale, Masisi, Shabunda and Kalehe areas where ethnic tension is high by MONUSCO and the government;

 the arrest and handover of Bosco Ntaganda to the International Criminal Court (ICC); and

 the launch of an investigation by the ICC into the actions of M23 and new armed groups, and the request by the ICC that MONUSCO transfer to it its files concerning M23 leaders.

After analysing the failure of the stabilisation of the Kivus in the report Congo: No Stability in Kivu Despite a Rapprochement with Rwanda, this new Crisis Group briefing explains the surge of violence and underlines that the Kivus do not need a new strategic approach; rather, the peace agreements and stabilisation plans should no longer remain empty promises. To achieve this, coordinated and unequivocal pressure is required from the donors that help fund the Rwandan and Congolese regimes.

II. THE STABILISATION PLAN FOR THE KIVUS: A DEAD END

In 2008, the crisis in Goma, when the CNDP almost took over North Kivu’s capital, was resolved by the replacement of its leader and the signing of a peace agreement between the government and the CNDP on 23 March 2009. Secret negotiations between Kinshasa and Kigali and more or less discreet mediation initiatives conducted by some members of the international community created a framework for resolving conflict, as described in a previous Crisis Group report.

That framework had three components: the political and military integration of Congolese armed groups in the Kivus; military action against militias, notably the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR); a reconstruction and stabilisation strategy to restore state authority and provide services to the communities living in zones previously controlled by militias.

This plan seemed relevant in 2008. However, four years later, with the emergence of a new rebellion that still threatens Goma and the recapturing of territory by some armed groups, it now seems to have reached a dead end.

A. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 23MARCH AGREEMENT:LITTLE MORE THAN A CHARADE

As with previous Congolese armed movements, the government’s solution to the challenge posed by the CNDP in 2009 was political and military integration. On 23 March 2009, in an agreement facilitated by Olusegun Obasanjo and Benjamin Mkapa, the CNDP and the Congolese government agreed on arrangements for the CNDP’s integration into the institutions in exchange for an end to the rebellion.This agreement was based on the integration of CNDP soldiers into the DRC’s armed forces (FARDC) and conversion of the CNDP into a political party authorised to participate in the country’s political life.

It also provided for the release of political prisoners, amnesty, reconciliation, care for the war-wounded, widows and orphans, etc. The agreement was a strange mixture of clear commitments and promises to consider the CNDP’s concerns.

As indicated in 2010, its implementation proved to be “a fool’s game”. The Congolese authorities pretended to integrate the CNDP into the political system, while the latter pretended to be integrated into the FARDC.

Political, administrative and military integration According to the M23, the main reason for their mutiny is the government’s non-compliance with the 23 March agreement. In fact, the two years following the signing of the agreement showed that the government and the CNDP have both tried to use it to their advantage and both have acted in bad faith.

Political and administrative integration: Kinshasa retains control Although the CNDP was granted the status of political party, as stipulated by the agreement, political integration has remained at provincial level. The Congolese government has taken only two steps to promote political integration: it appointed François Ruchogoza as provincial minister of justice, human rights and community rehabilitation on 22 December 2009 and co-opted the traditional leaders nominated by the CNDP into the provincial assembly.

Despite two ministerial reshuffles since March 2009 and formal support for Joseph Kabila’s political platform, the CNDP never entered the national government. The movement’s secretary general described this as a “deliberate violation of the peace agreement”.10 In addition, the 2011 legislative elections that were to seal the CNDP’s entry into the national assembly were annulled in Masisi territory, which is considered to be its stronghold.

Resolution of the problem posed by the CNDP’s parallel administration in Rutshuru, Masisi and Nyiragango territories was to take place through the integration of CNDP administrative personnel into the state administration in exchange for the government’s reinstatement “of territory administrators and assistant territory administrators”.

Other staff were to remain in place “until further notice”.12 However, the CNDP waited until the appointment of five territory administrators from its ranks on 14 June 2010 before it officially ended its parallel administration.13 Moreover, although an amnesty law was quickly voted, no steps were taken to implement reconciliation measures.

Military integration: the CNDP retains control Although the 23 March agreement included only one condition for the integration of CNDP combatants into the army and police (ie, formal recognition of ranks), integra-tion proved to be extremely difficult and came up against three issues: recognition of rank, allocation of posts and location of deployment.

The process of integrating CNDP troops began promptly but immediately ran into issues caused by a lack of transparency regarding the number of CNDP combatants. In 2008, the CNDP said it had 5,276 soldiers; in January 2009, during negotiations with the government, it claimed 11,080.17 During the census conducted in 2008, 2010 and 2011, the European Union (EU) Advisory and Assistance Mission for Army Reform in the DRC (EUSEC) identified 8,000 men as CNDP combatants.

Meanwhile, Kinshasa was in no hurry to recognise the ranks of CNDP soldiers. On 10 December 2010, CNDP officers refused to wear their new uniforms because their ranks had not yet been formally recognised.19 The recognition of CNDP and PARECO ranks finally happened on 31 December 2010 through a presidential decree.

CNDP combatants who integrated into the army were also concerned about where they would be deployed. Following Joseph Kabila’s announcement on 10 September 2010 of the redeployment of FARDC battalions from the Kivus to other provinces, former CNDP officers publicly refused on 23 September to be deployed outside the Kivus21 on the grounds that they were engaged in the Amani Leo operation.

Military officers based in the Kivus who are not from the CNDP also refuse to be deployed outside their province of origin. Another source of tension was the allocation of officer posts.

In August 2011, FARDC members who were not former members of armed groups expressed their discontent about the priority granted to Rwandophones for command posts.

In September 2011, they published a memorandum against Tutsi and Hutu domination of FARDC high-level posts in South and North Kivu24 and on 12 September 2011, threatened to mutiny. Bosco Ntaganda took advantage of his appointment as commander of the Amani Leo operation to place men loyal to him in officer posts and extend his influence from Fizi, in the south of South Kivu, to Beni in the north of North Kivu.

The extent of this gave the appearance that it was the CNDP that had absorbed the Congolese army and not the other way round. There was also friction between officers and a dual chain of command in North Kivu – Bosco Ntaganda on the one hand, and the general commanding this military region, Vainqueur Mayala, on the other.

Aware of this role reversal, the chief of staff tried to break the CNDP chain of command within the army by reorganising the armed forces into regiments in the Kivus. However, this “regimentation” failed to end the military influence of Bosco Ntaganda, who ordered ex-CNDP soldiers to refuse biometric registration, which would allow identification of ex-CNDP soldiers and non-integrated CNDP recruits.

As integration was not accompanied by profound reform of the Congolese armed forces, the CNDP managed to maintain control over much of the military apparatus in the Kivus, which continued to generate strong resentment among the rank and file.

2. Return of the refugees: Total impasse on a major issue

The 23 March agreement put an emphasis on the refugees and displaced populations. It provided for mechanisms “to encourage and facilitate” their return and for “quick implementation”. Local conflicts were to be managed by “Permanent Local Arbitration Committees (CLPCs)” and…

For more information on this report and to keep reading please go to: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/central-africa/dr-congo/b091-eastern-congo-why-stabilisation-failed.pdf


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Mines and Mineral Occurrences of Afghanistan

August 20th, 2013

 

The Daily Journalist Opinion.

The War in Afghanistan was possibly ‘partly caused’ to the discovery by the Pentagon of vast amounts of mineral reserves found all over the country. When the Pentagon finds mineral wealth, its not by accident. You have to study a landmark before you enter into a war zone, and they knew about the Afghan mineral wealth back in 1979 (USSR’s invasion to Afghanistan) when the CIA explored the region.

The media failed to report the discovery back in 2002 and only focused in the illusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. I remembered a story back in 2010 that dealt with the mineral issue, but it never made the big mainstream headlines (don’t wonder why!) and hasn’t since then. 

This great piece of evidence shows the wealth of these reserves and make you question why the media and the U.S. Government alongside other foreign governments kept shut about the existence of such mineral wealth. Unfortunately, interest leads always to war, not exclusively violence. But the Taliban and AlQaeda were bad enough to forget about other important geo-strategic interest that could likewise trigger a war. 



By USGS.

INTRODUCTION

This inventory of more than 1000 mines and mineral occurrences in Afghanistan was compiled from published literature and the files of project members of the National Industrial Minerals project of the U.S. Geological Survey. The compiled data have been edited for consistency and most duplicates have been deleted.

The data cover metals, industrial minerals, coal, and peat. Listings in the table represent several levels of information, including mines, mineral showings, deposits, and pegmatite fields.

DATA SOURCES, PROCESSING, AND ACCURACY

Data on more than 1000 Afghanistan deposits, mines, and occurrences were compiled from published literature and digital files of the project members of the National Industrial Minerals project of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The data include information on metals, nonmetals, construction materials, coal, and peat.

Three previous compilations of Afghanistan mineral resources were the dominant sources used for this effort. In 1995, the United Nation’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific published a summary of the geology and mineral resources of Afghanistan as part of their Atlas of Mineral Resources series.

This document included a summary table and text descriptions of the major mineral mines, deposits, and areas; however, there are numerous spelling and location inconsistencies between table listings and text descriptions. The text descriptions provide geologic and resource information about many of the sites.

A second source compilation for this report was Gemstones of Afghanistan (Bowersox and Chamberlin, 1995), published by Geoscience Press, Inc., of Tucson, Arizona. A table at the end of the book lists mineral occurrences by commodity, including metals and nonmetals, with latitude and longitude. The table contains substantial duplication as sites with multiple commodities are listed multiple times and there are numerous spelling inconsistencies.

The text of this book is largely limited to descriptions of the gem districts of Afghanistan. Many of the individual mines listed in the text are not included in the summary table of this publication, although the major gem districts are in the table. Locations in Appendix A that were identified only in Bowersox and Chamberlin (1995) during the compilation of this table are marked with an “*”.

The descriptions of the starred locations, consisting of a name, commodity, and location, are protected by copyright; the right to reproduce these locations was granted to the USGS by Geoscience Press. The conditions of reproduction stipulate that these rights are non-exclusive world rights and that notice of the title and authors be specified.

The starred locations from Bowersox and Chamberlin (1995) are covered by the following copyright: “No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise copied for public use, without written permission from the publisher.”

The most complete compilation of Afghanistan’s mineral resources is Mineral Resources of Afghanistan by Abdullah and others (1977). With few exceptions, the data listed in the ESCAP (1995) publication and Bowersox and Chamberlin (1995) table of mineral resources appear to be excerpted from this earlier compilation; the spelling inconsistencies and typographical errors of Abdullah and others are frequently duplicated in the later compilations.

Both of the later compilations are missing much of the geologic detail contained in the 1977 compilation, but do contain some “new” information not found in Abdullah and others. We should also note at this point that Abdullah and others (1977) is also referenced as Shareq and others (1977).

This confusion arises from the publication having two title pages. One title page begins the list of authors as “Abdullah Shareq, V.M. Chmyriov, …”; the other title page begins the list of authors as “Sh. Abdullah, V.M. Chmyriov, …”. We have chosen to use “Abdullah” as the last name because several citations in the mineral descriptions cite “Abdullah” and none cite “Shareq”.

Also, in the reference list of the 1977 publication, there is an author listed as “Abdullah, S.”, but there is no “Shareq”. Additional geologic and commodity information came from USGS files and about a dozen other published sources. For the most part, all data were recorded as reported in the references there were inconsistencies that could be reconciled from the available data.

Where information reported from two or more sources were in conflict, the authors utilized the information from Abdullah and others (1977) and noted the inconsistencies. The data were checked for duplicates using names, locations, and commodity.

Historic province names were replaced with current province names using latitude and longitude information using a paper map. No attempt was made to identify further errors.

DATA

The mines and mineral occurrences of Afghanistan are listed in a table as Appendix A of this publication. The table is divided into 3 parts; Pegmatite Fields, Named Sites & Deposits, and Sites and Deposits Without Names. The latter 2 categories include deposits, active and inactive mines of a variety of scales, prospects, and showings. The data fields for Appendix A include:
Locality/Deposit Name
Synonyms and Other Names or Spellings
Deposit or District Name
Province
Latitude
Longitude
Commodity(s)
Type of Deposit
Status
Host Rock Age
Host Rock
Significant Minerals or Materials
Deposit Size and (or) Grade
Comments
References
Decimal Latitude
Decimal Longitude

The Locality/Deposit Name field contains the name of the mine, deposit, field, area, or occurrence being described. Synonyms and Other Names or Spellings contains alternative names or spellings for the site. For a deposit or area, this field might also include any specific mine or occurrence names that are known, i.e. “includes Northern and XXX mines”.

The Deposit or District Name field contains the name of any larger deposit, field, or district to which the site belongs. The Afghanistan Province in which the site lies is the next field. Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) spellings were used in Appendix A (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1995). Table 1 contains a list of all the Provinces in Afghanistan plus alternative spellings and historic names known to the authors.

Latitude and longitude are listed in degrees, minutes, and seconds. Large fields or deposits may have a range specified in the Latitude or Longitude fields, i.e. ” 34-00N to 34-10N”. In other cases, a deposit may have 2 orebodies with differing locations. In this case, the multiple latitudes and longitudes are separated by a semi-colon, i.e. “34-00N; 34-10N.”

The Commodity Field lists the commodities known to occur at each site. A list of commodity abbreviations may be found in table 2. The following field, Type of Deposit, contains a deposit type or style of mineralization. The Status field contains information on whether the site has produced and when or if it is a mineral occurrence or showing.

Host Rock Age and Host Rock contain appropriate descriptions of host rocks and other significant rock units, such as nearby igneous rocks that are related to the mineralization. The main minerals or materials are listed under Significant Minerals or Materials and any deposit size or grade information is listed in the following field. The four remaining fields in Appendix A are a Comments field for any additional information, References, and Decimal Latitudes-Longitudes.

Readers and users of the data should be aware that English spelling of the place names is highly variable within the source materials; many are English translations of Russian versions of Afghani names.

In addition, the use of singular and plurals in the geologic descriptions is erratic. If the source(s) specified a number of veins or our bodies, that number was included in Appendix A of this publication.

In many other cases, it was commonly unclear if there was one or more mineralized areas or bodies. Lastly, there is additional data in Abdullah and others (1977), including the locations of mineral haloes, that are not included in this publication.

The data in Appendix A may be obtained in digital format in the following ways: 1. Download the digital files from the USGS public access World Wide Web site on the internet: http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of02-xxx/

To check all the minerals and keep reading go to: Pg 8, http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of02-110/of02-110.pdf

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PROTON, CLEARWATER and LEXIS-NEXIS

August 18th, 2013

 

 



By Anonymous.

Given the use of constitutionally repulsive practices by the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies, this information is being made public to educate and inform so they might arm themselves against government intrusion and for attorneys as a backgrounder for future appeals.

I suggest American guerillas seek non-Internet modes of communication. If you think Rex Sherwood was pulled over for not using a turn signal, you are wrong.

I was “read on” the PROTON/CRISSCROSS program in late 2006 and was a frequent user of this system for over a year. As part of my duties, I employed PROTON/CRISSCROSS in HUMINT exploitation role. In the Intelligence Community, PROTON/CRISSCROSS is referred to as PROTON. Unless otherwise specified, the same is true in this report.

PROTON is a storage and analysis system of telecommunications selectors at the TS/SI/FISA/ORCON/NOFORN level of classification and handling. PROTON is the program name as well as the name of the technology. It has been described as “SAP-like”, and I suspect that PROTON was once a DEA special program. PROTON is well known in HUMINT and DOJ clandestine law enforcement. It remains the primary, if not fundamental, tool of HUMINT and DOJ law enforcement operations, both of which have considerable overlap in phenomenology and methodology. PROTON carries the FISA caveat because Top Secret FISA collection is contained in PROTON’s massive database.

Through my professional associations within the Intelligence Community, I became aware of a Department of Justice (DOJ) system called CLEARWATER. CLEARWATER is similar to PROTON but at the SECRET/NOFORN level of classification and exclusively a DOJ program, where PROTON is CIA, DOJ and DOD. Most DOJ Special Agents and analysts do not have Top Secret clearance. Every informant is run through CLEARWATER, every witness gets vetted through the system.

PROTON and CLEARWATER are not just analytic tools, they provide actionable intelligence and both programs are used everyday for target discovery and development. CLEARWATER practically leads FBI and DEA investigations. PROTON is used throughout HUMINT for asset validation, recruitment, background checks on sources, etc. The FBI and DEA as both law enforcement and intelligence community members have resources of both sides and domestic law enforcement by these agencies is more of a HUMINT operation of the type seen in Afghanistan. Find, Fix, Arrest. PROTON and CLEARWATER work so well that Special Agents and Case Officers can’t wait to get data into the system and see how it networks together.

Top Secret and FISA mean NSA sensitive sources and foreign collection. NSA resources are unneeded in America—CALEA and the DOJ have that covered for you under Title III, the Patriot Act and opinion from the federal kangaroo judiciary.

FISA is not only used against terrorists and spies but also private and quasi-government organizations . The most impressive network I ever laid eyes upon was the PROTON derived communications network of the Netherlands and Swiss SWIFT. Allot of target discovery there. It’s how you find a needle in a haystack. The U.S. hosts one of three SWIFT secure messaging centers. Well, the NSA and CIA have insured SWIFT is allot less secure. SWIFT is a major communications target and the NSA is deep in that This is a modern take on “follow the money.” If Americans are wondering how the IRS found their secret bank accounts..well, here ‘ya go.

When I read the description of Drug Enforcement Administrations (DEA) DEA Internet Connectivity Environment (DICE) system: the billions of records, partnership with CIA, NSA and DOD, the need to cover sources at the expense of a fair trail— it struck me that what was described sounded more like PROTON and/or CLEARWATER.

As I read further, DICE was sounding more like a legitimate DEA program that was being used to provide cover for PROTON and/or CLEARWATER—either intentionally or sacrificially. The early descriptions of DICE present it as an information sharing and collaboration tool through the Internet. The recent public descriptions of DICE are awkward and contrived when compared to past information.

DICE is being used to cover PROTON and/or CLEARWATER.

Properly, CRISSCROSS is the database of telecommunications selectors. Selectors are, in NSA terms, that information that selects a target for analysis, investigation or collection. Telephone numbers, email addresses, hexadecimal addresses from INMARSAT telephones, IMEI—really any telecommunications “number” or “address” a person would have as a means to contact another, are contained in CRISSCROSS.

PROTON is the operating software written in JAVA for cross-platform usability and runs on JWICS for connectivity to CRISSCROSS.

PROTON contains the tools for network analysis and would be familiar to anyone who has experience in undergraduate social network analysis, statistics and data visualization.

CRISSCROSS has an interesting and murky history. As it was explained to me by a PROTON Program Officer, CRISSCROSS was originally a very secret DEA program to provide a repository for DEA collected selectors. It was, by every account, an excellent resource. With the post-911 reorganization of the Intelligence Community, everyone was required to share their resources for the “War of Terror.” CRISSCROSS was very successful and well-received and ultimately exceeded DEA capabilities to manage. The CIA took over as executive agent—but CRISSCROSS is shared by the DOD and DOJ in a co-ownership manner.

It’s uncertain if PROTON received Special Collection Service (SCS) data when it was a solely DEA activity, but PROTON presently receives SCS collection amounting to about 1 one terabyte monthly, and that’s just selectors, not content. PROTON also receives data from Computer Network Exploitation (CNE), by the now famous Tailored Access Office (TAO). Included as well is an enormous repository of Title III data from CALEA enabled domestic collection, FISA and an enormous amount of purchased data from various communications providers like Intellius.

PROTON does not contain content, only selectors for targeting. Consider that in the context of one (1) terabyte of just selectors per month (just from the SCS) for over 10 years. I have no idea how much the TAO provides, however the two biggest contributors to PROTON are the SCS and TAO.

An analyst or law enforcement officer can “run” a selector in PROTON and visualize the social network of correspondents associated with that selector in a visual format. The user can select and display most frequent numbers called or have called, duration of call, and other functions familiar to social network analysis. An analyst may choose to look at the network in terms of who called who: persons of importance typically have allot of people calling them so we can build a network based on that to determine centricity. We can build a network based on call duration, frequency, date—pick a variable. Sometimes it’s useful to look at the outliers which may be hang-arounds to some drug trafficking organization. We can task NSA or DOJ for collection on these hang-arounds and begin network deconstruction from the ground up.

These calling networks include family, friends and other non-target persons. Non-target persons, like family members, are very useful in developing the target and as leverage. Non-target communications provide intelligence from things spoken between people in confidence who may not be aware of the targets activities or associations, like the location of a fugitive who has ceased using his known selectors, but communicates with his mother through her known selectors.

Another very useful feature is the Bankswitch function, which allows network discovery by the calling pattern, not necessarily by a selector. Often, groups of U.S. government interest will use a cellphone, then dispose of them , preventing further intelligence collection from that group of cellphones. Bankswitch allows the analyst to quickly rediscover the calling network that has switched phones. Humans typically have some constant behavior in who and how they make their calls and persons. Groups and enterprises not having supplicated to the U.S. government avarice will have a whole additional set of behaviors in who and how they call.

This is highly useful for calling networks that dispose and rotate telephones regularly. A fresh cellphone provides enough of a lead to discover the calling pattern of the whole network based on historical calling records. Both the DEA and FBI have found this useful in their activities in Columbia, Mexico and the United States.

I know for certain PROTON contains communications selectors on American Citizens (AMCITS) since I ran a query on a number using only a Maryland area code and a partial prefix. PROTON returned a huge list of “masked” domestic numbers. An NSA masked number is always domestic and reveals only the area code and prefix with the rest of the number obscured. A PROTON user can email the NSA with a request to unmask the number—it’s in the database, but a user has to present some justification for a number to be unmasked. Voice cuts are available through a similar process.

PROTON is really well thought out. Not only does it provide a wealth of network investigative tools, it also allows for the easy introduction of data. Let’s say you’re a DEA Special Agent surveilling local boat captains as part of OPERATION PANAMA EXPRESS (PANEX) in Barranquilla Columbia—a major Port of Origin for drugs to the U.S. and someone gives you a business card. Just run the number and see if it hits. The Special Agent” can take that card and mail it to the PROTON Program Office (PPO). Scans, cell pictures of the information are also acceptable to ingest.

An FBI Case Officer attending a UAV conference in Las Vegas can take all the “grey literature” and hand that to the PROTON office as well. The numbers find their way into the database The PROTON office will also ingest entire phone books—still popular in some parts of Europe and Asia. They use a method similar to Google books to automatically turn pages and scan data from them.

Anything that contains a selector can go into PROTON. Part of the PROTON program is the resource that provides software engineering to order unordered data and otherwise make raw data ingestible. PROTON users can add and edit PROTON data as well. If a user discovers the identity of a previously unidentified selector, one can edit that record or leave notes for other users.

With PROTON, you can see who’s talking to whom in a telecommunications relationship context. How you hit that network is up to you.

Network deconstruction techniques vary throughout the ‘Community. Domestically, the DOJ prefers the highly publicized raid with the media providing the entertainment backdrop. The DEA prefers covertness. The DOD prefers a Predator strike. Yes, those drone attacks are network deconstruction techniques and target selection is often facilitated, if not provided, by PROTON.

