The president signed an executive order seeking to limit deployment of a tool that has been abused by autocracies — and some democracies — to spy on dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.
Archiv: political persecution
Warning of ‚Theocratic Dictatorship,‘ 1,000 Israeli Cultural Figures Call on U.K., Germany to Cancel Netanyahu Visit
The letter wrote that the racist, homophobic and undemocratic intentions by the government is targeting all Israeli citizens at home and abroad, referring to the ongoing judicial overhaul plans and a host of other proposed laws that will adversely affect the “freedom of authors and artists in Israel.”
The authors wrote that Netanyahu supports current legislation running through the Knesset that would turn the Israeli police into a “political police, a tool that every dictatorship needs in order to enforce state power on citizens.”
Police detained @Haaretz journalist @UriMisgav outside his home as he left for the protest in Tel Aviv this evening. Officers told him they had received complaints about a tweet he wrote on planned protest against Netanyahu in future visit to Berlin
Human rights implications of the development, use and transfer of new technologies in the context of counter-terrorism and countering and preventing violent extremism
The present report illuminates the ways in which counter-terrorism and security are frequently used to provide political and legal justifications for the adoption of high-risk and highly intrusive technologies on the basis of exceptional threats and with the promise of strictly limited application. The report demonstrates that such rationales and limitations rarely hold, and that the claim of exceptional use to respond to security crises is a chimera, when the reality is broad and wholesale use which lacks adequate human rights or rule of law restraints. Such technologies, including biometric, surveillance and drone technology, have serious negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights across the globe. The Special Rapporteur highlights the human rights risks inherent in the development, deployment and transfer of such technologies internationally. She is also deeply concerned about the discriminatory elements built into the development and deployment of such technologies. Negative consequences include direct violations of non-derogable rights, the integrity of which is being undermined by
new technologies lacking any meaningful legal oversight, and impunity for both State and non-State actors whose use and transfer of such technologies involves systemic rights-violative practice.
‚Team Jorge‘ unmasked: the secret disinformation team who distort reality – video
A covert team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media have been exposed in a new investigation. The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym ‚Jorge‘. In more than six hours of secretly recorded meetings, Hanan and his team explained how they could gather intelligence on rivals, including by using hacking methods to access Gmail and Telegram accounts
Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections
The investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients.
Hanan told the undercover reporters that his services, which others describe as “black ops”, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe.
Hacking, Extortion, Election Interference: These Are the Tools Used by Israel’s Agents of Chaos and Manipulation
Team Jorge, this investigation believes, works with a residential proxy provider, in order to provide its avatars with local digital identities in the form of real IPs that cannot be found by social media sites.
Team Jorge also seems to work with a cellular provider that serves AIMS in a similar manner, likely giving avatars their local numbers and supplying the infrastructure needed to grant them SMS verification.
The deliberately misleading technical infrastructure also serves to hide such actors. The process creates another layer of plausible deniability between, in this case, Team Jorge, the client and the campaign’s content, and helps them further mask the truth. Or, as Hanan put it in one presentation: „My signal is from Indonesia, the WhatsApp from Hong Kong, Telegram from Germany. And none of them are my numbers.“
The Israelis Destabilizing Democracy and Disrupting Elections Worldwide
From a small office building, a group of Israelis is spreading global disruption
As Israel’s McCarthy Atmosphere Spreads, the Government Prepares Its Coup
And here, not a day goes by without more business owners moving their money and their activity, or at least some of it, abroad. As a self-defense mechanism to keep its value from being destroyed. Most them aren’t declaring this. It is their own personal money that they are moving. But in the atmosphere of McCarthyism that is spreading here like the plague, they are immediately denounced as traitors. As defaming the state. Foxes in its vineyards. Journalists who report on what is happening or bring evidence from other countries that have been through similar processes are chastised and lambasted.
FBI spied on Albert Einstein for 22 years until his death
The FBI started spying on renowned German-born scientist Albert Einstein when he moved to America in 1933, shortly before Adolf Hitler rose to power. Agents listened to the physicist’s phone calls and searched his mail and trash, suspecting he was a Soviet spy. The surveillance, totalling 1,800 pages, ended with Einstein’s death on April 18, 1955, with no supporting evidence.
There’s a subtext to the @IlhanMN expulsion effort that echoes through US history: From Paul Robeson to Muhammed Ali to Andrew Young. Black public figures who endorse anti-imperial critiques of US foreign policy are almost always punished.
Journalist Israel Frey: ‘If I Were Palestinian I Would Have Been Arrested and Disappeared’
He was arrested after not reporting for police questioning in the wake of a tweet that he posted. The Israeli right has pegged him as an enemy of the state, for others he’s the hero of the hour. Who is ultra-Orthodox journalist Israel Frey? What drives him – and why doesn’t he regret his actions despite the high price he’s paying?
Send in e-mailSend in e-mail
China scraps inbound quarantine rules in decisive break with zero-Covid regime
China will remove quarantine requirements for inbound travellers from January 8 as the country dismantles the remnants of a zero-Covid regime that closed it off from the rest of the world for almost three years.
The National Health Commission on Monday unveiled the move as part of a wider announcement that downgraded the country’s management of Covid-19 and definitively abandoned a host of other preventive measures.
Stop Persecuting Palestinian Rapper, Tamer Nafar
On Saturday, police in Haifa detained for questioning three Arab protesters who waved Palestinian flags and, on the same day, other police stopped a performance by the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar in the Christmas Market in the village of Kafr Yasif, claiming that his songs incite the state (See page 3).
These events are serious. They signal a change for the worse in the attitude, bad to begin with, toward the Palestinian minority, and they seem to be an attempt to criminalize Palestinian identity. The song that led police to stop Nafar’s show was “Salam Ya Sakhbi” – about violence in Arab society.
Twitter staffer turned Saudi spy jailed for 3.5 years
At the time, Abouammo was facing up to 20 years behind bars for, while working for Twitter in the US, leaking to Saudi Arabia sensitive information about 6,000 Twitter accounts that could be used to identify and locate users who were of interest to the Saudi royals.
‚Existential Threat‘: Hi-tech Execs Warn Netanyahu Against Undermining Israel’s Justice System
„However, harming the court’s status, as well as harming the rights of minorities based on religion, race, gender or sexual orientation, will constitute a real existential threat to the glorious high-tech industry that has been built in Israel with great effort over the past three decades.“
The authors later noted the large amounts of money coming to the industry from the U.S. and Europe: „These investors are of course looking for financial returns on their investment, but they also share significant fundamental values with the countries and industries in which they invest.
PACE public hearing: Pegasus and similar spyware and secret state surveillance
The hearing, organised by PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, will focus on the role played by spyware in secret state surveillance, as part of a report on this topic being prepared for the Assembly by Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt.
Participants include:
* Krzysztof Brejza, a member of the Polish Sejm from the opposition Civic Platform party, and a former member of PACE (accompanied by his lawyer, Dorota Brejza).
* Diana Riba, a Spanish member of the European Parliament from Catalonia’s Republican Left Party, and Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s committee of inquiry which is also currently investigating the use of Pegasus and similar spyware.
* Thanasis Koukakis, an investigative journalist from Greece specialising in financial affairs, who has reported on corruption and money laundering (via teleconference).
Politicians and journalists targeted by spyware to testify at Council of Europe parliamentary hearing in Paris
Politicians and journalists from Poland, Spain and Greece who have been targeted by the Pegasus or similar spyware are to give testimony at a public hearing of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Paris on 12 December 2022, to be live-streamed in English.
The hearing, organised by PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, will focus on the role played by spyware in secret state surveillance, as part of a report on this topic being prepared for the Assembly by Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD).
„JUST ONE MORE LOCKDOWN, MY KING… „
How one journalist exposed the Wirecard scandal
(Jun 16th 2022)
The battle to expose the truth had to be waged on several fronts. Wirecard fought back viciously and dirtily. Computers were hacked, offices suspected of being bugged, false stories put about. At one point, according to an ex-policeman the author interviewed, Wirecard had more than 30 private detectives “running round London” and trying to dig up dirt on Mr McCrum, ftcolleagues and the short-sellers. This induced paranoia: Mr McCrum took to keeping his notebooks in a safe with six-inch steel walls, and jumping off Tube trains just as the doors were closing, in case he was being tailed.
