|
Republicans Think if Your Data Is Encrypted, the Terrorists Win |
 |
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=29990"><span class="small">Trevor Timm, Guardian UK</span></a>
|
|
Sunday, 23 August 2015 13:23 |
|
Timm writes: "Jeb 'I'm my own man' Bush sounds more and more like his know-nothing ex-president brother every day."
Recent comments suggest that Jeb Bush doesn't understand that the entire internet - and much of the economy really - is based around strong encryption. (photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Republicans Think if Your Data Is Encrypted, the Terrorists Win
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
23 August 15
Encryption — used in everything from online banking to email — is so ubiquitous, one wonders if candidates have ever talked to a computer scientist
 eb “I’m my own man” Bush sounds more and more like his know-nothing ex-president brother every day. This time, in between defending the Iraq War and saying he might bring back torture if elected president, he’s demanding that tech companies stop letting billions of the world’s citizens use encryption online to protect their information because of “evildoers.”
Bush’s comments echo the dangerous sentiments of FBI director Jim Comey, who has publicly campaigned against Apple and Google for attempting to make our cell phones and communications safer by incorporating strong encryption in iPhones and Android devices.
At a campaign stop earlier this week Jeb Bush said: “If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job – while protecting civil liberties – to make sure that evildoers aren’t in our midst.”
There are so many things wrong with that statement it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, he seems to either be attacking, or just doesn’t understand, that the entire internet - and much of the economy really - is based around strong encryption. Every time he logs onto his email, uses online banking or wants to check his medical records online, there is some form of encryption that is protecting his data from criminals. So the fact that technology companies are “creating” encryption protects all of us.
He was likely talking about end-to-end encryption implemented by Apple and the popular messaging app WhatsApp that lock out even the companies themselves to the content of text messages, so that only the two people talking to each other can ever see them. While opponents claim this is “helping terrorists,” even the most pro-government former intelligence officials readily admit there are still plenty of ways to track criminals who use encryption, and by attempting to outlaw it we put billions of completely innocent people at a much higher risk of having their personal information stolen by foreign governments or criminals.
Unfortunately, Bush’s comments seem to be part of a pattern with the 2016 presidential candidates, none of whom seem to understand the basic precepts of technology, and the critical role encryption plays in all of our cybersecurity.
Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, who has been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks, sounded even more out of touch at the second-tier Republican debate a couple weeks ago when she lamented that companies need to “tear down cyberwalls” when asked about whether Apple and Google should be implementing end-to-end encryption.
Putting aside the fact that “cyberwalls” are not a thing, it’s quite disturbing that candidates are so willing to undermine the backbone of the internet so off-handedly. Fiorina, who by virtually all accounts, was a failure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard ten years ago, showed off her (lack of) technical knowledge. While she may have been joking, even Hillary Clinton’s comment about “wiping” her notorious email server “with a cloth” is distressing as well. Her own comments on the encryption issue, while vague, did not give the sense that she understands the issue either.
It begs the questions: how many candidates have technologists or computer scientists advising their campaigns? Given how almost every week there is yet another security breach at a major company, and that voters are concerned about their online privacy, you’d think at least some of the candidates would attempt to capitalize on it by merely having a coherent policy that does not make them sound like they’ve never touched a computer (or sent a fax) before without the assistance of their aides.
Strong end-to-end encryption is one of the best defenses against the massive cyber-attacks that have become all too frequent. If there is not a giant pile of data that is accessible by anyone, then the criminals can’t get it either.
While it’s still shameful that current White House has refused to rein in its FBI director’s dangerous plans, at least behind the scenes White House officials reportedly know it’s a dangerous idea and President Obama deserves a bit of credit for acknowledging how important encryption is in many circumstances.
In the modern world, the importance of strong encryption cannot be overstated. When will our presidential candidates understand that?
 |
|
FOCUS: Declaring Chelsea Manning's Voice Against Torture Contraband |
|
|
Sunday, 23 August 2015 11:33 |
|
Wheeler writes: "All of Manning's columns addressed topics that the confiscated items likely helped her write, but by writing on torture she implicated the chain of command. Now Manning's prison guards have decided the underlying document is contraband."
Manning tweeted this picture as the last taken before she began hormonal therapy. (photo: ExposeFacts)
Declaring Chelsea Manning's Voice Against Torture Contraband
By Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts
23 August 15
 Last Tuesday, the disciplinary board found Chelsea Manning guilty of all charges. She was sentenced to 21 days of recreation restrictions. AW/RSN
 s a number of outlets have reported, Chelsea Manning faces a disciplinary board on Tuesday for four alleged violations, including brushing crumbs on the floor, disrespecting an officer, keeping toothpaste past its expiry date, and keeping items deemed contraband, including the Vanity Fair issue on Caitlyn Jenner.
Manning will not have a lawyer at the hearing, and over the weekend authorities refused her access to the prison law library. She may receive indefinite solitary confinement as punishment for these absurd alleged offenses.
Along with that list of seemingly trivial items, Leavenworth officials also confiscated an item that goes to the core of the whistleblowing that landed Manning in prison in the first place: the Senate Torture Report.