As stated earlier, CLEARWATER is a SECRET/NOFORN version of PROTON. The DEA red herring called DICE reportedly contained NSA collection which rules-out CLEARWATER (a S//NF system) and highlights PROTON (a TS//SI system) as the source of DICE intelligence.

I’m providing information on both since the government is no longer under constitutional restraint and is illegitimate. Parallel Construction. You fuckers. A cornerstone of American law and western culture sacrificed for the security of the Elites.

With the CALEA requirements, TITLE III collection is very simple affair involving a court order and the Cisco routers which, through CALEA legislation, are engineered for surveillance. Cisco is a very enthusiastic partner to the Intelligence Community—one of those sensitive relationships managed through the NSA Special Source Operations office. The NSA finesses such relationships—with the DOJ, you get a thug in a nice suit and the quiet menace of federal law enforcement. If you think the DOJ is a law enforcement agency, you’re stupid. Internal security is DOJ Job #1. As we have seen, the DOJ is maintaining internal security by both legal and extralegal means with the full support of the federal judiciary and the lukewarm animus of the U.S. Congress.

Federal judges and congress persons are largely immune to DOJ surveillance. You are not. The “new” counter-insurgency operations by the government concentrate on a Reasonable Suspicion by persons and groups—not on Probable Cause.

CLEARWATER contains selectors from any number of sources: TITLE III, purchased data from telecommunications data brokers, National Security Letters, subpoenas, technical operations by FBI TACOPS, search warrant, informant production, arrests, detentions. If the DOJ has searched you, arrested you or let you go, count on that data being in CLEARWATER. Did you give the Special Agent your telephone number?

Arresting someone to search them without needing consent or court order is not an unheard of means to get a Person of Interests selectors into CLEARWATER. Something laying openly on your desk? A cell-phone snap and email to the program office. How about those utility bills you throw away without shredding? If you’re a Person of Interest, somebody is walking away with your trash.

There is a a real motivation by DOJ Special Agents to get telecommunications selectors into PROTON or CLEARWATER to build the networks for analysis and deconstruction.

CLEARWATER has all the features of PROTON and at least one other—mapping. An FBI Case Officer operating domestically can query say, Lahore Pakistan, and place on a map, those locations in the U.S. where those calls originated or terminate—a choropleth map with colored density clusters, all in a spatial context. With that, the DOJ knows where to focus it’s domestic security efforts. A DEA Special Agent can run a selector seized in an amphetamine investigation and, within a few minutes, have the calling network and visualize the correspondents locations on a map. That’s how DOJ led task forces show up in your neighborhood.

Watching a OWS protester enter a number into their cell phone is perfectly legal without consent or a warrant and once I get that number, we’ll look at that calling network, find the node that is you, and walk that back to that moment we shared under the chestnut tree.

If you’re visiting the USA from abroad, you may have your wallet and pocket litter photocopied at secondary screening. Then an email to the National Counterrorism Center (NCTC) Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) office, and from there, a Forward to the PROTON office.

PROTON, CLEARWATER and LEXIS-NEXIS all provide data export into Analyst Notebook file format (and PDF for ease of sharing).

All members of the Intelligence Community have access to LEXIS-NEXIS. LEXIS-NEXIS contains biographic information on most Americans having a driver or occupational license. Your state sells the contents of its drivers license database to companies like LEXIS-NEXIS for a profit. They can do this since that information is considered in the public domain—driving is a privilege and if you don’t want to be in database then don’t get a drivers license. LEXIS-NEXIS contains other highly personal and granular information depending on which state is providing information. Florida provides pretty much everything it can to LEXIS-NEXIS. Automobile information, luxury water craft, occupational licenses—if you submit information to a state agency, it can end up in LEXIS-NEXIS. All domestic law enforcement has access to LEXIS-NEXIS, its a fundamental investigative tool. IRS, DOJ, Treasury, Local PD, Sheriffs Office all have a LEXIS-NEXIS access or the means to pull data from them.

Law Enforcement Officers can have their data removed from LEXIS-NEXIS. An LAPD and NYPD “spokesperson” informed me that this is the case. Imagine your a citizen in New York and you get surveilled by one of the numerous surveillance technicians the NYPD has fielded since 9-11 , a quick look-up via mobile device or WiFi and they know who you are now.

So, a Special Agent or analyst simply runs the selectors in PROTON and CLEARWATER, then runs those names or other biographic/vital information again in LEXIS-NEXIS, all that data related to the TARGET is exported in Analyst Notebook format, those files are imported into the Analyst Notebook application and…viola!…a relatively complete social network and biographics of the TARGET. That could be you of course.

By Supreme Court decision and other judicial misadventures, LEXIS-NEXIS contains public information and you do not have an expectation of privacy. There is no need for Probable Cause or Reasonable Suspicion because this data is, by judicial opinion, public. Something to think about next time you’re at the DMV. Citizens are queried regularly in LEXIS-NEXIS. CLEARWATER and PROTON provides network association and the selectors. A subpoena, NSL or search warrant to the telecommunications provider of that selector gives us names and locations. LEXIS-NEXIS provides Pattern of Life, geolocation and personalia. I was able to see my past three residential addresses, past telephone numbers and identifying information about my previous automobile. LEXIS-NEXIS is coupled to Automatic License Plate Recognition Systems (ALPRS) as well. Who you are, where you were and where you are.

The DOJ and Intelligence Community access LEXIS-NEXIS through a VPN and a proxy (government). A DOD proxy is registered to the Virginia Contracting Office, but it’s a non-logging proxy so, good luck in your discovery. LEXIS-NEXIS has no idea of the individual accessing it’s database and, according to the spokesperson, does not maintain logs of government clients. A subpoena cannot discover what is not there.

Around 2008, LEXIS-NEXIS purchased Choicepoint to start their new product line. I recall some representative, at a promotional meeting, extolling the virtues of Choicepoint—all the data in a easy to use format. A user of Choicepoint could run a query and not only get biographics and addresses but have that information located on a map or satellite image (by Pinpoint, Inc. or a Google map server). The Choicepoint representative giving the presentation said no Social Security Numbers or drivers license pictures would be included in the database in order to protect the rights of the citizen. Such conceits are good ethics in Washington, D.C.

That said, CLEARWATER and PROTON are not omnipotent. Foreign intelligence organizations use the Internet for covert and clandestine communication without detection and you can as well. Do not believe that the NSA or DOJ is all powerful. They are not and they can be defeated. Of the many systems used by NSA and DOJ, CLEARWATER, PROTON and LEXIS-NEXIS are the most significant from a “boots on the ground” investigative prospective.

There is real concern that PROTON may be to widely known for such a program and efforts are being made to walk it back into a compartment.

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Iran and Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Military Dynamics of Nonproliferation

August 16th, 2013

 

From Harvard University by Mansour Salsabili.

 



 

 

1. Introduction

There are five military reasons why weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are not an appropriate class of weapons for Iran. Careful examination of these reasons may help us to understand Iran’s position on the acquisition of WMDs. First, tactically speaking, Iran is a non-possessor of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; second, the Iranian Army, because of its low number of armored vehicles and its logistical, communication, and command features, is a non-mechanized army; third, the Iranian Army is organized according to a defensive military posture; fourth, WMDs are not strategically suitable for Iran given its protective security interests; and finally, Iran’s current conventional destructive capability meets the regime’s core protective security interests without WMDs.

These five characteristics support the claim that WMDs are not suitable for the Iranian Army in a regional conflict. A dilemma arises, however, between Iran’s secret pursuit of an enrichment program and the last three decades of discriminatory policies refusing Iran access to modern technology. Such a conflict demonstrates the inherent tension between the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s (NPT’s) prohibition on proliferation (see Articles 1 and 2) and its provision of the right to nuclear energy (see Article 4)1.

Ultimately, the boomerang effect of incremental sanctions and prolonged negotiations with the P5+1 may set both sides on a path with unwanted and unwarranted consequences. To avoid this, the P5+1 should strive to better understand the Iranian military’s weapon acquisition dynamics and to approach negotiations with an impartial and sound judgement.Two main concepts in understanding weapon acquisition are means and ends.

These two notions were introduced into the literature of military studies by Carl von Clausewitz. His definition of war as a “real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce…by other means” highlights the importance of military means and their political ends.

This definition has been widely adopted by other strategists as well. For example, Liddle Hart defined strategy as “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill ends of policy,”and Hedley Bull considered strategy as “shaping means so as to promote ends in any field of conflict.”

Barry Posen focuses on the interaction between means and ends instead of on one as the cause of the other. He defines strategy as a “chain of political ends and military means.” Hence weapon acquisition could be considered a political as well as a military instrument to achieve victory in war and to maintain security in peacetime. By this account, the acquisition of WMDs could be understood as the response of a state’s military policies to these two aims. Accordingly, a state’s decision for weapon acquisition could be examined in terms of means and ends.

Means encompass the tactical utility of a weapon in case of a probable war, and ends embody the strategic utility of a weapon during both war and peacetime. These two tactical and strategic concepts of the utility of WMDs are developed in this study to illuminate the appropriateness of WMDs for the Iranian Army.

2. Tactical Utility of WMDs for Iran

On the tactical level, three characteristics can help to determine Iran’s disposition toward the acquisition or rejection of WMDs. The first characteristic is whether the Iranian military currently possesses WMDs capability; the second is whether it has a mechanized army; and the third is whether the Iranian Army has developed an offensive or defensive military posture. This paper postulates that the closer the Iranian government is to possessing WMDs, the more mechanized its army, and the more offensive its military posture, the less likely it will be to reject WMDs.

2.1 IRANIAN WMDS CAPABILITY

To describe a country as a WMDs possessor means that the state has the capability of mass producing, weaponizing, and applying lethal chemical or biological agents, or nuclear weapon grade material, in war. By this definition, Iran does not possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

2.1.1 CHEMICAL WEAPONS CAPABILITY

Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran and Iraqi-Kurdish citizens in the 1980s, which was not met with serious international opprobrium, provided sufficient reason for Iran to research, produce, and develop lethal chemical agents for military application, at least for the period of the armed conflict. Despite such a volatile history, Iran did sign the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on January 13, 1993, the first day that it was open for signature, and it ratified the Convention on November 3, 1997.

The CWC entered into force for Iran on December 3, 1997. Iran has publicly acknowledged the existence of a chemical weapons program that was developed during the latter stages of the 1980 to 1988 war with Iraq. On ratifying the CWC, Iran opened its facilities to international inspection and confirmed that all its chemical weapons activities had been terminated and the facilities destroyed prior to the treaty’s entry into force. The CWC utilizes three different verification systems: routine inspection, challenge inspection, and clarification on State declarations.

Since 1999 the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has conducted scores of routine inspections in Iran, and to date no state has chosen to activate the challenge inspection provisions against Iran. There is only one report that the United States and Britain called for a challenge inspection to question Iran’s initial declaration, but this was resolved by a clarification from Iran.

Iran’s capability in chemical technology and material originated in old chemical industries, such as the Abadan refinery, the first of its kind in the Middle East. A more recent example is Pars Chlorine, a large factory in the north of Iran, which has the technological capability to produce dual-use chemicals. Pars Chlorine started operation in the city of Tabriz on November 22, 1998, with an export capability of two million U.S. dollars. The factory produces various chemicals, such as liquid chlorine, caustic soda, and chlorine acid, which are mainly used in water chlorination, detergents, paper mills, soap, and glass manufacturing.

There is sufficient domestic peaceful use for these products in Iran, and the Iranian general balance of trade does not show a significant change in export or import of chemical agents by which one could deduce that Iran is covering up chemical weapons production.

Iranian pursuit of chemical weapons defense has a long history. Between the years 1955 and 1960, eleven Iranian officers attended U.S. Army chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training courses to prepare for chemical weapons defense, given the probability of a Soviet chemical attack.10 In April 1988, the Yasa Factory of the National Industries Organization began producing gas masks, initially in limited numbers, and a new area decontamination system known as Deraksh-6 was introduced at the same time.

These preparations provided Iran with sufficient defensive power against chemical weapon attacks in any future war. Although Iran did develop the know-how for mass production of chemical weapons and is prepared for chemical weapons defense operations, it is not currently in possession of chemical weapons, and is therefore considered a non-possessor in this study.

2.1.2 BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CAPABILITY

The Central Intelligence Agency believes that “Iran probably has the capability to produce at least small quantities of BW [biological warfare] agents.”12 The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI’s) January 1 to December 31, 2006, report to Congress, addressing Iranian biological warfare programs, stated that “Iran probably has the capability to produce large-quantities of some Biological Warfare (BW) agents for offensive purposes, if it made the decision to do so.

”13 The 2010 ODNI report changed its 2006 assertion, however, assessing that “Iran  probably has the capability to produce some biological warfare (BW) agents for offensive purposes, if it made the decision to do so.” This qualified assessment could be interpreted as an indication that “U.S intelligence probably does not have evidence of any current Iranian BW program.”

Allegations made by Iranian opposition groups regarding Iranian biological warfare programs have never been substantiated, but the level of techniques utilized by Iranian institutes speaks for itself. Iran’s high level of technology and experience suggests that, although Iran has not yet realized an offensive biological weapons program, it has the capability should it decide to do so.

The fact is that Iran did accede to the Geneva Protocol in 1929 and ratify the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) in 1973, and it has actively participated in all subsequent negotiations to develop the Convention. In 1998 Iran hosted a trial inspection visit of the Razi Institute, the biggest institute of its kind in the country, on behalf of the BTWC16

2.1.3 NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAPABILITY

The issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons capability is more complicated and more sensitive than its chemical and biological capabilities, thus it absorbs a great deal of international diplomatic and academic attention.

Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entered into an agreement for the application of safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The agreement was entered into force on May 15, 1974, after being circulated by the IAEA on December 13, 1974.18 The IAEA’s most comprehensive report, however, in November  2011, expressed its “serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.”

These concerns were not actually new but were rooted in earlier reports confirming Iran’s failure in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement, with respect to the reporting of nuclear material; its processing and its use; and the declaration of facilities where such material has been processed and stored. The same controversial 2011 report, however, as well as a few reports in 2012, detracted from the above concerns by conveying that “the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside of the facilities] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement.”

To read more about this great report please go to: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/salsabili-dp-march-2013.pdf

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The Scottish Economy Report they Classified Top Secret

August 14th, 2013

 

 

 

 

By The Scottish Economic Planning Department. 1975.



At the meeting which you held last week on various aspects of North Sea oil and devolution I suggested that I might send in the attached paper in the hope that it would serve as a starting point for any assessment the Unit may wish to carry out on the economics of Scottish Independence.

The Paper was written over a year ago in the weeks immediately before the February 1974 Election. This will be particularly apparent of page 5 where, of course, the Ministerial pronouncements referred to relate to the Conservative Government.

I have not attempted to update any of the figures, since although there would be differences these do not seem to me to be such as to alter the argument. As you will realise, the debate on Scottish nationalism has been founded to a surprising extent on economic arguments ad the purpose of this paper was to examine how far this was affected by North Sea Oil. The first part goes through most of the usual arguments which have been used against the Nationalists in the past with fairly convincing effect; the second part sets out the sort of economic strategy which an SNP Government might try to follow indicating both the dangers and the possibilities.

As I said at the meeting, one can reach almost any conclusion depending upon the assumptions that are made about tariffs, a common currency, a Scottish Government’s spending priorities and its success in controlling inflation. My paper may give an SNP Government the benefit of too many doubts, but I was anxious to see whether a credible economic strategy could be put together which would appear to be more convincing in terms of solving Scotland’s traditional economic problems than the regional policies of the Unionist Governments have been up until now.

I think the conclusion is that the most convincing way of taking the wind out of the SNP’s sails is by demonstrating that we now have policies which can make major in-roads into these problems. When my paper was written it was classified “secret” and given only a most restricted circulation in the Scottish Office because of the extreme sensitivity of the subject.

I am copying it now to Leo Pliatzky, Dick Ross, Jim Hamilton, John Liverman and Stuart Scott Whyte. R G L McCrone

SECRET

THE ECONOMICS OF NATIONALISM RE-EXAMINED

It is commonplace that the discovery of North Sea oil and entry to the EEC are factors of major economic significance for Scotland. Already both issues, especially the former, feature widely in the SNP’s election material. The purpose of this paper is to reassess the economic arguments for an independent Scotland in the light of these developments, especially the discovery of oil.

It will be shown that the whole framework within which the economic implications of nationalism were argued has indeed been altered. The importance of this is probably greater than is recognised at present by the majority of the public and it may well be, therefore, that the discovery of North Sea oil will come to be seen as something of a watershed in Scotland’s economic and political life.

The case for Scottish nationalism is, of course, very much more than an economic issue. This paper makes no attempt to examine the wider questions. Suffice it to say that Scottish nationalism has been much more concerned with economic prosperity than nationalist movements in other countries.

Unlike Wales there is no great cultural movement attaching to the preservation of a language. The main cause of discontent is the country’s unsatisfactory economic performance over the last half century, especially the persistent unemployment and net emigration above all in the West of Scotland.

Poor social and environmental conditions, especially in and around the city of Glasgow, accompany this outdated economic framework and are as much a source discontent. Despite regional policy and the efforts of  planners, these problems have not been overcome, nor do they look as if they will be in the foreseeable future.

The SNP have therefore based their campaign on the assertion that Scotland would be economically better off independent; and it is for this reason that budgetary estimates have always featured so large in the controversy. Yet in spite of Scotland’s undoubtedly poor economic performance the SNP case until recently lack credibility. Most people regarded both their statistics and arguments suspect, and they continued to believe that Scotland derived more economic advantage than disadvantage from the Union.

The importance of North Sea oil is that it raises just this issue in a more acute form than at any other time since the Act of Union was passed.

The Case Against Nationalism

The traditional economic case against nationalism has always been that a politically independent Scotland would be unable to gain sufficient economic sovereignty to solve her problems successfully. This is partly a question of the scale of the Scottish economy, but more of the extent to which it has become integrated with that of the rest of the UK over the last 270 years.

Scotland needs a faster rate of economic growth than wither she or the UK has had in recent years if she is to absorb her excess labour resources and thereby cut down both unemployment and migration, There are three principal way in which an independent Government might seek to bring this about. First it could seek to foster and protect Scottish industry by means of tariffs and import controls.

But such measures would risk retaliation from England which, given Scotland’s close trade ties with England, could cause damage far in excess of any benefit that may be hoped for. Such policies would also be incompatible with continued membership of the EEC and withdrawal, especially with England, Wales ad Ireland remaining members, would clearly have very damaging consequences.

Secondly, fiscal policies might be used to give especially large benefits to new industrial investment or tax relief and subsidies to existing industry. This might involve the imposition of a tax frontier at the border, as still exists between most EEC countries, but this need not to make it impractical. Such policies have been used with considerable success by the Irish Republic since the mid-1950s.

The main disadvantage is that England would probably feel obliged to match the Scottish measures with equivalent in grants or tax allowances for industry in English and Welsh Development Areas. Up to now England has always been in a position financially where, if she wished, she could have more than matched any measures which a Scottish Government would be able to afford.

It is here that the budgetary position of a Scottish Government becomes important. Various studies, notably the Treasury’s Scottish Budget of 1967/68 and the work of the Kilbrandon Commission have shown that public expenditure per head in Scotland is generally above the UK average, whereas public revenue is Scotland is slightly lower, largely because Scottish incomes are below the UK average. The result is that budgetary estimates for Scotland show a proportionately larger borrowing requirement than for the UK as a whole.

His position is confirmed in the most recent estimate of Scotland’s budgetary position carried out by the Economic and Statistics Unit of SEPD for 1971/72. This shows a Scottish current account surplus of £24m. but a net borrowing requirement of £447m. overall.

There are, of course, various ways in which this could be tackled. In the first place it is not necessary to balance the budget. To finance loans and various items of capital investment, particularly those which yield a return by borrowing is quite reasonable; other items too may be covered by borrowing form time to time particularly if an expansionary budget is necessary to generate a higher level of economic activity in the economy.

For these various reasons the United Kingdom budget normally involves a net borrowing requirement and whilst this will normally be fairly small this is not always so; in the present year, for example, the borrowing requirement reached the record figure of £4,000m.

If allowance is made for the capital items that it would normally be reasonable to finance by loan, this would still lave a Scottish deficit of over £200m., a very similar figure in 1971/72 to what it was in 1967/68.

Whilst such a figure could be covered if it arose only exceptionally, it could not be tolerated as a regular feature of the budget. It would involve a steadily increasing Scottish debt and it would have serious implications both for interest rates and monetary policy, unless a substantial part of it could be financed from abroad.

A Scottish Government would therefore have to take steps to reduce the deficit either by raising taxes or cutting expenditure. Such measures are perfectly possible, and on the scale necessary, need not provoke a intolerable situation, especially if defence was one of the items cut; but they would create a background of acute budgetary stringency against which it is hard to see it being possible to provide a major fiscal stimulus to encourage economic expansion.

The third possible course of action would be to devalue the Scottish currency. This would stimulate economic activity by increasing the demand for exports and making Scottish goods more competitive against imports in their home market. In many respects devaluation would be the obvious measure for an economy in Scotland’s condition with persistent unemployment, a budgetary deficit and probably a serious adverse balance on the balance of payments.

Indeed, if the later was persistent, it might be that devaluation would be inescapable. Exchange rate adjustment is, of course, the ultimate and most effective weapon by which an economically sovereign state maintains approximately full employment while at the same time avoiding balance of payments disequilibrium.

Indeed, if Scotland could have devalued by a good thumping 2 percent and made the adjustment effective in terms of costs, this would be by far the best way of solving Scotland’s economic problems of the last two decades. It has been argued that the‘regional problem’ only arises because exchange rate adjustment, the normal way of dealing with disequilibria between countries, is not possible between regions.

However, the economic case against Scottish nationalism has always at bottom come down to the proposition that an independent Scotland would not find it possible to carry out an effective devaluation. To be effective, devaluation involves a country in making a cut in its real living standards at least until such time as production is able to catch up. But the Scottish labour market is so closely linked with that of the rest of the UK that it is hard to see how real earnings could be adjusted downwards without giving rise to the most serious difficulties. For such a small country heavily dependent of international trade, devaluation would, of course, have serious inflationary consequences, since all imports would rise in price.

Trade Unions are to a large extent on a Great Britain basis and it is hard to see them accepting a deliberate attempt to cut real wages in Scotland compared with England whatever the reason for it may be. Furthermore, even with independence, freedom of labour movement between England and Scotland would be likely to continue, a common language and two and a half centuries of free movement make this easy.

Changes in real wage levels would therefore be likely to be reflected in migration figures and could lead to a shortage of certain types of skilled labour in Scotland even while a surplus among the less mobile unskilled persisted.

It is for these reasons that many economists have in the past concluded that Scotland, if she were independent, would probably be unable to devalue effectively against the rest of the United Kingdom.

Lacking this ultimate weapon of economic sovereignty and limited by the budgetary situation in the use she could make of fiscal policy, it did not seem that political independence would give Scotland sufficient economic sovereignty to enable her to tackle her economic problems successfully, At the same time, whatever the constitutional set-up, the Scottish economy would remain closely integrated with that of the rest of the UK and would be greatly affected by policy decisions taken in London, though as an independent state her ability to influence those decisions would be greatly reduced.