The extradition of Julian Assange must be condemned by all who believe in press freedom1
(June 17, 2022)
There is some historical irony in the fact that this extradition announcement falls during the anniversary of the Pentagon Papers trial, which began with the Times publication of stories based on the legendary leak on June 13, 1971, and continued through the seminal Supreme Court opinion rejecting prior restraint on June 30, 1971.
In the months and years following that debacle, whistleblower (and FPF co-founder) Daniel Ellsberg became the first journalistic source to be charged under the Espionage Act. What many do not know is that the Nixon administration attempted to prosecute Times reporter Neil Sheehan for receiving the Pentagon Papers as well — under a very similar legal theory the Justice Department is using against Assange.
There’s a conspiracy theory that the CIA invented the term ‚conspiracy theory‘ – here’s why
(March 16, 2020)
One may find the CIA’s attempt to influence public opinion problematic. But there is not a single sentence in the document that indicates the CIA intended to weaponise, let alone introduce the term “conspiracy theory” to disqualify criticism. In fact, “conspiracy theory” in the singular is never used in the document. “Conspiracy theories” in the plural is only used once, matter-of-factly in the third paragraph:
Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organisation, for example, by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us.
Corrupting the system at every level
‘JULIAN is fighting for his survival and he’s going through hell, that’s the best way to put it,’ Stella Assange says when I ask how he’s doing.
The wife of the world’s most famous political prisoner is speaking to Declassified as part of her relentless battle to save her husband’s life.
The lockdown abusers and their enablers now call for an AMNESTY, but without confessing the damage they’ve done and asking for forgiveness. I don’t want revenge, just justice at the fullest extent of the law! Do not vote into public offices any Freedom deniers and their parties!
Pandemic Amnesty? Not So Fast
It is simply wrong for people to publicly advocate for segregation and unemployment of a group of people because they don’t want a medicine that is fifteen minutes old.
It is simply wrong to whip your children up into a frenzy about something you have only heard about on the mainstream news to the point where they are yelling at strangers less than two meters away.
It is simply wrong to uninvite family members from Christmas because they didn’t take the same medicine you did.
It is simply wrong to close churches—you know, those places you go to when death is near—because you think death is near!
It is simply wrong to close the borders for years on end and completely ruin businesses that rely on tourism.
It is simply wrong to demonize every dissenting opinion in the pursuit of scientific and medical answers. Something about the scientific method requiring dissenting opinions and contrary evidence to buttress claims comes to mind…
I could go on and on.
Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty
(31.10.2022)
We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips. But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.
Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.
Saudi Arabia quells dissent inside the United States: Report
According to a report released by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), during the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 120 people, a number higher than that of 2020 and 2021 combined. The kingdom is on its way to surpassing the record of 186 executions set in 2019.
Most of the executions carried out this year took place on 12 March, when Saudi officials killed 81 detainees on charges of “terrorism-related activities.”
Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2
(20.10.2022)
The goal of this paper is to address the question whether SARS-CoV-2 originated from an animal-to-human spillover or from experiments performed in a laboratory. In the latter scenario, it is possible that evidence exists for manipulation of the viral genome by common laboratory techniques. SARS-CoV-2 is a large RNA virus. To create infectious versions of CoVs, the entire 30kb RNA genome is reconstructed in DNA by in vitro genome assembly (IVGA). IVGA has been used to create reverse genetic systems for modified and chimeric RNA viruses for more than 20 years (Yount et al, 2000). Most importantly, IVGA methods can leave genetic fingerprints, and we find those fingerprints in the genome of SARS-CoV-2.
Obama Charges Netanyahu as a World Leader Who Fueled ‚Putinism‘, Report Reveals
„What I worry about most is, there is a war right now of ideas, more than any hot war, and it is between Putinism — which, by the way, is subscribed to, at some level, by [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan or Netanyahu or [former Philippines President Rodrigo] Duterte and [former U.S. President Donald] Trump — and a vision of a liberal market-based democracy that has all kinds of flaws and is subject to all kinds of legitimate criticism, but on the other hand is sort of responsible for most of the human progress we’ve seen over the last 50, 75 years,“ he told reporters in off-the-record comments first published by Bloomberg.
Brazil Deserves the Right to Be Happy: Lula Da Silva
„In 2018, I couldn’t vote because I was in jail for being a victim of a lie. Four years later, I’m voting with full recognition of my freedom and the possibility of being president again so that this country can return to normal,“Lula said, recalling that he remained in prison for 580 days as a result of a political persecution orchestrated by conservative elites.
Hadash-Ta’al Slams Lapid, Michaeli for Refusing to Block Barring of Arab Parties
Hadash-Ta’al commented on the Central Election Commission’s decision to disqualify Balad’s candidacy for the 25th Knesset. “The decision to disqualify Balad is an unfortunate decision. [Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Lapid and [Meirav] Michaeli proved that they are right-wing in disguise. Despite the anger of the racists who want to keep the Arabs away from the polling stations, on election day we all flock to the polling stations.”
Elections panel blocks Balad party’s run for Knesset, against AG’s advice
Balad and several of its lawmakers have been disqualified by past elections panels, and have so far won every appeal to the High Court to be reinstated. The party is expected to make a similar appeal to return to November’s contest following Thursday’s disqualification.
Earlier on Thursday, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara released a letter to the committee stating that there was no basis for disqualifying either Balad or the Islamist Ra’am party. The panel ultimately cleared Ra’am’s path to the ballot box, dismissing petitions that alleged the party supported terrorist organizations.
Israel: Balad banned from election run, Ra’am qualifies
(29.09.2022)
Despite appeals filed alleging that Ra’am „supports terrorism,“ the vote to allow their running passed 14-0, with representatives from Likud, the Religious Zionist Party, Yesh Atid, and Labor not present.
Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party ruled on Thursday that all of his party representatives on the election committee will vote to disqualify Balad from running for parliament.
EU’s contempt for encryption puts all Europeans at risk
Every Internet user will find themselves more easily surveilled by the state and other actors. For Central and Eastern Europeans, where analogue surveillance and political retaliation were conducted within their lifetimes, the proposal would be a depressing rollback of the freedoms hard-won by previous generations.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community, abuse survivors, refugees, and minority groups that are the targets of discrimination or attack, will no longer find refuge on the Internet. Professions such as journalists, who depend upon encryption to keep themselves and their sources safe, will be less able to investigate corruption and criminality. The murders of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in recent years are a reminder of the high stakes for reporters who are exposed.
Joint Statement by the Spokespersons of the Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden
We are deeply concerned by the raids which took place in the morning of 18 August, as part of a worrying reduction of space for civil society in the oPT. These actions are not acceptable.
The further reduction of civil space in the oPT remains a source of concern. We stand firm with NGOs to uphold the right to freedom of expression and association in the oPT.
A free and strong civil society is indispensable for promoting democratic values and for a two state solution. As we stated on 12 July, no substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy towards the six Palestinian NGOs on the basis of the Israeli decision to designate these NGOs as ‘terrorist organisations’. Should convincing evidence be made available to the contrary, we would act accordingly.
🇧🇪🇩🇰🇫🇷🇩🇪🇮🇪🇮🇹🇳🇱🇪🇸🇸🇪 Statement by the Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden on the Israeli raids of six Palestinian civil society organisations on 18 August 2022.
‚Not Acceptable‘ | Nine European States Slam Israeli Raids of Palestinian NGOs
In October, Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed an order declaring Addameer, Al-Haq, the Bisan Center for Research & Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees as terrorist organizations. The Defense Ministry claims that they are part of a funding network operated by the largely-defunct Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a charge that all six groups deny.
Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Has 22 Clients in the European Union. And It’s Not Alone
European lawmaker Sophie in ‘t Veld, who is a member of the Pegasus inquiry committee, told Haaretz: “If just one company has 14 member states for customers, you can imagine how big the sector is overall. There seems to be a huge market for commercial spyware, and EU governments are very eager buyers. But they are very quiet about it, keeping it from the public eye.”
