Rights advocates concerned by reported US plan to use AI to revoke student visas

Reuters 07.03.25

The US has revoked First Amendment rights when it comes to criticising Israel through university demonstrations. It is also combing through students’ social media to check where their ‘loyalty’ lies. Frightening:

‘Rights advocates raised alarm, including free speech concerns, on Thursday after it was reported that the U.S. State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who it perceives as supporters of Palestinian Hamas militants. The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protects freedom of speech and assembly. Free speech advocates like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and pro-Palestinian groups said AI should not be relied upon for assessments related to the decades-old and nuance-filled Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Axios cited senior State Department officials to report that an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort will include AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts. The report also said officials were checking news reports of demonstrations against Israel's policies and Jewish students' lawsuits highlighting foreign nationals allegedly engaging in antisemitism. Fox News separately reported that the State Department revoked the visa of a student who allegedly participated in what the department termed as "Hamas-supporting disruptions." The revocation marked the first such action, according to the report. AI tools "cannot be relied on to parse the nuances of expression about complex and contested matters like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Sarah McLaughlin, a scholar at FIRE, said. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said the reported developments "signal an alarming erosion of constitutionally protected free speech and privacy rights.”'

Seized, settled, let: how Airbnb and Booking.com help Israelis make money from stolen Palestinian land

The Guardian 27.02.25

Tech companies have no scruples when it comes to international law:

‘Exclusive analysis carried out by the Guardian found 760 rooms being advertised in hotels, apartments and other holiday rentals in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, on two of the world’s most popular tourism websites.’

The Global Spread of Palestine’s Agony

Consortium News 24.02.25

All that a terrorist regime has to offer is mass surveillance equipped with deadly mechanisms:

‘In Mexico, the country most obsessed with Israeli spyware in the world, I document how victims of the deadly drug war are targeted by Pegasus, the notorious tool used by democracies and dictatorships to monitor dissidents, journalists and human rights workers. Our investigation makes it clear that the Mexican army and political elites can’t shake their fascination with this cyber weapon. One of the real concerns with the secret use of Pegasus is how little we know about what information the Israeli company behind it, NSO Group, stores on their own servers. For example, do they keep all the details of the individuals the Mexican state targets? I presume yes, though I can’t prove it, and this leaves any Mexican user of Pegasus or other spyware vulnerable to intrusive surveillance, threats or blackmail from the Israeli state who are looking for favours in international forums like the United Nations.

Pegasus remains the tip of the Israeli spyware industry. Italy is currently being convulsed by a scandal revolving around its use and abuse of a Pegasus rival, Paragon, co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the Meloni government’s use of it to target critics. Without any regulation, the offensive cyber industry is booming. It’s hard to find a corner of the globe where Israeli surveillance or border tech isn’t in use. On the Greek island of Samos, the European Union has built a hi-tech detention camp for refugees in its attempt to keep unwanted populations out of Europe. What this means in practice is black Africans, Arabs from the Middle East and anyone else who doesn’t fit the stereotypical white arrival will likely be turned away from European borders.

The EU has installed a suite of Israeli surveillance tools, including Viisights and Octopus. They’re used to both manage the dystopian system of control — I saw the Samos camp in the middle of a searing summer and it’s a concrete jungle with no shade or trees — and detect perceived threats from the migrants. Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has an investment firm, AWZ Ventures, that’s behind these firms. In India, an increasingly autocratic Hindu state that’s routinely praised by the Albanese government, as Declassified Australia has previously reported, the Modi administration is a vital ally of the Jewish state. It not only buys more weapons from Israel than any other country, and sends offensive weapons to Israel during its genocidal war in Gaza, but elites in both countries admire the other’s ethno-nationalism. There’s an ideological alignment that’s impossible to ignore.’

Leaked documents expose deep ties between Israeli army and Microsoft

+972 Magazine 23.01.25

When tech companies collaborate and provide the backbone to a genocide:

'Microsoft has a “footprint in all major military infrastructures” in Israel, and sales of the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli army have skyrocketed since the beginning of its onslaught on Gaza, according to leaked commercial records from Israel’s Defense Ministry and files from Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary. The documents reveal that dozens of units in the Israeli army have purchased services from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in recent months — including units in the air, ground, and naval forces, as well as the elite intelligence squad, Unit 8200. Microsoft has also provided the military with extensive access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model, the engine behind ChatGPT, thanks to the close partnership between the two companies… Although the documents do not specify how the different army units use these cloud storage and AI tools, they do indicate that about a third of the purchases were intended for “air-gapped” systems that are isolated from the internet and public networks, strengthening the possibility that the tools have been used for operational purposes — such as combat and intelligence — as opposed to simply logistical or bureaucratic functions. Indeed, two sources in Unit 8200 confirmed that the Military Intelligence Directorate purchased storage and AI services from Microsoft Azure for intelligence-gathering activities, and three other sources in the unit confirmed that similar services were purchased from Amazon’s cloud computing platform, AWS. The documents further show that Microsoft personnel work closely with units in the Israeli army to develop products and systems. Dozens of units have purchased “extended engineering services” from Microsoft, in which, according to the company’s website, “Microsoft experts become an integral part of the [customer’s] team.”’ 

America’s Academic Gulag (VIDEO)

Consortium News 23.01.25

A first hand account of how MIT closely collaborates with Israeli defence contractors and how censorship is enacted when these ties are made public:

‘On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Solomon and fellow MIT PhD student Prahlad Iyengar detail their battle against the historic institution’s active participation in the genocide in Gaza. Their story exemplifies the repression students face across the country who dare question how their work and labor are used to advance the illegal and morally reprehensible goals of the Israeli military. “What this ultimately means is that MIT’s research can enable a genocide and in fact is enabling the ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” Iyengar states plainly. The two students have found themselves in hot water recently following Iynegar’s tepid encounter at an MIT career fair as well as an op-ed authored by the student coalition. Iyengar’s engagement with Lockheed Martin recruiters — where, after politely waiting in line at a career fair, he expressed his discomfort for their involvement in the genocide and climate crisis — resulted in him being charged with harassment and intimidation of the recruiters. The op-ed called out Daniela Rus, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, for the laboratory’s direct collaboration with the Israeli military. Rus successfully pressured MIT’s paper, The Tech, to retract the article despite it presenting publicly available information and real ties to the Israeli military apparatus. “By introducing these technologies and by enabling these technologies,” Iyengar tells Hedges, “what is really being enabled by MIT’s research for the Israeli military is the ability for drones to engage in tracking, in facial recognition, in targeting of Palestinians.”’

TikTok ban: Why does the US want to shut down this app?

Reuters 16.01.25

When authorities cannot control the narrative, they shut apps down. Ironically, it has spurred many Americans as well as Australians to download a real Chinese app called Red Note:

‘TikTok plans to shut U.S. operationsof its social media app on Sunday when a federal ban is set to take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter said. The app is used by 170 million Americans… FBI Director Chris Wray has said TikTok poses a national security risk, adding that Chinese companies are required to essentially "do whatever the Chinese government wants them to in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government.” Members of Congress have complained the Chinese government has a "golden share" in ByteDance, giving it power over TikTok. TikTok has said "an entity affiliated with the Chinese government owns 1% of a ByteDance subsidiary, Douyin Information Service," and says the holding "has no bearing on ByteDance's global operations outside of China, including TikTok.”'

‘Progressive except for Palestine’: how a tech charity imploded over a statement on Gaza

The Guardian 03.12.24

Ethics from tech companies go out the window when backers are clearly politicised. In other words, talks of genocide is not allowed in the marketplace:

‘The pushback from the board, the resignations, the firing and months of chaos at CS&S did not go unnoticed elsewhere. “With Code for Science & Society, we all expected better,” said Esra’a Al Shafei. “They’re supposed to be about social justice.”… Al Shafei, who is from Bahrain and never shows her face online to protect her own security, said “there is credible evidence that this is the most tech-advanced genocide in history”, speaking of Israel’s use of drones, surveillance and AI in Gaza. “For [CS&S] to turn their backs on this because it makes them feel uncomfortable should be completely unacceptable.” The organization’s former human resources director agreed. “Public interest technology has a direct social responsibility to say something about this genocide,” said Dorothy Dubrule, who also left CS&S in July.’