The Implications of North Sea Oil

The analysis in the last section is based on the situation as it appeared before the discovery of North Sea oil. Even after its discovery the full significance of North Sea oil was not immediately apparent and it still remains in large measure disguised from the Scottish public by the DTI’s failure to make provision for a proper Government return when the fourth round of licences was issued.

So far all that Minister have said is that they expect North Sea oil to be yielding 70-100m. tons of oil per annum by 1980 and that on that basis the Government revenue from rent and royalties from the whole of the Continental Shelf including the gas fields in the southern sector may be of the order of £100m. per annum at that time.

It has been explained that this estimate does not include the yield from ordinary taxation on the oil companies and it has been stated that licensing policy is currently under review but the significance of this has probably not been fully appreciated by the public.

To Continue reading this report: http://www.oilofscotland.org/mccronereport.pdf

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A Brief History of Media Bias

August 13th, 2013
by Bruce Thornton.
(Research Fellow; W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow, 2009–10, 2010–11; and member, military history working group) Who said that newspapers are supposed to report the news in an objective and fact-based way?

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The revelation that the Department of Justice acquired and read the phone records of Associated Press editors and reporters does not change the obvious fact that the mainstream media have been reliable supporters of the Democratic Party, even if they are unappreciated by the administration.

For many conservatives, the mainstream media’s reluctant coverage of the death of four Americans, including an ambassador, in Benghazi, Libya last September 11 is merely the latest expression of the media’s political bias. The testimony in the House Oversight Committee’s May 8 hearings on the attack has made it obvious that both before and after the presidential election, the media showed no interest in challenging the administration’s swiftly exploded claim that an obscure internet video caused the attack rather than a terrorist affiliate of the same al Qaeda the president on the campaign trail was bragging had been “decimated” and “rocked back on its heels.”

  
Photo credit: mlangsam2004

This unsavory relationship between the media and the Democrats has long existed, but the political career of Barack Obama marks a quantum leap beyond the media’s traditional liberal preferences and biases––which in the past had at least a patina of objectivity and neutrality––to blatant advocacy, double standards, and explicit partisan hatred.

The roots of media bias go back to the nineteenth century, and complaints about bias in part reflect a questionable idea about the media’s role and purpose: that newspapers and other dispensers of public information exist to transmit objective, factual information gleaned and communicated by credentialed professionals.

In fact, the notion that reporters should possess Olympian objectivity is relatively recent. In the nineteenth century, most newspapers were explicitly linked to a particular political party and the economic interests of the publisher. In California during the Gold Rush, for example, the San Francisco Alta California was the enemy of Democratic governor John Bigler, whose press champion was the Stockton Republican. Most of the coverage of crime during this period––particularly the spree of the Mexican bandit Joaquín Murieta and the state-funded posse that tracked him down and killed him––reflected those political interests and loyalties rather than mere facts. Moreover, the stories were written in a florid, dramatic style more suitable for a dime novel than a presumably more sober newspaper. Of course protestations of objectivity and accuracy were made, but these were understood to be mere rhetorical camouflage for the editorial opinions sown throughout most news stories.

The tradition of lurid sensationalism, scandal-mongering, and exaggeration put in service to profits and a political agenda continued in the “yellow journalism” famously on display in the circulation war between the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers in the late nineteenth century. More significantly, that was also when the progressive movement promoted the notion that the proper function of the media was to instruct and shape the opinions of voters too uninformed and irrational to be trusted with making the right choice based on facts alone.

As historian Chilton Williamson writes of this period, “The presentation of facts simply as facts, editors and writers reasoned, cannot accomplish the exalted goal of saving civilization. To do that, facts needed to be presented according to those rhetorical patterns of thought we call opinions, patterns pointed in some particular direction of convincing an imagined jury.” This “jury” included the opinion-makers, politicians, and citizens who needed guiding by their betters in order to understand and choose the policies necessary for improving society.

This rampant partisanship that characterized newspapers for most of their existence may strike us as deplorable, but it functioned much in the same way that James Madison in Federalist 10 wanted political institutions to work. Just as in government, partisan media factions would balance and limit opposing factions, thus protecting the freedom of the citizenry as a whole by limiting the scope of any one faction’s power and influence. With numerous newspapers representing a variety of opinions available, any particular citizen had access to those papers that represented his point of view or challenged the assertions of other ones. By the Sixties, however, several developments compromised this balance and made the press’s partisanship more dangerous.

First, journalism became a “profession” certified by a university degree. Before then, as films like The Front Pageand It Happened One Night show, journalism was a working-class trade. As late as the 1970s, when my wife began her career as a reporter, most of the veterans in the newsroom lacked college degrees. They had worked their way up from being a copy-kid or a writer of obituaries, earning by experience the job of reporter. Any biases tended to reflect those of class as much as of political ideology.

Once reporters started coming out of colleges and universities, however, they were shaped by the leftist perspective of those institutions. These perspectives, once marginal in American public discourse, became increasingly prominent in the press and television news shows. Now the old progressive view that the press should not just report facts, but mold public opinion to achieve certain political ends, served an ideology fundamentally adverse to the free-market, liberal-democratic foundations of the American Republic.

As Orville Schell, one-time Dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, has put it, “In a democracy, indeed in any intelligent society, the media and politicians have to lead. The media should be introducing us to new things, interesting things, things we don’t already know about; helping us change our minds or make up our minds, not just pandering to lowest-denominator wisdom.” Of course, these goals ignore the fact that politicians are accountable to voters, whereas unelected journalists are accountable to no one other than their bosses and the bottom line. And who decides what the minds of voters should be changed to? Isn’t that the function of the editorial pages?

The catalyst for this process of the media’s mainstreaming of leftist ideology was the war in Vietnam. The left viewed this conflict not as a Cold War duel necessary for containing communist aggression, as many Americans believed, but as a neo-imperialist attempt to prop up an oppressive regime of capitalist lackeys trying to crush a nationalist liberation movement. As such, it was the duty of the media to instruct their fellow citizens on their errors of thinking and liberate them from their delusions.

The distorted reporting on the 1968 Tet offensive––an utter failure for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, who lost 40,000 men in their doomed attempt to bring down the government in the South––was depicted in the American media as a successful exposure of the corrupt South’s weakness and the futility of American intervention. Even theWall Street Journal editorialized that “the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed.”

Similarly, the media attention given to the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 reinforced the narrative of American crimes and bungling in Vietnam, even though the Department of Defense study ended in 1967, and so had nothing to say about the success of General Creighton Abrams in turning the war around after Tet and compelling the North to negotiate for peace in 1973. More recently, we have seen these same accusations of duplicity and incompetence in much of the coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush presidency. Failures, mistakes, collateral damage, and casualties were highlighted, successes and heroism downplayed or ignored. Underlying the coverage, especially of the war in Iraq, was the narrative of a Vietnam-like  “unjust” war sold to Congress and the American people with manufactured intelligence, and pursued to enrich corporate cronies of the administration.

Yet despite the political bias of much of its reporting of the Vietnam conflict, the media congratulated themselves for ending the war, and confirmed their status as the righteous “watchdogs” monitoring the government, “speaking truth to power,” and protecting our liberties. The Watergate affair, a political scandal of the sort that can be found throughout American history, not only confirmed the media’s self-congratulatory pose as the only thing standing between the American people and fascism, but bestowed as well the rewards of celebrity status and lucre on the reporters who in effect had simply channeled information given to them by a disgruntled FBI employee. The end result is the mainstream media today: for-profit businesses that think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior not just to other businesses, but to the organs of government and the mass of gullible voters who put politicians in office.

The second development that increased the malign partisan influence of the media in the postwar period was the rise of television and the decline in the number of newspapers. With that, there were fewer and fewer information sources from which readers could chose, giving the three television networks and the big metropolitan papers, especially the New York Times, inordinate unchallenged power over public information. At the same time, those seeking alternative points of view had fewer and fewer daily papers, while the ones that remained were dependent on a few news services such as the Associated Press, which represents one point of view. To speak in Madisonian terms, one media faction had now expanded to the point that it crowded out and marginalized alternative points of view.

What made the media’s bias dangerous, then, as much as their ideology was the monopoly they enjoyed. But starting in the 1980s, the rise of talk radio, cable news shows, and most importantly the Internet has created more competition for the mainstream media. Voters now have a plethora of choices for news and opinion, and the biased reporting of the past is now swiftly exposed by those alternative sources of information.

There is no better example of the power of this new media world than the downfall of CBS News icon Dan Rather. In September 2004, a few months before the presidential election, Rather reported on documents critical of President Georg Bush’s Air National Guard service. Within hours Internet bloggers had exposed the documents as forgeries, and Rather’s thirty-three-year-long career on CBS soon came to an end. Media bias and partisanship are now instantly held accountable in ways that were unthinkable a few decades ago.

Today, then, we are back to where we were in the past. Citizens have numerous options for news and information, and numerous alternatives that challenge, balance, and correct the partisan biases of the mainstream media. More importantly, this new media world means that in a democracy ruled by the people, the responsibility for sorting out truth from partisan spin lies where it should, with the free citizens who have the civic duty to seek out and evaluate information before voting for a party or policy. Media bias is no longer an excuse for neglecting that responsibility.

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Bruce S. Thornton is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He received his BA in Latin in 1975 and his PhD in comparative literature–Greek, Latin, and English–in 1983, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. Thornton is currently a professor of classics and humanities at California State University in Fresno, California. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays and reviews on Greek culture and civilization and their influence on Western civilization. His latest book, published in March 2011, is titled The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama’s America.

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Imagine China was the new leading superpower?

August 13th, 2013

 

 

 

Contributor opinion.

 



Often China has been criticized for their ruthless approach handling military and social outcomes. But China, taking away some bad communist practices, has also slowly adapted to ‘newer versions’’ of capitalism providing open arms for corporations that happen to benefit an underclass that allows higher production rates and satisfactory results to keep the high Chinese unemployment lower (even though is high). So Shanghai, Beijing and to some degree Hong Kong have thrived and got wealthier with this approach. As a result their military capabilities have also flourished.  

But what would the world look like if China, became the leading world power instead of the U.S.. How would it affect or change global finances (globalization) and trade, politics, and freedom of expression? What would a new leading world power like china offer to the world that the U.S. and other world powers like England could not? How would the Middle East and Europe handle it? Would it be good or bad?

 



Claude Nougat. 

“To fully answer that question, you’d need to write a book AND be a really good futurologist (most people aren’t). Lately I’ve thought about this sort of thing a lot while writing my new science fiction book Forever Young exploring what the world is likely to look like 200 years from now. And I can tell you that I’m convinced China will overtake the US – it’s just a matter of time and the population number is in favor of China: three times as populated a the US. I’m also convinced that it will be leaving communist ideology behind, it’s not adapted to a modern, industrialized society. But it will retain its anti-democratic authoritarian tendencies: these are ingrained in Chinese history.

On the other side – in the West with its libertarian traditions – there will also be a move towards a more authoritarian approach to governance, already clearly seen in the NSA/Snowden scandal (following up on the Wikileaks/Assange scandal of a few years ago). Big Brother is going to be increasingly watching you whether you live in China or the US. The future is going to be in the hands of an ultra rich and powerful elite, the famous One Percent, no matter where you happen to live on earth.

In one word, I don’t think the rise of China will spell any difference in terms of where our society is going. We’re headed towards a great divide between the haves and the have-nots. At the highest levels of government, there will be a convergence – a meeting of the minds of the ultra rich and powerful – and whether they are Chinese or from some other country will have no incidence/effect/impact whatsoever.

The freedom of the 99 percent won’t exist, instead a minimum level of living standards will be ensured to avoid any revolutionary tendencies to upend the system. Bread and circus as the Ancient Romans used to do. History goes forwards, human nature does not. Just my two cents…And of course, I expand on that world view a lot in my science fiction novel.”

 



David Merkel. 

“The US, for all of its problems, is a relatively fair dealer in global affairs, excluding Israel, which is favored by Zionists, both Christian and Jewish.  The US will take positions that do not favor their short-term interests, so long as it favors greater freedom.  Think of Egypt.

China will not soon be the leading world power.  It does not empower its people.   Nations are powerful because they harness the abilities of their people to the maximum.  China inhibits its people, and invests in export industries, whether the world needs the exports or not.

Just as the Soviet Union fell, and Japan fell, so will it be for all centrally planned economies.  China will suffer its own fall, because its central planning will fail.  The Chinese economy is far weaker than it looks, because of overinvestment.  Just as Japan stalled out in the late 80s, so will China now.”

 



Romy Kerwin. 

This is a difficult question.  I can explain some things but I am no economist so I will let the numbers to someone who is. There are 31 different Chinas because there are 31 provinces as well as several semi-independent ones.  China is huge, much bigger than the US and the problems of development within China is the number one preoccupation of the Chinese leader.

China is already the number 1 country in the world with one billion + people and an economy always on the move. China is not at war as opposed to the USA.  China is not trying to impose their ” democratic ” lifestyle to all the countries in the world.

Today’s China is pacifist even though there are Maritime disputes, which have been left to the ” next generation ” to solve. China is patient so there will not be impulsive moves towards peace or war as seen with George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

I was recently in Beijing and was amazed by this beautiful, orderly city. Subways were glistening with wonderful colours, always in time and running through the city.  There were many Western luxury shops, such as Prada. Louis Vuitton, Channel, etc…

There were traffic jams with equally luxurious cars on the roads.  On the whole, even though, there are millions of people in the capital, there was a general feeling of peacefulness.  Many gardens and parks were free of people and I sat by ponds and small lakes with weeping willows and felt a sort of peace that I had never felt before.

I was also aware that nobody would come out of the bushes to rape or kill me. There were ducks and swans that glided silently on the water amidst Autumn fallen leaves and I felt that everything was right with the world.

There were no Mc Donalds, starbucks or anything that would break the silence and calm of the moment.

Later, in December, I went back to skate on these same ponds, alone, happy, free. The crowds in the subway were orderly, quiet and moving to their next destinations with women or men in bright uniforms giving directions.  I never felt lost.  There were no graffitis and people seemed happy.

This was so different from the daily scenes in the United States.  Another thing that struck me is that all young people had knowledge of English and wanted to talk to me, sharing their experiences of how they learned English. All the young people were elegantly dressed.  There was no crazy fashion, blue, red or orange hair in worn out jeans.

There was definitely a spirit of elegance and harmony. I have asked myself this question : if I had to choose about living in China vs living in America, what would I choose.  The answer is definitely China, especially Beijing or Nanjing.

I met a young couple in Toronto from China lately, The mother and the baby went to China to visit relatives.  She had just returned from Nanjing and she wanted to go back.  She said that life is cheaper in China and that many women had access to spa treatments and clothes that they could afford.  She sported a new nice hairstyle.

In China, politics are well known and do not change for ten years.  People do not vote.  There is no corruption about the electoral system, no frenzy about politics.  We never see politicians in the news, except when the son of the Prime Minister runs his Lamborghini into a tree.

I am sure that there is some form of corruption with consumption at the top but, in a way, it trickles down. The US has lost its Middle Class and in China, it is the opposite, a Middle Class is being created every day.  Universities are free and the teaching is excellent. I was offered a job at Peking University and had the opportunity to visit classrooms, to sit in for lectures and observe freely the lives of the student body.

There are no campus rapes in China because the police areeverywhere to maintain order even though they act more like friends than police officers.  They are there to protect the students and help with directions. Contrary to what we believe, I have not seen any repression or violence by the authorities.  Tiannamen square was a decade ago.

It is now a huge boulevard with flowers everywhere and the many cultural aspects of Beijing.

The Chinese economy is already leading the world.  Japan is counting on its Abenomics to revitalize the country.  Maybe it will work , maybe not but in any case Japan is no longer the number 2 economy in the world.

This is like a travel journal, not a clear dissertation on China.  The people who prepared my food in the small eateries I visited became very friendly and always remembered what I liked to eat and how. There was NO obesity !  I knew that I was not in the US !

Twice a week, I have enjoyed international shows at a ridiculously low price in the magnificent Centre for the performing Arts. If China were to lead the world, there would be more patience, perhaps less exploitation of people.  China is in Africa and even though they import their own workers, they also invest in infrastructures and educate Africans about how to run the new industries.

Is China perfect ? probably no, definitely no but I liked the lifestyle, seeing old men in their pajamas playing majong with their neighbours on the streets, watching the street cleaners and their hand made brooms.  It was a different life, slower, comfortable.

As I said, not all provinces are equal and there are 31 of them.  They are as different as the States in the US.  There are 31 different Chinas.  The only thing they all have in common is their incredible natural beauty as depicted in many Chinese Art objects, murals, temples and homes. The beauty is real.”

 



Catherine Haig.

“My late parents used to fret about “seeing 100 million Chinese soldiers marching down American streets to take us over” but that never happened. China is a communist country, they only allow 1 child per family to be born. The other children are aborted or given to other people and if you are a female forget about it; your life is over in China.

So answering your question would the world be better with them in the lead – NO. The world would fight them for power and it would create another World War and we might all go boom in the aftermath.

Whatever China has learned about survival it’s learned from us in the WEST so giving them credit for any of the issues you cited is nil. China would take capitalism or any other political theory and twist it to suit themselves and by “themselves” I mean the ruling class in China.

 



Gary L. Yantis.

“It’s a question I’ve pondered and have actually discussed with others from time to time.  I believe it is a question that goes beyond hypothetical to reality unless the current path of the world significantly changes and does so soon, This question becoming reality is not “if” but “when”.

IMO “sooner rather than later”.  The long-term travails of mankind I believe will be determined by the outcome of this single question – great question!”

 



Jaime Ortega Simo. (Editor)

Out of all the countries that could potentially overtake the U.S. as the leading super power, China would not be my favorite candidate!

Just alike other civilizations in History that took over other civilizations, China would be likely to give status to their own population, and possibly tyrannize other nations by providing less rights.

China does not dwell on a democratic structure, it dwells on a dual marble cake system. A division between elitism to protect the communist principle of government, and at the bottom layer allow the lower class to foment a capitalist mindset, but without any premise of democracy.

There is no conclusive evidence to believe China would treat the rest of the world humanly different,than how they treat their own population inside rural areas and small villages where growth is notoriously slow.

Never mind religious rights, you can just take a look at how they treat Uyghurs, in North Western China. And how they’re prosecuting Christian evangelist even in larger cities. Lets not forget activist like Ai Wei Wei, who oppose the government corruption and are pro-civil rights.

Alike India, China is already working inside Eastern Africa, and exploiting countries like Ethiopia by taking over agriculture and control natural resources to be manufactured home. But China is not NATO, WTO, UN… friendly — And if they keep increasing their military capabilities, its possible China would violate human rights and threats without abstaining to the consequences and sanctions imposed. And I doubt countries can bully, a new superpower.

If United States did not protect Japan, Korea and Taiwan, I’m sure China would take ‘strategic advantage’ and take over those countries to secure their interests and expand it, just as you would predict in any previous young emerging civilization in history.

Saudi Arabia and Israel, would be in geographical problems because of their western alliances with Europe and the U.S..

Russia and Iran, would be a tricky card for China, because as much as they like to ‘unitely reject’ the U.S. as the leading superpower, interest in oil reserves and geographical landmarks in the Middle East would amid and escalate into something bigger.

In my opinion, Russia and Iran, are naive to the consequences of their political hypocrisy. At one point it would turn against their own interest.

The point is, China will not be anything like the U.S., the world will be much more convulsive and conflictive.

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Zambia Human Rights Report

August 10th, 2013

 

By State Gov.



Zambia is a constitutional republic governed by a democratically elected president and a unicameral national assembly. International and local observers considered national elections held in September 2011 to be generally free and fair.

Security forces reported to civilian authorities.Serious human rights abuses occurred during the year. The most important were abuses by security forces, including unlawful killings, torture, and beatings; lifethreatening prison conditions; and restrictions on freedom of speech, assembly, and association.

Other serious human rights problems included arbitrary arrest, prolonged pretrial detention, arbitrary interference with privacy, government corruption, violence and discrimination against women, child abuse, trafficking in persons, discrimination against persons with disabilities and based on sexual orientation,restrictions on labor rights,forced labor, and child labor.

The government generally did not take steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses, and impunity remained a problem.

Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:

 a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life

There were several reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. Senior officials encouraged police officers to use their weapons when apprehending suspects, despite a government directive that restricted the use of firearms by officers and a government pledge to retrain police on the use of force.

On May 23, police officers beat Edrick Simbeye to death. He was arrested for building a house on someone else’s land. On September 5, police fatally shot 50-year-old Wesley Mpundu as he drove to his home. Police claimed the shooting was accidental.

An investigative committee reported to the president concerning the killing of two persons and the injury of several others during riots in Barotseland in January AMBIA Country Reports on Human Rights Practicesfor 2012 United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 2011.

Although its findings were not released to the public, the media reported the committee determined that police had violated the human rights of the rioters and that the courts had treated those detained inhumanely and unjustly. In addition to compensation for police brutality and negligence, the committee recommended the government offer an unqualified apology to the victims and to the families of those killed.

The government rarely punished perpetrators. No steps were taken to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses.

b. Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The constitution states that no person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading punishment. However, there were reports that police frequently used excessive force, including torture, when apprehending, interrogating, and detaining criminal suspects.

Undertrained and underequipped police officers often used force, up to and including deadly physical force. For example, in January Ceaser Chalwe testified to the local chapter of the Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) that he and his friends were whipped with electrical cables, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with death by police in an effort to force them to confess to theft of a motor vehicle.

Authorities also detained, interrogated, and physically abused family members or associates of criminal suspectsto coerce them into identifying the location of suspects.

For example, in February police falsely imprisoned and brutalized two relatives of Peter Berejana, who was wanted for armed robbery.

Officers who beat or otherwise abused suspects generally were not disciplined or arrested unless the abuses led to death and became public. In contrast with 2011, human rights groups received no reports of police demanding sex from female detainees as a condition oftheir release, nor were there reports that police officers raped women and girls in their custody.

Prison and Detention Center Conditions

Prison conditions were harsh and life threatening due to outbreaks of disease, food and potable water shortages, gross overcrowding, and poor sanitation and medical care.

Delays in court proceedings caused by an inefficient judiciary contributed to the holding of large numbers of pretrial detainees for extended periods.

Physical Conditions: The country’s prisons, which were built to hold 5,700 inmates, held approximately 17,000 in April, of whoman estimated 5,000 were pretrial detainees, according to the Prisons Care and Counseling Association (PRISCCA).

Approximately 3 percent of the detainees were women and 3 percent were juveniles, a significant decrease from 2011, when 18 percent were women and 10 percent were juveniles. These declines in the number offemale and juvenile detainees were attributed to pretrial nongovernmental organization (NGO) mediation, alternative sentencing, and presidential amnesties.

The Lusaka Central Prison, which was designed to accommodate 200 prisoners, held more than 1,500. Juveniles often were held with adults and were victims of sexual abuse. Pretrial detainees were held with convicted prisoners. Women and men were generally held separately.

By law police may detain suspects up to 24 hours in holding cells. The Zambia Prison Service operated 87 incarceration facilities nationwide, of which 53 were standard prisons, 33 open-air prisons, and one juvenile reformatory.