(…)
“We know spyware is being developed in several EU countries. Not least Italy, Germany and France,” in ‘t Veld said. “Even if they use it for legitimate purposes, they have no appetite for more transparency, oversight and safeguards. Secret services have got their own universe, where normal laws don’t apply. To an extent, that has always been the case, but in the digital era they have become all-powerful, and practically invisible and totally elusive.”
The FBI goes after Trump again, and this time, it has really blundered
The unprecedented FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., home might go down as one of the most catastrophic mistakes in law enforcement history — one already widely seen by Republicans as an act of political retribution by a bureau whose relentless pursuit of Trump has destroyed its credibility. It also makes it far more likely that Trump will win the GOP nomination and take back the White House in 2024.
White House declares monkeypox a public health emergency
The Biden administration on Thursday officially declared monkeypox a public health emergency, a move that’s aimed at freeing up emergency funding and improving distribution of vaccines and treatments.
Liz will deliver. As Prime Minister, I will deliver for the British people so we can succeed like never before
I may have gone over the top about Rishi’s clothes… But I don’t want my party to be fooled by appearances the way many of the Cabinet were, writes NADINE DORRIES
My comments were widely interpreted to be anti-aspirational and it was suggested that I was seeking revenge against the man who, while Chancellor, had been planning a coup for a very long time and who had ruthlessly and metaphorically stabbed Boris Johnson in the back.
Rishi had been plotting against the most electorally successful Prime Minister the Conservative Party has known since the days of Margaret Thatcher. His actions made Michael Gove’s betrayal of Boris Johnson during the 2016 leadership campaign appear like a rank amateur rehearsing for the role of Brutus in a village hall play.
(…)
I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the Chancellor in Cabinet. The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled.
MP Greg Hands says Nadine Dorries’ retweet of Sunak as ‘Brutus the backstabber’ is dangerous
MP Greg Hands has branded ‘dangerous’ a retweet by culture secretary Nadine Dorries, showing Rishi Sunak stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.
… All politicians are corrupt especially nowadays. Name just one politician of ANY PARTY who has spoken out against the theft of our civil liberties and the abuse of our laws by Boris Johnson over the past 30 months? JUST COMPLICIT SILENCE!!
NSO claims ‚more than 5‘ EU states use Pegasus spyware
NSO Group told European lawmakers this week that „under 50“ customers use its notorious Pegasus spyware, though these customers include „more than five“ European Union member states.
The surveillance-ware maker’s General Counsel Chaim Gelfand refused to answer specific questions about the company’s customers during a European Parliament committee meeting on Thursday.
Google: How we tackled this iPhone, Android spyware
We’re told it is potentially capable of spying on the victims‘ chat apps, camera and microphone, contacts book and calendars, browser, and clipboard, and beam that info back to base. It’s said that Italian authorities have used this tool in tackling corruption cases, and the Kazakh government has had its hands on it, too.
On Thursday this week, TAG revealed its analysis of the software, and how it helped dismantle the infection.
Spyware vendor targets users in Italy and Kazakhstan
(23.06.2022)
Seven of the nine zero-day vulnerabilities our Threat Analysis Group discovered in 2021 fall into this category: developed by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors. TAG is actively tracking more than 30 vendors with varying levels of sophistication and public exposure selling exploits or surveillance capabilities to government-backed actors.
(..)
In some cases, we believe the actors worked with the target’s ISP to disable the target’s mobile data connectivity. Once disabled, the attacker would send a malicious link via SMS asking the target to install an application to recover their data connectivity. We believe this is the reason why most of the applications masqueraded as mobile carrier applications. When ISP involvement is not possible, applications are masqueraded as messaging applications. (…)
We assess, based on the extensive body of research and analysis by TAG and Project Zero, that the commercial spyware industry is thriving and growing at a significant rate. This trend should be concerning to all Internet users.
These vendors are enabling the proliferation of dangerous hacking tools and arming governments that would not be able to develop these capabilities in-house. While use of surveillance technologies may be legal under national or international laws, they are often found to be used by governments for purposes antithetical to democratic values: targeting dissidents, journalists, human rights workers and opposition party politicians.
Democrats face congressional rout amid historically terrible headwinds
Democrats knew the first midterm election of President Biden’s tenure in office would be a challenge.
But the cascade of catastrophe that has so dented what little American optimism remained in the waning days of the pandemic and the associated economic recovery has even the most optimistic Democratic Party strategists and pollsters staring into an unprecedented abyss. Their standing, about five months before voters head to the polls, is worse than it has been for any president in modern times, by almost any indicator.
Journalists Speak Up For Assange
In 1898, French writer Émile Zola wrote the open letter J’accuse…! (I accuse) to warn about the wrongful sentencing to life in prison of a military officer named Alfred Dreyfus on espionage charges. Zola’s stance entered history books and still today stands for our duty to fight miscarriages of justice and to hold the powerful to account. This duty is as necessary as ever today, when Julian Assange is being victimized by governments and faces 17 charges[1] under the US Espionage Act, legislation that also dates back over a hundred years.
As journalists and journalists’ organizations that believe in human rights, freedom of information and of the public’s right to know, we demand the immediate release of Julian Assange.
We urge our governments, all national and international agencies and fellow journalists to call for an end to the legal campaign being waged against him for the crime of revealing war crimes.
We urge our fellow journalists to inform the public accurately about this abuse of fundamental rights.
We urge all journalists to speak up in defense of Julian Assange at this critical time.
Dangerous times call for fearless journalism.
People’s Party Blocks Liberal Takeover Attempt
(23.02.2022)
Other members of the board and I were told that any attempt to intervene in the hijacking of the party’s message and purpose, including holding a party-wide vote on vaccine mandates, would be construed as “retaliation” against the accuser, in further acts of collusion between her and those on the board.
When the hostile members of the board and contractors realized that the investigation was not going their way, they encouraged the accuser to escalate her claims. The accuser’s original complaint had not even used the words “sexual harassment,” but they told her to allege rape. This shocked the investigative committee, and one of the members later told me, “Every time I spoke with her, I got a different story. Every time I spoke with you, I heard the same thing.” Another member of the investigative committee put together a list of dozens of inconsistencies between her own accounts.
The original investigation was supposed to last about a week, but because it had not arrived at the predetermined conclusion sought by the hostile board members, they prolonged it week after week for two months, pressuring committee members to alter their conclusions, attempting to censor and expel committee members who objected to the political motives behind the allegations, fabricating new charges of “retaliation” for supporting a party-wide vote on vaccine mandates, and most seriously, engaging in a sustained campaign to replace the legal board of the organization with a partial one that subtracted Rodrigo and me, an attempt that our General Council affirmed was illegal.
Had there been any actual evidence, the investigation would have concluded quickly. Because there was none, they resorted to manufacturing the new charges, further revealing their political motives. But the more her allegations fell apart, the more brazen the hostile faction on the board became. They abandoned their responsibilities in other areas of the party, including organizing, tech, and finance, and focused obsessively on attempting to remove me.
Meanwhile, they were also trying to enact their liberal agenda on the National Organizing Committee. They inserted a provision into the draft charter of the People’s National Committee which would have allowed registered Democrats to control every seat on about forty People’s Party state committees and a supermajority on our national committee, effectively inviting Democratic Party infiltrators. When populist delegates overwhelmingly struck down their provision, they were furious.
Biden just sent hundreds of troops to Somalia in a conflict Congress hasn’t authorized. We just broke the record for border crossings. Democrats’ focus? Cable news programming. They’re more interested in silencing their opponents than doing their jobs.
The Banality of Systemic Evil
(September 15, 2013)
In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that it was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolf Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.
The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz
(2016)
Here for the first time in print is revealed the quintessential Aaron Swartz: besides being a technical genius and a passionate activist, he was also an insightful, compelling, and cutting essayist. With a technical understanding of the Internet and of intellectual property law surpassing that of many seasoned professionals, he wrote thoughtfully and humorously about intellectual property, copyright, and the architecture of the Internet. He wrote as well about unexpected topics such as pop culture, politics both electoral and idealistic, dieting, and lifehacking. Including three in-depth and previously unpublished essays about education, governance, and cities, The Boy Who Could Change the World contains the life’s work of one of the most original minds of our time.