The U.S. Bought Pegasus for Colombia With $11 Million in Cash. Now Colombians Are Asking Why

DropSite News 20.11.24

Israeli spyware is endemic in US government machinations. No wonder the rogue regime that is Israel has so much leverage on everyone:

‘In a meeting on Oct. 8 with Daniel García-Peña, Colombia’s ambassador to Washington, Biden administration officials confirmed that the U.S. government helped facilitate the acquisition of Pegasus to use in Colombia. According to the ambassador’s statements to the press following the meeting, $11 million in cash from the U.S. government was used to purchase the software to target drug cartel leaders in Colombia in 2021 and 2022… García-Peña’s revelations come two months after Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivered a televised speech in which he revealed some of the details of the all-cash, $11-million purchase, including that it has been split across two installments, flown from Bogotá and deposited into the Tel Aviv bank account belonging to NSO Group, the company that owns Pegasus. Soon after the speech, Colombia’s attorney general opened an investigation into the purchase and use of Pegasus. In October, Petro accused the director of the NSO Group of money laundering, due to the tremendous amount of cash he transported on the flights. 

The timeline of the purchase and use of Pegasus overlaps with a particularly turbulent time in Colombia. A social movement had begun protesting against Duque, while in the countryside, Colombia’s security forces were killing or arresting major guerrilla and cartel leaders. At the time, Petro, the first left-wing president in the country’s recent history, was campaigning for the presidency… A product of the Israeli tech firm NSO Group, Pegasus is a nearly undetectable hacking program capable of monitoring phone calls, messages, and microphone and camera activity, as well as a user’s location. While NSO Group billed Pegasus as a tool to fight “serious crimes and terrorism,” reporting has revealed that governments around the world have used it to spy on human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and political dissidents. Recent revelations from an ongoing lawsuit show that Pegasus, the program itself, extracts information from hacked phones after users—typically state actors—input the phone number they want targeted.’

Are You Debating a Bot? Investigation Reveals Israel’s AI Bots Argue With Online Critics

MintPress News 15.11.24

When a genocidal regime uses bots to justify its behaviour and shape public opinion, it’s a sad state of affairs:

'In recent months, reports have surfaced that Israel is deploying artificial intelligence not only on the battlefield in Gaza but also online, where the goal is to influence public opinion through social media bots spreading disinformation… Israel has long used social media to manage its image with great effect. It collaborates with tech firms to flag pro-Palestinian content and employs coordinated online groups to quell online criticism. But now, AI offers new tools for influence. MintPress News has identified several accounts operating under names like Fact Finder (@FactFinder_AI), X Truth Bot (@XTruth_bot and @xTruth_zzz), Europe Invasion (@EuropeInvasionn), Robin (@Robiiin_Hoodx), Eli Afriat (@EliAfriatISR), AMIRAN (@Amiran_Zizovi), and Adel Mnasa (@AdelMnasa96892). Each account appears designed to “debunk” criticisms and circulate a streamlined pro-Israel perspective.’

Google backed Israel’s military. Now its workers are in revolt

MEE 08.10.24

Technology is intrinsically linked to the wartime machine and that relationship should be severed. AI Lavender and Where’s Daddy are such examples:

‘And since Israel began its war on Gaza, following the 7 October Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, which have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians in the besieged enclave, calls to drop Nimbus have intensified. Some employees have staged physical and virtual protests against the deal over fears that Google is enabling Israel to use their work, particularly involving artificial intelligence technologies, to further what many see as an unfolding genocide. But some employees say they have been met with an intense crackdown from Google, which they say has denied claims by activists that its technology has been involved or played a role in Israel's brutal campaign in Gaza and ongoing occupation – deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice – of the West Bank. The mass firings marked a turning point for the company as it grappled with an internal battle among its employees over the war in Gaza… Like many tech companies, Google has a track record of hiring former members of Unit 8200, many of whom go on to careers in Israel’s own thriving tech sector and are highly regarded for their technological skills. Hostility at the workplace became so severe that Googlers began meeting off-site to plan next steps to organise - including passing petitions in person to avoid any backlash from Google…

Based in the UK, Oscar was more confident that his job would be safe if he openly spoke about Nimbus because of British laws protecting workers' rights. But he acknowledged his activism would "limit" his career progression within DeepMind. "It feels like being in a golden prison. We are compensated very well working for DeepMind. I worked hard to get to my position, but for the first time in my career, I feel very uneasy with what we are doing," said Oscar. "We believe, as the IDF claims, that Google's cloud tech is giving Israel a significant technical military edge, and we don't want to be involved in that. "Many researchers and engineers at DeepMind don't want our AI models being used for military purposes and DeepMind still claims it's not happening, despite our models being taken having no visibility on how that gets used.”… "The money we know of for Nimbus is not big, but it sounds like they just want to position themselves for military contracts in general," said Oscar. "They will not be backing down. That is more important to Google than what a fraction of employees in the company think.”’

Big Tech's complicity in genocide: The unforgivable silence of online platforms

Middle-East Monitor 21.09.24

Bit Tech, like Legacy Media obfuscates, propagandises and hides the truth on a consistent basis:

‘A damning report, “Palestinian Digital Rights, Genocide, and Big Tech Accountability”, by 7amleh, a Palestinian-led non-profit organisation that is focused on protecting the human rights of Palestinians, has laid bare the disturbing and active role that major online platforms and big tech companies play in perpetuating human rights abuses against Palestinians. While the world watches the horrors unfold in Gaza, the role of these digital accomplices cannot be ignored. The report highlights that platforms like Meta, X, YouTube and tech giants Google and Amazon have enabled, facilitated and even profited from these atrocities, effectively shielding war crimes under a digital smokescreen… At the heart of the report’s findings is a shocking pattern of systematic censorship targeting Palestinian voices. Between October 2023 and July 2024, over 1,350 instances of censorship were documented on major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. These platforms disproportionately targeted Palestinian journalists, activists and human rights defenders, with Meta’s platforms being among the worst offenders. The censorship took many forms: accounts were suspended, content takedowns became routine and distribution of pro-Palestinian narratives was heavily restricted.’

Israel tried to frustrate US lawsuit over Pegasus spyware, leak suggests

The Guardian 25.07.24

Obfuscation and impunity will allow Israel to carry on spying on world politicians:

'The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest. Israeli officials seized documents about Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in an effort to prevent the company from being able to comply with demands made by WhatsApp in a US court to hand over information about the invasive technology. Documents suggest the seizures were part of an unusual legal manoeuvre created by Israel to block the disclosure of information about Pegasus, which the government believed would cause “serious diplomatic and security damage” to the country.’

Meta expands hate speech policy to remove more posts targeting 'Zionists'

The Guardian 09.07.24

Free speech for thee but not for me:

‘Meta has been criticized for years on how it handles content involving the Middle East, and those criticisms shot up further after the start of the war, with rights groups accusing the company of suppressing content supportive of Palestinians on Facebook and Instagram.’

The Mexico-Israel connection: repression and resistance

Mondoweiss 30.05.24

Pegasus has been a favourite among global governments. It may be Israel’s strongest infiltration of any country:

‘In Mexico, Pegasus “began infiltrating the phones of some of the country’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists, and anti-corruption activists,” according to a New York Times investigation from 2023 which dubbed Mexico its “most prolific user.”  Originally embraced under the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), “it is regrettable that, more than six years after the complaints were filed, impunity for illegal espionage against dozens of victims continues,” according to Article19, a UK-based human rights organization, despite the current administration’s pledge to address it.’