Overcrowding, poor sanitation, dilapidated infrastructure, inadequate and deficient medical facilities, meager food supplies, and lack of potable water resulted in serious outbreaks of dysentery, cholera, and tuberculosis. Prisons generally had  inadequate ventilation, temperature control, lighting, and basic and emergency medical care.

Many prisoners were malnourished because they received only one serving of cornmeal and beans per day, called a combined meal because it represented breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

As a consequence of these conditions, death in prison was believed to be a common occurrence.There were 1,800 prison officers. Prison rules require prisoners receiving medical attention to be escorted by a prison officer. There were not enough prison officers to perform escort duty,so prisoners were routinely denied access to medical care.

For example, on August 15, Weva Muchimba died from tuberculosis after prison authorities allegedly denied him access to medical care. There was a significant lack of prison health services; 25 clinical officers and one medical doctor staffed 19 prison clinics.

The supply of tuberculosis drugs was erratic. Failure to remove or quarantine sick inmates resulted in the spread of Labor tuberculosis and other airborne illnesses, leading to infection and death in prison populations.

Antiretroviral treatment was available to some prisoners infected with HIV/AIDS, but poor nutrition often rendered the treatment ineffective. PRISCCA acknowledged the prevalence of homosexual conduct in prisons. Because the law criminalizes sodomy, authorities denied prisoners access to condoms.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS among prisoners was 24.1 percent, compared with 14.3 percent in the general population. There were no facilities for breastfeeding and expectant mothers. Incarcerated women who had no alternative for childcare could choose to have their infants and children under the age of four with them in prison. However, prisons provided no food or medical services to children, and mothers had to share their meager rations with their children in an environment lacking appropriate medical care that often exposed children to disease.

Administration: Record keeping was inadequate, and there were no alternatives to sentencing for nonviolent offenders. There were no ombudsmen to promote the interests of inmates.

Prisoners and detainees had regular access to visitors and were permitted religious observance. The government did not actively investigate or monitor prison and detention center conditions. Prisoners and detainees generally could not submit complaints to judicial authorities or request investigation of credible allegations of inhumane conditions.

Monitoring: During the year the government permitted prison visits by both domestic and international NGOs, including by religious institutions and the LRF.

Improvements: There were improvements in the handling of prisoners’ affairs during the year. Judges increasingly applied community service, fines, and other sentencing alternatives for minor offenses, especially for female and juvenile detainees. Pretrial detention of juveniles was reduced by expedited reformatory placement.

d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention

Although the constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, the government did not always respect these prohibitions.

Role of the Police and Security Apparatus

The Zambia Police Service (ZPS)reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Divided into regular and paramilitary units, it has primary responsibility for maintaining law and order. The Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZSIS), under the Office of the President, is responsible for intelligence and internal security.

The Central Police Command in Lusaka oversees 10 provincial police divisions with jurisdiction over police stations in towns countrywide. Although the government identified a need for 27,000 police officers, there were only 15,283 officers on duty at year’s end, with 1,500 recruits in training.

The defense forces, composed of the army, air force, and national service totaled approximately 21,600 members. The commander of each service reports to the minister of defense.

By law defense forces are to have domestic security responsibilities only in cases of national emergency. In addition to security responsibilities, the national service performs road maintenance and other public works projects and runs state farms for displaced children.

Paramilitary units of the ZPS, customs officers, and border patrol personnel watch over lake,river, and other border areas. The Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) is responsible for enforcing the laws on illegal drugs, fraud, counterfeiting, and money laundering. ZPS, DEC, customs, and border patrol personnel operate under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Lack of professionalism, poor investigatory skills, and corruption–attributed to inadequate salaries, training, and equipment–remained serious problems.

Civilian authorities maintained control over security forces.

The Police Public Complaints Authority (PPCA) encouraged aggrieved members of the public to report cases of human rights abuse by police. During the year the PPCA reviewed complaints regarding police conduct that were not resolved through internal police channels. However, many cases of abuse went unreported due to lack of public awareness of the PPCA and fear of retribution.

Government investigation of corruption cases generally targeted leaders of the former ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), a move publicly perceived as politically motivated.

Arrest Procedures and Treatment While in Detention Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor The constitution and law require authorities to obtain a warrant before arresting a person for most offenses.

To continue reading this report please go to: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/204393.pdf

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Sudan And South Sudan: China and conflict-affected states

August 9th, 2013

 

By Larry Attree (Safe World).



This case study draws on evidence gathered through desk review and field research in Juba, Central Equatoria State, and Bentiu, Unity State, South Sudan, Khartoum, Sudan and Beijing and Shanghai, China in July and August 2011. The field research included a total of 28 interviews with government officials, civil society and  the public.

The case study focuses on China’s engagement, analysing its impacts on peace and  conflict dynamics between Sudan and South Sudan, and internal to South Sudan. It is structured to provide an overview of peace and conflict dynamics in Sudan and South Sudan (section 5.2) and international engagement in the two states (section 5.3), before turning to a more detailed analysis of China’s engagement (section 5.4).

Building on this analysis, section 5.5 then offers conclusions and policy implications. In the wake of South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, it pays particular attention to the views of stakeholders in South Sudan regarding China’s past engagement and opportunities for its successful future engagement in a challenging but potentially rewarding context.

Although relevant links between the present topic, the conflict in Darfur and China’s role in the latter must be presently acknowledged, China’s engagement on Darfur will be discussed separately in a forthcoming Saferworld/St Andrew’s case study.

In the 200 years before their historic split, the history of Sudan and South Sudan was marred by colonisation, extorsionism exploitation, sectarianism and war. Sudan and South Sudan are culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse. They contain at least 19 major ethnic  groups and 600 sub-groups. Relations and competition between different groups have been bound up in religious, racial and ethnic ideology. After independence from

Britain in 1956, the country witnessed four military coups (1958, 1969, 1985, and 1989). Sudan’s diverse society has also been linked together by centuries of economic interaction, much of it exploitative. Despite attempts to curtail the trade at the end of the 19th Century, South Sudan was for a long time used by Arab traders as a hunting ground for slaves. South Sudan is rich in resources and fertile in many parts, but has historically been marginalised and disempowered. In 1955 a civil war began in the Southern regions of Sudan, and when the demand for Southern autonomy was rejected following independence in 1956, Africa’s longest civil war ensued.

The Addis Ababa Peace Accord, signed in 1972, initiated 11 years of peace and recovery. But a second phase of civil war reignited in 1983 with renewed intensity, until it was brought to an end in a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005.

The CPA of 2005 provided a framework for the National Congress Party (NCP), which holds power in Sudan, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which formed the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), to pursue peace.

It guaranteed South Sudan the right of self-determination while committing both parties to make the unity of Sudan attractive; it established an arrangement for wealth and power sharing, elections and constitutional reform; it offered a framework for careful handling of dynamics in the ‘three areas’ of Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile; and it ensured processes for compensating the victims of war.

This came about through a combination of foreign pressure, exhaustion on both sides with the devastating conflict and willingness to co-operate in profiting from Sudan’s oil wealth. The CPA period formally ended with South Sudan’s secession in July 2011.

This conflict had a catastrophic human and developmental impact on Sudan that can only be summarised here. The second phase of the North – South civil war (1983–2005), killed two million and displaced four million people in South Sudan.

Besides death, injury and displacement, in the long years of fighting, the conditions for achieving any progress beyond the most basic living conditions, infrastructure, institutions and services have never been in place across large swathes of the two countries.

Thus presecession Sudan remained one of the world’s least developed countries: ranked at 154 of 162 states on the Human Development Index in 2010,2 with very high rates of underfive mortality (108 per 1,000) and a primary completion rate of just 57 percent.

The civil war also transformed society in important ways, making violent methods for pursuing interests more commonplace, weakening traditional leadership structures and ensuring weapons proliferation across society on a massive scale.

Multiple causes are cited as having led to the North – South civil war, including failure to share resources equitably, ethnic and religious difference and later, the discovery of and competition for oil.

The start of oil production raised the stakes, with adverse consequences for those in close proximity to actual or potential oil producing areas.Tribal divisions, competition for land, land degradation, poverty and inequality have fuelled many subsidiary conflicts, which persist in a number of the states of South Sudan (such as Warrap, Lakes, Unity and Jonglei).

Aside from the civil war between the North and South and related localised and intra-South conflicts, armed conflict
has also plagued Darfur and Eastern Sudan.

Despite the end of the CPA period and South Sudan’s secession in July 2011, key issues remain unresolved between Sudan and South Sudan. These include border demarcation and management, allocation of disputed territories, rights of citizens in the two countries and sharing of debts, resources and revenues. Palpable tensions persist, and related outbreaks of violence occurred throughout 2011 and cannot be ruled out for the future.

There are many ways in which Sudan and South Sudan are closely tied – for example through intermarriages and trade relationships. Both sides also understand that peace is in their pragmatic interests, have limited capacity for war and will remain under considerable pressure to avoid escalating tensions. Nonetheless, the CPA process was threatened by mutual distrust and a sense among the two parties that they must compete to win or lose at each other’s expense.

The process of implementing the CPA can only be described as a partial success. The CPA period witnessed a military build-up on both sides, with oil revenues supporting retention of troops and additional arms procurement.

Within the North, the NCP leadership remains under pressure from security-oriented hardliners to attain a good  deal in resolving outstanding CPA issues (including on oil revenues).

The NCP is bitterly resented across South Sudan, perceived by many to be better at manipulating negotiations than, and unlikely to deal fairly with, Southern actors. While the SPLM has strongly focused its attention on achieving Southern secession, there have been moments of intransigence and provocation by Southern forces and leaders.

Thus, efforts to reach compromises have been held back by mutual suspicion and a dangerous tendency towards brinkmanship by both sides.

It is unclear whether and how the Government of Sudan (GoS) can be influenced to take a more restrained approach that is respectful of the rights of local communities and constructive in its pursuit of political processes, to achieve peace in the spirit of the CPA. Similarly, it is unclear how the GoSS can be influenced to take the most constructive approach possible in negotiations of outstanding issues and in its actions on the ground.

Crucially, both sides need to discuss constructively how to share wealth, move forward regarding the status of Abyei and ensure that the violent repression of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) supporters and forces in South Kordofan and Blue Nile can be ended without aggravating already tense North – South relations further.

South Sudan contains the majority of the oil of the former state of Sudan, but this oil can only be exported through the North. A new pipeline to export oil from South Sudan via Kenya is a possible, but distant, prospect. For both CPA parties, maintaining the alliances on which stability depends is partly a question of revenue flows that are largely dependent on oil.

With this in mind, a huge challenge lies ahead for both states: analysts are in agreement that unless new exploration identifies new reserves, South Sudan’s oil production and revenues will decline from a peak of over 430,000 barrels per day (b/d) at the beginning of 2010, to under 250,000 b/d by the end of 2015.

For both parties, there has been an obvious long-term financial and geopolitical interest in territorially controlling as much as possible of Sudan’s oil fields. This has been at the heart of North – South enmity – and considerable armed violence – since the discovery of reserves in the late 1970s.

However, the prevailing logic is that both sides recognise the benefits of co-operating over oil production and export – and the drawbacks of failing to do so. Nonetheless, in early December 2011, a deal on how oil would be marketed and sold and the sharing of oil revenue was not yet agreed between the two sides, with the South accusing the North of stealing its oil, and the North demanding a 23 percent share of oil revenues pending a final agreement.

With many groups present in oil-rich border areas who feel excluded from the CPA bargaining process by the two parties, there are conflict dynamics at play that the CPA parties are not necessarily able to control fully. In such areas, tackling chronic poverty and disenfranchisement could be crucial to overcoming insecurity and armed rebellion.

A further headline unresolved issue is Abyei. Abyei is an area claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan and surrounded by oil fields on the Northern edge of the South Sudanese states of Unity, Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal. In Abyei, tensions regarding land, grazing rights and oil have erupted in violence. In May 2011, an SPLA attack on a Joint Integrated Unit troop convoy, and the retaliatory occupation of Abyei by Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led to fears of the North – South war reigniting: the resulting violence, destruction and looting of property in Abyei caused the displacement of an estimated 100,000 people.

An agreement by both sides to demilitarise the area and allow the deployment of a United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) in June 2011, is only the first step in what could be a long and challenging process for finding a mutually acceptable solution to the issue.

Alongside Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile have special status under the CPA. These states of Sudan are home to significant populations who are fearful of marginalisation and repression under the ruling NCP. Some of these fought alongside Southern rebels during the civil war. The Popular Consultation processes, agreed for South Kordofan and Blue Nile states under the CPA, had the potential to lead to a peaceful outcome and demonstrate positive ways of addressing grievances between the centre and the periphery.

This potential appears, however, to have been squandered during 2011. After a violent campaigning period, elections were held in May in South Kordofan, andwon by the NCP amid allegations of vote-rigging.11 In June 2011, as the NCP moved to ‘disarm rebels’ in South Kordofan, both rebels and civilians were targeted in SAF bombings, while SPLM-N supporters were targeted for assassination, humanitarian relief was blocked and United Nations Missions in Sudan (UNMIS) national staff were arrested and tortured.

During June 2011, amid “targeted and ethnic-based killings and other gross human rights abuses” between 73,000 and 150,000 people were estimated to have been displaced in the state.13 A similar pattern emerged in Blue Nile state, where fighting between (SAF) and SPLM-N rebels erupted in September 2011.14 This reportedly caused approximately 30,000 refugees to flee into neighbouring Ethiopia, alleging the indiscriminate killing and rape of civilians.

With civilians facing a desperate humanitarian situation in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile, instead of a peaceful political process to resolve political and economic grievances, the two states have thus relapsed into vicious conflict between GoS allied forces and rebels for the foreseeable future.

With rebellions also exploding in South Sudan in 2011 (notably in Jonglei state), a critical question is the extent to which the GoS and the GoSS will refrain from supporting rebel groups in one another’s territory. In a context of weak communications and chains of command, the reactions of different factions and leaders at different levels could make it hard to avoid escalations and attribute responsibility for developments.

Two notable examples illustrate the dangers involved: in February and March 2011, the SPLM accused the NCP of supporting Southern rebels (such as George Athor)….

To continute reading this great report: http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/pubdocs/FAB%20Sudan%20and%20South%20Sudan.pdf

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Western Media Ignores Hamas Crackdownon Journalists

August 9th, 2013

 

 

By Gidon Ben-Zvi.

Poor Harriet Sherwood, missing the big picture while obsessively reporting about the latest round of Middle East peace talks that promise to end the six-decade-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a mere nine months.

While Sherwood, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, breathlessly relayed US President Barack Obama’s praising of the
rebooted peace process, the Hamas-led government in Gaza – located a mere 50 miles away from Israel’s currently undivided capital city – was shutting down uncooperative media outlets in the territory.

In a July 29 post by the Guardian’s media blogger, Roy Greenslade, Gaza’s Attorney General Ismail Jaber was quoted as saying that the broadcaster Al-Arabiya and news agency Maan “fabricated news” that “threatened civil peace and damaged the Palestinian people and their resistance” to Israel.

Thankfully for freedom loving journalists such as Sherwood, this latest human rights violation by the demopathic Hamas movement is expected to be temporary – although when precisely the offices will actually be allowed to resume operations remains a question mark.

Sherwood’s unwillingness to shed a bright light on Hamas’ latest crackdown on ‘counter-revolutionary’ voices represents a glaring and dangerous ideologically driven moral blind-spot – denying her significant readership access to uncomfortable facts about the neighborhood bullies who share a volatile border with Israel.

According to the independent watchdog organization Freedom House, the media in Gaza are not free. Following its takeover of Gaza, Hamas replaced the PA Ministry of Information with a government Media Office and banned all journalists not accredited
by it; authorities also closed down all media outlets not affiliated with Hamas, whose security forces have allegedly tortured detainees. Furthermore, Hamas has significantly restricted freedoms of assembly and association, with security forces violently dispersing public gatherings of Fatah and other groups.

Now, none of this is meant to imply that Sherwood can’t find Gaza on a map. Bright, curious and well-read, the Guardian’s intrepid Jerusalem correspondent has indeed filed reports about the goings-on in Gaza. Yet, she seems impervious to any news item that may distract her readers from the Israel-as-Goliath fable – and often fails to adequately fact check claims made by her Palestinian protagonists.

Yet, the broader issue is Sherwood’s chronic myopia vis-à-vis alleged human rights violations by Hamas against its own people.

And when facts prove to be stubborn and persistent, Sherwood simply tortures the English language in an attempt to whitewash any pesky Palestinian human rights abuses. Indeed, it takes an imagination most fertile to conceive of a group a group recognized as a terrorist movement by the United States, the European Union, the UK, Australia, Canada and Japan as merely “conservative“.

Indeed, Sherwood’s selective reporting is taking place at a most inopportune time. Try as she may to turn a blind eye, human rights violations in Gaza – not to mention the Palestinian Authority – are reportedly increasing. According to the Palestinian Independent Commission For Human Rights (ICHR) report, 2012 saw a 10 percent increase in the number of complaints about human rights abuses by the PA and Hamas, compared with 2011.

According to, Randa Siniora, executive director of ICHR, many complaints were related to arbitrary and political detentions, as well as torture and mistreatment. The organization recommends that the PA and Hamas stop violating freedom of expression by interrogating Palestinians who are simply expressing their political views.

Why hasn’t Ms Sherwood followed up on the findings and recommendations of this report? Are not the alleged human rights violations of Israel’s presumptive peace partners of any relevance to the final configuration of a Palestinian state?

Whilst Sherwood relentlessly reports every slight endured by Palestinians at the hands of Israelis, she evidently sees nothing newsworthy about severe abuses perpetrated by Hamas against its civilian population. Lying by omission is lying by either omitting certain facts or by failing to correct a misconception, and it appears that Sherwood has made a career out of overplaying news stories about every conceivable Israeli miscue, while leaving out information that would detract from the Palestinian victim narrative.

Her ho-hum reaction to the horrific treatment of her cherished Palestinians effectively perpetuates the racist assumption that Palestinians lack moral agency.

And now…back to the negotiating table!

Gidon Ben-Zvi is a Jerusalem-based writer. This article was originally published by CIF Watch.

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Overview of corruption in Pakistan

August 6th, 2013

 

 

By Transparency International.



Summary:

Corruption remains a substantial obstacle for Pakistan where it is still perceived to be widespread and systemic. Petty corruption in the form of bribery is prevalent in law enforcement, procurement and the provision of public services. The judiciary is not seen as independent and considered to be shielding corrupt political practices from prosecution.

Various efforts over the past years have tried to develop institutional mechanisms to address these problems. A National Anti-Corruption Strategy, which was developed in 2002, offers a comprehensive plan for tackling corruption. The executing agency, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), is endowed with comprehensive powers to investigate and prosecute cases. However, a lack of political will, coupled with the perceived co-option of the judiciary and the arbitrariness of many anti-corruption proceedings, are major obstacles in the fight against corruption.

Anti-corruption proceedings have long been suspected of being skewed. They are mainly directed against members of the political opposition and minor civil servants while leaving the conduct of military officials outside scrutiny. Moreover, the National Reconciliation Ordinance of October 2007 has granted blanket immunity for past corrupt actions, shielding many public officials and members of the government from prosecution. The dismissal of members of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Chaudhry, has led to violent civil unrest and further shaken the public’s trust in the judiciary to undertake anti-corruption prosecution.

Part 1: Overview of Corruption in Pakistan

Introduction: Recent political history

Political turbulence and insecurity have dominated Pakistan over the last 50 years, marked by frequent regime changes and unrest. Between 1990 and 1999, four different democratically-elected governments held power under the same two political leaders. Each administration was either dismissed or overturned, often as a result of corruption charges and allegations of power misuse. Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) first came to power in August 1990 but later was dismissed.

Her government was replaced by Nawaz Sharif and his Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI) party in April 1993. After the resignation of both the president and the prime minister, and an interim government, elections were held, which resulted in a second term for Bhutto and the PPP. Her government was again dismissed in November 1996. Sharif returned as prime minister but this time representing the Pakistan Muslim League party (PML).

This era of democratic government ended in October 1999 following a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. After declaring himself the chief executive, the Supreme Court validated Musharraf’s claim to the presidency in May 2000. In 2002 a parliamentary election returned civilian rule, yet the Musharraf presidency was extended for another five years.

During the military government, former Prime Minister Bhutto was indicted and convicted on corruption charges at home (in April 1999) and abroad (in Switzerland in July 2003). Former Prime Minister Sharif was also tried and sentenced for acts of terrorism in April 2000 although he was eventually pardoned and went into exile.

Against this backdrop, the political situation in Pakistan deteriorated. A devastating earthquake in 2005 in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region greatly strained the government. In March 2007, further turbulence arose after the dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry for alleged misuse of office.

Violence in the northern province of Waziristan and in the province of Balochistan in the south served another blow to national unity. After a period of civil unrest, Musharraf was re-elected to the presidency in October 2007, declaring a state of emergency and suspending the constitution within a month of taking office.

Although parliamentary elections were to take place in 2007, they were first postponed because of worries of instability and later as a result of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. When the elections finally took place in February 2008, President Musharraf was defeated by the PPP and PML. The parties formed a coalition government in March 2008 with a new prime minister in power: Yusuf Raza Gilani. The supreme court justices that Musharraf had dismissed during the country’s state of emergency in 2007 were then restored.

Currently, the fate of President Musharraf seems uncertain now that his party has been excluded from the ruling coalition. However, he has so far not given any indication that he is considering any type of voluntary resignation.

Corruption trends in Pakistan over the past 10 years

Most governance indicators show an unchanging situation in Pakistan, with corruption perceived as widespread, systemic and deeply entrenched at all levels of society and government. Based on research done for this query and consultations with TI Pakistan, corruption is viewed as being equally pervasive within federal, provincial and local governments.

Since first being included in 1995, Pakistan has consistently performed poorly on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Transparency International, and is among the countries with the most perceived corruption each year. According to the 2007 CPI, Pakistan scored 2,4. (Please see: http://transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2007).

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) of the World Bank have also shown very little progress over time, with weak scores in most areas. Most troubling has been the rapid decline in indicators for political stability, which have deteriorated rapidly since 1998: 1.0 in 2007 compared to 5.8 in 2003 and 11.11 in 1998.

According to the World Bank’s WGI, governance actually seemed to improve slightly under the first military government (1999-2002) following Musharraf’s coup. In 2003, the country even performed slightly better in terms of controlling corruption, rule of law and government effectiveness. However, all the country’s indicators have since collapsed (based on 2007 results) except for those related to regulatory quality and voice and accountability.

(Please see: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi2007/sc_chart.asp).

Further surveys conducted in recent years confirm the finding that corruption in the country has worsened: The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (2007-08) identifies corruption as the third greatest problem for companies doing business in Pakistan, after government bureaucracy and poor infrastructure. (Please see: http://www.gcr.weforum.org/).

Roughly 40 percent of companies in Pakistan feel that corruption is one of their major concerns. Interestingly, the country is seen as a relatively better place for running a business than its neighbours. While the Doing Business Survey of the World Bank, (www.doingbusiness.org) has shown the country slipping two places to 76 out of 178 countries based on the latest results (June 2008), only the Maldives has a higher score among countries in the Asia Pacific region.