Why Did The Secret Service Take Over Aaron Swartz’s Case Two Days Before He Was Arrested
(14.01.2013)
The same filing shows that MIT allowed all of this to happen despite no warrant, court order, or subpoena — just handing over all sorts of info.
How Aaron Swartz helped build the Internet
(15.01.2013)
„Aaron was an embodiment of the Web, and a contributor to many of the aspects that made it great,“ said Matt Mullenweg, who founded the blogging platform WordPress, in a statement. „When I was young and getting into technology Aaron was even younger and literally setting the standards for the Web with contributions to RSS 1.0 and Creative Commons. He inspired a generation to share online, to move to (San Francisco), to not be afraid to start things, and to break down barriers.“
Swartz died Friday of an apparent suicide in his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. He was 26.
RSS Creator Aaron Swartz Dead at 26
(14.01.2013)
Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old computer genius, activist, and technology innovator known as a hero of the open-access movement—which promotes use of the Internet to provide free and easy access to the world’s knowledge—committed suicide last Friday in New York City, according to authorities and various media outlets. He was a Safra fellow studying ethics at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society in July 2011 when a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of gaining illegal access to JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals, and downloading five million articles and documents—nearly the entire library, according to Insidehighered.com.
Chilean and US authorities silent on Gonzalo Lira
Chilean-American citizen Gonzalo Lira López is still missing in Ukraine after publicly opposing the Zelensky government. The journalist, writer, filmmaker and vlogger resides in Kharkov and has not been heard of since Friday, April 15th.
Kawsachun News has been following developments and Chilean sources closely, however, there have been no official declarations from the Chilean Foreign Ministry nor the U.S. State Department or White House on matter.
Gonzalo Lira Reported Missing in Ukraine
(Apr 18, 2022)
Lira ran a YouTube channel with 143,000 subscribers, which he used to share his viewpoints on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His social media accounts had become controversial in recent weeks. Lira’s last tweets were critical of Ukraine and multiple media outlets. In a pinned tweet, he listed journalists that he claimed were victims of the “Zelensky regime” and wrote, “If you haven’t heard from me in 12 hours or more, put my name on this list.”
Under Zelensky’s watch, Ukraine’s SBU has partnered with neo-Nazis from Azov and C14 to hunt down left-wing activists This is from video posted by Azov members during the SBU’s torture & kidnapping of leftist Alexander Matjuschenko in Dnipro – targeted for his political view
Zelensky’s Hardline Internal Purge
In a March 19 executive order, Zelensky invoked martial law to ban 11 opposition parties. The outlawed parties consisted of the entire left-wing, socialist or anti-NATO spectrum in Ukraine.
They included the For Life Party, the Left Opposition, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Socialists, the Party of Shariy, Ours, State, Opposition Bloc and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.
Openly fascist and pro-Nazi parties like the Azov National Corps were left untouched by the presidential decree, however.
“The activities of those politicians aimed at d
U.S. bars ex-spies from becoming ‚mercenaries,‘ following Reuters series
(March 16, 2022)
“We don’t want our best trained intel officers going straight into the hands of foreign governments for the sake of money,“ Castro said. „This discourages intelligence mercenaries and protects our national interest.“
The UAE spying operation, called Project Raven, hacked into Facebook and Google accounts and thousands of Apple iPhones, targeting activists that human rights groups say were later arrested and tortured
The WHO pandemic treaty: a backdoor to global governance?
(23 February 2022)
If the pandemic treaty were to come into effect in 2024, you can guarantee even higher global health surveillance using real-time sequencing for both diagnostics and epidemiology. This would be based on ever-more portable technologies with increasingly rapid turnaround times.
But don’t just think mRNA injections or intranasals. Or gene editing technologies based on CRISPR for diagnostics. Think CRISPR to enhance the immune response will likely see an entry. This is a facet of transhumanism, as is digital surveillance.
#Belarus Police in Minsk detained mothers of Belarusian soldiers praying for peace. The police were in civilian clothes in the church. Human rights defenders reported at least 3 women that were detained.
2,452 B.C. health-care workers fired for not getting COVID vaccination
/Feb 24, 2022)
More than 2,452 health-care employees terminated for failing to comply with B.C.’s vaccination mandate.
Number likely higher because some regions did not report how many medical staff or physicians have been let go.
All regulated health-care workers in B.C. must be vaccinated by March 24.
Mayo Clinic fires 700 workers who failed to comply with Covid vaccine mandate
(Jan. 5, 2022)
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Around 700 workers at the medical center have been fired over their vaccination status.
Nearly 500 L.A. Unified employees lose their jobs for failing to get COVID-19 vaccine
Dec. 8, 2021 12:21 PM PT
Nearly 500 Los Angeles school district employees have lost their jobs for failing to meet the COVID-19 vaccination requirement, officials announced on Tuesday.
Nearly 1,500 NYC municipal workers fired for not being vaccinated against COVID
(February 15, 2022)
The 1,428 employees who were on unpaid leave for more than three months lost their jobs.
Data provided by City Hall Monday shows the majority of employees who were fired worked in the Department of Education, which saw 914 people let go. The Housing Authority terminated 101 workers.
Also fired were 36 New York Police Department workers and 25 FDNY employees.
The Neoliberal War on Dissent in the West
That the use of these repressive tactics render these countries and their populations subject to autocratic regimes is considered undebatable.
But when these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded from the temptations of genuine repression. Indeed, to suggest that a Western democracy has descended to the same level of authoritarian repression as the West’s official enemies is to assert a proposition deemed intrinsically absurd or even vaguely treasonous.
Canadian Covid-19 protesters and police face off in Ottawa amid freezing conditions
„We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses. Based on your behaviour, we are responding by including helmets and batons for our safety,“ police said.
CCLA Will Fight Invocation of Emergencies Act in Court
(February 17, 2022)
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) announced today that it will pursue litigation to challenge the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act.
“We have retained Ewa Krajewska of Henein Hutchison LLP to take the federal government to court. We have said all along that the federal government did not meet the high burden necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act,” said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Executive Director of the CCLA.
Moe, Kenney, 16 U.S. governors sign letter calling for Trudeau, Biden to end vaccination mandate for truckers
The letter was sent Wednesday morning.
„We are writing to request that you immediately reinstate the vaccine and quarantine exemptions available to cross-border truck drivers. We understand the vital importance of vaccines in the fight against COVID-19 and continue to encourage eligible individuals to get vaccinated,“ it said.
The letter was signed by 16 U.S. Republican governors, some from border states like Montana, North Dakota and Alaska, some from southern states like Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.
Two Canadian premiers urge Trudeau and Biden to end vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, joined by 16 American governors, have written to President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanding the end of vaccination mandates for cross-border truckers.
Three weeks ago I drafted this joint letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and President Biden opposing the pointless trucker vaccine mandate, and began contacting US Governors for their support. Both governments need to end this disruptive policy.
Canadian banks restrict funds to trucker protest groups
The trade group for Canada’s biggest banks on Wednesday said lenders will work to carry out an emergency order from the government to freeze bank accounts for truckers and their parent companies involved in illegal blockades to protest COVID-19 requirements.
The Canadian Bankers Association said its members will “diligently implement” measures laid out by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to impose 30-day suspensions of bank accounts associated with the protest.
Trudeau’s finance minister, who happens to be a director of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, tells Canadians she is spying on their every financial move.
Is Schwab trying to destabilize Canadian banks? I can’t think of anything that could destroy confidence in Canada faster.
‚These are serious ethical issues‘: James O’Keefe demands answers after FDA executive officer is caught on Project Veritas hidden camera admitting Biden will force an ANNUAL Covid shot that would be a ‚recurring fountain of revenue‘ for drug firms
– FDA executive Christopher Cole was secretly recorded by a Project Veritas undercover employee posing as his date during a series of dinner meetings
– He was caught on camera dishing out his thoughts about vaccine mandates, saying he believed they would be become annual requirements
– He also suggested that the Biden administration had financial incentives for pushing the vaccine, saying they’re a ‚recurring‘ source of income
– During a follow-up Project Veritas interview, Cole said he’d been tricked during a ‚hack job‘ investigation and that his comments were taken out of context
– He said his office was not involved in the approval of vaccines
– Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe is now demanding the FDA answer to the allegations that its officials are motivated by the ‚fountain of revenue‘ it receives from pharmaceutical companies
– O’Keefe told Sean Hannity Wednesday night: ‚There are serious ethical issues‘
Seymour Hersh: “We’ve Been Taken Over by a Cult”
(26.01.2005)
„There’s a lot of anxiety inside the — you know, our professional military and our intelligence people. Many of them respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as much as anybody here, and individual freedom. So, they do — there’s a tremendous sense of fear. These are punitive people. One of the ways — one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is. „
Israel to Scrap COVID Green Pass for Most Entertainment Venues From Sunday
Israel’s coronavirus cabinet decided to abolish its so-called green passport program for most places of entertainment, including hotels, restaurants, gyms and movie theaters, effectively removing barriers to entry for the unvaccinated.
