Daily Archives: 28. September 2023

28.09.2023 - 17:50 [ Disclose.ngo ]

Surveillance made in France

The French SME had a major advantage: since 2012 it had had a commercial arm based in the Emirates, Advanced Middle East Systems. “This creation was done with the greatest transparency of information with the French services”, Nexa Technologies still asserts. On 24 March 2014, its directors, Stéphane Salies and Olivier Bohbot, won an €11.4 million contract to install its flagship software, Cerebro, in Cairo. According to a confidential document obtained by Disclose, Cerebro is said to be able to “analyse data to understand the relationships and behaviour of suspects, going back in time to find relevant information in billions of recorded conversations”. The contract was called “Toblerone”, after the Swiss chocolate in the shape of a pyramid.

In the wake of this, Stéphane Salies, Nexa‘s CEO, advised the Emiratis to bring in Ercom-Suneris. Jackpot. In the summer of 2014, Pierre-Mayeul Badaire, Ercom‘s CEO, signed a contract for nearly €15 million to spy on phones up and down the Nile. The Egyptian military was primarily interested in one feature: geolocating their targets in real time using their Cortex Vortex software. “It‘s like a spy movie”, explains a former Ercom engineer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “You can geolocate a person by triangulating the position of the base stations which their phone is connected to, even without them making any calls”.

28.09.2023 - 15:30 [ Disclose.ngo ]

The mercenaries of the sky

(November 22, 2021)

Laurent Aubigny’s name is well-known to the Sirli operational team, both civilian and military. Between 2016 and 2018, as then deputy director for research at the DRM, he supervised the agents’ mission in the field. It is also him who, since December 2020, presides over CAE Aviation, in what could appear to be a conflict of interest. Under the French defence code, a member of the armed forces does not have the right to join, within a period of three years after leaving their job in the military, “a company which they have been in charge of monitoring or controlling” or “with which they have concluded contracts or given advice upon contracts”.

According to that stipulation, Aubigny was entitled to join CEA Aviation only as of 2021. Contacted by Disclose, the French military’s deontology commission, which is in charge of studying such cases, did not reply to the questions submitted. Similarly, both the management of CEA Aviation, and the DRM, did not respond to questions submitted by Disclose.

28.09.2023 - 14:30 [ Disclose.ngo ]

Operation Sirli

(November 21, 2021)

The documents, kept confidential under France’s national “national defence secrecy” regulations (“le secret de la défense nationale”), originate from the services of the presidential office, the Élysée Palace, the French armed forces ministry, and the French military intelligence services. They show how this military cooperation exercise, kept secret from the public, was diverted from its original mission, that of reconnaissance of terrorist activity, in favour of a campaign of arbitrary executions. It involved state crimes about which the French presidential office was kept constantly informed, but which took no action.

28.09.2023 - 14:15 [ Disclose.ngo ]

Egypt Papers

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Disclose has obtained hundreds of secret documents, circulated at the highest levels of the French state, which reveal the responsibility of France in crimes committed by the dictatorship of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt. Discover “the terror memos” in a week-long series of investigative reports, beginning this Sunday November 21st.

28.09.2023 - 13:53 [ Le Monde ]

Ariane Lavrilleux en garde à vue : « L’exercice même du métier de journaliste est en péril », alertent des sociétés de journalistes

(21 septembre 2023)

Signataires : les sociétés de journalistes et de rédacteurs de l’AFP, Arrêt sur images, BFM-TV, Challenges, Courrier international, Epsiloon, Franceinfo.fr, FranceTVinfo, France 3 rédaction nationale, France Télévisions rédaction nationale, Indigo Publications, L’Express, L’Humanité, L’Informé, L’Obs, L’Usine nouvelle, La Tribune, La Vie, LCI, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Le Parisien, Le Point, Les Echos, Libération, M6, Marianne, Mediapart, NRJ, Paris Match, Public Sénat, Premières Lignes, Radio France, RFI, RMC, RTL, Sud Ouest, Télérama, TF1, 60 Millions de consommateurs, ainsi que l’association Profession : pigiste.