A Marriage Made in Hell: An Introduction to Microsoft’s Complicity in Apartheid and Genocide

Medium 22.05.24

It now looks like tech is an indispensable tool in illegally subjugating Palestinians through a myriad of software:

‘The Israeli military industrial complex is an unchecked source of ethics-bending technology that has directly harmed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza and beyond. Yet despite these war crimes [25], Microsoft maintains strong ties to the Israeli state through its collaboration with the IOF, government ministries, a prison system known for systematic torture and abuse, and Israel’s “Startup Nation”–all of which are complicit in violating international law.

This partnership matters so much, in fact, that every Microsoft CEO since Bill Gates, including Satya Nadella, has met with Prime Minister Netanyahu to further their commitments to working with Israel. Netanyahu has even explicitly stated that Israel and Microsoft are “a marriage made in heaven, but recognized here on Earth”’.

This Undisclosed WhatsApp Vulnerability Lets Governments See Who You Message

The Intercept 22.05.24

By looking at traffic metadata, it is plausible to argue that WhatsApp could have been used in Lavender’s killing edicts:

‘The vulnerability is based on “traffic analysis,” a decades-old network-monitoring technique, and relies on surveying internet traffic at a massive national scale…. The analysis notes that a government can easily tell when a person is using WhatsApp, in part because the data must pass through Meta’s readily identifiable corporate servers. A government agency can then unmask specific WhatsApp users by tracing their IP address, a unique number assigned to every connected device, to their internet or cellular service provider account. WhatsApp’s internal security team has identified several examples of how clever observation of encrypted data can thwart the app’s privacy protections, a technique known as a correlation attack, according to this assessment. In one, a WhatsApp user sends a message to a group, resulting in a burst of data of the exact same size being transmitted to the device of everyone in that group. Another correlation attack involves measuring the time delay between when WhatsApp messages are sent and received between two parties — enough data, the company believes, “to infer the distance to and possibly the location of each recipient.”…

While the Gaza Strip has its own Palestinian-operated telecoms, its internet access ultimately runs through Israeli fiber optic cables subject to Israeli state surveillance. Although the memo suggests that users in “well functioning democracies with due process and strong privacy laws” may be less vulnerable, it also highlights the NSA’s use of these telecom-tapping techniques on U.S. soil. “Today’s messenger services weren’t designed to hide this metadata from an adversary who can see all sides of the connection,” Green, the cryptography professor, told The Intercept. “Protecting content is only half the battle. Who you communicate [with] and when is the other half.”

Israeli Weapons Firms Required to Buy Cloud Services From Google and Amazon

The Intercept 01.05.24

Tech companies are increasingly becoming a core feature of conflicts:

‘Google and Amazon are both loath to discuss security aspects of the cloud services they provide through their joint contract with the Israeli government, known as Project Nimbus… According to a 63-page Israeli government procurement document, however, two of Israel’s leading state-owned weapons manufacturers are required to use Amazon and Google for cloud computing needs. Though details of Google and Amazon’s contractual work with the Israeli arms industry aren’t laid out in the tender document, which outlines how Israeli agencies will obtain software services through Nimbus, the firms are responsible for manufacturing drones, missiles, and other weapons Israel has used to bombard Gaza.

“If tech companies, including Google and Amazon, are engaged in business activities that could impact Palestinians in Gaza, or indeed Palestinians living under apartheid in general, they must abide by their responsibility to carry out heightened human rights due diligence along the entirety of the lifecycle of their products,” said Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher at Amnesty International working on tech issues. “This must include how they plan to prevent, mitigate, and provide redress for possible human rights violation, particularly in light of mandatory relationships with weapons manufacturers, which contribute to risk of genocide.”… The list of obligatory cloud customers includes state entities like the Bank of Israel, the Israel Airports Authority, and the Settlement Division, a quasi-governmental body tasked with expanding Israel’s illegal colonies in the West Bank.

Also included on the list are two of Israel’s most prominent, state-owned arms manufacturers: Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The Israeli military has widely fielded weapons and aircraft made by these companies and their subsidiaries to prosecute its war in Gaza, which since October 7 has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, including 13,000 children.’

House votes to force TikTok owner ByteDance to divest or face US ban

The Guardian 14.04.24

The US government wants to ban TikTok, an app registered in Singapore, with US servers in Texas gatekeeping the data, because of fears that the Chinese are controlling it. What the article doesn’t say, is that TikTok, with its short video format, has revealed to the world the extent of Israeli war crimes:

'The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would require the TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the United States. The vote was a landslide, with 352 Congress members voting in favor and only 65 against. The bill, which was fast-tracked to a vote after being unanimously approved by a committee last week, gives China-based ByteDance 165 days to divest from TikTok.’

Manufacturing Consent: The Border Fiasco and the “Smart Wall”

Unlimited Hangout 19.02.24

Create a problem, offer a solution, and use it widely:

‘The reasons for the unspoken, but obvious, global consistency in implementing invasive, biometric surveillance is due to the fulfillment of global policy agendas, ratified by nearly every country in the world, that seek both to restrict the extent of people’s freedom of movement and to surveil people’s movements (and much, much more) through the global implementation of digital identity. Those policy agendas include mainly the UN’s Agenda 2030 or Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 16, as well as Interpol’s Global Policing Goals… The so-called War on Domestic Terror has long been about retooling the weapons of the War on Terror as a means of curbing domestic dissent and Palantir is just one of several companies aiding that shift. Similarly, Clearview AI, despite claims that the company is Trump-linked and tied to right-leaning political circles, has bragged about its utility to the US law enforcement community by highlighting the company’s role in identifying those involved in January 6th, which the company’s CEO refers to as an “insurrection.” After January 6th, Clearview AI’s use by US law enforcement jumped by 26%.

However, Thiel, Luckey and others in this network who are building the domestic panopticon often claim that they are defending “Western values” and “democracy” by embracing military and intelligence contracts. They also rely heavily on “America First” rhetoric. These companies contrast themselves to companies like Google, where employees have previously scuttled the big military contracts over ethical concerns, even though figures like Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO who is a big backer of the Democrats and the Biden administration, are similarly developing autonomous weapon technology also under the guise of “defending democracy… Not unlike Israel’s “smart wall,” these walls can be “turned off” when a crisis needs to be manufactured and, just like so much else, used to sell the same agendas that are pushing us all into a global, public-private panopticon.”’

Pro-Israel ‘surveillance’ group turning attention to Australia, leaked posts show

The Guardian 29.01.24

It is horrendous that the Zionist regime infiltrates sovereign countries and makes them dance to its own tune, especially when opposing genocide is termed ‘antisemitic’:

'A pro-Israel “surveillance network” that has offered bounties for information on pro-Palestinian protesters is establishing a foothold in Australia and claims to have secured meetings with key federal politicians, leaked messages show. Shirion Collective, which has largely focused on the US and UK, boasts of its ability to scrape digital fingerprints to “aggressively track and expose antisemites”. It is one of a number of groups that have gained prominence on social media during the Israel-Gaza war, publicly naming individuals it accuses of being antisemitic. Shirion Collective claims it has an AI tool called Maccabee which can identify and track targets… Leaked screenshots of Shirion’s Telegram channel, shared with Guardian Australia by the White Rose Society, an anti-fascist research group, show Shirion has become active in Australia, with participants identifying potential targets and boasting of attempts to meet the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, and the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson. Anonymised Shirion members discussed presenting O’Neil and Paterson with a list of names to ensure they were “brought to justice according to the rule of law”.’