The new policy will come into effect on Sunday, and will leave the proof of vaccination in place for events “with significantly greater risk of infection,” such as weddings and parties.
Knesset passes ‘COVID law,’ ending state of emergency in place for most of pandemic
(26 Jan 2022)
The Knesset on Tuesday passed the so-called “coronavirus law,” bringing an end to the state of emergency that has been in place for most of the pandemic and requiring greater legislative supervision over COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the government.
The new law will go into effect on February 1 and last until the end of 2022.
Athletes unhappy about quarantine hotels
When fetching the food left outside her door, she took a glance at the boxes left outside other rooms in her corridor, whose doors were labelled with signs to distinguish Olympians from other people working at the Games who tested positive, such as team staff.
She concluded the athletes were getting worse food, and underlined it with a picture of food served to her team doctor, who had also tested positive and was living two floors below. He had fresh fruit, a salad and prawns with broccoli.
„I honestly don’t understand, why is there this attitude to us, the athletes?!“ she wrote.
Two days on from her criticism, Vasnetsova is still in quarantine …
Russian biathlete Valeria Vasnetsova posted a photo of one of the unappetizing meals at Beijing Games on Instagram, showing plain pasta, some potatoes, charred meat, and no vegetables. She claims the same meal was served for “breakfast, lunch and dinner for five days already.”
25-year-old Belgian racer Kim Meylemans was taken unexpectedly to a Chinese government quarantine facility after testing COVID positive upon arrival in Beijing. She was released after recording this tearful video on Instagram.
Biden questions if US midterm elections will be ‚legit‘
(20 January)
„I’m not saying it’s going to be legit,“ Mr Biden said when asked about the possibility of fraud in the forthcoming elections that will decide the balance of power in Washington.
„The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed,“ the Democratic president continued.
Members of his own party quickly pushed back against the suggestion.
Biden drags Democrats down
(February 3, 2022)
Most of us see President Joe Biden’s falling job approval rating as a measure of his declining popularity. But for every candidate, Democrat or Republican, running for the House or Senate this year, Biden’s numbers mean political life or death. That is because the president’s job approval rating is an extraordinarily important factor in the upcoming midterm elections.
WATCH: NBC poll suggests a midterm election shellacking for Biden and Democrats
(January 24, 2022)
With President Joe Biden’s first year behind him and the approaching midterm elections coming into clearer focus, an NBC News poll offered a dismal outlook for Democrats while suggesting Biden’s lost political identity paves the way for a shellacking in November.
NBC’s Chuck Todd discussed the most recent poll numbers on Meet the Press on Sunday, saying that just 5% feel Biden has done better than expected, with 36% believing his tenure in office has gone worse than expected.
A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In
consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.
NSO Is an Arm of Israel’s Government
In 2019 NSO agreed to reconnect the Pegasus system in Saudi Arabia, in the context of Netanyahu’s contacts regarding the Abraham Accords. Until the accords were announced, Israel gave NSO a permit to sell Pegasus to almost all of the countries that signed the agreements.
The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon
(Jan. 28, 2022)
The F.B.I. had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool. For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else — not a private company, not even a state intelligence service — could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.
F.B.I. Secretly Bought Israeli Spyware and Explored Hacking U.S. Phones
(Jan. 28, 2022)
The Times found that sales of Pegasus played a critical role in securing the support of Arab nations in Israel’s campaign against Iran and negotiating the Abraham Accords, the 2020 diplomatic agreements, signed at a Trump White House ceremony, that normalized relations between Israel and some of its longtime Arab adversaries.
The U.S. had also moved to acquire Pegasus, The Times found. The F.B.I., in a deal never previously reported, bought the spyware in 2019, despite multiple reports that it had been used against activists and political opponents in other countries. It also spent two years discussing whether to deploy a newer product, called Phantom, inside the United States.
U-turn on mandatory Covid vaccinations for NHS and social care workers
Mandatory Covid jabs for NHS and social care workers are set to be scrapped, The Telegraph can reveal, after warnings of crippling staff shortages if the plan went ahead.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, will on Monday meet fellow ministers on the Covid-Operations Cabinet committee to rubber stamp the decision on the about-turn.
‚I’m facing an eviction suit and had to fire employees. I have no life‘ — 200+ small business owners in South Korea shaved their heads in protest against the government’s strict COVID-19 restrictions
Stop the Use of Pegasus Spyware Against Civilians
On January 18, 2020, an investigation by Calcalist revealed that the Israel Police were using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to hack into the phones of Israeli citizens, including anti-government protesters and activists.
In response, ACRI argued that the use of Pegasus spyware and hacking into mobile phones of Israeli citizens, as in the darkest of oppressive dictatorships, is illegal and requires an immediate, full investigation.
Pegasus Spyware in Israel: MK Odeh Calls on Police Commissioner to Resign
(20.01.2021)
Israel police accused of using Pegasus spyware to hack phones of activists and civilians. An investigative report published Jan. 18 by the financial Calcalist newspaper claims that the police purchased the software in 2013, under then-Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, and actually started using it in 2015, when former Shin Bet senior Roni Alsheikh served as police commissioner. The software allegedly served the secret police cyber brigade named Signet. The report further claims that police used Pegasus to hack phones not only of criminals but also of activists and other civilians, without court authorization or the control of a judge.
In Landmark Bundestag Speech, Israel’s Knesset Speaker Warns of Breakdown of Democracy
Germany’s descent into Nazism provides an object lesson on the fragility of democracy and the need to preserve it, Knesset speaker Mickey Levy told German lawmakers on Thursday. Levy is the first Knesset speaker to address the German parliament.
Germany plans vaccine mandate amid qualms over rights
On Wednesday, Germany’s lower house of parliament will debate the topic. Details of the bill will be finalized after the debate, and a draft law should be ready for a vote in parliament by March.
However, it’s not clear if a future bill can muster a majority to pass. Some lawmakers from the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats – the junior coalition partners of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) – are opposed to the measure.
A New York judge rules that the state’s mask mandate is unconstitutional and can’t be enforced.
Gov. Kathy Hochul had renewed a rule requiring masks or proof of vaccination at all indoor public places throughout the state in December, amid a winter virus surge, and said it would last a month. The state Health Department then extended the mandate an additional two weeks, to expire on Feb. 1.
In his six-page decision, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Rademaker wrote that Ms. Hochul and state health officials lacked the authority to enact the mask mandate without the approval of state lawmakers, and that it violated the state constitution. Regardless of the “well aimed” intentions of state officials, such authority is “entrusted solely to the State Legislature,” Justice Rademaker wrote.
NEW: A New York state Supreme Court judge has ruled that Governor Kathy Hochul’s statewide indoor mask mandate is unconstitutional.
He’s still there because the Conservative party has no obvious credible replacement for him. I wonder if the 1922 committee already has the number of letters required for a no confidence vote but is sitting on it’s hands until the party has decided who they want to get behind?
What’s the point of the Met Police investigating the No 10 Parties? Everyone knows Cressida Dick is biased in favour of Boris Johnson. We all know the truth won’t be told and justice will not be delivered. Another example of corruption & a waste of everyone’s time.
(…)
Partygate report to be delayed for WEEKS because of police probe: Met chief announces criminal investigation as ‚upset‘ Cabinet minister refuses to defend Boris’s birthday party (so has Cressida done PM a FAVOUR?)
Police to investigate Downing Street lockdown parties
Commissioner Cressida Dick said they were looking into „potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations“ in Downing Street and Whitehall since 2020.