Apart from the private sector, the general public views corruption to be a stumbling block for the country. TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2007 shows Pakistan to be one of the countries most affected by petty bribery. More than 44 percent of respondents reported that they have paid a bribe to obtain a service. Half of all those surveyed (52 percent) perceive government efforts to reform corruption as ineffective and nearly two-thirds (59 percent) think that corruption is likely to increase within the next three years. (Please see: http://transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/gcb/2007)

The national chapter of TI in Pakistan has also organised more in-depth surveys to look at the problem. Its National Corruption Perception Survey (NCPS), conducted in 2002 and 2006, assessed perceptions of corruption under the previous governments of Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf. The first phase of each government was rated as less corrupt than the second period that each leader was in power.

The next NCPS is being conducted for 2008, with surveys to follow annually over the coming years. (For the 2002 survey, please see: http://www.transparency.org.pk/documents/csr.pdf. For the 2006 survey, please see:

(http://www.transparency.org.pk/documents/National%20Corruption%20Perception%20Survey%202006.pdf)

Forms of corruption

Corruption manifests itself in various forms in Pakistan, including widespread financial and political corruption, nepotism, and misuse of power. Both petty and grand corruption are prevalent in the country.Citizens commonly face demands for bribes in their dealings with government institutions to access basic public services. The frequency of petty bribery is alarming and has shown little improvement over time, as evident in the national corruption surveys conducted by TIPakistan in 2002 and 2006.

Survey results for 2002 indicated that a remarkable 100 percent of the respondents who had any type of contact with the police over the previous year were confronted with corruption. In terms of basic services, 44 percent of the respondents were only able to access electricity by paying a bribe, while the rest had to rely on other forms of influence to obtain a connection.

When it came to the country’s tax authorities, nearly every respondent (99 percent  had encountered corruption. According to respondents of the 2006 survey, the three most corrupt government agencies were the police, (64 percent), power sector (11 percent) and judiciary (9 percent).

The three main reasons for corruption, as viewed by the respondents, were the lack of accountability, low salaries and discretionary powers. Measures suggested for combating corruption included more adequate salaries and a speedier judicial process.

The public procurement process in Pakistan is an example of where corruption can take place. In principle, the law in Pakistan provides for open and competitive bidding in awarding government contracts. However, information on government expenditures and decisions is not always made public.

As signalled by TI-Pakistan’s survey work, public sector services — such as for power and utilities as well as infrastructure and public works — are the most affected by corruption. Public works kickbacks are estimated to constitute approximately 25 percent of the budget. (http://www.business-anticorruption.com/normal.asp?pageid=464).

With Pakistan a major recipient of grants and loans from international donor agencies, corruption in procurement has affected poverty, aid and development projects. A World Bank Country Assistance Evaluation of projects and programmes in Pakistan has confirmed the problem. The World Bank and the Auditor General of Pakistan have repeatedly cited governance problems in recruitment, site selection, absenteeism and corruption for development projects. As a result, some of the World Bank’s projects were (partly) suspended or cancelled, such as the Baluchistan Primary Education Project. In addition, the disbursement of other loans was withheld after irregularities were uncovered.

(Please see: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/63/31/36494011.pdf). In response, the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank are assisting Pakistan in establishing e-governance in order to promote transparency and reduce corruption in procurement processes and other areas of governance. The Board of Investment (BOI), for example, is now publishing tender invitations on their website.

(Please see, for example: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/BSPAN/PresentationView.asp?PID=1978&EID=911 and http://www.pakboi.gov.pk/

Corruption prone institutions

The wide consensus across surveys points to the police as being one of the most corrupt institutions in Pakistan. According to the organisation Global Integrity (http://www.globalintegrity.org/reports/2006/PAKISTAN/index.cfm), appointments in the police force are often based on political considerations.

Police officers frequently have conflicts of interest due to personal loyalties and family connections. It is also well known that in Pakistan, influential landlords decide the appointment of law enforcement officers in their area, with police officers acting on their behalf. Unlawful police methods do not solely affect poor people. Businesses also complain that they suffer from extortion by the police, for instance in the form of bogus traffic fines.

To continue reading this great report please go to: http://www.u4.no/publications/overview-of-corruption-in-pakistan/

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The future of AlQaeda: Results of a foresight project

August 3rd, 2013

 

By The Canadian Security Intelligence Service.



What would AlQaeda look like in 2018?

Challenged for more than a decade by a determined global counter-terrorism (CT) campaign, Al-Qaeda (AQ) is facing an uncertain future. The death of Osama bin Laden, the popular uprisings spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, and the global recessionary pressures that are causing governments to re-evaluate their CT strategies are amongst the many far-reaching developments that will influence AQ’s future prospects.

How AQ adapts to the challenges and opportunities that will shape its next decade is a source of spirited debate amongst government officials, academic experts, think-tank analysts and private consultants. Insofar as this lack of consensus suggests that AQ’s path is not yet set, it creates a need to explore its alternative futures.

To this end, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) launched a foresight project in September 2012 to explore how AQ might evolve along any one of three model paths over the course of the next five years: gradual decline; incremental growth; and rapid growth. The project was based exclusively on open-source information so as to combine the expertise and imagination of participants representing a wide array of professional and personal backgrounds and several countries. To set the context, four papers covering the AQ network’s prominent actors were presented at information sessions hosted by the CSIS Academic Outreach program. Written by prominent specialists who took part in the entire project, the papers are included in this report but the identity of their authors is not disclosed because the Chatham House rule was invoked throughout the exercise.

The foresight workshop itself took place on 24-25 January 2013 in Ottawa.Workshop participants recognised that part of the challenge in imagining AQ’s future lies in the very definition of AQ. At its broadest, the phenomenon includes a central group of senior leaders commonly referred to as AQ Core, regional affiliates which together with that core make up the AQ network, like-minded groups in the network’s key operating areas (eg, fellow travellers), homegrown Islamist extremists in Western countries, sympathisers across the globe and the AQ ideology itself.

While remaining mindful of this complexity, participants focussed the scenarios on the AQ elements that will have the most profound eff ects on the broader phenomenon’s future prospects: AQ Core and its network affiliates (specifically: Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI; Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP; Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM; and Al-Qaeda in East Africa, or AQEA).

Participants similarly appreciated that a wide range of external forces will play an important role in shaping AQ’s future prospects, including shifts in the world economy and changes in the Western world’s counter-terrorism posture. Accordingly, they kept this broader environment in mind while concentrating on the variable that repeatedly emerged as a powerful point of focus across the AQ network: uncertainty in the future stability and governance of the regions where AQ maintains its primary operational bases.

Workshop participants recognised that the West’s response to AQ, whether or not it wanes, will continue to have direcr repercussions on the future of AQ. Regardless of its future operational profile, be it strong or weak, AQ will not (and cannot) accept defeat so long as its strategic purpose is to wage war against the West. For AQ, to admit defeat—however one defi nes the latter—is to cease to have a reason to exist. This paper presents the results of the foresight project. A number of important caveats apply to the scenario-building process and to this report. The most important are:

i) The points of focus set out above apply in all scenarios, which is to say that the scenarios:

a. concentrate on the AQ network (ie, AQ Core and its affiliates); b. treat stability and governance in the network’s most important operating areas as a major force that will shape its future prospects;

ii) The scenarios are not intended to predict AQ’s future.

They provide a range of credible alternative futures and describe contexts within which to explore the signs and implications of the evolution of AQ to the year 2018; as such, they constitute an additional tool to support analysts’ and decision makers’ understanding of the AQ threat and may inform the long-term allocation of resources by countries facing it.

iii) The scenarios project out to 2018.

This five-year horizon played a critical role in determining which points of focus emerged as the most essential (eg, stability and governance vs. the long-term implications of transformational political and economic change);

iv) The scenarios are drafted in the present tense.

The use of this tense is not meant to imply inevitability. True to the practice of intelligence, this paper does not off er prescriptions to respond to any of the scenarios, a prerogative naturally left to policy-makers. That being said, the participants determined that the second scenario of incremental growth represents the most expected, or likeliest, one. All three scenarios are off ered to support further discussions by other AQ observers.

BUILDING THE SCENARIOS: AN ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND

The scenarios presented in this report imagine alternative futures for the AQ network. To understand how AQ could evolve in such different ways, the scenarios are built on the same analytical starting points. Their most basic assumption is that the network will evolve in ways that align with both its external environment and its nature. This assumption centres on three areas of focus: AQ’s external environment; AQ’s network features; and AQ’s character. Descriptions of each focus area are set out below.

THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

An exhaustive study of the many variables that will influence AQ’s external environment over the next five years fell outside the scope of this project. In considering which forces will have the most direct and far-reaching impacts on AQ, participants reflected on the significant extent to which AQ seeks out and is nurtured by unstable or weakly governed spaces. Accordingly, the scenarios hold that the relative stability and governance of the regions in which AQ maintains its primary physical presence is the variable most likely to affect its future prospects.

Uncertainty surrounds the future stability and governance of AQ’s base regions. In the Middle East and North Africa, for example, a wave of unrest that began in early 2011 has ushered in new regimes, sparked violent revolts and given rise to mass protests. Insofar as the forces driving this unrest are common across the regions where AQ is based, so too is the uncertainty they represent. Uncertainty in AQ’s base regions will have a significant effect on its future prospects.

It will, for example, affect AQ’s popular appeal in those regions and Western countries alike. It will similarly have an impact on AQ’s ability to escape (CT) pressures. In particular, it will affect the extent to which regional and Western security services are preoccupied by other security and order concerns (mass violence, intercommunal violence, regime collapse, etc.). Taken together, these effects will have far-reaching consequences for AQ. At a minimum, they will affect its ability to cultivate popular support; attract new recruits; inspire homegrown Western terrorists; acquire new weapons and funding; secure existing safe havens; and reach into new operating theatres.

THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

Determining how the AQ network might be re-shaped in ways that align with both its external environment and its nature requires understanding today’s AQ. The network’s key features are described below. Ideology/Goals: AQ holds that the West is waging a crusade against Islam and that it is the religious duty of every Muslim to join in what AQ ideologues term a defensive jihad (“struggle”).

Self-appointed as the vanguard of this jihad, AQ’s goal is to drive the West out of ancient Muslim lands so as to establish a community of states based on Islamic law and restore the Islamic caliphate. To this end, AQ aims to exploit conflicts between the ummah (worldwide Muslim community) on the one hand, and the West and regional “apostate” governments on the other (ie, Muslims vs. the far and near enemies).

The pursuit of that objective has fuelled internal debate in a number of AQ affiliates as to the importance to ascribe to global and local “jihad” respectively. Leadership: AQ’s leadership is in fl ux. CT operations have cost it mid-level leaders throughout the network and many of its most senior leaders, including co-founder Osama bin Laden. It is not yet clear whether AQ’s new and emerging leaders will have the operational skill, strategic foresight and personal rapport that lent important strengths to its former leadership cadre.

Structure: The AQ network comprises a core made up of senior leaders and a collection of affiliated groups. It is generally accepted that AQ Core provides ideological guidance to the affiliates, but that the affiliates, borne out of local political realities, control their own logistics and operations.

Today’s main affiliates already existed when their relationship with AQ Core was established. The AQ groups that may arise from ungoverned spaces in the future may not have the same origins or organisational structure, adding complexity to the AQ network. Resource Profile: Recruits, funds and safe havens in which to operate are the mainstays of AQ’s operational capabilities.

Recruits are drawn from local and foreign areas; funding is acquired by a variety of means (including kidnappings, trafficking and donations from supporters in the Gulf and elsewhere); and safe havens are made available by a lack of strong central authority, weak or permissive security services and complicit or repressed local populations.

CENTRAL ASSUMPTIONS

AQ’s character will play an important role in determining how its network evolves in tandem with changes in its external environment. Accordingly, the scenarios’ analytical foundation included assumptions on AQ’s nature. Participants in the workshop posited that AQ:

i) will retain its global aspirations;

ii) will accommodate greater fl uidity within its network;

iii) might participate in popular political processes—on its own terms;

iv) will not accept defeat.

LOSING THE WAR OF IDEAS

SCENARIO NO. 1: GRADUAL DECLINE

THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

AQ’s future prospects are affected by stability and governance (or lack thereof) in its most significant operating environments.This scenario assumes that, where local governments are seen to be addressing the causes of instability and weak governance, they benefit from widespread legitimacy and support.

By alleviating the forces that drive unrest, these developments reinforce the mainstream political system. They also make it possible for the local security services’ CT resources to be allocated to more traditional security and law enforcement concerns. Caught by political forces that clash with its interests, AQ sees a gradual decline in its future prospects.

THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

All aspects of the AQ network are affected by the interplay between its nature and changes in its external environment. The network’s key features under this scenario are set out below Ideology/GoalsAQ’s ideology promotes unity across the network by continuing to instil a common sense of purpose: to defend the ummah from near and far enemies alike.

Despite consensus on its raison d’être, AQ’s ideological unity becomes tested as the affiliates respond to popular support for emerging mainstream political institutions. Amongst other reactions, they reinterpret aspects of AQ’s ideology in a bid to shore up their local appeal and dampen support for non-violent political life.

Because these ideological deviations are not perfectly compatible with one another, they cause growing tensions across the network. As the AQ ideology is further diluted, its ability to unify and inspire operatives across the network starts to weaken.

Leadership

AQ’s leadership sees that new pressures have an impact on its already stressed unity. Th e main causes of its current tensions are three-fold:

i) the transition from a hierarchical organisation to a network system has eroded AQ’s lines of authority;

ii) the killing of Osama bin Laden has deprived AQ of his unique authority; and,

iii) the loss of mid-level leaders across the network has destroyed the personal ties that first brought AQ together. The forces driving AQ leaders apart are exacerbated by efforts to reverse AQ’s declining fortunes. For example, the affiliates magnify ideological incompatibilities that emerge as they reinterpret AQ messaging to suit their local interests.

They also grow more disconnected from one another as their efforts to evade CT strikes lead them to step back from intra-network activities that can be tracked by security services. Taken together, these old and new fault lines make AQ’s leadership more susceptible to the corrosive effects of interpersonal competitions and antagonisms.

Structure

Strategies intended to reverse AQ’s declining appeal and capabilities accelerate its decentralisation. In particular, tensions emerge across the network—and within the affiliates—as leaders struggle over how to arrest their decline. Th e result are a proliferation of small break-away factions. Some uphold AQ’s ideology and strategies; some modify them; and some selectively parrot them.

Distinguishing the believers from the pragmatists and the opportunists—and anticipating the shifting operational alliances and antagonisms between them—has become a complicated task for local authorities and Western governments.

Resources

Popular support for mainstream eff orts to correct the causes of instability and weak governance has a negative impact on AQ’s resource profile. It generally dampens the civil unrest that had fed AQ’s popular appeal and bolsters the local security services that target AQ’s funds and safe havens.

It does not, however, leave AQ destroyed by a lack of basic resources. Residual political and economic grievances, as well as the network’s own resourcefulness, continue to give AQ the opportunities it needs to ensure its organisational survival.

IMPLICATIONS

Where governments in AQ’s base regions are seen to be addressing the causes of instability and weak governance, they set in motion forces that conflict with AQ’s interests.

AQ’s eff orts to counter those forces seed small but growing deviations within its ideology, fuel tensions amongst its leaders and amplify the existing decentralisation pressures in its network. Although these dynamics further erode its abilities to penetrate

Western defences and execute sophisticated attacks, AQ does not accept defeat. It shifts its focus to small rudimentary attacks and makes it a priority to increase their frequency. Its strategy is straightforward: it continues to inspire homegrown terrorists in Western countries and strike transitory alliances with its break-away factions and fellow travellers in the regions where it is based.

The narrative directed towards AQ audiences is simple and compelling: more AQ-linked groups + more attacks on AQ’s enemies = more success for AQ.

To continue reading this report go to: http://cryptome.org/2013/07/csis-alqaeda-future.pdf

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Journalists or Criminals?

August 3rd, 2013

 

By Attorney General Eric Holder.



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

The recent controversy surrounding Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. and his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee is the result of deliberate efforts by Mr. Holder to avoid answering for questionable decisions and actions in the performance of his official duties.

In particular, Mr. Holder’s testimony was an attempt, through verbal gymnastics, to circumvent proper congressional oversight and accountability by distorting the truth about the Justice Department’s investigative techniques targeting journalists.

Mr. Holder assured the Committee, in sworn testimony, that “[w]ith regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I have ever been involved, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.” Yet, as the Committee learned after its May 15, 2013, hearing, in 2010, the Justice Department obtained a search warrant for Fox News Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen’s emails by swearing to a federal court that Mr. Rosen was a co-conspirator in a national security leak investigation.

When questioned by the Committee about the obvious clash between his testimony and the truth, Mr. Holder refused to answer questions from the Committee. Finally, after weeks of delay, Mr. Holder responded to the Committee’s inquiry. However, Mr. Holder’s responses do not ameliorate our concern that his testimony to the Committee was deceptive and misleading.

We take little comfort in Mr. Holder’s assurances to us now that the Department never intended to prosecute Mr. Rosen when it labeled him a criminal suspect in 2010. Tarnishing a journalist as a suspect in a national security investigation is not something that should be taken lightly. Espionage is a serious federal crime, punishable by up to a decade in prison. In essence, the Justice

Department dangled Mr. Rosen over a cliff. But the American people were then assured by Mr. Holder that this was appropriate because there was never a potential of him falling to his doom.

In response to the nationwide disapproval of his tactics, Mr. Holder has proposed new rules and regulations to control the Justice Department’s dealings with the media. While some of these proposals are welcome, the Committee is dismayed that Mr. Holder suggests that Congress change the law to stop him from continuing to do what he has done in the past – distort federal law to fit his investigative prerogatives.

Mr. Holder proposes that Congress amend the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a law intended to prohibit the government from searching a journalist’s records unless the journalist is a criminal suspect. Mr. Holder maintains that the law contains a loophole that permits the government to do what it did in the Rosen case. But there is no such loophole. If Mr. Holder believes that the law should not permit the Justice Department to do what it did, he never should have authorized the search warrant in the first place.

The Committee believes that Mr. Holder is trying to deflect responsibility for his actions by presenting a distorted reading of the law. Changing the law is not the solution for misuse of the law.

The Committee finds that Mr. Holder’s sworn testimony in the Rosen matter was deceptive and misleading. No amount of law-making can restore credibility and professionalism to the Justice Department in the wake of these revelations. The only way to achieve this goal is through an improvement in the quality of leadership at the Justice Department.

1. THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT’S INVESTIGATIONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY LEAKS

Since the WikiLeaks case in July 2010, a series of significant and highly-damaging national security leaks have occurred – including, most notably, the June 2013 disclosure of certain National Security Agency (NSA) programs by government contractor Edward Snowden.

The Obama Administration is credited with initiating more national security leak investigations than any previous administration. While this may be true, it is certainly also true that the increase in national security leak investigations is directly proportional to an increase in national security leaks in the last four and a half years.

Beginning with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, observers have noticed a marked increase in the amount and severity of leaked information Although laudable, the fact that the Obama Administration has initiated more national security leak investigations than any previous administration is in fact a necessary response to the high rate of leaks.

To be sure, Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., in describing the 2012 leak of a Yemeni bomb plot, stated: “I have been a prosecutor since 1976 and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, it is within the top two or three most serious leaks that I have ever seen. It put the American people at risk, and that is not hyperbole. It put the American people at risk. And trying to determine who was responsible for that I think required very aggressive action.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on  May 16, 2012, said “[l]eaks such as this have . . . a huge impact on our ability to do our business, not just on a particular source and the threat to the particular source, but your ability to recruit sources is severely hampered . . . . In cases such as this, the relationship with your counterparts overseas are damaged and which means that an inhibition in the willingness of others to share information with us where they don’t think that information will remain secure.

So it also has some long-term effects, which is why it is so important to make certain that the persons who are responsible for the leak are brought to justice.”

A. WikiLeaks

Founded in 2006, WikiLeaks.org describes itself as a “public service designed to protect whistle-blowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public.” Arguing that “[p]rincipled leaking has changed the course of history for the better,”Wikileaks states that its purpose is to promote transparency in government and fight corporate fraud by publishing information that governments or corporations would prefer to keep secret,obtained from sources in person, by means of postal drops, and by using “cutting-edge cryptographic technologies” to receive material electronically

WikiLeaks obtained more than 91,000 secret U.S. military reports related to the war in Afghanistan and posted the majority of them, unredacted, on its website in late July 2010, after first alerting the New York Times and two foreign newspapers, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, about the pending disclosure.

U.S. military officials charged Army Private Bradley Manning for offenses related to his disclosure of documents to WikiLeaks. The most serious charge, aiding the enemy in violation of UCMJ Article 104, is a capital offense, but prosecutors reportedly said they did not intend to seek the death penalty. On February 28, 2013, Private Manning pleaded guilty in a military courts-martial to ten counts related to his unauthorized disclosure to WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is an Australian citizen who has resided in several countries in recent years. On November 20, 2010, Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange on allegations of sexual abuse by two women. INTERPOL later issued a red notice seeking Mr. Assange’s arrest on the Swedish warrant.8 On December 7, 2010, Mr. Assange, who was believed to be in England, surrendered himself to British authorities at Scotland Yard.9 He was held in a British jail pending extradition to Sweden until December 14, 2010, when a British judge released Mr. Assange on bail.

The judge placed conditions on Mr. Assange’s release, including that he surrender his passport, abide by a curfew, and wear an electronic monitoring device.

Mr. Assange challenged his extradition to Sweden, believing that Swedish authorities would extradite him to the United States.12 After a two-year legal battle, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom dismissed his appeal against enforcement of the Swedish warrant.13 Mr. Assange failed to surrender to his bail, and was designated as an absconder by British authorities.

Several individuals who had posted significant funds for Mr. Assange’s release had those funds seized by the courts. Mr. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy on June 19, 2012.16 In August, 2012, the Ecuadorian foreign ministry said the country had decided to grant asylum because Sweden could not guarantee Mr. Assange would not be extradited from there to the United States.

British authorities have stated that they will not grant Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy. Britain’s Foreign Secretary has said that if Mr. Assange steps foot outside the embassy, he will be arrested.18 Police officers are stationed outside and in the lobby around the clock, in case he attempts to leave.19 London police said the cost of the embassy operation had reached nearly $6 million at the end of May 2013.

Mr. Assange remains at the Ecuadorian embassy. He has indicated that he will not leave the embassy even if Sweden drops its extradition request, because he fears being extradited to the United States. According to numerous media reports, there exists a sealed U.S. indictment of Mr. Assange.

B. Stuxnet

The Stuxnet worm, which was first reported in June 2010 by a security firm in Belarus, appears to be the first malicious software (malware) designed specifically to attack a particular type of computer-assisted industrial control system (ICS): one that controls nuclear plants, whether for power or uranium enrichment.23 The malware attacks and disrupts a Microsoft Windows-based application that is employed by a particular ICS produced by the German company Siemens.