In Video From Gaza, Former CEO of Pegasus Spyware Firm Announces Millions for New Venture

The Intercept 18.01.24

More nightmarish software erupts from the banned NSO company:

‘After a rocky few years, marred by revelationsOpens in a new tab about the role of NSO’s spyware in human rights abuses and the company’s blacklisting by the U.S. government, Hulio and his team were using the moment — timed exactly one month after Hamas’s attack — to announce lofty ambitions for their new cybersecurity firm, Dream Security. “Israeli high-tech is not only here to stay, but will grow better out of this,” said Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli American venture capitalist and Dream co-founder, in the promo video. “It’s going to deliver on time, wherever it’s needed, to whatever country or whatever company it’s needed at.”… With Hulio at its helm, Dream boasts an eclectic and influential leadership team with connections to various far-right figures in Israel, Europe, and the U.S. — and an ambitious plan to leverage their ties to dominate the cybersecurity sector… Dream officials’ entanglement with the Israeli right also extends to grassroots right-wing movements. Two investors and Hulio are involved in a ground-level organization considered to be Israel’s largest militia, HaShomer HaChadash, or “the new guardians.” A Zionist education nonprofit established in 2007, HaShomer HaChadash says it safeguards Israel’s agricultural lands, largely along the Gaza border.’

Even in time of genocide, Big Tech silences Palestinians

Al Jazeera 12.12.23

Zionist/fascist beliefs run rampart in Silicon Valley and the mainstream press, not just in Western governments and cries of indignations erupt when other points of views are shared on social media:

‘Instead of protecting Palestinians in Gaza as they are facing what 36 UN human rights experts and other genocide scholars have warned amounts to genocide, Meta has approved paid ads that explicitly called for a “holocaust for the Palestinians” and wiping out “Gazan women and children and the elderly”… Telegram also hosts a number of Israeli channels which openly call for genocide and celebrate the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. In one group, named “Nazi Hunters 2023”, moderators post pictures of Palestinian public figures with crosshair marks on their faces as well as their home addresses and call for their elimination.’

Palestine: “Peace to Prosperity” Through Technocracy

Unlimited Hangout 12.12.23

A big fail happened from the Israeli side on the 7th October 2023. An over-reliance on AI and tech, combined with an arrogant belief in superiority, led Hamas to successfully attempt to highjack hostages:

‘The Palestinian towns and villages near Israeli settlements have been described as laboratories for security solutions companies to experiment their technologies on Palestinians before marketing them to places like Colombia, India, and Mexico. Since at least 2012, NSO Group’s controversial surveillance products–which allow users to penetrate any cell phone without the target’s awareness–have been public knowledge. The debates around “privacy” and “owning your data” seem rather asinine considering all of the open-source information pertaining to the Intel Management Engine’s backdoor capabilities or its Memory Sinkhole vulnerabilities. It’s also worth noting that Intel, a California-based tech juggernaut, considers itself “an Israeli company as much as a US company.” A recent article in The Intercept asserts that since NSO Group was blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2021, their recent effort to aid the Israeli government in finding Israeli citizens in Gaza, seems like an attempt “to rehabilitate its image in this crisis.” While it’s positive that The Intercept is highlighting NSO Group’s attempt to rebuild its public image, the nature of the alleged “blunder” itself is worth questioning considering Hamas was able to charge into Tel Aviv by slashing through the barricades at a border that’s, supposedly, embedded with a myriad of sophisticated surveillance software and devices (including NSO’s Pegasus spyware). Israel is assumed to have one of, if not the most, advanced border surveillance system with cameras and ground motion sensors. Additionally, Pegasus is presumed to be one of the Israeli tech sector’s most highly sought-after products that’s been sold to intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world.’

Israel’s Problem Is Not TikTok

Consortium News 20.11.23

When ADL spokesman laments the surging global pro-Palestinian sentiment, it is clear that the usual propaganda is simply not working:

‘Israel’s problem is not that people are being propagandized into hating it, it’s that people are not being successfully propagandized into supporting it. Their problem is not malign influence but a lack thereof. Because the fact of the matter is there’s only so many ways you can spin the murder of thousands of children, and now all the media obfuscation in the world is not enough to pull the wool over fresh eyes that are ready to see.’

Graphic pro-Israel ads make their way into children’s video games

Reuters 30.10.23

American dollars put to despicable use in conditioning the young for propaganda:

'Rovio confirmed that "somehow these ads with disturbing content have in error made it through to our game" and were now being blocked manually. Spokesperson Lotta Backlund did not provide details on which of its "dozen or so ad partners" had supplied it with the ad. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' head of digital, David Saranga, confirmed that the video was a government-promoted ad but said he had "no idea" how it ended up inside various games. He said the footage was part of a larger advocacy drive by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which has spent $1.5 million on internet ads since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on civilians in southern Israel ignited war in Gaza. He said officials had specifically instructed advertisers "to block it for people under 18”.'

INTERPOL plans big data and biometrics platform to give police predictive analytics

Biometric Update 22.09.23

Minority Report, here we come:

‘INTERPOL is building a platform for processing massive amounts of data, including biometrics, to give police around the world predictive analytics, according to Statewatch. A “Direction Statement” by INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock at the organization’s 90th General Assembly last October notes that the INSIGHT analytical platform had already contributed to the dismantling of an international criminal organization. The advanced analytics capability of INSIGHT is part of the project’s second phase. The planned third phase involves drawing on external sources of data, like commercial databases.’

As EVs surge, so does nickel mining’s death toll

The Rest of the World 27.07.23

If the future is electric, then the road is paved with horrific sacrifices:

'Recent news reports have documented a rising death toll across the mines and smelters of Sulawesi province. In March, four more miners who worked for Total Prima Indonesia were smothered in a landslide; in April, two people were buried under nickel waste at a processing plant at the massive Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park.’

We will never know exactly how effective digital health passes were: Ada Lovelace report

Biometric Update 014.06.23

It was never about health concerns or the circulation of a virus, instead it cleared the way for data hoovering:

‘‘Lessons from the App Store’ is accompanied by a ‘COVID-19 Data Explorer,’ which offers evidence of the kinds of data collected by 34 countries, along with their health outcomes. The report considers how technologies were deployed to help during the pandemic, how responsibilities were divided between businesses developing the technology and the policymakers deploying it, and the opinions and experiences of members of the public who used the digital tools. It follows previous reports on how to realize the intended benefits of digital health passes. The Institute is left with three questions the work leaves outstanding. The report authors wonder if contact tracing apps and digital vaccine “passports” will continue to be used, and what will happen to the data, as well as how the related infrastructure will persist in health and digital identity systems. Finally, they ask how technologies used during the pandemic affected public attitudes towards data-driven technologies more generally… In addition to repurposing tech designed to fend off a health crisis, the report authors suggest that the health passes accelerated digital identity adoption by setting new precedents and norms.’

At Bilderberg’s bigwig bash two things are guaranteed: Kissinger and secrecy

The Guardian 20.05.23

Behind closed doors, the powerful and wealthy elites decide what to do with us plebs:

‘This annual three-day conference is many things – an elite networking event, a diplomatic summit, a lobbying opportunity for transnational financial interests, an intense focus of conspiracy theory gossip – but above all, the 69th Bilderberg conference, at the glorious Pestana Palace, appeared like a council of war. Ukraine’s foreign minister hadn’t come to Lisbon because he loves the happy clatter of trams, and the supreme allied commander Europe wasn’t here for the custard tarts… Biden sent his director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, and his senior director for strategic planning at the national security council, Thomas Wright, plus a shadowy gaggle of White House strategists and spooks. Among them, Jen Easterly – the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who said recently that the western world faces two “epoch-defining threats and challenges” – artificial intelligence and China, both of which feature on this year’s agenda… The twin threats of China and technology are intertwined in the thinking of Bilderberg board member Eric Schmidt…

Another of the Silicon Valley luminaries in Lisbon was Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI… The more than two dozen politicians at this year’s Bilderberg might take issue with that argument. But we’ll never know, because the entire conference takes place behind closed doors, with zero press oversight… Considering the number and seniority of public figures and policymakers who attend, Bilderberg, there is eerie lack of coverage in the world’s mainstream press. This year the roster reads just in part: three prime ministers, two deputy PMs, the president of the European parliament, the president of Eurogroup, the vice-president of the European Commission, two EU commissioners, an MEP, any number of European ministers and a member of the House of Lords, Dambisa Moyo – who, besides being a baroness, is also on the board of giant oil company, Chevron. As ever, big oil was a powerful presence at Bilderberg, with the heads of Total, BP and Galp getting a seat at the table. Big pharma had a healthy presence, with the heads of Merck and Pfizer and a director of AstraZeneca on the list. And the international chemicals industry is represented by the CEO of BASF and a board member of Coca-Cola.’