No 10 police give ‚extremely damning‘ evidence to Sue Gray over ‚partygate‘
The statements, described by one source as “extremely damning”, are expected to form a key part of Ms Gray’s report, which is due to be published within days.
The senior civil servant has also spoken to the Prime Minister, civil servants and political advisers, and accessed security pass logs and even Boris Johnson’s official diary.
Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief aide turned hostile adversary, will be interviewed by Ms Gray on Monday, according to report
MPs subjected to ‘blackmail’ as Boris Johnson fights for political life, claims senior Tory
Senior Conservative William Wragg sensationally revealed that he had received reports of Johnson loyalists threatening to place smear stories in the press about Tories considering declarations of no confidence in the prime minister.
And he said that MPs had told him of warnings that investment in their constituencies would be at risk if they failed to back Mr Johnson in battle to save his political life.
He too once ruled supreme. So what lessons does Bibi have for Boris?
The British PM is discovering that his supporters are not quite as loyal as Netanyahu’s
‚Boris Johnson is unfit for office‘: Ex- Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson takes aim at the PM and warns he is in a ‚perilous situation‘ with growing ‚fatigue‘ among MPs amid Partygate scandal
Tory peer Ruth Davidson, who successfully campaigned against Scottish independence in 2014 and quit frontline politics five years later, said the Prime Minister is in a ‘perilous situation’ ahead of Sue Gray’s report into the lockdown party scandal.
In an interview with The Times, the former MSP said that she would have already submitted her letter of no-confidence in Mr Johnson to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers if she were a Member of Parliament.
She also warned that Mr Johnson’s authority was teetering in part because of a growing ‘fatigue’ within the party ‘for the amount of drama that has been emanating from No10’ over allegations of lockdown-busting gatherings across government.
Scotland Yard to meet with William Wragg over Downing Street blackmail claims
Scotland Yard will meet with a leading rebel Conservative to discuss claims of threats and blackmail of backbenchers by government whips early next week, The Telegraph can disclose.
A detective from the Metropolitan Police will meet with William Wragg, a senior Tory MP who first raised the concerns, to discuss the allegations, including threats to withdraw investments from constituents.
About a dozen Tory MPs said to have accused party whips of blackmail
“It is illegal. We are meant to operate as MPs without fear or favour. The allocation of taxpayer funding to constituencies should be according to need, not according to the need to keep the prime minister in his job.”
He described the government’s levelling up fund as “an open opportunity for government ministers to corruptly hand out money to some MPs and not to others”.
Government whips and advisers ’not above the law‘ says Speaker, after claims rebel MPs were ‚blackmailed‘
William Wragg, the chairman of a scrutiny committee, claimed several Tories who oppose Boris Johnson had been subjected to „pressures and intimidation“ in the wake of the Downing Street party scandal.
Downing Street staff, special advisers and government ministers had sought to encourage „embarrassing“ stories in the media about those who no longer back the Johnson premiership, Mr Wragg alleged.
BREAKING The Austrian parliament has approved a national COVID-19 vaccine mandate for adults effective Feb. 1.
Our acceptance of a mass lock-in is more dangerous than any party
Let’s put aside for the moment the immediate furore over Boris Johnson’s future and the further flood of Downing Street festivity stories which may not be finished yet. We need to ask the question that must, given what has prevailed in our lives for the past two years, be most serious. How on earth did we get to a point where events and decisions which would once have been regarded as commonplace, even virtuous – an employer expressing good wishes to staff at a party, a child embracing elderly grandparents, a relative making regular visits to a dying hospital patient – became illegal?
MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL
This video was made in collaboration with Academy of Ideas. They create videos explaining the ideas of history’s great thinkers in order to help supply the world with more knowledge, to empower the individual, and to promote freedom.
If you suspect being targeted with Pegasus, get in touch by January 7: Supreme Court panel
The committee constituted by the Supreme Court to look into allegations of snooping using the Pegasus spyware invited all citizens who suspected their mobile phones had been targeted to contact the panel by noon on January 7.
“The committee requests any citizen of India who has reasonable cause to suspect that his/her mobile has been compromised due to specific usage of NSO Group Israel’s Pegasus software to contact the technical committee appointed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, with reasons as to why you believe your device may have been infected with Pegasus malware, and whether you would be in a position to allow the Technical Committee to examine your device,” the three-member panel said in an advertisement in several national dailies.
Omicron Infections Seem to Be Milder, Three Research Teams Report
Three separate teams of scientists on two continents have found that Omicron infections more often result in mild illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus, offering hope that the current surge may not be quite as catastrophic as feared despite skyrocketing caseloads.
The researchers examined Omicron’s course through populations in South Africa, Scotland and England. The results in each setting, while still preliminary, all suggested that the variant was less likely to send people in hospitals.
CDC Study at Federal Prison in TX Finds No Vaccine Benefit: Vaccinated and Unvaxed Persons Infected w/COVID Transmitted It at the Same Rate. No Infected Prisoners Died Even Though Over 70% were Obese
(20.12.2021)
CDC Researchers studied a Corona outbreak in a prison in Texas in July 2021. In the following weeks, regular smears and tests were taken from a selected group of inmates. The result: There is no difference whatsoever between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated inmates.
No statistically significant difference was detected in the duration of viral culture positivity between participants who were fully vaccinated (median: 5 days) compared with those who were not fully vaccinated.
Transmission potential of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in a federal prison, July—August 2021
(19.12.2021)
Results A total of 978 specimens were provided by 95 participants, of whom 78 (82%) were fully vaccinated and 17 (18%) were not fully vaccinated. No significant differences were detected in duration of RT-PCR positivity among fully vaccinated participants (median: 13 days) versus those not fully vaccinated (median: 13 days; p=0.50), or in duration of culture positivity (medians: 5 days and 5 days; p=0.29).
Nation-state hackers are already exploiting the scary Log4j vulnerability
Security researchers recently stunned the world with the Log4Shell hack, revealing that the entire internet is scrambling to patch a vulnerability in a widely used Java utility that many companies employ in their servers. Also known as the Log4j hack, the security issue allows hackers to get into computer systems without a password.
Threat 10 out of 10: Hackers are already exploiting a new vulnerability on computers around the world
According to the Finacial Times, up to December 14
hackers launched more than 1.2 million attacks, which affected hundreds of thousands of users.
Attackers have almost unlimited freedom to hack. The attack was quickly and easily deployed.
They extract the information they need, add record data to the server, delete it, switch to different servers, install ransomware.
Hackers can inject malicious software onto servers, install various programs (including for mining cryptocurrencies), steal confidential data, modify information and make changes to the service interface.
Google Warns That NSO Hacking Is On Par With Elite Nation-State Spies
“This is on par with serious nation-state capabilities,” he says. “It’s really sophisticated stuff, and when it’s wielded by an all-gas, no-brakes autocrat, it’s totally terrifying. And it just makes you wonder what else is out there being used right now that is just waiting to be discovered. If this is the kind of threat civil society is facing, it is truly an emergency.”
After years of controversy, there may be growing political will to call out private spyware developers.
MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL
This video was made in collaboration with Academy of Ideas. They create videos explaining the ideas of history’s great thinkers in order to help supply the world with more knowledge, to empower the individual, and to promote freedom.
Pandemic Profiteers – The business of anti-Vaxx
The Centerfor Countering Digital Hate is a not-for-profit NGO that seeks to disrupt the architecture of online hate and misinformation.
Digital technology has changed forever the way we communicate, build relationships, share knowledge, set social standards, and negotiate and assert our society’s values.
Digital spaces have been colonised and their unique dynamics exploited by fringe movements that instrumentalise hate and misinformation. These movements are opportunistic, agile and confident in exerting influenceand persuading people.Over time these actors, advocating diverse causes – from anti-feminism to ethnic nationalism to denial of scientific consensus – have formed a Digital Counter Enlightenment.
Their trolling, disinformation and skilled advocacy of their causes has resocialised the offline world for the worse.The Center’s work combines both analysis and active disruption of these networks. CCDH’s solutions seek to increase the economic, political and social costs of all parts of the infrastructure -the actors, systems and culture -that support, and often profit from hate and misinformation.