The worm can be spread through an air-gapped network by a removable device, such as a thumb drive, and possibly through computers connected to the Internet, and it is often capable of remaining hidden from detection. It is difficult to determine the geographic origin of the malware, as cyber attackers often employ sophisticated methods such as peer-topeer networking or spoofing IP addresses to obviate attribution. Likewise, malware placed on a removable device may contain no signatures that would identify its author.

Iran has apparently suffered the most attacks by the Stuxnet worm and, as noted, may well have been its main target. A September 2010 study by Symantec argued that the “concentration of infections in Iran likely indicates that this was the initial target for infections and was where infections were initially seeded.”25 As of September 25, 2010, Iran had identified “the IP addresses of 30,000 industrial computer systems” that had been infected by Stuxnet, according to Mahmoud Liaii, director of the Information Technology Council of Iran’s Industries and Mines Ministry, who argued that the virus “is designed to transfer data about production lines from our industrial plants” to locations outside of Iran.

On June 1, 2012, the New York Times reported that “President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons [sic] [.]”27 The report included graphics that detailed how the United States inserted computer malware into Iran, as well as other highly-sensitive facts, including the code name for the operation and a detailed description of a White House Situation Room meeting.

The article claimed its “account of the American and Israeli effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program is based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts. None would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day.”

That same month, the Washington Post reported that the United States had collaborated with Israel to develop another “computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.”

On June 8, 2012, Mr. Holder tasked Mr. Rod J. Rosenstein, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, to lead the investigation into the Stuxnet leak. The investigation has recently focused on retired Marine General James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a possible source of the leaked information regarding Stuxnet.31 To date, no charges have been filed.

C. North Korean nuclear testing

On June 11, 2009, FOX News published an article written by its Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen (the “Rosen Article”) regarding nuclear testing in North Korea.

The Rosen Article allegedly contained “United States national defense information… that was classified TOP SECRET/SPECIAL COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION (TS/SCI)” regarding four planned North Korean responses to a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the North Koreans for recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The FBI subsequently initiated an investigation “to determine the source(s) of the unauthorized disclosure.” That investigation revealed that the information in the Rosen Article “was first made available to a limited number of Intelligence Community members in an intelligence report (the ‘Intelligence Report’) that was electronically disseminated… on the morning of the date of publication of the [Rosen Article].”

The classified information database containing the Intelligence Report warned all users seeking access to the database that “[n]one of the intelligence contained in this system may be discussed or shared with individuals who are not authorized to receive it.”

In addition, “the Intelligence Report was clearly marked TS/SCI.”38The investigation further revealed that 96 individuals accessed the Intelligence Report on June 11, 2009, but only one of those 96 individuals, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, also had contact with Mr. Rosen on that same day.39 Mr.Kim “is a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory employee who was on detail to the Department of State’s Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation (VCI) at the time of the publication” of the Rosen Article.

As a government employee with a security clearance, Mr. Kim executed multiple SF 312 Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with the Government.41 NDAs are legallybinding agreements that notify the individual with a security clearance that “unauthorized disclosure of classified information can lead to criminal prosecution.

To Continue reading this report: http://cryptome.org/2013/08/journalists-criminals.pdf

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Nicky Hager Appearance before the European Parliament ECHELON Committee

July 31st, 2013

 

 

 

 