Chelsea Manning faces the threat of solitary confinement, which most countries and many psychologists consider torture, because she was reading the Senate Torture Report.
Recall that among the events that led Manning to provide information to WikiLeaks was when she was ordered to “assist the Baghdad Federal Police in identifying the political opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki” — people who Manning discovered were actually criticizing Maliki’s corruption. Manning realized that by helping the Baghdad Police, US forces would be helping put them “in the custody of the Special Unit of the Baghdad Federal Police [where they would be] very likely tortured.” In an effort to thwart US complicity in torture, Manning leaked classified materials to WikiLeaks, including information on Iraq’s Wolf Brigade, a unit that conducted torture the official US policy on which was to ignore.
Manning hasn’t ceased her efforts to hold the US accountable for its involvement in torture. Among the seven columns she has written for the Guardian since being in prison, one focused on US torture. “According to numerous public reports, including the Senate Torture Report, these programs were authorized at the highest levels of government,” Manning wrote, relying on the Torture Report that has since been confiscated. “This clearly shows a premeditated and intentional conspiracy to knowingly violate US law, and to avoid any oversight and criminal liability.”
All of Manning’s columns addressed topics that the confiscated items likely helped her write, but by writing on torture she implicated the chain of command. Now Manning’s prison guards have decided the underlying document is contraband.
When asked to comment on the threat of solitary before Manning, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou — who spent several years in prison for providing the name of a CIA torturer to lawyers for the people he tortured — argues the government wants to silence Manning. “Military authorities’ threats to place Chelsea Manning in solitary confinement for having a copy of Vanity Fair magazine and a copy of the Senate Torture Report further proves that the government is afraid of transparency, of information, and of the light of truth.” Kiriakou emphasized such treatment could happen to any of us. “What is happening to Chelsea Manning can happen to any of us.”
Of course, neither the Torture Report nor the Vanity Fair are contraband. As Manning’s attorney, Nancy Hollander, noted via email, “She received a hard copy of the Torture Report through normal prison channels. This is a Report from the United States Congress. It can hardly be considered contraband.”
Once before, Defense Department officials subjected Manning to forced nudity and separation. Now, they’re threatening to do so again, in part because she was reading — and writing — of how such policies are willful and systematic.
|
|
|
FOCUS: How Does Bernie Sanders Deal With Super Tuesday? |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=26125"><span class="small">Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News</span></a>
|
|
Sunday, 23 August 2015 10:25 |
|
Simpich writes: "Bernie Sanders is on course for strong performances at the Iowa caucuses on February 1st and in the New Hampshire primary on the 9th. He may make a credible showing at the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary later in February. But how does Bernie get past Super Tuesday on the first of March?"
Current Super Tuesday states. (image: Real Clear Politics)
How Does Bernie Sanders Deal With Super Tuesday?
By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News
23 August 15
 ernie Sanders is on course for strong performances at the Iowa caucuses on February 1st and in the New Hampshire primary on the 9th. He may make a credible showing at the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary later in February. But how does Bernie get past Super Tuesday on the first of March?
Alabama and Arkansas – ugh. Colorado caucuses – potential? Georgia – tough. Massachusetts and the Minnesota caucuses – could be good. North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas – whoa, with the Lone Star State the largest prize of the day. Vermont – Bernie’s home state. Virginia – Hillary territory.
Most insurgent candidates simply don’t get past Super Tuesday. Gary Hart in 1984, Bill Bradley in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, you get the picture. The twelve races are tilted to the South and favor the candidate with national strength and deep roots in the African American and Latino communities. What strategy can enable Bernie Sanders to go all the way?
Ask Nate Silver, who is the go-to guy for a lot of us. At his number-crunching website FiveThirtyEight, Silver recently raised the odds that Bernie Sanders can win the Democratic nomination to 5%. His analysis:
I still think it needs to involve some “shock” (as an economist would define that term) to the Clinton campaign. Meaning some substantially worse turn in the email scandal than what’s been reported so far. Hackers publish a bunch of top-secret documents culled from Clinton’s emails, for instance. Or a new scandal. Or a health problem.
In that event, Democratic elites would probably turn toward another establishment candidate. Most likely Joe Biden. But while I’m pretty sure that Sanders can’t beat Clinton head-to-head – he’s losing to her badly now, after all – I’m not so sure that’s true of Biden, etc.
I think Sanders vs. Biden, in a world where the Democratic establishment is in disarray because of a Clinton crisis, could be highly competitive. And Bernie’s organizational advantages – e.g., in the caucus states – could help him against a candidate who is getting off to a very late start.
Another angle on Bernie’s problem brought up by Silver’s team is that endorsements from governors, senators, and congressional members are thought to be the most important variable to consider as a predictor of success. Bernie does not have a single endorsement from any of them. See this chart provided by FiveThirtyEight.
Here’s a related dilemma: pragmatic voters are going to be reluctant to vote for Bernie if it doesn’t seem that he is going to be able to govern effectively. Where are the legislators who are willing to work hard to realize Sanders’s vision? Very few of them presently can be found in Congress – and how are they going to get there by 2016? How can he build a base of like-minded legislators? It’s no accident that he’s calling for a political revolution.