Germany’s Incoming Vice-Chancellor Calls for ‘Lockdown of the Unvaccinated’
(30.11.2021)
Ahead of talks between German federal and regional officials on Tuesday, Robert Habeck, a co-leader of the Greens, said only people who are inoculated or recovered should be allowed into non-essential stores and “public settings” across the country, rather than just in virus hotspots.
Shin Bet Security Agency Proposes New Civil Body to Digitally Track Omicron Patients in Israel
The Shin Bet security service told the coronavirus cabinet On Saturday that Israel should establish a civilian body to track coronavirus patients through their cellphones, rather than asking the agency to do it.
The cabinet was discussing reinstituting Shin Bet tracking for people infected with the new omicron variant, and ultimately decided to do so despite the agency’s objections.
Notorious Pegasus spyware faces its day of reckoning
If you were compiling a list of the most toxic tech companies, Facebook – strangely – would not come out on top. First place belongs to NSO, an outfit of which most people have probably never heard. Wikipedia tells us that “NSO Group is an Israeli technology firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”.
Pause for a moment on that phrase: “remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”.
Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
(2021 Sep 30)
At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days (Fig. 1). In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days.
COVID-19: stigmatising the unvaccinated is not justified
(20.11.2021)
In the USA and Germany, high-level officials have used the term pandemic of the unvaccinated, suggesting that people who have been vaccinated are not relevant in the epidemiology of COVID-19. Officials’ use of this phrase might have encouraged one scientist to claim that “the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19”.1
But this view is far too simple.
There is increasing evidence that vaccinated individuals continue to have a relevant role in transmission.
The epidemiological relevance of the COVID-19-vaccinated population is increasing
(19.11.2021)
High COVID-19 vaccination rates were expected to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in populations by reducing the number of possible sources for transmission and thereby to reduce the burden of COVID-19 disease. Recent data, however, indicate that the epidemiological relevance of COVID-19 vaccinated individuals is increasing. In the UK it was described that secondary attack rates among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (25% for vaccinated vs 23% for unvaccinated).
Two UAE Princes Each Got Their Own Personal NSO Spyware
Why does UAE – one country with a joint federal military, police and security force, need two separate NSO spyware systems held by two different leaders?
U.S. Blacklists Israeli Cyberarms Firms NSO, Candiru for Harming ‚National Security and Interests‘
„NSO Group and Candiru (Israel) were added to the Entity List based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments,“ the statement read, adding that the spyware’s tools were used „to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.“
The Mountain of Data Showing How Authoritarian Democrats Have Become
(video)
Summers is arguing that @mikepompeo ’s decision to categorize @wikileaks as a Foreign Non-State Intelligence Agency has legal implications as it allows the @CIA to direct actions against WL and #Assange without congressional oversight.
After NSO Group, warning issued against second Israeli spyware firm
(October 4, 2021)
The July report by Citizen’s Lab and Microsoft found that Candiru had been used to spy on more than 100 human rights activists, regime opponents, journalists and scholars from countries such as Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, UK, Turkey and even Israel.
Revelations about Candiru make it the first time that fingers were being pointed at a second Israeli cyber-surveillance company, which is considered a competitor of the NSO Group. The notorious Israeli firm sparked a global scandal in July following the discovery that as many as 50,000 phones were targeted by its Pegasus spyware.
Cellphone Hacking and Millions in Gulf Deals: Inner Workings of Top Secret Israeli Cyberattack Firm Revealed
(Sep. 7, 2020)
NSO’s specialty is hacking smartphones. Up till now, little was known about Candiru. TheMarker has revealed that the firm offers hacking tools used to break into computers and servers, and now, for the first time, has confirmed it also has technology for breaking into mobile devices.
Meet Candiru — The Mysterious Mercenaries Hacking Apple And Microsoft PCs For Profit
(Oct 3, 2019)
Israel is home to scores of hacker-for-hire businesses, but one of the most clandestine has been Candiru. With no website and few records available, it’s operated largely under the radar.
But now a researcher is claiming the elite Tel Aviv-based firm sold cyber weapons to the government of Uzbekistan, while industry sources tell Forbes the company is hacking both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macs for various nation states.
Advanced Spyware From Israel’s Candiru Discovered on Russian, Turkish, Palestinian Computers
Spyware made by the Tel Aviv-based hacking tool company Candiru has been found on several computers in Europe and the Middle East, the cybersecurity company ESET reported.
In their September report, ESET wrote that according to research published by Citizen Lab and the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center in July about Candiru’s DevilsTongue malware, it is „sold to third parties, which can abuse it to spy on various victims, including human rights defenders, dissidents, journalists, activists and politicians.“
FBI spied on Albert Einstein for 22 years until his death
The FBI started spying on renowned German-born scientist Albert Einstein when he moved to America in 1933, shortly before Adolf Hitler rose to power. Agents listened to the physicist’s phone calls and searched his mail and trash, suspecting he was a Soviet spy. The surveillance, totalling 1,800 pages, ended with Einstein’s death on April 18, 1955, with no supporting evidence.
The ACLU, Prior to COVID, Denounced Mandates and Coercive Measures to Fight Pandemics
If you were surprised to see the ACLU heralding the civil liberties imperatives of „vaccine mandates” and „vaccine requirements” — whereby the government coerces adults to inject medicine into their own bodies that they do not want — the New York Times op-ed which the group promoted, written by two of its senior lawyers, was even more extreme. The article begins with this rhetorical question: “Do vaccine mandates violate civil liberties?” Noting that „some who have refused vaccination claim as much,” the ACLU lawyers say: “we disagree.” The op-ed then examines various civil liberties objections to mandates and state coercion — little things like, you know, bodily autonomy and freedom to choose — and the ACLU officials then invoke one authoritarian cliche after the next (“these rights are not absolute“) to sweep aside such civil liberties concerns:
Joint open letter by civil society organizations and independent experts calling on states to implement an immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology
The investigation has so far also identified at least 180 journalists in 20 countries who were selected for potential targeting with NSO spyware between 2016 to June 2021. Deeply concerning details that have emerged include evidence that family members of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were targeted with Pegasus software before and after his murder in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by Saudi operatives,despite repeated denials from NSO Group that its products were used to target Khashoggi or his family members.
The revelations are only a tip of the iceberg.
I Worked at Israeli Phone Hacking Firm Cellebrite. They Lied to Us
I would like to address the issue of supervising phone hacking technology that is being exported by NSO Group and Cellebrite. As a former Cellebrite employee, I can say from personal experience that the company does nothing to prevent the abuse of its products by customers. It knowingly sells products and services to users of dubious repute, belonging to autocratic regimes.
‘The State’s Right’: Top Court Refuses to Rule on Israeli Sale of Spy Tech to Russia
(26.06.2021)
Israel’s defense exports, including the sale of offensive cyber technologies to foreign countries, and the policy that governs them is beyond the jurisdiction of Israeli courts, the Supreme Court ruled Sunday. The court’s justices refused to hear a petition filed by human right activists against the director of Israel’s Defense Ministry and Cellebrite, the digital forensics company, for the sale of phone-hacking tech to Russia.
The Pegasus Project | Where Netanyahu Went, NSO Followed: How Israel Pushed Cyberweapon Sales
Investigation of potential Pegasus targets reveals: From Hungary to India and even Saudi Arabia, this is how Israel became the cyber industry’s patron and pushed spyware sales across the world,
‚Israeli spyware firm linked to fake Black Lives Matter, Amnesty websites‘
Using Internet scanning, a team of researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and tech giant Microsoft identified more than 750 websites linked to Candiru’s spyware infrastructure.
„We found many domains masquerading as advocacy organisations such as Amnesty International, the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as media companies and other civil-society themed entities,“ researcher Bill Marczak said in a statement.
Fighting cyberweapons built by private businesses
(15.07.2021)
We believe Sourgum is an Israel-based private sector offensive actor or PSOA. Citizen Lab has identified the group as a company called Candiru. Sourgum generally sells cyberweapons that enable its customers, often government agencies around the world, to hack into their targets’ computers, phones, network infrastructure and internet-connected devices. These agencies then choose who to target and run the actual operations themselves.