Funding The Control Grid Part 4: The Technology Framework

Corey’s Dig 19.04.23

A well-researched report on the ongoing tech developments that will eventually enslave us:

‘The purpose of this report is to outline funding and legislation to build the technological control grid, condensed from 6,000 pages of legislation passed through the Omnibus and NDAA at the end of 2022…. In 2023, the defense budget for research and development of cutting-edge technologies reached an all-time high. As the Defense Department requests yet another record-setting budget for research, development and procurement of emerging technologies in 2024, the Pentagon has yet to account for $21 trillion in hidden or stolen funds, as more than 60% of their assets remain inadequately accounted for after failing five consecutive audits.  The new 2024 defense budget includes $145 billion for research and development projects, of which $17.8 billion will go to science and technology and $1.8 billion to artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, revelations of the Pentagon Leak indicate the operation was designed to expand powers for spying on, censoring, silencing and controlling the American population in the name of national security.  The leak comes as lawmakers push for the passage of the RESTRICT Act – a bill sold to the public as a national ban on TikTok but has been rightfully labeled as the ‘Online PATRIOT Act,’ which would allow the federal government unrestricted access to spy on Americans’ online data from phones, computers, gaming consoles, security cameras, payment applications and more, while imposing severe criminal penalties for using VPNs.  A separate bill advanced through the House Foreign Affairs Committee, known as the DATA Act, goes beyond banning TikTok, using broad language aimed to deter foreign adversaries while further restricting Americans’ financial transactions and access to information.’

Funding the Control Grid Part 2: The Psychological Framework

Corey’s Dig 27.01.23

A lot of funding is going into ‘perception of reality’.  Lots of interesting references here:

‘A report published by Foundation for Freedom Online outlines the scope of DHS censorship across social media platforms, which extends far beyond what has been previously reported.  According to the report, under DHS leadership, 22 million tweets were labeled as “disinformation” on Twitter, 859 million tweets were collected in databases for “misinformation” analysis, 120 “misinformation” analysts monitored social media in up to 20-hour shifts, and DHS partners openly bragged about the “huge regulatory pressure” imposed on Big Tech platforms which impacted hundreds of millions of posts to social media sites.    A series of disclosures from internal Twitter communications, known as the Twitter Files, reveals that the FBI, DHS, ODNI, CISA, CIA, NSA, HHS, the White House, the State Department, the Treasury, Big Pharma lobbyists, and even politicians like Adam Schiff, all had regular communications with Twitter executives to censor, deplatform, and deamplify individuals and information counter to the Washington establishment narrative on topics including the Hunter Biden laptop, the 2020 election, January 6th, and the dangers of the Covid mRNA injections.  Furthermore, Twitter executives were pressured to support the intelligence community’s narrative that Russian influence was behind information that countered the establishment agenda…  Despite overwhelming evidence that agencies and organizations outlined in this report used taxpayer dollars to manipulate the minds of the masses, these very entities received a boost in funding through the 2023 budget, allowing them to expand their psychological control grid.’

UK police to get new powers to shut down protests before disruption begins

The Guardian 15.01.23

If this bill is made into law, the UK would have truly joined the list of despotic countries:

‘Police are to be given powers to shut down protests before any disruption begins under Rishi Sunak’s plans for a public order crackdown, which aim to prevent tactics such as “slow marching”.  Sparking outrage from civil liberties campaigners, the government said it would be laying an amendment to the public order bill to toughen its crackdown on “guerilla” tactics used mainly by environmental protesters…  Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer and former director of Liberty, who is challenging some elements of the bill in the House of Lords, said the government’s attempt to get even more powers was “very troubling”.  “The definition of what counts as serious disruption is key to this bill because it is used as a justification for a whole range of new offences, stop and search powers and banning orders. If you set the bar too low, you are really giving the police a blank cheque to shut down dissent before it has even happened,” she said.  Patsy Stevenson, who was arrested at the vigil on Clapham Common for murdered Londoner Sarah Everard, said the bill was “outrageous”.
She added: “I think this bill is going to cause so much damage. This bill is basically like the government saying: ‘We will do whatever we want, regardless of how the public feel about it,’ because once you ban protesting, that bans free speech completely.”’

Police seize on Covid-19 tech to expand global surveillance

AP 21.12.22

Technology under authoritarian rule is a brilliant synergy:

‘In the pandemic’s bewildering early days, millions worldwide believed government officials who said they needed confidential data for new tech tools that could help stop coronavirus’ spread. In return, governments got a firehose of individuals’ private health details, photographs that captured their facial measurements and their home addresses.  Now, from Beijing to Jerusalem to Hyderabad, India, and Perth, Australia, The Associated Press has found that authorities used these technologies and data to halt travel for activists and ordinary people, harass marginalized communities and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools. In some cases, data was shared with spy agencies…  Just as the balance between privacy and national security shifted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, COVID-19 has given officials justification to embed tracking tools in society that have lasted long after lockdowns.  “Any intervention that increases state power to monitor individuals has a long tail and is a ratcheting system,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Toronto-based internet watchdog Citizen Lab. “Once you get it, is very unlikely it will ever go away.”’

Twitter Aided the Pentagon in its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign

The Intercept 20.12.22

Tools for tools:

Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.  Behind the scenes, however, the social networking giant provided direct approval and internal protection to the U.S. military’s network of social media accounts and online personas, whitelisting a batch of accounts at the request of the government. The Pentagon has used this network, which includes U.S. government-generated news portals and memes, in an effort to shape opinion in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and beyond…  The direct assistance Twitter provided to the Pentagon goes back at least five years…  “It’s deeply concerning if the Pentagon is working to shape public opinion about our military’s role abroad and even worse if private companies are helping to conceal it,” said Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, a nonprofit that works toward diplomatic solutions to foreign conflicts.  “Congress and social media companies should investigate and take action to ensure that, at the very least, our citizens are fully informed when their tax money is being spent on putting a positive spin on our endless wars,” Sperling added…  Twitter emails show that during that time in 2020, Facebook and Twitter executives were invited by the Pentagon’s top attorneys to attend classified briefings in a sensitive compartmented information facility, also known as a SCIF, used for highly sensitive meetings.  “Facebook have had a series of 1:1 conversations between their senior legal leadership and DOD’s [general counsel] re: inauthentic activity,” wrote Yoel Roth, then the head of trust and safety at Twitter. “Per FB,” continued Roth, “DOD have indicated a strong desire to work with us to remove the activity — but are now refusing to discuss additional details or steps outside of a classified conversation.”’

China’s political biometric ID surveillance grows in scope and tech

Biometric Update 19.12.22

Is it too far-fetched that this tech would be coming to a city near you in the foreseeable future?:

‘A surveillance systems company unfamiliar outside its native China is coming into view as Beijing pushes biometrics recognition into more areas of the country.  Mass DNA collections are also underway, targeting oppressed Uyghur and Tibetan minorities in China.  Researchers at the University of Toronto have published a lengthy report about compulsory biometric identifiers being increasingly used for identification and surveillance of Uyghurs in China’s remote and sparsely populated northwest region…  According to the report, 1.2 million to 1.5 million eye scans were completed in Qinghai Province between March 2019 and July 2022.  The university researchers have based their conclusions in part on 53 public documents that they say provide insight into the scale of an iris biometrics project that has received little attention.  They claim that 21 percent to 26 percent of Qinghai’s 5.9 million residents have submitted to iris scanning.’

