Occupy All Streets

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Report Says America Sent Spies To North Korea To Infiltrate The Regime’s Nuclear Facility

A team of specially-trained U.S. commandos infiltrated North Korea in a spy mission focused on the regime’s nuke program, according to a controversial report that the U.S. military denies.

According to a report in The Diplomat, Brigadier Gen Neil H. Tolley acknowledged that U.S. and South Korean special forces have parachuted into the North to get a closer look at underground military tunnels the regime has constructed.

From the report:

‘The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites,’ the online magazine reported Gen Tolley as saying at a Florida press conference last week.

‘So we send [South Korean] soldiers and U.S. soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance.’

If true, the mission would break rules set in place by the 1953 armistice agreement that marked the end of the Korean War.

A portion of the document states: ‘No person, military or civilian, shall be permitted to cross the military demarcation line unless specifically authorized to do so by the Military Armistice Commission’.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Unclassified Memo Shows That The Army Knew Burn Pits Causes Illnesses

Since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, an untold number of soldiers have come down with puzzling health problems. Chronic bronchitis. Neurological defects. Even cancer. Many of them are pointing the finger at a single culprit: The open-air “burn pits” that incinerated trash — from human waste to computer parts — on military bases overseas.

Pentagon officials have consistently reassured personnel that there was no “specific evidence” connecting the two. But now, only days after Danger Room uncovered a memo suggesting that Army officials knew how dangerous the pits were, an animal study is offering up new scientific evidence that links burn pits to depleted immune systems.

“The dust doesn’t only appear to cause lung inflammation,” says Dr. Anthony Szema, an assistant professor at Stony Brook School of Medicine who specializes in pulmonology and allergies, and the researcher who led this latest study. “It also destroys the body’s own T-cells.” Those cells are at the core of the body’s immune system, “like a bulletproof vest against illnesses,” Szema tells Danger Room. When they’re depleted, an individual is much more prone to myriad conditions.

The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans’ health for the rest of their lives.

“The long term health risk” from breathing in Bagram’s particulate-rich air include “reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases.” Service members may not necessarily “acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions,” but “the risk for such is increased.”

Accordingly, the health risks were not limited to troops serving at Bagram in 2011, the memo states. The health hazards are an assessment of “air samples taken over approximately the last eight years” at the base.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Feds Want To Hack X-Boxes, Wii’s And PS3’s

The Department of Homeland Security has launched a research project to find ways to hack into gaming consoles to obtain sensitive information about gamers stored on the devices.

One of the first contracts for the project was awarded last week to Obscure Technologies, based in California, to devise a forensic tool that will siphon data from the Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3 and other consoles.

The $177,000 contract requires the company to create new hardware and software tools that can extract data from gaming consoles, and to purchase used gaming consoles outside the U.S. to determine what data was left on them by previous owners that can be extracted, including information about communications with other gamers, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Gaming consoles can store sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers and addresses. Newer systems also allow users to communicate with one another via messaging and chat systems, and the government is interested in knowing what data is stored in the systems and can be siphoned out of them. But the systems often employ anti-tampering technologies that can make extracting data from them difficult.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: FBI Is Meeting With Facebook, Skype, etc. To Include A Backdoor For Surveillance

The FBI has been lobbying top internet companies like Yahoo and Google to support a proposal that would force them to provide backdoors for government surveillance, according to CNET.

The Bureau has been quietly meeting with representatives of these companies, as well as Microsoft (which owns Hotmail and Skype), Facebook and others to argue for a legislative proposal, drafted by the FBI, that would require social-networking sites and VoIP, instant messaging and e-mail providers to alter their code to make their products wiretap-friendly.

The FBI has previously complained to Congress about the so-called “Going Dark” problem – the difficulty of doing effective wiretap surveillance as more communications have moved from traditional telephone services to internet service companies.

Under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, passed in 1994, telecommunications providers are required to make their systems wiretap-friendly. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband providers like ISPs and colleges, but web companies are not covered by the law.

CNET reports that in addition to this push from the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission may be looking at reinterpreting CALEA to demand that video and non-telephone-replacement VoIP products such as Skype and Xbox Live be modified to include backdoors that allow FBI surveillance.

The news comes on the heels of another FBI plan that began kicking around in 2010 that would require backdoors in encrypted communication systems. That proposal, which would revisit the encryption wars of the 1990s, has failed to gather administration backing.

Source

Whistleblowing Wednesday: NSA Locations Collect And Intercept Private Data

The following is a list of possible locations of NSA domestic interception points inside the United States. The list was presented by computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum at a recent event held at the Whitney Museum in New York along with filmmaker Laura Poitras and ex-NSA employee William Binney.

One of the addresses, an AT&T building on Folsom Street in San Francisco, is the location of Room 641A which was the subject of multiple lawsuits regarding the warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens. A recent article in Wired quoted Binney as estimating that there are likely ten to twenty of these locations around the country.