28.09.2023 - 13:42 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

Pressefreiheit: Frankreich nimmt Journalist*innen in die Mangel

Im Fokus der aktuellen Debatte steht die französische Journalistin Ariane Lavrilleux. Sie deckte 2021 für das Magazin „Disclose“ auf, dass der französische Militärgeheimdienst DRM mit der ägyptischen Regierung zusammenarbeitete und dabei auch indirekt an Hinrichtungen beteiligt war.

Wegen dieser Recherche wurde die Journalistin am Dienstag festgenommen. Beamte des französischen Inlandsgeheimdienstes durchsuchten ihre Wohnung sowie ihre digitalen Geräte. Anschließend wurde Lavrilleux auf einer Polizeiwache verhört und kam erst nach 39 Stunden wieder frei. Die Sicherheitsbehörden sind wohl auch auf der Suche nach Lavrilleuxs Quelle. Dieser drohen laut Süddeutscher Zeitung wegen Landesverrats bis zu sieben Jahre Haft.

28.09.2023 - 11:43 [ France24.com ]

Live: French and UK defence ministers visit Kyiv for talks on more military aid for Ukraine

The visits came ahead of Kyiv‘s first Defence Industries Forum, where Ukrainian officials were set to meet representatives from over 160 defence firms and 26 countries.

Ukraine has repeatedly asked for more Western weapons, including longer-range missiles, to help break through Russian positions and launch strikes deep within Russian-controlled territory.

28.09.2023 - 10:55 [ theGuardian.com ]

Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam

(15 Feb 2011)

Since the fall of Baghdad, Curveball‘s identity had been sought throughout Iraq and Europe. He was finally outed in late 2007 as the main source for Powell‘s speech, but has tried to keep a low profile ever since, refusing — under the orders of the BND — the approaches of the few reporters who had tracked him downto Karlsruhe.

The only other time Curveball has agreed to be interviewed was in late 2007, when he told CNN that he had been set up as a fall guy by the BND and had never breathed a word to them about WMD.

28.09.2023 - 10:48 [ Welt.de ]

Der Fall „Curveball“: Wie ein BND-Informant den Irak-Krieg auslöste

(28.8.2011)

Diese bis heute verbreitete Darstellung ist unangenehm für die Bundesrepublik. Deutschland steht da als ein Land, das ein Doppelspiel betrieben hat: nach außen den Pazifisten geben – und hintenherum über seinen Geheimdienst einen entscheidenden Grund für die militärische Intervention liefern. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst nahm die Vorwürfe schweigend hin.

28.09.2023 - 09:03 [ euromaidanpress.com ]

WSJ: Scholz freezes decision on Taurus delivery to Ukraine

Germany refrains from sending German-made Taurus long-range precision missiles to Ukraine because of the fear that the maintenance of the missiles would require German technicians on the ground in Ukraine, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

28.09.2023 - 08:55 [ Rebecca Sommer / Twitter ]

Deutschland stoppt Lieferung von Langstrecken-Marschflugkörpern an die Ukraine Berlin blockiert die Auslieferung des Taurus, um zu vermeiden, dass deutsche Techniker vor Ort stationiert werden

28.09.2023 - 08:30 [ New York Times ]

Canadian Speaker in House of Commons Quits After Honoring Ukrainian Who Fought for Nazis

(26.09.2023)

Mr. Trudeau was in Toronto for an event with auto parts manufacturers. Karina Gould, the government’s house leader responded on his behalf by repeatedly pointing out that the invitation to Mr. Hunka was done without the government’s knowledge.

28.09.2023 - 08:20 [ BBC ]

Canada‘s Speaker Anthony Rota resigns after Nazi in parliament row

(27.09.2023)

Yaroslav Hunka, 98, got a standing ovation after Mr Rota called him a „hero“ during a Friday visit by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.

Nachrichtenagentur Radio Utopie