Indonesia bans sex outside marriage in new criminal code

Reuters 06.12.22

What a culturally-regressive move!  The mind boggles:

‘Indonesia's parliament approved a new criminal code on Tuesday that bans sex outside marriage with a punishment of up to one year in jail, despite worries the laws may scare away tourists from its tropical shores and harm investment.  The new code, which will apply to Indonesians and foreigners alike, also prohibit cohabitation between unmarried couples. It was passed with support from all political parties.  However, the code will not come into effect for three years to allow for implementing regulations to be drafted.’

Who Really Owns Big Digital Tech?

Mises Wire 30.11.22

Celebrated author lays down the links between Big Tech and government agencies:

'By now it should be perfectly clear that the most prominent Big Digital companies are not strictly private, for-profit companies. As I argued in Google Archipelago, they are also state apparatuses, or governmentalities, undertaking state functions, including censorship, propaganda, and surveillance…  If this wasn’t already obvious, The Intercept’s recent revelations that US government officials have access to a special portal through which they can directly flag Facebook and Instagram posts and request that the posts be “throttled or suppressed” should put the question to rest…  More recently, as I have argued, both Google and Facebook received start-up capital—directly or indirectly—from US intelligence agencies. In the case of Facebook, the startup capital came through Palantir, Accel Partners, and Greylock Partners. These funding sources either received their funding from or were heavily involved in In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s own private sector venture capital investment firm.  In 1999, the CIA created In-Q-Tel to fund promising start-ups that might create technologies useful for intelligence agencies. As St. Paul Research analyst Jody Chudley notes, In-Q-Tel funded Palantir, Peter Thiel’s startup firm, around 2004. Planitir subsequently funded Facebook. As independent journalist and former VICE reporter Nafeez Ahmed has detailed at great length, Google’s connections with the intelligence community and military run deep. Ahmed shows that relationships with DARPA officials yielded start-up funding and that direct funding from the intelligence community (IC) followed. The IC saw the internet’s unprecedented potential for data collection, and the upstart search engine venture represented a key to gathering it.’

It’s discrimination’: millions of Britons frozen out in the digital age

The Guardian 26.11.22

In a world widely facilitated by tech, a whole group of people are being shut out:

‘The Digital Poverty Alliance – a group of charities formed to tackle exactly this issue – estimates there are as many as 11 million people in the UK who are struggling to deal with the tech-only options that have become the new normal.  However, while countless studies have shown how older people are increasingly being frozen out, or charged significantly more for the same services, little is being done to aid their plight, it argues.  A combination of the coronavirus pandemic – when it became acceptable for companies to no longer answer their phones or to even open, let alone reply to, letters – and the banks being forced to carry out strong customer authentication (SCA) checks to those banking or even shopping online, is locking people out from a world they used to be able to participate in.’

Dutch MEP says illegal spyware ‘a grave threat to democracy’

The Guardian 08.11.22

Give any government a peek into how to observe the opposition (a critical public) and they would jump to the occasion:

‘Publishing her interim report on Tuesday the MEP accused the European Commission, the body responsible for enforcing EU law, of silence in the face of a threat to democracy…  To use the spyware EU member states would also be required to cooperate with Europol, and repeal export licences inconsistent with EU regulations aimed at controlling dangerous goods being sold to repressive regimes…  “Some governments are abusing spyware, others are still behaving properly, but all of them use the cloak of national security to create an area of lawlessness,” in ‘t Veld said.  On Poland the report concluded that spyware was “an integral and vital part of a system designed specifically for the unfettered surveillance and control of citizens”…  In Hungary, about 300 people have been targeted, including political activists, journalists and a former government minister, according to the Hungarian media outlet Direkt 36, one of the media groups involved in the original investigation. The government in Budapest only confirmed last November it had acquired Pegasus spyware, after months of evasion.  In Greece there were signs that spyware was used in “a very systematic and large scale manner” the MEP said. Based on Greek media, her report said that at least 33 individuals had been targeted – “a stunning who’s who of politics, business and media”.

The Gates Foundation, global health and domination: a republican critique of transnational philanthropy

International Affairs November 2022

Under the guise of philanthropy (and exempt from all taxes), huge foundations are raking in billions of dollars through their interconnectedness with pharmaceutical giants and their control of the ‘health narrative’:

‘Using the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its role in global health as a test case, it argues that transnational philanthropy is characterized by an asymmetric distribution of power, which is sufficient to produce dependence, and that is uncontrolled insofar as its use either rests on the will of powerful agents or on terms of social cooperation beyond contestation. This arbitrary character is particularly relevant to philanthropy because of its use of epistemic power to produce and legitimize knowledge. In short, transnational philanthropy is dominating. If individuals have the right to exercise control over the social institutions that profoundly affect their basic interests, then philanthropy has a problem of justice that cannot be dismissed…  Transnational philanthropy, embodied in the Gates Foundation, is a source of domination; and this is a serious problem, because it gives the wealthy uncontrolled power over the basic interests of other people in a way that is difficult to reconcile with the commitments to minimal autonomy that underpin much of the distributive global justice literature…  GAVI aims to reshape the vaccine market so that these vaccines are simultaneously profitable and accessible. It does this by supporting immunization programmes in the global South, but also by creating incentives for research into new vaccines through initiatives such as ‘advanced marketing commitments’, in which donors commit money in advance to fix the price of vaccines.38 This is no small task, and as a result GAVI has a complex structure; this is reflected in its board, which has members drawn from major international organizations, donor and recipient states, the pharmaceutical industry and the Gates Foundation.39 GAVI is particularly interesting because it does not ‘deliver programs’; it plays a coordinating role for numerous other actors.40 GAVI serves as an example of the intersection of transnational philanthropy and global health as social institutions in the international system, setting terms for social cooperation on vaccination and immunization that affect states, pharmaceutical companies and, most importantly, people vulnerable to these diseases.’

The crushing of dissent throughout the covid era

HART 08.10.22

Tech companies are actively suppressing facts that do not conform to the One Truth Ministry messages.  Truly Orwellian:

‘The recent actions of the financial technology company, PayPal, to close the accounts of subscribers expressing political opinions of which they disapprove, represents the latest example of censorship within so-called liberal democracies. Their strategic decisions to block the online monetary activities of the Free Speech Union, the Daily Sceptic website and the Us For Them campaign group – although later reversed – signal the willingness of powerful global big-tech companies to collude with governments in the crushing of activities that challenge the dominant narratives…  In the UK, there has even been military involvement in the form of the 77th Brigade with their explicit mission to create and spread material ‘in support of designated tasks’ while also ‘supporting counter-adversarial information activity’. Internationally, the WHO has effectively modulated the flow of information via the use of fact-checking organisations and collaborations with Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube, so as to guarantee that ‘science-based health messages from official sources’ (aka the dominant narrative) appear first when one searches for covid information.  Specific examples of the impact of this – seemingly global – operation to control information flow are numerous. They include: Professor Gupta (an epidemiological expert) being instructed not to mention the Great Barrington Declaration prior to appearing on a BBC discussion programme about lockdowns; academic journals blocking the peer-reviewed covid research of Dr Peter McCulloch and the suppression of trial findings that had concluded that Ivermectin was an effective treatment; the removal of Dr Robert Malone (the inventor of mRNA technology) from Twitter; and the removal of MPs Sir Christopher Chope and David Davies from YouTube for, respectively, raising concerns about vaccine damage and vaccine effectiveness…  Since March 2020, anyone who has expressed a contrarian covid opinion in a public space will likely have attracted criticism involving accusations of being ‘right wing’, fascist or a ‘conspiracy theorist’...  The basic human right of freedom of expression within Western democracies must be protected; once lost, it is unlikely to be restored within our lifetimes.’