Address / Provider / Map

2651 Olive St
St Louis, MO 63103 / AT&T / View

420 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90071 / AT&T / View

611 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94107 / AT&T / View

51 Peachtree Center Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30303/ AT&T / View

10 S Canal St
Chicago, IL 60606 / AT&T / View

30 E St SW
Washington, DC 20003 / Verizon / View

811 10th Ave
New York, NY 10019 / AT&T / View

12976 Hollenberg Dr
Bridgeton, MO 63044 / AT&T / View

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Pentagon Wants Spy Troops Posing As Businessmen

If the Pentagon gets its way, the gentleman doodling on his notepad as your next overseas business trip goes on endlessly could be a soldier, sailor, airman or marine in disguise.

This extraordinary redefinition of the U.S. military’s authorities for clandestine action overseas is officially part of a Pentagon wish list for revisions to its legal authorities recently sent to Congress.

“The conflict with al Qaida and its affiliates, and other developments, have required the regular conduct of small-scale clandestine military operations to prepare the battlefield for military operations against terrorists and their sponsors,” the Pentagon explains in a document first reported on by Inside Defense. “Expansion of this authority is necessary to permit DoD to conduct revenue-generating commercial activities to protect such operations and would provide an important safeguard for U.S. military forces conducting hazardous operations abroad.”

There’s another change the proposal would make — one that seems boring and bureaucratic, but explains a great deal. Authority for overseeing the Defense Department’s human spying lies with the Defense Intelligence Agency. The proposal would give it instead to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, the top aide for intel to the secretary of defense. And that undersecretary, Michael Vickers, is one of the Pentagon’s leading advocates of the transformation of special operations forces into elite intelligence operatives. Basically, Vickers would take control of a broad expansion in clandestine military activity.

Notice how the proposal says that using the cover of “commercial activities” would “provide an important safeguard for U.S. military forces.” Perhaps it would. But it would also place businessmen in danger. Once civilian commercial activities become a front for U.S. military spying, then foreign governments will likely view normal businessmen as targets for their own counterspying, or even detention.

This is why medical aid workers had such a negative reaction to the CIA’s use of a Pakistani doctor to collect DNA in the town where Osama bin Laden was hiding under the cover of a vaccination program. If civilian activities become tied up with military activities, then the civilians who perform them will be seen as military targets, even if they have nothing to do with the military themselves.

“Additional classified background information regarding the Department’s conduct of its commercial cover program will be made available to the armed services committees,” the Pentagon promises in the proposal. Perhaps the generals will brief congressional staff in business suits.

Source

Whistleblowing Wednesday: FAA Reveals List of Colleges and Police Departments That Can Fly Drones In America

A new bill passed by Congress gave private, military and commercial drones more access to U.S. airspace. Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the FAA has released a list of institutions that have asked for Certificates of Authorizations (COA) to fly drones in the United States.

That fact that the U.S. Air Force, DARPA and Department of Homeland Security are flying drones is no surprise. But what about the other institutions on the list?

It includes a number of universities from all over the country, including Cornell University, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State University and Eastern Gateway Community College. It makes sense for universities to have access to U.S. airspace to fly drones — after all, they are the ones doing a lot of the research on new drone technologies, so they might as well be able to test their own creations near campus.

Perhaps more troubling to privacy advocates, however, is the growing list of police departments gaining permission to fly drones, which includes departments in Arlington, Houston, North Little Rock, Miami-Dade County, Seattle, Polk County, FL and Gadsden, AL.

Miami, being a relatively large city and a major port of entry into the United States, seems like a reasonable candidate for UAVs. But why Gadsden, a small city of 36,719 in Alabama? Can any city, no matter what its size and needs, get authorization to fly drones over its citizens?

The FAA likely has a lot more questions to answer before privacy advocates will be satisfied. Hopefully there won’t be an incident — a crashed drone or privacy scandal — before the public gets those answers.

Source

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Leaked USG Propaganda Broadcast Plan/Budget 2012 & 2013

Full Report 2012 (PDF)

Full Report 2013 (PDF)

Whistleblowing Wednesday: U.S. Mercenary “Took Part” In Gaddafi Killing, Sent To Assist Syrian Opposition

US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see “how they can help in regime change,” the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks and Al-Akhbar.

James F. Smith, former director of Blackwater, is currently the Chief Executive of SCG International, a private security firm with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In what appears to be his first email to Stratfor, Smith stated that his “background is CIA” and his company is comprised of “former DOD [Department of Defense], CIA and former law enforcement personnel.”