Microsoft says Israeli group sold tools to hack Windows
(15.07.2021)
The hacking tool vendor, named Candiru, created and sold a software exploit that can penetrate Windows, one of many intelligence products sold by a secretive industry that finds flaws in common software platforms for their clients, said a report by Citizen Lab.
Technical analysis by security researchers details how Candiru’s hacking tool spread around the globe to numerous unnamed customers, where it was then used to target various civil society organizations, including a Saudi dissident group and a left-leaning Indonesian news outlet, the reports by Citizen Lab and Microsoft show.
iMessage, WhatsApp, and FaceTime are vulnerable to „zero-click exploits“ — bugs that allow hackers to commandeer a mobile phone even when the target does nothing to trigger the breach. #PegasusProject
(1) @AmnestyTech saw an iOS 14.6 device hacked with a zero-click iMessage exploit to install Pegasus. We at @citizenlab also saw 14.6 device hacked with a zero-click iMessage exploit to install Pegasus. All this indicates that NSO Group can break into the latest iPhones.
NSO’s Pegasus: The Israeli Cyber Weapon Oppressive Regimes Used Against 180 Journalists
Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International had access to a leak of more than 50,000 records of phone numbers that NSO clients selected for surveillance. According to an analysis of these records by the group and its partners, more than 180 journalists were selected in 21 countries by at least 12 NSO clients.
On The Psychology Of The Conspiracy Denier
We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms – that corruption surrounds us.
We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice.
We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour.
We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming.
We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.
So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension?
Confessions of a dangerous mind, a ‘divinely inspired’ Zuma spy Thulani Dlomo
Shortly after taking his oath of office, Zuma signed a proclamation that bypassed Parliament and collapsed five of South Africa’s agencies into the State Security Agency (SSA).
The door was thus kicked open for the creation of an unlawful, parallel, secret security state, funded by public money — much of which remains unaccounted for — and which served Zuma’s personal and political interests for more than a decade.
Reports about US undertakings are grossly misleading: On any given day 80.000 prisoners in US prisons are held in solitary. Only a handful are in ADX/under SAMs. US gov also says it may change its mind if CIA says so once #Assange is in US custody.
Merkel urged to drop all remaining Covid restrictions
Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, on Tuesday became the latest high-profile figure to join calls for restrictions to end as soon as all Germans have been offered the jab.
“If everyone in Germany has been offered the vaccine, there is no longer any legal or political justification for any restrictions,” said Mr Maas. “This can be expected by August.”
As You Celebrate Your Freedom, Remember Julian Assange | Opinion
What is it, then, that makes dissidents such a threat? Contrary to common criminals they serve a higher cause. Contrary to terrorists, they inform, empower and mobilize the people. And contrary to parliamentary oppositions, they have no stakes in corrupt institutions and practices that often feed both sides of the political aisle. Governments fear dissidents, because they cannot be owned and controlled. Some imprison, torture and execute them routinely, based on classified evidence and summary trials. Others conceal their oppression behind a veil of due process, crushing them through judicial harassment and defamation.
Israeli Charged in Global Hacker-for-hire Scheme Seeks Plea Deal
While the indictment does not identify the hackers by name, five people familiar with the case say that Azari is being charged in relation to New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services, which Reuters last year reported was behind a hacking campaign that targeted lawyers, government officials, businessmen, investors and activists around the world.
Azari is charged with conspiracy to commit hacking, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, court documents show.
Small IT firm in Delhi ran one of world’s ‘largest’ hacker-for-hire services: Reuters expose
(10.06.2021)
Citing an article in The Financial Times, which in turn cites the Citizen Lab report, Muddy Waters Research tweeted that a German payment processing company Wirecard was a client of BellTrox.
‘The State’s Right’: Top Court Refuses to Rule on Israeli Sale of Spy Tech to Russia
Israel’s defense exports, including the sale of offensive cyber technologies to foreign countries, and the policy that governs them is beyond the jurisdiction of Israeli courts, the Supreme Court ruled Sunday. The court’s justices refused to hear a petition filed by human right activists against the director of Israel’s Defense Ministry and Cellebrite, the digital forensics company, for the sale of phone-hacking tech to Russia.
U.S.-Germany Dialogue on Holocaust Issues
– Our shared commitment to a regular dialogue underscores our desire to contribute to a world in which knowledge of the Holocaust is abundant, fact-based, and serves as a foundation for tackling today’s challenges, including those that lead to the normalization of hatred that can result in demonization or persecution of those perceived as “the other.”
– Jointly with Germany, we will produce strategies and tools that governments can deploy to improve education and training on the Holocaust, counter Holocaust denial and distortion, combat anti-Semitism, and ensure policymakers have a strong understanding of these issues and of their responsibility to act.
– We will support innovation in education and commemoration, joint initiatives to ensure understanding of the Holocaust remains grounded in historical fact, and training activities for stakeholders in democratic societies on Holocaust issues.
By launching this bilateral consultation, and by raising public awareness about anti-Semitism and the hatred of “the other” that paved the way for the horrific crimes of the Holocaust, we can stand together as Transatlantic partners to ensure such atrocities never again occur.
The CIA Has Been Taking Over for Decades—Even Former Presidents Tried to Warn Us
December 22, 1963 — exactly one month after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, former President Harry S. Truman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that most people, especially our perfumed ruling elite, wanted to ignore.
Truman, who signed the CIA into existence just after World War II, wrote, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—the CIA. […] For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas. …There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.”
Not only did that adorn the pages of the Washington Post one month after JFK’s death, Truman hand wrote the first draft just one week after JFK met up with a bunch of bullets in Dallas. Sure, one may wish Harry had sent his thoughts to John a month before the President’s televised execution. Maybe he could’ve sent a singing telegram or something. But let’s at least give Truman partial credit for the belated message.
Before his death President Kennedy also held no love for the Central Intelligence Agency. Following the calamitous Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy said he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”
Point being, clearly Truman, who created the CIA, and Kennedy, who met a mysterious untimely end by professional killers, knew the agency had run amok.
Yet the CIA is still here, bigger and filled with more Bond villains than ever, and now they have a whole cavalcade of other intelligence agencies working with them.
Detained Belarusian dissident appears in video as fury mounts over ‚hijacking‘ of Ryanair flight
„The attitude of the [Interior Ministry] employees towards me has been as correct as possible and in compliance with the law,“ Protasevich says in the video, which was posted Monday evening to a pro-government social media channel.
„I continue to cooperate with the investigation and have confessed to organizing mass riots in the city of Minsk,“ he also says. His supporters believe the video was made under duress.
Blinken condemns ’shocking act‘ of Belarus forcing plane carrying opposition journalist to land
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned the forced landing of a Ryanair flight by Belarus and the arrest of an opposition journalist on board, calling it a „shocking act“ that endangered the lives of U.S. citizens and everyone else on board.
In a statement, Blinked vowed that the U.S. would respond with its allies in the region, and called for the „immediate release“ of journalist Raman Protasevich, who according to reports, was detained by Belarusian security forces after the flight landed.
Israelis Don’t Care if the State Is Spying on Them
The Irgun’s intelligence unit, known as Delek, collected information based on gossip with equal enthusiasm. A 1945 file, for example, contains details about a 50-year-old Herzliya man whose wife was said to be cheating on him with Jews and Englishmen alike. The source of the item elaborates: “He doesn’t like his youngest son because it’s whispered in Herzliya that he looks like a certain Englishman who used to court his wife.” That’s the sort of intelligence, among others, that our excellent boys came up with.
An Israeli Yelled ‚Bibi Go Home.‘ The Shin Bet Security Service Had Him Arrested
Yarom was shackled and taken into custody on suspicion of disturbing public order and interfering with a police officer in the line of duty. He was released three hours later subject to restrictions. The arrest was carried out even though there were no legal restrictions on protesting in the area and despite the fact that a policeman on the scene permitted protesters to stand there.
Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Updated 14 March 2021
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) honors the heroes who sacrificed their lives and liberty to fight for democracy, human rights and the end of dictatorship. AAPP also honours those heroes who sacrificed their lives today. Up until now, (126) people have been killed due to violent and arbitrary crackdowns, at least 38 today. Further casualties will be added when confirmed, casualties are drastically increasing.
Men In Black, Denmark was live.
(video)