Gates Foundation commits $200M to digital ID and other public infrastructure

Biometric Update 28.09.22

One foundation pours in a truckload of money in its efforts to regulate human identity.  It also funds an open-source organisation to check on its activities.  It’s like having a watchdog organisation checking on itself:

‘The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has renewed its commitment to digital ID, topping up its investment in the space as part of a total package of $1.27 billion in support for global health and development projects.  The latest funding commitment includes $200 million for digital public infrastructure, which includes digital ID and civil registry databases…  The Gates Foundation is a major backer of the MOSIP open-source digital identity platform, among various programs related to digital ID.’

Documents Reveal Advanced AI Tools Google Is Selling to Israel

The Intercept 24.07.22

With project Nimbus, Google has learnt to operate below the radar when serving apartheid states.  The fact that it created an Ethics Division is risible:

‘Training materials reviewed by The Intercept confirm that Google is offering advanced artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities to the Israeli government through its controversial “Project Nimbus” contract. The Israeli Finance Ministry announced the contract in April 2021 for a $1.2 billion cloud computing system jointly built by Google and Amazon. “The project is intended to provide the government, the defense establishment and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution,” the ministry said in its announcement…  “Data collection over the entire Palestinian population was and is an integral part of the occupation,” Ori Givati of Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation advocacy group of Israeli military veterans, told The Intercept in an email. “Generally, the different technological developments we are seeing in the Occupied Territories all direct to one central element which is more control.”…  

“Living under a surveillance state for years taught us that all the collected information in the Israeli/Palestinian context could be securitized and militarized,” said Mona Shtaya, a Palestinian digital rights advocate at 7amleh-The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, in a message. “Image recognition, facial recognition, emotional analysis, among other things will increase the power of the surveillance state to violate Palestinian right to privacy and to serve their main goal, which is to create the panopticon feeling among Palestinians that we are being watched all the time, which would make the Palestinian population control easier.”…  According to some critics, whether these tools work might be of secondary importance to a company like Google that is eager to tap the ever-lucrative flow of military contract money. Governmental customers too may be willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to promises of vast new techno-powers. “It’s extremely telling that in the webinar PDF that they constantly referred to this as ‘magical AI goodness,’” said Jathan Sadowski, a scholar of automation technologies and research fellow at Monash University, in an interview with The Intercept. “It shows that they’re bullshitting.”’

‘Paving a Digital Road to Hell’: Digital ID Systems Could Lead to Severe, Irreversible Human Rights Violations

CHD 22.07.22

Perfectly titled report:

‘The authors of a new report on digital identity systems warned “the actual and potential” human rights violations arising from the digital ID model can be “severe and potentially irreversible.”  The 100-page report — “Paving the Road to Hell? A Primer on the Role of the World Bank and Global Networks in Promoting Digital ID” — published by New York University’s (NYU) Center for Human Rights and Global Justice urged human rights organizations to heed the threats posed by a global push for digital IDs…  “Governments around the world have been investing heavily in digital identification systems, often with biometric components,” the authors said in a statement.  Digital ID systems that frequently collect biometric data — such as fingerprints, iris or other facial feature recognition — are being adopted to replace or complement non-digital government identification systems.  According to an Access Now special report, in India in October 2021, digital ID systems — or “Big ID programs” as Access Now called them — are being pushed by a market of actors who sell and profit from digital ID systems and infrastructure, often while endangering the human rights of the people they’re supposed to benefit.’

Pegasus phone spyware used to target 30 Thai activists, cyber watchdogs say

Reuters 18.07.22

The world’s number one spyware company is ubiquitous:

‘Wetang Phuangsup, a spokesperson for Thailand's ministry of Digital Economy and Society, said his ministry was not aware of any usage of spyware by the government.  Citizen Lab's report, which was separate to that of iLaw, examined digital traces left in the victims' phones and identified Pegasus usage in Thailand as far back as May 2014.’

A million-word novel got censored before it was even shared. Now Chinese users want answers.

Technology review 15.07.22

When censorship takes on a new mantle:

‘While Mitu’s document has been saved online and was previously shared with an editor in 2021, she says she had been the only person editing it this year, when it was suddenly locked. “The content is all clean and can even be published on a [literature] website, but WPS decided it should be locked. Who gave it the right to look into users’ private documents and decide what to do with them arbitrarily?” she wrote.  First released in 1989 by the Chinese software company Kingsoft, WPS claims to have 310 million monthly users. It has partly benefited from government grants and contracts as the Chinese government looked to bolster its own firms over foreign rivals on security grounds…  Users might not be happy but WPS’s practice of reviewing all user documents (if that’s what’s happening) is likely permitted by China’s Cybersecurity Law, says Nunlist. All internet service providers are obligated to delete and block content on their platform “upon discovering information that the law or administrative regulations prohibit the publication or transmission of,” says Article 47 of the law.'

Ethiopia uses Mastercard platform to launch biometric digital health pass

Biometric Update 17.06.22

When finance and healthcare combine, expect total surveillance:

‘The Wellness Pass is a contactless card that digitizes health records like COVID-19 vaccination status and can be used both online and offline. It utilizes tokenized biometrics to verify service delivery and adhere to vaccination cycles.  It is the second implementation of the Wellness Pass in Africa, after Mauritania, which was identified only as a West African country when Gavi and Mastercard partnered with Trust Stamp on the launch two years ago.  “The digitization of vaccination records through the Mastercard Wellness Pass enables us to reach and to continue to care for patients with vital health services such as immunization. Innovative partnerships such as this help us to improve access to care so that everyone receives the essential vaccines they need to survive and thrive,” says Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao, Gavi’s managing director of resource mobilization, private sector partnerships and innovative finance.  Gavi took part in an academic paper that concluded biometrics could produce a fair, effective, and efficient COVID vaccine distribution and produce clearer health data in parts of the world where IDs and government registration are limited. Gavi and Arm commenced a biometric-based national vaccination program in Ghana using contactless technology from Simprints.’

EU finishing its massive biometric ring around Schengen

Biometric Update 14.06.22

European-wide tracking of all travellers is robustly pushing ahead:

'The European Union is weeks away from what could be the biggest and most complex deployment of biometrics in the world.  A special region in Europe, the Schengen zone, is to be secured with a land, sea and air entry-exit system comprised of hundreds of face and fingerprint biometrics kiosks.  Beginning in September, the system will do its part to protect the Schengen zone – 26 EU and non-EU nations that do not have border checkpoints through which travelers must pass. It is the same model as interstate travel in the United States.’

Facial Recognition Is Out of Control in India

Vice 13.06.22

Methods ubiquitous in China are cropping up everywhere, where ‘suspected terrorists’ belong to one religious group and not another:

‘Privacy advocates have sounded the alarm about police use of facial recognition (FRT) in Telangana, with Amnesty International warning that the capital city of Hyderabad is “on the brink of becoming a total surveillance city.”  The Hyderabad city police department is known for employing facial recognition for a variety of objectives, including questionable cordon and search operations, profiling people for narcotics, and unlawful phone-searching activities. They claim that facial recognition technology has worked as a "deterrent" and helped them apprehend criminals.  "We don't infringe upon the privacy of any individual, as we are not barging into anybody's house to take pictures," C.V. Anand, Hyderabad's police commissioner, told Reuters in January. "The technology is being used only to keep surveillance on criminals or suspected criminals.”'