“We provide services for those same groups in the form of training, security and information collection,” he explained to Stratfor. (doc-id 5441475)

In a 13 December 2011 email to Stratfor’s VP for counter-terrorism Fred Burton, which Burton shared with Stratfor’s briefers, Smith claimed that “[he] and Walid Phares were getting air cover from Congresswoman [Sue] Myrick to engage Syrian opposition in Turkey (non-MB and non-Qatari) on a fact finding mission for Congress.”

Walid Phares, named by the source as part of the “fact finding team,” is a Lebanese-American citizen and currently co-chairs Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Middle East advisory group.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: The BPD Officer Who Choked An Occupy Queer Protester Has Been Identified As Vaden Scantlebury

The following series of photos was taken by Paul Weiskel at the Boston Commons on April 15, 2012. The photos depict a Boston Police Department patrolman identified as Vaden Scantlebury who grabs a protester by the neck and then becomes angry at the photographer for attempting to take his picture.

The Boston Police are reportedly investigating the incident along with the ACLU. A video of the incident is also available. His badge number is 4534.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Canada’s Terrorism Assessment Centre Is Monitoring Occupy Canada and Anonymous

Full Report (PDF)

Last year, Paroxysms.ca requested documents about the #Occupy movement in Canada, as well as documents on Anonymous from the CSIS Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre. This was to determine whether CSIS was monitoring Anonymous or the various Occupy encampments that were in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. It seems that they were monitoring it, but there doesn’t appear to be much here that they couldn’t find on the Internet.

We’ve had files from ITAC before about the Olympics and the G20, so it made sense to start there. The change in language from “Threat” to “Terrorism” implies that Canada considers the Occupy movement and Anonymous terrorist groups, since why else would a Terrorism Assessment Centre have documents about them.

The Occupy documents first start with the first notice regarding the call-out. It should be noted that this call-out was based on “Open Source” intelligence, which means they saw it on the Internet just like everyone else. Then there’s this weird almost totally unrelated document about Muslims Against Crusades demonstrating on Rememberance Day. This follows with the old Anonymous video that threatened Rob Ford if OccupyToronto was evicted.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Marines Take Photos With Corpses And Body Parts…Again

An American soldier says he released the photos to the Los Angeles Times to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline. The Army has started a criminal investigation.

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.

The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs.

A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs.

Two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man’s hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading “Zombie Hunter” next to other remains and took a picture.

The Army launched a criminal investigation after the Los Angeles Times showed officials copies of the photos, which recently were given to the paper by a soldier from the division.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Uzbekistan Government Secretly Sterilizing Women

Authorities in Uzbekistan have reportedly been running a secret program in the last two years to sterilize women, often without their knowledge or consent, according to the BBC.

Adolat, a victim of the secret sterilization program, told BBC that she had went to see a doctor and discovered that she had been sterilized after birth to her daughter by Caesarean section.

“I was shocked. I cried and asked: ‘But why? How could they do this?’ The doctor said, ‘That’s the law in Uzbekistan,’” she told BBC.

Adolat, who lives in a country where life centers around children and a big family is a sign of personal success, is deeply ashamed that she cannot have more children.

“What am I after what happened to me?” she told BBC. “I always dreamed of having four - two daughters and two sons - but after my second daughter I couldn’t get pregnant,” she says.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Leaked Video By Syrian Armed Forces (Strong Trigger Warning)

Activists have posted a new disturbing video reportedly leaked from government troops.

The footage, shot during the military campaign on Homs’ neighbourhood of Bab Amr in February, purports to show soldiers standing over the body of a dead man and chanting: “Allah, Syria, Bashar”.

One soldier is heard saying: “Pull him”.

“Tie him, tie him,” another soldier says.

The soldiers later chant: “Shabiha [thugs] forever, just for you Assad”.

Whistleblowing Wednesday: US To Uganda; Let Us Know If You Want to Use Our Intelligence For War Crimes

The US told Uganda to let it know when the army was going to commit war crimes using American intelligence – but did not try to dissuade it from doing so, the US embassy cables suggest.

America was supporting the Ugandan government in its fight against rebel movement the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), providing information and $4.4m (£2.8m) worth of military hardware a year.

But a year ago officials became concerned that the Ugandans were guilty of war crimes in the long-running battle against Joseph Kony’s rebel movement, which is famed for its brutal atrocities and abduction of children.

Jerry Lanier, the US ambassador to Kampala, reported on 16 December to Washington that the country’s defence minister, Crispus Kiyonga, had verbally assured him that American intelligence was being used “in compliance with Ugandan law and the law of armed conflict. This pledge includes the principles of proportionality, distinction and humane treatment of captured combatants.”

But Lanier continued: “Uganda understands the need to consult with the US in advance if the [Ugandan army] intends to use US-supplied intelligence to engage in operations not government [sic] by the law of armed conflict. Uganda understands and acknowledges that misuse of this intelligence could cause the US to end this intelligence sharing relationship.”

Nowhere, though, does it appear that the ambassador directly told the Ugandans to observe the rules of war.