By Nicky Hager.        What is project Echelon?                     Good morning. I am very pleased to be with your committee, and I think I should have to appear here as one of the people who produce the information about Echelon. I think it’s very important that you have the opportunity to challenge me and question me so that as a committee you can feel confident about the information I provided to your work. But also it was very useful for me to hear your discussion yesterday, as it is now clear to me what I should be talking about, the stage you are at with your work. I had written quite a lot of notes, but I will change some of what I was going to say to you. The questions which yesterday seemed to be on everyone’s mind were about what you can, as a European Parliament committee, reasonably include in your report, what you can think is true and what is not, and also about what exactly you can do about this issue. So that’s what I would like to talk about today. I’ll also, of course, talk about the Echelon system itself, but I won’t go into huge detail on it, because I don’t want to use up your time repeating things which have already been provided in your papers, but I am very keen when I finish for people to be able to question me and question my sources. Listening to the talk yesterday the things which I would particularly like to cover today about what you as a committee can believe on the subject and particularly the question of how much proof is enough before you can say, Echelon exists, these kinds of systems exist, and move on from there. The next thing that struck me yesterday is that I felt, at least from that discussion, this committee has got too caught up in the question of whether Echelon has been used in the one narrow area of monitoring of European companies to the advantage of United States companies. And so some of what I am going to say today is going to be about broadening the inquiry in terms of what I saw as your terms of reference to look more generally at the kind of interception against Europeans. That feels to me that you have been too focused down on that one yes or no to competitive and commercial spying. I also (thought) about the foreign relation context of the spying by the American/British/New Zealand/Australia/Canada alliance putting that in a foreign policy context, and then I’ll move on – this is what I had not intended to do, but because of the stage of your inquiry – I’ll move on to what I think some specific recommendations could be, the kind of things that could be adopted by a Committe like yours, hopefully not just to your region but to the rest of the world. But I’ll start by introducing myself. I began to be a researcher 20 years ago when I left university. I first worked for a government science organisation. I developed a personal interest in defence and have for some years been a writer and a critic of defence policy in my country. But in the middle of the 1990s, while I was looking at different defence subjects, I stumbled across information about our member of this signals intelligence alliance, an organisation – you’ll forget the name straight away, it’s a forgettable name – it’s called the Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB). That is the New Zealand equivalent of the National Security Agency or the British GCHQ. At that stage I would not have found more than one or two politicians in our entire parliament who even knew the name GCSB, even though it is by far our largest intelligence organisation, it was completely invisible. After that there ended up being 12 years of my life where I was probing deeper and deeper in that organisation. Initially I had no inside sources, but I had some lucky breaks, particularly – and this is probably what drove me on with the research – I discovered that I could find out a lot of information about the inside of the organisation from public sources. What I discovered was that this most secret of intelligence organisations had assumed that it would always be secret and so they had hidden the names of their staff and details of their internal structures within all sorts of government records that were not confidential, and by searching very methodically through all sorts of our government records I was able to get full lists of everyone who worked in this most secret intelligence organisation and all the past people who had worked there, and look through different records and find details of all their overseas postings and where they had gone and been trained in the oversees agencies. And overall after a while I got a 40-year picture of where in New Zealand’s most secret intelligence people had been posted in this country and that country and trained in this particular city and started as an outsider to get a sense of this organisation. Lists of names, though, were the key for me, because I live in a small country, our capital city, where I live, is only 150.000 people. And within that city and with the knowledge of all the people who worked in the agency and all the people who had worked there I started to be able to locate people who might be prepared to talk to me. And about in 1990, after a few years of gradually picking away at this job, I started to interview people who had worked and were working inside the intelligence organisation. For the next five years I lived a slightly strange and secret life, because I had a large number of secret interviews with different staff. These are people who, if they were caught talking to me, would have lost their jobs and probably their careers would have ended. So we had to meet very secretly and privately, I had to hide my interview notes, but gradually over the next 5 years I built up about several hundred of pages of interview notes. Further characteristics of these intelligence agencies is that they are very compartmentalised. The person working in this office quite likely doesn’t have much idea at all of what the people would do in the office next door, and they probably have no idea of what happens in the floor below them in the building or in other facilities. And so to build up a picture of what was happening I had to locate people in all different parts of the organisation who were prepared to talk to me. And there is something about the easygoing or casual character of New Zealanders that meant that I was able to find a large number of people who would speak to me, and I could win their trust and they provided me, as I say, with very secret information about the organisation. Although my research was about a New Zealand agency, that is, one agency in the south of the South Pacific, what I very quickly started to learn as these people told me the details of their jobs, was that in fact I was learning about not a New Zealand operation but a five-country operation. I was learning detailed information which was giving an insight into the United States and the British and the Canadian and the Australian agencies just as much. It quickly became clear to me that the technical systems they were using and the targetting lists and the regulations and manuals, the intelligence distributions systems, all the different specific parts of their work were not New Zealand systems, they had another agency’s name on the manuals, and the target lists came from the NSA, and so finding out that New Zealand was actually a little window into finding out about the whole alliance. Likewise, the officers who I was talking to had been trained in London, in Washington, in Canberra, and the new equipment that they were installing had been planned in five-nation working groups, usually in Washington, and a lot of the specific intelligence operations, I came to learn, were joint operations where two or more of the agencies were working together. And so that meant that even though it’s a strange thing that international systems should be exposed from a far-flung country like New Zealand, because these people were prepared to talk to me they gave me an opportunity to find out about international networks. It was during an interview with one of the operations division staff in the early 1990s that I first heard about the Echelon system and I first heard that word Echelon, which I had never heard before, of course. I had a series of interviews with that officer and then other staff where I built up the description of Echelon which I have got in my book and which you have seen many of the details of in the STOA reports and other reports which have been presented to this committee. As I said, I really invite you to question me when I finish about any doubts you have about whether my information is solid or the details of the system to dispell any questions that there are about whether the system exists and also about the capabilities and limitations of the systems. I should say that it is very important that we should discuss not only the power of a system like Echelon, but also what its limitations are. The reason we should look at the limitations is that there has been many exaggerated second-hand accounts of what I and other people have written about Echelon. In my view they give an air of unreality to the subject of Echelon and intelligence. In my opinion it is in the interest of the intelligence agencies that when the public talks about intelligence it all sounds very vague and rather akin to talking about flying saucers or something and not really the real world, it suits their interest. It is very much in the interest of people like us here, people with a serious interest in the subject, to be able to be as precise and factual as possible, as it is only in that way that we can get proper public scrutiny and questioning of what is going on. I want to begin by mentioning the limits of my knowledge of the subject, because there is, of course, a great deal that I don’t know. My sources were intelligence officers working in the south of the South Pacific, and their targets were within the Pacific. I have no knowledge of specific operations in this part of the world. I don’t know about which particular companies or agencies or organisations in Europe have been spied upon. The most I have ever heard about Europe was intelligence officers talking about their knowledge of an interaction with their sister facilities, like the one at Morwenstow in Britain, which they were working in parallel with, but I don’t know the specific details. What I can provide you with today is a detailed understanding of the world-wide systems which work just as much in Britain and the US as they do in New Zealand, and an understanding from my years of work on this about the scale of the interception and the specific kinds of targetting which happen in our part of the world, which I think which will be quite closely mirrored in your part of the world. But I want to be clear about that if you will ask me whether somebody has been spying on Boeing or this company or that company, I haven’t got the faintest idea, it is not worth asking me. The first question then which I want to discuss with you in detail is the question of what in this highly secretive subject your committee can reasonably believe and what you should doubt, that central issue when you are studying a highly secretive thing. And I want to tell three brief stories from my part of the world, the first one comes from June 12, 1984, when our then Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, first admitted to the New Zealand Parliament that our agency, the GCSB, existed. He told the Parliament that this organisation existed, but he reassured the members of parliament that “it does not monitor New Zealand’s friends in the South Pacific”. The same statement was made by two future prime ministers over the following decade. The point is, this statement was completely untrue, in fact it utterly turned the truth on its head, because the main work of the GCSB was to routinely and continuously monitor all the nations of the South Pacific, that is the nations from French Polynesia in the east across to the Salomon Islands in the west and every country in between, except for Australia, of course, that’s countries with names like Fidji, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu. This was part of the world-wide division of responsibilities between the UKUSA group, and New Zealand got their particular slice of the Pacific to do. I have interviewed people whose whole job was monitoring those friendly countries of New Zealand in the South Pacific, and yet every prime minister had told Parliament that they did not do that. The second story is from 1995, when the world was told by angry US spokespeople and New Zealand and Australian politicians that New Zealand’s intelligence ties had been completely cut with the United States as a retaliation against New Zealand’s ban on port visits by US nuclear-armed ships. Like everyone else I believed those statements at the time, it did not seem that they would be wrong. But it turned out that they were also completely untrue. Since then I have interviewed the people who worked inside these most secret agencies at the time, who were watching the intelligence come from the US every day, and they say that apart from a few weekly digests which stopped for several months, the vast bulk of the intelligence from the US and the cooperation continued completely unimpeded. Once again, the public had been completely mislead – and the New Zealand Parliament. The final example is from later in the 1980s when our then Prime Minister, David Lange, had the job of approving and signing the funding for a new intelligence base, the Waihopai base, New Zealand’s Echelon station in this part of the network. He said that the reason why New Zealand had had to set up the station was because we had been cut off from US intelligence and we needed to set up an independent operation to help New Zealand. He said, “For years there has been concern about our dependence on others for intelligence, being hooked up to the network of others and all that implies. This Government is committed to standing on its own two feet.” David Lange believed that statement when he made it, but like in the other examples, it was completely untrue. The Waihopai station had been designed from before his government was elected, and it actually represented the greatest integration of New Zealand into the intelligence alliance which there had been to date. It was the exact opposite of becoming more independent. When years later I quietly took the draft of my book to David Lange and asked him to read it before it was published, and sat in his office with him through two long sessions while he read through the thing, he was so annoyed at the extent to which he had been mislead over that and other subjects, that he agreed to write the foreword to the book. So, the foreword to this book is by that former prime minister. So, that is three pretty fundamental untruths, one was about the targetting, one was about the alliances New Zealand was part of, and one was the degree of independence of our intelligence service, that they were quite willing to mislead the public. I think there is a very important point or lesson in this for your committee. If the GCSB staff had not risked their careers, their jobs, to talk to me, New Zealand intelligence chiefs and politicians would very likely still be telling New Zealanders and the world that our GCSB does not spy on our friends in the South Pacific, we have been cut off from American intelligence, the Waihopai stations is there to be independent, and they could have kept doing it, because no one could have contradicted it. The point is, these lies, this misleading of the public is standard practice in the intelligence world, and the people who do this misleading are not bad people. Within the intelligence agencies senior staff believe sincerely that the secrecy of their operations are of paramount importance. They feel completely justified in misleading the public and their own governments and European Parliament committees when they need to, if that is what is required to protect their operations and stop political interference and what they believe are important long-term relationships. What I found when working on the subject is that much of what passes for fact in the news media and the debates about intelligence is actually more or less fiction, it is mistakes or it is half-truths, which the intelligence agencies have allowed or encouraged the public to repeat year after year in their ignorance. I have talked to senior retired intelligence officers who have earnestly argued the need for the secrecy and deception. The relevance of this for your committee is obvious, if you don’t want to be deflected from your job, then what I’m saying is, you must not take it seriously when you get the standard denials about Echelon and other subjects. Of course, they are going to deny it. No US or British spy agency is ever going to confirm that they intensively monitor European nations, and so the denials and the evasions that they make cannot be taken seriously. Any deception – so-called – is what they would see as necessary protection of important operations and intelligence relationships. When, for instance, the CIA director talked about there only being spying in Europe to track down bribery – that old story – that might be true, but equally it might not be true. Another example on this, the people I interviewed – and these were the people who saw thousands of intelligence reports a week coming from the US across the wire and to our intelligence agencies – said to me that the standard sort of good spying examples that people hear about in public is things like terrorism, transport of weapons and so on. In other words, the targets that the public hears about are not the real targets of these systems generally. Those targets like terrorism and weapons transport are used as a cover for the traditional areas of spying, the predominant areas of spying, which are political, diplomatic, economic and military. This is a point I want to come back to with you. In summary, what I am saying is that intelligence agencies routinely and continuously see it as their duty to mislead their publics and even their politicians, and they may also tell you the truth when it serves their interests, but this of no help to your committee, as you are probing a subject which they don’t want to be probed. Moving on to the foreign policy implications, what I found in my research is that very secret intelligence activities allow there to be a gap between public policies, that’s what the governments say their foreign policies are and what the ministers say in their speeches, and what is actually doing in their secret operations. In our region this is shown graphically by the example I gave of who is targetted. In public, New Zealand is a benevolent friend, the big brother of all those South Pacific nations that helps them out in all sorts of ways, and it is a strong supporter of the regional organisations in the UNO area. Yet secretly, all of those South Pacific countries are spied on to a devestating effect. I have spoken to the officers who using the Echelon capabilities have monitored each of the Prime Ministers of those countries – this is an important list, because I think it has exact parallels in Europe – they monitor the Prime Ministers of each of those countries, our friends in the South Pacific, they monitor the rest of the ministers, they monitor the Prime Ministers’ departments and the other government departments, they monitor the leaders of the opposition and opposition politicians and groups, they monitor the police forces, particularly in Fidji, which is the centre of the South Pacific, they monitor the main regional organisations such as the Pacific Islands Forum, they monitor all the UN organisations, they monitor all the politics and organisations of the South Pacific. All of this intelligence is distributed automatically to the US spy agencies which have an interest in our regions and to the other allies. The GCSB, our agency, even helped to spy on East Timor during a period when publically our politicians and the vast majority of our public supported East Timor independence. At the same time privately our intelligence officers were helping the US and Australia spy on the East Timor people at a time where that intelligence was being funneled through to the Indonesian military. The point I am making is, because these operations are so secret and can stay secret for decades on end, it is possible to have a completely separate private policy to the public forum policy. The reason New Zealand conducts this comprehensive spying against its friendly neighbouring countries is not because it needs this covert intelligence. Indeed, in my interviews with New Zealand intelligence staff and diplomats they regard more traditional sources of diplomatic intelligence as being much more useful to them, this is intelligence like diplomats building up friendships and contacts in key parts of governments and other organisations, it is cocktail parties, it is the intelligent reading of newspapers and so on, at least in our country. The analysts and the politicians find that intelligence much more useful in practice than these bits of covert eavesdropped information. So the reason New Zealand conducts all this covert monitoring is simply because it is diligently and thoroughly performing its duties within the UKUSA alliance. There are quite deep-seated fears held by our senior intelligence officials that if they don’t play their part fully in the alliance, New Zealand may be left out, or gradually frozen out of it. They believe they are acting in the best long-term interest of New Zealand when they are betraying our small and distinctly vulnerable little neighbouring countries in the short term. I think there are obvious parallels between this New Zealand experience and Europe, the same division of responsibility for world-wide monitoring that gave New Zealand the South Pacific, which gives Australia a part from where we are and that ends up in south east Asia, and it give Britain the task of spying on Western Europe. As I told you, I don’t know the specific targettings in Europe, but based on my experience of what happens in Australia and New Zealand, I have no doubt at all that the same kind of large-scale and comprehensive monitoring of European nations happens as goes on in the South Pacific, and again I say, prime ministers and other ministers and government departments and all the rest of it. The spying systems that we are talking about except where there is sufficiently powerful encryption have the capability to monitor the whole of governments, regional and international organisations, non-government organisations, companies and individuals throughout Europe. And since secrecy and deniability keep those operations invisible, there is no reason for the US and Britain to deprive themselves of the interesting intelligence that can be gathered that way. So, what I am saying is, this secrecy allows Britain to maintain a public policy of loyalty to the European Union, while secretly continuing a completely incompatible defence intelligence relationship in support of its older transatlantic relationship. As in New Zealand, the British intelligence chiefs would be very reluctant to risk their special relationship by refusing to cooperate and monitoring the rest of your countries. I imagine, some people might say at this stage that the US and Britain are hardly going to spy on their NATO allies, and so I refer to the Pacific experience on this, because I think it is again very illuminating. What I see in the Pacific is that the US in cooperation with the rest of UKUSA have been perfectly happy to spy on close allies and trading partners. During the 1980s and 90s about half of the total workload of analysts working inside our spy agency, the GCSB, the people I was interviewing were involved in spying on two countries, that is France and Japan within the South Pacific. In the case of Japan, this is despite of being the key trading partner for New Zealand and of being a very close intelligence ally of the US. The GCSB put major resources into monitoring all Japanese embassies in our region. This was not conducted because New Zealand had a problem with Japan or a conflict or had a special need for this intelligence, it was merely because Japanese diplomatic intelligence, code-named JAD-intelligence, was a priority for the NSA, and the NSA had asked the other four allies around the world, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to take one part of the world’s Japanese embassies, in other words, five countries between them were spying on all the Japanese embassies in the world. We were being provided with the codes to break them during the intercepting and sending the results back to Washington. The same goes for France. Publically it is an ally of the US and Britain, but privately these two nations’ SIGINT agencies asked New Zealand, the GCSB, as a special project to monitor French nucear testing in the South Pacific. And so from the early 80s through to 1996 when it ended, one of the three main analysis units within our GCSB was devoted to French intelligence, spying on them in New Caledonia and in French Polynesia. The purpose, according these GCSB staff, the reason why they had been asked to do this by Britain and the US was because those two nuclear weapon nations wanted to keep an eye on France’s nuclear weapon development. And so this is the point I am making. Public alliances between countries don’t seem to make any difference to secret intelligence operations. It would be naive to assume that friendly NATO allies and so on aren’t using the resources they have got for continuous spying.   In my opinion – this is none of my business -, but in my opinion there is tension in Britain, or between Britain and the rest of the European Union. The British government will probably be able to just avoid your current inquiry just by not participating or keeping its head down. My feeling is that there is a tension or a pressure which is going to mean that eventually Britain, if these issues get more publicized, or as these issues get more publicized, Britain is going to have to make a choice, and if there is one weak point in that 50-year-old UKUSA alliance, it is Britain and it’s Britain’s split loyalties between its responsibilities to spy on Europe and its position within the EU. It seems to me that that relationship, which was born in the Second World War and in the Cold War, is going to come more and more under pressure in the years and decades ahead, and that is where we are going to see the first change in this, I think. The only countries within the UKUSA alliance which are not spied on, are each other, there are specific regulations which stop Canada spying on Britain or New Zealand spying on Australia. I know that the GCSB staff in New Zealand strictly follow that regulation, they never broke it, although there is evidence that some of the larger allies are not so scrupulous. So, in summary for this part, what I am trying to communicate not from first hand experience but a very detailed experience in the Pacific, is that I think your committee should be conscious of the scale and the comprehensiveness of the spying which is likely to be occurring in Europe, and by which I am saying political, diplomatic, economic and military surveillance. And this is a surveillance which will be affecting the rights of governments and regional and international agencies and companies and community groups and citizens. What I am saying is that it is just not credible to suppose that the scope in the intensity of monitoring which New Zealand does in its part of the world against its friendly neighbours and trading partners and which Australia does in the South East Asian region against its neighbours and its trading partners and other friendly countries is not also occurring when Britain has a traditional role of spying in this part of the world on its friendly neighbours, EU partners and trading partners. The next point that I would like to move on to is that I really think it would be a terrible shame if your committee was to waste, or to focus too much of its attention on the single issue of a certain kind of economic intelligence which has to do with competition between companies of different countries. I think part of the reason that it’s here this way is because of the way that the Echelon issue arose in Europe. It has really been a news media driven issue for a while. Until the creation of your committee it was the news media that was pushing it, and the principle interest seemed to be in these questions of whether this or that large contract or deal had been won by an American corporation as a result of SIGINT. But as I am saying, while I am about to talk about the extent to which I think that is true, I think it seriously skewed the debate. It would be a pity if your committee, which has got much wider terms of reference on that, it is to do with spying on the whole of Europe, it would be a pity if you got sort of sucked down into that simple question of whether or how much is that kind of competitive intelligence being collected. I think it would be a waste of the opportunity that you have got before you. At the risk of stating the obvious, I think it is worth referring to the function of intelligence gathering, just to broaden and confirm what I was just talking about. A world power such as the US and a regional power like Britain have numerous obviously diplomatic and economic and military and ideological and domestic political interests that they are pursuing at once, a whole diversity, and often conflicting ones as well. And so, knowing how other countries’ delegations intend to act in this or that international negociation or understanding the political factions within the government, which has policies differering from them at a particular time on a particular issue, or giving advance warning of particular political issues or political protests, or gaining inside knowledge of other countries’ economic planning or commodity prices, all this kind of things can be of assistance to a country as it works to pursue its national interests. These are the kinds of intelligence which are gathered through normal diplomatic reporting, and they are also the sorts of activities which you gather with using secret intelligence assets such as the Echelon system and its sister systems. Seen like this, and ignoring the fiction that intelligence gathering is only directed against threats or enemies, it is entirely unexceptional to conclude that systems like Echelon will be used for a wide range of European monitoring. Having given this caution, I will just say a couple of words about commercially valuable intelligence, because commercially valuable intelligence is, in my direct experience of interviewing people, at least in the South Pacific and the Pacific part of what they monitor. According to my sources, commercial intelligence is actively sought by our GCSB, or was being 5 years ago as exchange between the UKUSA allies. At the time of my interviews, economic intelligence in the Pacific was not the main, but it was still a regular target. I can recall being told various economic intelligence stories on specific subjects. One was on cope and deals to do with Japan, another was to do with collecting intelligence on meat sales, which is very important for New Zealand, a third was a more general one on intelligence to do with oil prices, and the fourth was a very specific issue of a particularly large Japanese development project in the South Pacific where there was potential for New Zealand companies to win contracts. In other words, there were both macro-level and micro-level economic intelligence being collected. In the case of New Zealand, the intelligence staff told me that the commercial, that the micro-level intelligence collecting was becoming less and less, and there was a reason for that. In New Zealand, the intelligence has never been shared with large companies like private forestry companies or something. But is was regularly shared with large state commercial trade organisations. But New Zealand has been through the same process of privatisation and foreign investment that other countries have had. And so, the intelligence liaison staff found harder and harder to decide who they should give intelligence to. Basically, they did not know whether they should be providing intelligence to, it might be a Japanese-owned company working in New Zealand or a New Zealand-owned country producing its goods in China, and so more and more they stopped doing it. However, prior to that stage – this is in contradiction to something that Jim Bamford said yesterday, he said, you have to have these people with above top secret clearances to get the intelligence, and that is exactly what is happening in New Zealand, in key areas, like, one was our dairy board, I remember, which is our largest exporting organisation in New Zealand, another was Telecom, before it was privatised in New Zealand, they were specially indoctrinated, as I call it, special above top secret cleared offices within all those organisations, who had the job of receiving SIGINT. That was routine and unexceptional, and New Zealand being furthest away from the commercial business of the world, if it was happening there, I would find it inconceivable if it wasn’t happening elsewhere. In addition, and I would suggest more important, other staff described the intelligence that they were getting from the NSA, and they told about the fantastic amount of intelligence that was arriving for example monitoring international trade meetings. And I would suggest that rather than getting caught up in whether this or that private company has been disadvantaged in terms of one country gaining advantage over another, monitoring of delegations in international trade meetings is a far more important topic. From my sources, they said that whenever there was a GATT meeting or another major international meeting, there were hundreds of reports of the monitoring of the different delegations which were arriving in New Zealand and being shared between the UKUSA partners, and I have absolutely no doubt about that, because I have talked to people who saw it coming from the NSA. Moving along, I would like to talk a bit about the issue of proof, which I think is obviously bearing hard on your committee. I have cautioned you about accepting denials by intelligence agencies and their governments. I am saying, you can’t trust them if it suits their interest not to tell you the truth. And someone could reasonably reply, why should you accept information from people like me, so I would like to answer that question now. I faced the problem with proof continuously right through the process of researching and writing the book. The problem is that it is completely unreasonable to expect individual intelligence officers to go on the record, to put their names to information when they would suffer such retaliation they probably would be unemployed for the rest of their lifes. It is just too hard to expect someone to do that. The problem with that is that without those people, information can be dismissed as hearsay. How do you know, that it’s right? My solution to that problem was to collect so much detail about the secret operations, that was not just to say, who you were spying on, but where does the spying occur, in which room do they do it, which parts of it, and what’s the name of the manual that you work from, how do the particular systems work, who do you distribute which kind of intelligence to, and what does the manual look like that tells you who to distribute what intelligence to whom, what are the code names, even what is the internal layout of your secret facilities. In other words, the reason why I gathered that huge pile of specific detail is that I hoped that by doing that it would mean that somebody who looked at the general findings of the book could feel credibility that it had not come from my imagination, because I believed in flying saucers, but because it had actually originated in the sources who were talking to me. At the end of the process, I believe that any reasonable person who looks at my book and looks at the detail, just like Jim Bamford was saying, with his hundred pages of references in the back of his, I think that anyone who looks through the book and sees the specific parts of it will feel confident that the information could have only come from a wide range of inside sources. I have brought several copies of the book with me, and if any of you here would like to take a copy away, I will happily give you one, not because I expect you to read it word for word at this stage, but because I really hope that you can feel reassured that it is not a work of fiction. Also I should mention David Lange, the former New Zealand Prime Minister who I allowed to look at the book, who when he wrote a foreword to it, after overseeing this organisation as Prime Minister for 5 years, wrote, “an astonishing number of people have told him things that I as Prime Minister in charge of the intelligence services was never told”. The information about Echelon which is in my book, which I was told about in New Zealand, is reinforced by various other credible sources, you got Jim Bamford yesterday, and his books on this tell the same story from different sources, you got Duncan Campbell’s sources, particularly Margaret Newsham, the woman who worked at Menwith Hill who provided the early 1980s details of the expansion of Echelon at that stage, the technical details, and of course there is the US government documents which Jeffrey Richelson has uncovered in the US. What I am saying is that I hope that this information put together will allow your committee to decisively move beyond the question of whether Echelon exists. It will be a great shame if there is still an “if” hanging over this at the end of your enquiry, and I believe you will be making a contribution to your national parliaments and to the public, not just in Europe but the rest of the world, if as a parliamentary committee you can take us beyond the whether stage of the discussion of Echelon into acknowledging its existence and allowing the next stage of the debate to happen, which is what we do about it. Now we’ll talk about some of the technical details of Echelon before I finish, and as I said I am not going to take you right through the whole story of how it all works, because you have covered that over many months, but I am happy for you to question me on details at the end if you want. But I’ll say a view things. As other people have said to the committee, Echelon does not somehow magically allow spying on all of the communications of the world, that’s the kind of fairy tale end of the story about this. It is a real system, it’s designed and upgraded by real people, and therefore it’s fallible, and it’s limited. These people are continuously working to increase its reach and efficiency and keep up with new developments in communications technology, for instance in our GCSB in the early 90s, there was a lot of work to automate the interception of e-mail, because they had trouble at first before they got it right. Secondly, the computers and the other electronic equipment in Echelon is not omnipotently powerful, they cannot do everything everywhere all the time. It is part of the job of the analysts who work on this system to manage the Echelon capabilities to the greatest efficiency, this means that there are people whose job it is to analyze for instance all the different channels going up and down to a satellite, which ones are just cable TV, which ones are between countries where it is not very interesting, which ones are most rich in intelligence, and then they focus the Echelon capabilities against those which will yield the most intelligence. This is purely for not to overload the system with junk and to get the greatest efficiency out of it. But that means that they are not spying on everyone, they are focussing the resources on the places where they will get the most of the desired intelligence. Also, it is worth repeating that Echelon is mainly concerned with communications between countries. In some parts of the world they are also able to monitor communications within countries, but the NSA, the GCHQ in Britain, our agency, they are foreign intelligence organisations, and so by definition and in fact, most of their work is international communications. Having said this, the aim of the Echelon system, the purpose of it and the parallel systems it works with is to be able to monitor any international communications of interest anywhere in the world, that is its purpose, it’s a global system, and it’s very powerful. It lives up to many, if not all of the fears that the public has about its reach. Unlike traditional notions of spying, where we imaging one person’s telephone being tapped or whatever, Echelon operates by targetting whole components of the world’s telecommunications networks. It doesn’t intercept one phone, it intercepts all the communications through one satellite or huge quantities of information being moved by microwave between countries. They are processing them by searching them by keywords and through the dictionary computers, it is industrial scale spying. And it has been made possible by developments in computer processing, which nowadays provide spying capabilities which are thousands or millions of times bigger than the capabilities of spying which most imagine is tapping telephones and things. I learned about Echelon, of course, from New Zealand’s contribution to it. The Waihopai station, which was opened in 1989, intercepted first one, now both of the main INTELSAT, the main civilian telecommunications satellites above the Pacific, which have tens of thousands of simultaneous faxes and e-mails and phone calls going through them. It is capturing millions of individual communications a week, and it’s a small station in the network. The Australian station, which in your papers has been said is not called an Echelon station, but in my understanding is just as much an Echelon station als the New Zealand one, was built at the same stage, it was planned in the same international intelligence working groups in the early 80s, and whereas New Zealand spies on the two Pacific INTELSAT satellites, it spies on the Indian Ocean and some Asian satellites, in other words, covering two different parts of the world-wide communication system. Our intelligence staff have also described the close collaboration, like sharing information and joint projects with the Yakama satellite interception station in the North West United States, which has the colourful code name of “Cowboy”, it sits in the deserts out there, and they also worked closely and some of them in the since dismantled British satellite interception station in Hong Kong, which had the equally colourful code name of “Geranium”. And further afield, as I said, they talked about their more distant contacts with sister agencies like the one at Morwenstow. Thus, according to my knowledge, and this is from my sources, Echelon is a network of interception stations monitoring civilian telecommunications satellites. As far as I know from the people who described it to me, Echelon is about the satellite part of this world-wide interception. There are other components of the UKUSA alliance’s surveillance network which cover rather large parts of the world’s telecommunications except for microwave networks. They operate in exactly the same way as the Echelon stations I am talking about. They capture millions of messages, might be microwave or undersea cable, they use dictionary type computers to search for keywords, but I’m not sure whether they are actually covered by the code name Echelon, because that work isn’t done in New Zealand. However, I see that this is a completely minor point, it is a semantic point, as these various components of the global network of Echelon or Echelon-like interception stations work together to try to provide the global capability for which those systems were designed. Yesterday in the discussion I thought there were a few technical things which weren’t quite correct, so I’ll just cover them. The first one is to say that the UKUSA countries cooperate in Echelon, but they don’t cooperate in Echelon because of the needs of Echelon, that the US needed Australia or New Zealand. The UKUSA relationships go right back, according to my sources, to 1948 and they were forged in the Second World War. The reason why that particular group of countries work together on Echelon is because they have been cooperating in that intelligence alliance right through the Cold War since the 40s and even before in WW II. Yesterday there was some confusion, I thought, about in a station like the British station at Morwenstow, what proportion of that work is British, what proportion is American and so on. So, I’ll explain this very carefully, this is something which I understand very well from New Zealand. In the New Zealand station, the Waihopai station, there were lots of different subjects which the computers were searching for at once, one obviously would have been Japanese diplomatic intelligence for example, and that had its particular code numbers, the four number code that Jim Bamford talked about as 1234. There is certain search groups like that, and because New Zealand has the job within the alliance of spying on the South Pacific area, most of the code words in the Echelon system for spying on the South Pacific have been entered by New Zealand, and the messages which are captured by those keywords are sent to Wellington, not to Washington, because it’s a New Zealand list of keywords. And then in Wellington the analysts look through the thousands of messages which have been selected by the computers. As Jim Bamford was saying, they pick out the ones which seem to be most interesting intelligence-wise, they translate them, they write them into the standard UKUSA intelligence reports, and then they send those off, not the raw intelligence, but they send those off to the CIA and NSA and Britain and so on around the world. But also in the Waihopai station or the other stations, it is not only the home countries’ lists, but there are quite separate lists of American, Australian and Canadian and British targets as well. In other words, one country’s facility can be used to gather intelligence, which is then be distributed to the other agencies which have responsibility for those other subjects. And in the case of the New Zealand station and the Australian one, in both cases most of the keywords are not New Zealand ones or Australian ones, they are American lists. If there is a subject which is captured by an American list, those ones are never seen by New Zealanders or Australians, they go straight to NSA in Washington, and it is up to them whether they choose to share their intelligence later with New Zealand. Jim Bamford was sligthly wrong on this yesterday, it is not like all the intelligence goes into one big data base and everybody can look around it and find what they want to. It is very structured and hierarchical the way that the Americans set this up, and basically the idea was that there was a world-wide network which the US had access to the capabilities of all of, and if they wanted to share that intelligence back with the individual countries, that was their choice.   So, based on that and coming back to you part of the world, if you look at Britain, there are three distinct roles that British-based facilities have for spying on Europe. The first one, and the most important of these, is the British station – not the most important, but a major one – is Morwenstow in Cornwall. I hope you have seen photos of it, if you go there, you can see the satellite dishes, some of them face out to the Atlantic, but most of them are directed up towards satellites which are sitting above Europe or above the Middle East or the Indian Ocean INTEL satellites. When you are used to these things, you can read it very clearly. And what happens at that station then is, at that satellite interception station there are some lists of targets which are British ones, and there are some lists of targets which are US ones. Britain has got not control at all and does not even see the intelligence which is collected at Morwenstow, which is according to US keywords, because that goes direct to Washington. So, this is the first two types of spying, one is the spying that Britain does itself as the country in the alliance which has been delegated spying on Western Europe, there are British keywords in these systems, there is also the British facilities for spying on microwave netwoks and undersea networks, and likewise, they will have lists of British keywords for gathering intelligence on European topics, it’s its delegated role. And the second kind of spying is within those British-run, British-staffed facilities, there is also the list of US keywords, and that is a completely separate area of spying which Britain has no control of, they handed the sovereignty of that to the US, and their intelligence goes straight to Washington. And the third area, which I know much less about, is completely US-run facilities like the one at Menwith Hill, which Jim Bamford said yesterday was directed primarily at the Soviet Union and Russia now. I would personally think it is most unlikely it doesn’t do European spying as well, but I have no evidence for that. Now I want to move to my final area, and that has to do with what you as a committee can do about this. This is what said this morning, because it seems to me it would be a great waste to have the investigation and not look in great detail what can be done about it. It is easy with something as big as a subject like intelligence and signals intelligence and Echelon, for people to conclude that there is nothing that can be done about it, that it’s too big, that the spying occurs from other countries, it is not covered by national laws, and it’s kind of like you have to accept it as a way of life. What I would like to urge is that we all see this discussion of Echelon and intelligence as being at the very beginnings of the discussion. I mean, we are living in an electronic age, most people in our countries have only been using the Internet for a handfull of years, if they are at all. The people who use these new types of electronic communications for all of their daily lives now more and more have only had a year or two, if ever, that they have heard about how vulnerable these systems are to interception. In other words, we can’t expect that, when the communications technology is so new and the spying capabilities have been so secret, that the publics and the governments and the parliaments of the world will already have come to grips with these issues. In fact, we are only at the very start of the process of countries coming to grips with these issues. It is very important to see it that way, I think, because otherwise it looks discouragingly large. I think we should realize the stage that we are at with this. And so the things that I want to suggest to you are to do with the way that your committee can play a role in seriously advancing the public and the nations of the world towards where we can control these systems and regain privacy in the electronic age, which is the basic issues underlying us here. In other words, we have entered the electronic age, but every new kind of technology takes human beings’ and public’s time to learn about them, understand their implications and learn to control them. People are still learning to control the different kinds of weapons that are being built up, we are learning to control the environmental effects of technology. Likewise, these systems are so new that, of course, we are just at the beginning of figuring out how we deal with them. Probably one of the main things I want to say to you today is about the importance of the role that your committee will play here. And I have specific recommendations that I would like to propose to you. In the case of New Zealand, I told you, the dominant attitude within our intelligence services and our foreign affairs establishment to do with intelligence and subjects like Echelon is one of deference to the US, but also a great insecurity. The point I am making here is that countries like New Zealand believe they are in no position to challenge something like Echelon. My book has been completely ignored by the New Zealand government and subsequent governments, not because there aren’t politicians who are interested in it, but because their officials advised them strongly not to challenge their relationship with the US. And this inequality of power, I suspect, exists throughout the world, which means that most countries, however they feel privately, do not feel in a position to question or challenge the US and its allies or Russia or India, or whatever the country may be which has systems like this, because many of the large systems do, when those countries trespass on their governments and on their national interests with these things. This is what puts your committee in such a unique position compared to countries like mine, because the EU is uniquely powerful and independent enough to actually be able to have a committee like this. There will never be a temporary committee on Echelon in New Zealand, I am certain of that, and there won’t be a committee like this in the British or Australian parliaments either. And so, what I believe is that your deliberations and the conclusions that you will reach here are going to play a role, and they are going to help people in coming to terms with these issues right around the world. The other thing I will just mention on this is, putting your work into a historic context, your one-year committee with its limitations and so on is still the first time in 25 years since the US Church Committee had its hearings in the wake of the Watergate scandal and those other things Jim Bamford talked about yesterday. There has been a series of investigations of the activities of the US intelligence services and their allies. It is worth taking note of how rare these opportunities are in history. The extreme circumstances which lead to the Church Committee investigating the CIA and NSA are unlikely to occur again in our lifetimes. Likewise, the major leaks which I have got in New Zealand and which Jim Bamford has gathered and which Duncan Campbell has gathered and so on are very rare in the intelligence world. The usual state of affairs with intelligence discussions is that there is no solid information and there is no serious debate. And so, you have got an opportunity now which I plead with you not to be deflected from, because it will not come again for a long time. What do I think can be done? Putting the view that we are at the first stages of countries in the world coming to terms with privacy in the electronic age or national sovereignty in this electronic age, the first stage, I believe, and I think this should be reflected in your recommendations, is a stage of public education and awareness. With any new technology and developments, you can’t get specialists and the public starting this dabate and working out options to deal with this and learning how to cope with them and live with those developments until people at least know about them. And of course, these systems have been completely secret for decades, in the case of Echelon for two or three decades. And so I would urge you to have specific recommendations about resources and activities to help inform the publics of your member states and your parliaments. I don’t think that’s a soft thing or a small thing to come out of this committee, it is exactly what is needed at the moment in my opinion. We next move on to what can be done about it. As I said, it is easy to think that because the spying goes on from countries which are not on the territory where the spying is going, that they can’t be controlled by law. Of course, there are all sorts of opportunities, my apologies to the British people here, but there are all sorts of opportunities for pressure on Britain as a kind of leverage to move this issue. But that is not what I want to talk about now. I want to put out a model to you of how I think that this issue can be advanced over the next 10-20 years, which I see you at the beginning of the process of. And I want to put an analogy to you of a similar situation from a completely different sphere, and that is the sphere of control of the oceans and the law of the sea. There was a time when it was impossible for a single country, and especially not powerful country, to control its sea resources, countries that had to go out and start shooting at other countries’ fishing boats and blow them up, and so the oceans were sort of uncontrollable outside the territorial waters of different nations. And if one country on its own or a small number of countries on their own had wanted to deal with that, they could not have got away with it, the more powerful countries would have simply asserted their rights, asserted their presence, and continued to use whatever seas they wanted. And yet, over a period of about a decade, the law of the sea was evolved, which has completely changed the way that it operates, and it wasn’t promoted by the most powerful countries in the world, rather the initiative came from very small countries, but at the end of the process, their countries controlled huge resources in their exclusive economic zones, there are very strict rules, and of course, there are also exceptions to those rules where they are required, for example, innocent passage and ships into straits and so on. And what I’d like you to do is to suggest that you see, if you agree with me, and promote the idea that there is possibility for international cooperation in developing laws and conventions like the law of the sea as a way of developing, a way of controlling surveillance in the electronic age, in other words, of countries being able to pursue, being able to protect their sovereignty, their privacy in the electronic age, just as coastal nations would try to protect their sea resources in an age where there was no control over that. I can foresee a day when there is regional and international collaboration between countries, for example to develop secure communications networks, whole networks, that means not just you or I having an encryption system in our computer, this is the earliest, most fumbling days of trying to have secure communications at the moment. But it is taken for granted, people would not pay their phone bills unless they were assured by the state regulatory organisation that their phone company was abiding by the regulations and standards which should be set for secured communications. One country can’t do it on its own, you can’t have France decide that it wants to have secure communications with other countries unless the other countries communicate as well, which is why I see it as being a matter of regional cooperation and international cooperation. And there is stings in this, and again there is potential recommencations in this for you. The first is that there is ongoing education about the routine use of encryption and how individuals and companies, organisations, governments and regional organisations of different sorts can use encryption. That educational net is just the same as education, for example, on not leaving suitcases unattended at airports or whatever, that you just teach this as part of the routine way that the world is run. The next stage after that is that government organisations work together to promote standards for communications protection. At the moment, exactly the opposite is happening. The United States and Australia are working in places like the International Telecommunications Union to get standards put in the very way that the telecommunications systems are designed, the particular hardware and software, which makes it easier to intercept, but there is no reason why a coalition of countries can’t be working over the years towards laws and regulations which provide secure communications across different countries, and that there are standards for that. Obviously, just as the law of the sea has to set limits on the state sovereignty it provides. Just in the same way, although I am proposing and envisaging international agreements on communications protection, you would still have to have some exceptions for them, and that would be, for example, monitoring serious terrorism or something if that was genuinely a problem. So, in terms of specific recommendations, just to finish off here, I would like to propose to you that this committee state or propose or will present a vision or goals about how there could be a future regime of communications protection and privacy. It won’t happen next year, it won’t happen in 5 years, but that that is the objective towards which we are working, and which I think is completely realistic once these issues have been known. I would also like to, as a specific suggestion, say that this committee could recommend that the European Parliament and the member states put serious resources to the preparation of research papers on how exactly you would develop new system for protecting privacy and communications across Europe and the rest of the world, covering such things as the technical issues and the laws and regulations required in the systems of cooperation that would be needed between nations. In other words, what I am saying to you is, I think that far from it being a position of powerlessness because these intelligence operations occur from other countries, it is just a matter of us being at the beginning of the process, and it’s quite possible for people and their institutions like their parliaments to move towards thoroughly controlling this new technology. Thank you. Chairman (opens the debate)