And, of course, Sanders has to win over huge numbers of African Americans and Latinos in order to halt the Hillary juggernaut. Is it possible? In a nod to Black Lives Matter, Bernie has adjusted his platform to note that unless structural racism ends, economic justice is impossible. But he still has to peel an incredible number of voters away from Hillary.
Nonetheless, Bernie continues to build momentum. He just won the endorsement of the 185,000-member National Nurses United. He is coming off a successful campaign swing through South Carolina. Believe it or not, even The New York Times on Friday exclaimed that the 73-year old Sanders has “recaptured the enthusiasm that fueled the 2008 Obama campaign.”
What Bernie is bringing to the 2016 race has nothing to do with his heritage, his pallor, or his coiffure. He has based his career and now this campaign on the belief that the vast majority of people agree with the fundamentals of his platform for economic justice. The unifying core of his message is that the billionaires can’t have it all. The strength of his belief in the common sense of the people is about to be tested. He could change American politics in a very positive way. As Tom Frank called for in his book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, we may see Americans in the heartland stop voting against their own interests. Whether or not Bernie wins the national election, we are seeing the formation of a political movement ready to fight the good fight on a multi-issue level.
He has to convince people of different points of view and different constituencies to work together. If he builds an effective team and stays in good health, he may be able to bring people to the voting booths who never vote and build alliances of people who don’t generally ally. There is one big wave of energy behind him.
If anyone can bend the numbers that Nate Silver relies on, Bernie is the man.
Bill Simpich is an Oakland attorney who knows that it doesn't have to be like this. He was part of the legal team chosen by Public Justice as Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003 for winning a jury verdict of 4.4 million in Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland police.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
Obama Should Charge Clinton With Espionage |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36478"><span class="small">John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News</span></a>
|
|
Sunday, 23 August 2015 08:20 |
|
Kiriakou writes: "Hillary Clinton should be charged with espionage. Not really. And I don't think she will be. But if the Obama administration is going to be consistent in its treatment of those who leak classified information, Clinton ought to face charges under the Espionage Act."
John Kiriakou in the documentary Silenced. (photo: AFI Docs)
Obama Should Charge Clinton With Espionage
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
23 August 15
 illary Clinton should be charged with espionage. Not really. And I don’t think she will be. But if the Obama administration is going to be consistent in its treatment of those who leak classified information, Clinton ought to face charges under the Espionage Act.
The Espionage Act was written in 1917 to combat German saboteurs during the First World War. Between 1917 and 2008, it was used three times to charge Americans who had passed classified information to the press. Since Barack Obama became president, however, his Justice Department has charged eight Americans with espionage. I know. I’m one of them. And none of us gave classified information to a foreign government. In fact, most of us were whistleblowers, exposing evidence of government waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality.
The Espionage Act is actually pretty simple. It says that a person is guilty of espionage if he provides “national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it.” The problem is that it does not define what “national defense information” is. It doesn’t mention “classified information” because it was written so long ago that the classification system hadn’t even been invented yet.
It also doesn’t address the problem of overclassification. Who classifies federal documents? Everybody. I did during my 15 years at the CIA. If I wanted to meet a colleague for lunch in the CIA cafeteria, for example, I would send him an email and classify it “Secret.” Why? That was standard operating procedure. We all did it. Everything was classified. Even when it wasn’t.
The Espionage Act also doesn’t address the issue of disclosing classified information for the public good. There’s no affirmative defense in an Espionage Act case. For example, Edward Snowden told us that the NSA was spying on Americans, which is against the law and prohibited by the NSA’s charter. Instead of thanking him, the Justice Department charged him with espionage. I blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. Torture is against U.S. law and myriad international treaties and conventions to which the U.S. is a signatory. I ended up with three espionage counts. (They were all eventually dropped.)
But if the Obama administration is going to be consistent in its use of the Espionage Act, it will have to charge Hillary Clinton with espionage because of her alleged passage of classified information using an unclassified server. The FBI is currently investigating, and I would bet that it recommends a criminal case against Clinton to the attorney general. A prosecution will never happen, though.
The Obama administration has been highly hypocritical in its use of the Espionage Act. If you’re a friend of the president, like General James Cartwright or former CIA director Leon Panetta, you get a pass. General Cartwright, who has been identified in the press as the president’s favorite general,” allegedly told the New York Times that the U.S. was behind the Stuxnet virus that infected computers being used in the Iranian nuclear program. Director Panetta revealed the name of the Navy Seal who killed Osama bin Laden to an audience that included an uncleared Hollywood producer. And General David Petraeus, who leaked highly-classified information, including the names of undercover CIA operatives, to his girlfriend, got a sweetheart deal that ended up as a misdemeanor, with no espionage charge.
In all of these cases, the FBI reportedly recommended charges of espionage. But the decision to prosecute is political. It’s made by the attorney general and the president. The Espionage Act is a political weapon. If you’re a friend of the president, you don’t have to worry. If you expose wrongdoing, your life will be changed forever. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have anything to worry about.
John Kiriakou is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. He is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
|
|
ex Nutting has a 