Question from RapporteurNicky HagerI’ll answer the questions backwards and come to the one of proof last. On the footprints of the satellites, there is no need at all for New Zealand in the network. All of this monitoring which happens in New Zealand could happen in Australia as well, and the reason that it happens in New Zealand is – and I am more speculating here than knowing – is the same reason as it happens always, they are just sharing between the 5 allies, it is a sharing of the workload. The reason why the analysis of the South Pacific happens in New Zealand is more rational in that New Zealand analysts will understand the South Pacific situation, the names of the politicians, the issues and so on better than some pasty-faced analyst sitting in Washington D.C.. So there is a practical purpose for that, but you are quite right, there was no technical need for there to be a station in New Zealand, it was burden-sharing rather than the technical necessity.As for the number of communications captured in New Zealand and how many analysts there are, these systems are not very labour-intensive. The number of analysts involved in Wellington is about a dozen looking at all this intelligence, or less than 20, the reason being that most of the sorting is done electronically, it is done by computers, and there is somebody writing up reports on what is gathered at the end of that process.What does New Zealand know of other countries’ dictionaries, that means the lists put into a New Zealand station? That is a good and a crucial question, I had an argument about this not long ago with a senior GCSB person. In practice, New Zealand officers receive the lists from the foreign agencies, and a person called the dictionary manager has the job of inputting the foreign key words and directions into the New Zealand systems. And so at least at their junior level, someone has seen all the directions which are arriving. However, the more important points here is – two points – the first one is that New Zealand has never refused a request to put keywords in there for the simple reason of that inequality of size within the alliance, they wouldn’t be prepared to do that, because they would get trouble. And I would assume that the same applies in Britain in most cases, that if they received a request – except they would not put it in if it said, spy on the Queen, but they wouldn’t be asked to do that, but, otherwise, I think they would.But more important to this is, there is another level, they see the keywords that go in there – they couldn’t have the name of our Prime Minister or something in it – but we don’t see the intelligence which comes out of the system. In other words, we have no control over that. The most which happens – this is a debate I had with one of the senior intelligence people – I said, you don’t do any monitoring of what goes out, and he said, yes, we do, people look at it once a month. And what he was actually talking about was that they do quality control, they check that the messages aren’t jumbled together, that there isn’t too muck background noise and things, but they don’t actually have a political oversight of it. They don’t say, this particular fishing agreement information from this particular country might really hurt them if we gave it to the US, we won’t do it, there is no direct oversight like that at all, everything goes, and we don’t even see what goes. On the subject of proof – which, as I said, is one of the key things that your report hinges on, I know – I haven’t worked in these facilities, I can’t bring someone before you here who has worked in these facilities, and even if I did, how would you know they are telling the truth? The great thing about secret operations is that they are deniable. Even where it is completely non-credible, where something is proven to a high degree, it can still denied, because it is so secret, and I can’t bring you the filing cabinet here to show you the planning documents and so on. Which brings me back to the point which I have already made, you have to judge for yourselves how credible you think the sources are. But to be completely deterred by the inherent nature of intelligence means, you may as well not have a committee, if you are going to be deterred by the lack of solid proof and people on the record who are sworn on bibles and things. I believe that someone who looks through my book will feel comfortable with the depth of the knowledge in there, and as I have said, it has been collaborated, it has been confirmed by quite independent sources of other people’s work at other times. And so even if there were some details, I imagine, where people have got things wrong, which undoubtedly happens in any research specifics, I think you can be absolutely, one hundred percent sure and completely behind doubt as to where these systems exist, which countries are involved and what the general targettings are and code names and things. That much at least you should take as solid. Questions from VP Di Lello, Krivine, Newton-Dunn, Vattimo, von Bötticher, Dybkjaer Nicky Hager The first question was about what private individuals can do, and I actually think, this is a much less discouraging subject than the questioner did, but the first thing, I think, we should say about private individuals is that it is important that people are educated about systems like Echelon and what they can do, so that they can start to take preparation. But it is also important that we educate our publics, people in our countries about what the system can’t do, because one of the main effects of a discussion of something like Echelon on ordinary people and publics in different countries is that people have huge and unrealistic and unnecessary fears about them. And one of the tasks of an investigation like this should be to reassure people that for example what they saw in that film “Enemies of the State” is not something that they should worry about, because it is not our job to create paranoid and unhappy people. Most people have very little to fear from these systems, and educating about their true nature is as much about reassuring and reducing fear as it is about creating protection. I think, it’s a really serious side of this. As to what people can do, though, the first stage is that people understand how vulnerable their communications are nowadays. When you send an e-mail now, or use a cell phone, it’s like sending postcard with your private messages written on the back, or it’s a little like writing a message on a piece of paper and pinning it on the outside of your house, it is very vulnerable to people. And so, ordinary people need to become aware of what they just naturally should do to protect their communications, and just like somebody seals the back of an envelope before they post it, in the same way they use encryption. To lots of people at the moment, encryption sound like something technical, something that they could never do, and that it’s for people who understand computers. One day, I assure you, I guarantee this, good, strong encryption will be as automatic as sealing an envelope. It is just that it’s new and people are not used to it at the moment. And as for cost, in terms of what can specifically be said to people, anybody can download programmes from the Internet for free, for their internet, for their e-mail at the moment, and before long for their telephone calls, which organisations like the NSA cannot break. Technology doesn’t always solve the problems of technology, but in this case, it really does seem that encryption can provide a huge amount of privacy in the electronic age once people learn about it and understand it. A practical thing that can be done for ordinary people or groups who feel subject to surveillance, is that they learn to routinely use encryption for their electronic communications. And once you have done it for a little while it’s just the same as being able to type a letter on the computer rather than writing on a page, you just get used to it. Next question, why have there been no individual complaints, why have no organisations taken this up? My opinion on that is, because it’s all so new that people haven’t caught up with it. The reason why individuals and specific companies haven’t, is because it is also secret and that you could never ever prove it. Your committee is only one step, but it’s really a very important step in moving along public understanding. There will be more complaints, they will be challenged more. The other question was, do I have proof that the NSA and the other UKUSA allies pass on intelligence to other countries to buy their silence, for example maybe in that case of Spain. I do have proof in the case of New Zealand that in particular conflicts or particular international issues, the US has made a big deal of whether or not it supplies specific intelligence to the New Zealand agencies. I’ll give you an old example, I talked to someone who was very senior in our intelligence services during the Vietnam war, and he said that, the providing and the withholding of information was an important part in the way that the US managed New Zealand and tried to keep its support for the war. I don’t know for Europe, but there is a very credible suggestion that the slective and occasional provision of intelligence on Kosovo or something within a coutry is used to buy cooperation from other countries for these systems. But remember, that’s not the end of the subject, because all countries do gather something from intelligence collection. But if you are only getting the benefits but none of the costs, of course you’ll do it. The cost for a country, say European country, for cooperating in these systems, is the dissatisfaction of its own citizens at their being intercepted, that this is out of control. And so once that is publicized, it becomes much harder to quietly accept the advantages and collaborate in it. That more practical question whether there was a British station in Hong Kong, of course I was talking about a station that was there before the change, and it was removed before the date. There was some publicity that the operation has been moved to Australia, my personal feeling is that most of it is happening from the American base in Japan now. How can Brits exercise leverage on this? I was actually, I must admit, talking about other European countries putting pressure on Britain, but my personal opinion is that today it is only secrecy which allows the British government to maintain two such incompatible positions at once. And that the more publicity there is, outside or within the British parliament and elsewhere of this, that sooner or later something will have to change, because they are such incompatible positions. Does interception happen in terms of the contents or the sender where it has been coming from? When they intercept a message from a particular organisation, is it because that there is a subject word in there, or was it because of the name of the person? The answer is, both. There are people whose jobs it is to get the directions from the government or from the foreign affairs ministry or from defence of what they are interested in collecting intelligence on at the time, and a person’s whole job is to think up the words, it’s like an internet search, you are trying to find out information on policing in Peru, and you put Peru and policing in as your first search, and you get 20 million things and then you narrow it down a bit and so on. It is precisely the same activity, there is analysts whose job it is to look at the request which has come, look at the newspapers or reports on that country and get the names of individuals that might be put in. As Jim Bamford was saying, we might look up the phone number of the individual you’re after and use a fragment of their phone number or their e-mail address. So, it could be the person’s address or phone number or the content of what they might be talking about, and in fact both of those are used. And over time, the same analysts get one copy of all the intelligence which is coming in or the thing they work on, and they see how well their selection of key words is going, and if they get a word in which is getting too much junk, intelligence they don’t want, they might take that word out or stick in an extra qualification to get a richer supply of intelligence. So, that is basically what they do. Could I be more precise about legislative proposals? It is quite within the powers of this parliament, but in particular the national, the member parliaments, to introduce laws which required telecommunications companies, the providers – this might be internet service providers or in particular the telecommunications companies – legislation which required by law that the telephone company guarantee the privacy of someone’s communications while they pass through their networks. It’s legally possible, and it’s technically possible. If one country were to do that, say within the European Union, if one or two countries did that first and there was specific legislation, eventually there would be more countries, it would start to open a crack which would allow other countries to do the same. Who in the New Zealand government is authorized to propose keywords? At the level of politicians, there are no countries that are ever allowed to know in detail what happens in the intelligence agencies. There would be no politician in the world who’d have any idea what those specific keywords are. That happens within very secret high-security indoctrinated staff who make those decisions, while the politicians can say, we want more intelligence about this crisis, that meeting, that issue. They will never get down to the level of keywords, that is done by the intelligence staff. As for who my sources are, I have a wide range of sources, but the main people who are relied on were people who had worked for a long time in specific parts of our equivalent of the NSA, and what I would do with them as I had an initial interview where I won their confidence, I would let them say everything they could think of and I’d go and read their notes and come back for maybe four or five other interviews and just pursue with them all the various details, who they worked with and what the manuals were that they worked from and where they got trained and all the different parts of the story. And then, as sort of a discipline, I would offer them at the beginning that I did a draft of their information and took it back to check with them, which gave them confidence over what I was using, but also allowed them to find mistakes for me. In all I interviewed about 50 people, but some of them were in the military organisations, because our military does signals intelligence missions, and some of them were politicians or former Prime Ministers and various things like that. But the majority of those were people who had actually worked in the signals intelligence organisation.

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Report of the UK Intelligence Services Commissioner

July 27th, 2013

 

 

By The Rt Hon Sir Mark Waller.

Foreword

My Appointment



I was appointed by the Prime Minister to the post of Intelligence Services Commissioner on 1 January 2011 under section 59 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). Under section 59 of RIPA the Prime Minister appoints an Intelligence Services Commissioner who must be a person who holds or has held high judicial office within the meaning of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

My appointment is for three years and I am required by section 60(2) of RIPA to report ‘as soon as practicable after the end of each calendar year’ with respect to the carrying out of my functions. This is therefore my second report and covers the period 1st January to 31st December 2012.

My Legislative Responsibility

My legislative responsibility is to keep under review the issue of warrants by the Secretary of State authorising intrusive surveillance and interference with property and other authorisations (such as for covert human intelligence source) which designated officials can grant, in order to ensure that these were issued on a proper basis. My role is set out in full later in my report but I would like to emphasise that my role is tightly outlined in RIPA and I do not have blanket oversight of all the activities of the intelligence services. At the same time, I feel a responsibility not only to check the paperwork but to delve beyond this into how the activity specified in the warrant or authorisation is put into practice during operational activity. I also undertake some extra-statutory oversight which I, or my predecessors, agreed to take on. These extra-statutory roles could soon be placed on a statutory footing when the Justice and Security Act 2013 comes into force.

My First Year

During my first year in post I attempted to provide greater openness whilst still maintaining the secrecy necessary in the interest of national security. This involves achieving a fine balance because my inclination is towards greater openness but I recognise that revealing some information would not be in the best interest of the UK and its citizens.

My objectives in my Second Year

During my second year my objectives have been firstly for greater focus on the way in which authorisations have been carried out and secondly on ensuring that the issue of privacy is given specific consideration as a separate issue within the concept of proportionality.

During each of my visits I have discussed privacy as a separate matter and looked at ways to highlight this in the applications for warrants and authorisation. Intelligence gathering is often intrusive and this intrusion into privacy must be outweighed by the intelligence which is sought to be achieved.

Government Communications Headquarters (gCHQ)

This report is being finalised at a time of considerable media comment about the legality of GCHQ’s activities. The Intelligence and Security Committee are, quite properly, investigating and it is for them to comment further if they wish to do so.

In so far as matters related to my area of oversight, which is the only area where it is appropriate for me to comment, I have discussed matters fully with senior officials within GCHQ and I am satisfied that they are not circumventing the legal framework under which they operate.

Olympics

The Olympic and Paralympic Games were a significant event during the summer of 2012. The intelligence services discussed with me their security preparations to help ensure the safety and security of the Games. They were not only involved in advising on the physical design and security of the sites, but also in the accreditation of those working at the venues.

As you will observe from the dates of my inspections, I made sure to steer clear of this busy period to allow for greater operational efficiency but I remained on hand if the agencies wished to discuss anything with me.“The Olympics dominate much of our thinking in the security world at present.” Sir Jonathan evans, MI5

Discovery of an error

As I explained in my previous report the likelihood of finding errors on my inspections is low because the intelligence services have been very open with me in self reporting and because each warrant or authorisation passes through a number of hands before it is
signed. Unfortunately I must report that this year I did discover an error. Errors can and do occur during fast-paced and complex investigations but this was a simple administrative oversight.

I stress that no unlawful activity occurred but I still viewed this as extremely serious because it was missed by so many people. I have set out as much detail as I am able later in my report.

I believe that the intelligence services have a strong culture of reporting errors and officers are willing to hold their hands up and admit possible errors. I encourage this and believe that officers should not be nervous about reporting errors.

Challenging the Intelligence Services

On my inspections and other visits I have sought to probe as if I was someone who had no confidence in the intelligence services and who was willing to believe the worst. Members of the intelligence services at all levels gave up a lot of their time providing answers to my questions and providing me with assurances and documents to support whenever I requested it.

The staff I have met are conscientious and professional and there is an audit trail through a number of people in relation to everything they do. I remain convinced that, because of the layers of checks, assurances and oversight, it would take an enormous
conspiracy at all levels to undertake unlawful activity.

Overall I have been impressed with the care taken to ensure compliance with the legislative framework and with the levels of internal governance and supervision once a warrant or authorisation is signed. Staff have been very open with me and showed full and frank examples of peer review, supervision and internal oversight to ensure that operational activity is necessary and proportionate and that risks have been addressed.

openness

I will continue to question the necessity for secrecy and push for greater openness so that the public can be reassured that the necessary secrecy is in the best interest of the UK.

My Statutory Functions

In my previous report I attempted to set out the structure of my oversight visits and the  legal tests and principles applied. I do not intend to repeat that here but I have attached as an appendix a summary of:

• the statutory objectives of the intelligence services
• the types of warrants and authorisations

It is worth highlighting again that my role is essentially that of a retrospective auditor of authorisations. I enjoy a constructive relationship with the agencies I oversee and I have given my advice freely and without prejudice when asked. However it is also important to clarify that I am not the legal adviser of the intelligence services, who have their own legal advisers.I deal with matters under the following headings:

• My statutory and extra-statutory functions upon which I accepted the role as Intelligence

Services Commissioner. Where my predecessors have been asked, and agreed, to perform extra-statutory functions I have continued to provide such oversight on an extra-statutory basis

• The Method of my review
• The discharge of my functions and an assessment of my statutory and extra statutory visits
• Consolidated Guidance to Intelligence Officers and Service Personnel on Detention and Interviewing of Detainees, and on the Passing and Receipt of Intelligence Relating to Detainees

• Errors reported to me
• International Intelligence Review Agency Conference
• The Intelligence and Security Committee
• A success story
• Statistics
• Conclusion2012 Annual Report | Intelligence Services Commissioner

My role is essentially to keep under review the exercise by the Secretaries of State of their powers to issue warrants and authorisations to enable the intelligence services to carry out their functions. It is also to keep under review the exercise and performance of the powers and duties imposed on the intelligence services and MOD/Armed Services personnel in relation to covert activities which are the subject of an internal authorisation procedure. These powers (Figure 1 & 2) are set out in the Regulation of Investigatory….

To keep reading this article please go to: http://cryptome.org/2013/07/uk-spy-commish-2012.pdf

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Scenes from an epidemic: A Report on the SCI’s Investigation of Prescription Pill and Heroin Abuse

July 25th, 2013

 

By New Jersey Investigative Commission.

 



 

Executive Summary.

Stopping regularly in downtown Newark, the nondescript minivans drew a select clientele: homeless Medicaid recipients and drug addicts who had been told by flyers and wordof-mouth where to wait for a ride. Ten miles and 15 minutes later, they arrived at a strip mall “medical center” on Main Avenue in neighboring Passaic where a doctor licensed by the State of New Jersey quickly got down to the business of cursory examinations and bogus diagnoses.

Then he wrote prescriptions for powerful painkillers, sedatives and cough syrup, which his“patients” could use themselves or sell on the street, their choice. They also left with $10 cash gift cards as thanks for coming in. The bill for it all went to government health insurance, which funneled a fortune in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements into the bank accounts of the hidden entrepreneurs the doctor fronted for – associates of Russian organized crime.

The flagrant and unbridled operation of this pill mill and others like it, the descent of sworn medical professionals into outright drug dealers, the intrusion of organized crime and other criminal elements into lucrative recesses of the health-care industry to feed an epidemic of demand for drugs: These are among the key findings of the State Commission of Investigation’s ongoing probe of illegal trafficking in and abuse of prescription painkillers and other addictive narcotics.

Even as law enforcement authorities, public-health officials, social workers, treatment counselors, schools and families redouble their efforts to combat the purveyors and consequences of this predatory scourge, it continues to evolve in ways that few could have imagined when the so-called war on drugs was launched more than four decades ago.

Staggering amounts of legitimate medicines manufactured by major pharmaceutical companies and intended for those needing relief from the pain of disease and injury have been diverted into criminal enterprises founded on drug abuse and addiction. What once was a menacing background narrative centered narrowly around subculture-based substances like opium, morphine and heroin has exploded into a mainstream horror story whose first chapter often begins with pill bottles in the average household medicine cabinet.

Some medical management companies with names that incorporate benign terms like “pain management” and “wellness” have transformed street-corner drug-dealing into an orderly and seemingly ordinary business endeavor, except for the hidden financial backing from individuals linked to organized crime, the multiple bank accounts for money-laundering, the expert help of corrupt physicians and the shady characters who recruit and deliver customers and provide security.Meanwhile, conventional drug dealers – those tied to criminal street gangs and similar criminal enterprises – exploit legitimate businesses like used car dealerships, clothing outlets, barber shops, bars and liquor stores to cover their illicit retail commerce.

They take advantage of advanced computers, communications and social networking technologies to facilitate criminal activities and thwart law enforcement. And they are finding new ways to profit from a market hungry for addictive drugs stretching well beyond New Jersey’s cities and into the outlying affluence of its suburbs and rural communities.

On the demand side, witnesses told the Commission during an unprecedented public hearing that, given the shared properties of pain-numbing, high-inducing substances known asopiates and opioids, the widening abuse of prescription pills containing Oxycodone and related chemical ingredients has triggered a new and sustained rise in use of the original opiate of  choice – heroin.

Indeed, with high-quality heroin readily available on New Jersey streets today at roughly the same price as a pack of cigarettes – cheaper than painkilling pills of similar strength and effect – it should be no great surprise that the road to addiction has evolved full circle. And all too often ensnared in this harrowing, potentially lethal cycle – in many instances before they, or their families, even know it or suspect it – are adolescents, teenagers and twenty-somethings, young people on their way to becoming a new lost generation of what used to be called junkies.

Also, much of what used to take place “underground” in the drug milieu is now happening in plain sight. With the advent of instantaneous communication technology and suburban demand, a handful of pills or a bag of heroin is only a text message or cell-phone call away as many dealers now deliver product to customers waiting in shopping-mall parking lots. Former suburban high school students told the Commission that the depth of their prescription pill and heroin dependency played out in full view of teachers and other adults who they said did not seem to have a clue or even care when they nodded off and fell asleep in class, day
after day.

During a three-week surveillance operation at several major intersections in downtown Trenton, Commission investigators observed a bustling open-air drug market daily during morning rush hour within blocks of New Jersey’s Statehouse. Law enforcement authorities are quite familiar with the spiking collateral damage from this disturbing trend: the thefts and violence, the burglaries, armed robberies, pharmacy holdups and worse. Elsewhere on the frontlines, drug treatment facilities are seeing record numbers of admissions for heroin and other opiate/opioid addictions.

The Commission undertook this inquiry pursuant to inquiry pursuant to its unique statutory responsibilities to examine public corruption and abuse, to ascertain whether adequate laws and regulations are being faithfully executed and effectively enforced and to inform the Governor, the Legislature, the Attorney General and the public at-large of the activities of organized crime in all of its facets.

The public-awareness component is particularly vital in the context of this investigation because of the nexus between the criminal underworld and matters that bear directly upon the health, safety and welfare of every man, woman and child in New Jersey. Government agencies already have taken the initiative to boost public education as an integral part of the effort to curtail pain pill diversion. The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (DCA) employs a range of strategies to inform the public about proper use and handling of pain medications.

The State’s “Project Medicine Drop” enables consumers to dispose of unused or expired medications anonymously at secure drop-off boxes located at numerous local police departments. Moreover, the perils of non-medical use of pain medication were brought to light in a recent public service campaign, “The Right Prescription for New Jersey,” in which the SCI, along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Partnership for a DrugFree New Jersey and other entities, produced multi-media advertisements, including a radio message from a New Jersey woman who lost her son to a prescription-pill overdose.

More significantly, from an operational standpoint, DCA administers New Jersey’s year old Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP), part of a nationwide effort to track and control the volume of prescription-dispensed drugs subject to abuse, including controlled dangerous substances and human growth hormone. DCA’s statewide PMP database gathers information from pharmacies about the prescriptions they fill, prescribing physicians, patients and the names, strengths and quantities of the medication dispensed.

Pharmacies that fail to report are subject to fines and other disciplinary action by the New Jersey Board of Pharmacy. DCA administrators, licensed practitioners and law enforcement authorities are permitted to access the database under limited circumstances. Still, the findings of this investigation demonstrate that the challenges posed by drug abuse have taken on disturbing dimensions that call into question the conventional wisdom regarding gateway drugs and addiction, as well as the adequacy of current oversight and enforcement strategies.

We now live in a state where abuse of prescription pills serves increasingly as a primary route to the unlawful world of heroin, an intersection of the legitimate and the illicit that constitutes a crisis whose devastating consequences are plain for all to see.  To address this crisis, the public discussion about establishing a sensible drug policy needs to be broadened and amplified. While considerable debate has attended such matters as legalizing marijuana for medical purposes,the ease of access to other drugs that already are legal – drugs that are highly addictive, potentially lethal and very much like heroin – raises far more complex
and troubling issues.

Thus, building upon actions already taken by and beyond the realm of government, the Commission offers a comprehensive set of statutory and regulatory reforms. Those responsible for policing physicians, pharmacists and others in the medical community should re-examine and strengthen oversight and disciplinary mechanisms to ensure appropriate professional standards and accountability.

Individuals and entities that operate businesses associated with or profiting from medical practices should be subject to more intense scrutiny to identify intrusion by elements of organized crime. The Prescription Monitoring Program should be strengthened, and law enforcement should have greater access to data and information collected through it in order to target illicit prescribers more effectively.

Tougher criminal penalties should be imposed for possession with intent to distribute heroin, and certain essential tools of the drug trade, including throwaway cell phones and hidden storage compartments in motor vehicles, should be more closely regulated. In sum, these and other measures set forth in greater detail at the conclusion of this report would establish potent disincentives against illicit pill diversion and heroin trafficking, while simultaneously providing regulators and law enforcement authorities with better weaponry and information to root out violators.

To continue reading this document: http://www.nj.gov/sci/pdf/PillsReport.pdf

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