Bilderberg reconvenes in person after two-year pandemic gap

The Guardian 04.06.22

‘Our lords and masters’ meet again.  And what a chilling gathering it is:

‘To be sure, the Washington conference is a high-level council of war, headlined by the secretary general of NATO, Bilderberg veteran Jens Stoltenberg. He’s joined at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental hotel by the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, and the CEO of Naftogaz, the state-owned Ukrainian oil and gas company…  The summit is heaving with experts in Russia and Ukraine, including the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, and ex-deputy national security adviser Nadia Schadlow, who has a seat on the elite steering committee of Bilderberg…  Just a few days beforehand, Zelenskiy met with a Bilderberg and US intelligence representative Alex Karp, who runs Palantir, the infamous CIA-funded surveillance and data analysis company.  Palantir, which was set up by billionaire Bilderberg insider Peter Thiel, has agreed to give “digital support” to the Ukrainian army, according to a tweet by the country’s deputy prime minister.  The participant list is rife with military advisers, one of which is a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and some hefty cogs from the Washington war machine. Among the heftiest is James Baker, head of the ominous sounding office of net assessment…  

The conference troubles some ethicists, with politicians thrashing out an “Energy Security and Sustainability” talk with the CEOs of oil giants BP, Shell and Total. There’s also “Post Pandemic Health” with the CEOs of Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, who are locked away for days with Wall Street investors and no press scrutiny…  Formed in the mid-1950s as a joint project of British and US intelligence, the conference has kept its cards so close to its chest that the world’s press has given up trying to get a glimpse of them.  This year’s conference lineup, led by CIA head William Burns, reflects those roots…Four other active intelligence chiefs are attending: the head of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters; the director of France’s external intelligence agency, DGSE; the leader of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.  Former spy chiefs at the talks include David Petraeus (CIA) and Sir John Sawers (MI6), now a board member of Bilderberg and BP…  Bilderberg knows that however the global realignments play out, and whatever a reset global financial system looks like, the shape of the world will be determined by big tech. And if the endgame is “Continuity of Government”, as the agenda suggests, that continuity will be powered by AI.  Whatever billionaire ends up making the software that runs the world, Bilderberg aims to make damned sure that it has its hand on the mouse.’

Google and Amazon Face Shareholder Revolt Over Israeli Defense Work

The Intercept 18.05.22

There are always workarounds to escape shareholders and employees’ objections:

‘Little is known of the plan, reportedly worth over $1 billion, beyond the fact that it would consolidate the Israeli government’s public sector cloud computing needs onto servers housed within the country’s borders and subject solely to Israeli law, rather than remote data centers distributed around the world. Part of the plan’s promise is that it would insulate Israel’s computing needs from threats of international boycotts, sanctions, or other political pressures stemming from the ongoing military occupation of Palestine; according to a Times of Israel report, the terms of the Project Nimbus contract prohibit both companies from shutting off service to the government, or from selectively excluding certain government offices from using the new domestic cloud…  While a wide variety of government ministries will make use of the new computing power and data storage, the fact that Google and Amazon may be directly bolstering the capabilities of the Israeli military and internal security services has generated alarm from both human rights observers and company engineers. In October 2021, The Guardian published a letter from a group of anonymous Google and Amazon employees objecting to their company’s participation. “This technology allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land,” the letter read. “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip — actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court.” In March, an American Google employee who had helped organize the employee opposition to Nimbus said the company abruptly told her she could either move to Brazil or lose her job, a move she said was retaliation for her stance.’

Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security

Glenn Greenwald 2-.04.22

The fight for ‘disinformation’ is a one way cul-de-sac:

‘The view that preservation of Big Tech is vital for national security is by no means a unanimous view even in that world. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and others have vehemently argued that this claim is a “myth.” As veteran internet security expert Bruce Schneier observed: “These bills will encourage competition, prevent monopolist extortion, and guarantee users a new right to digital self-determination.” But the National Security State has enough True Believers combined with paid shills to make it appear as if Americans should be desperate to preserve and protect Big Tech's power because this power is crucial to keeping America safe and, particularly, fighting Russia.  There are indeed valid and rational reasons for these officials to view Big Tech monopoly power as a vital weapon in advancing their national security agenda. As I documented last week when reporting on the unprecedented censorship regime imposed in the West regarding the war in Ukraine, Big Tech censorship of political speech is not random. Domestically, it is virtually always devoted to silencing any meaningful dissent from liberal orthodoxy or official pieties on key political controversies. But in terms of foreign policy, the censorship patterns of tech monopolies virtually always align with U.S. foreign policy, and for understandable reasons: Big Tech and the U.S. security state are in a virtually complete union, with all sorts of overlapping, mutual financial interests:  Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.’

While You Were Distracted by Will Smith, the International Elitists Met at The World Government Summit

The Last American Vagabond 01.04.22

A collection of speeches (which will be dissected for next week’s update), outlining the world as it will be run:

‘While much of the “mainstream” world has spent the last few days obsessing over and debating the celebrity spectacle surrounding American actor Will Smith slapping American comedian Chris Rock, the international elitists were meeting in Dubai for the 2022 World Government Summit.'

Hedges: On Being Disappeared

Scheerpost 28.03.22

Chris Hedges on the evisceration of free speech by tech lords and the governments behind them.  The One Truth (only) landscape is firmly established:

‘The entire archive of On Contact, the Emmy-nominated show I hosted for six years for RT America and RT International, has been disappeared from YouTube…  In totalitarian systems you exist, then you don’t. I suppose this was done in the name of censoring Russian propaganda, although I have a hard time seeing how a detailed discussion of “Ulysses” or the biographies of Susan Sontag and J. Robert Oppenheimer had any connection in the eyes of the most obtuse censors in Silicon Valley with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, there is not one show that dealt with Russia.  I was on RT because, as a vocal critic of US imperialism, militarism, the corporate control of the two ruling parties, and especially because I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, I was blacklisted…  

Are we a more informed and better society because of this wholesale censorship? Is this a world we want to inhabit where those who know everything about us and about whom we know nothing can instantly erase us? If this happens to me, it can happen to you, to any critic anywhere who challenges the dominant narrative. And that is where we are headed as the ruling elites refuse to respond to the disenfranchisement and suffering of the working class, opting not for social and political change or the curbing of the rapacious power and obscene wealth of our oligarchic rulers, but instead imposing iron control over information, as if that will solve the mounting social unrest and vast political and social divides…  

This censorship is about supporting what, as I.F Stone reminded us, governments always do – lie. Challenge the official lie, as I often did, and you will soon become a nonperson on digital media. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden exposed the truth about the criminal inner workings of power. Look where they are now. This censorship is one step removed from Joseph Stalin’s airbrushing of nonpersons such as Leon Trotsky out of official photographs. It is a destruction of our collective memory. It removes those moments in the media when we attempted to examine our reality in ways the ruling class did not appreciate. The goal is to foster historical amnesia. If we don’t know what happened in the past, we cannot make sense of the present.’

EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

Politico 24.03.22

It would be interesting to see the backlash from the US:

'EU officials have agreed on landmark rules clamping down on anti-competitive abuses by the world’s largest technology platforms, in a move that will set the standard for leveling the playing field across global digital markets.    In an agreement brokered Thursday evening, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on the Digital Markets Act, which establishes a series of prohibitions and obligations for companies including Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon, and a number of smaller platforms. It is likely to include accommodation platform Booking and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.  Included in the rules' scope will be platforms with a market capitalization of €75 billion or turnover in the European Economic Area equal to or above €7.5 billion  "The Digital Markets Act puts an end to the ever-increasing dominance of Big Tech companies," lead MEP Andreas Schwab said. "From now on, Big Tech companies must show that they also allow for fair competition on the internet.”'

Facebook owner to help train Australian politicians, influencers in run-up to election

Reuters 15.03.22

The giant of influence and driver of political ‘choices’ to train a country and how to suppress information.  PR and mind control is a razor-sharp weapon these days:

‘Facebook owner Meta Platforms (FB.O) will help train Australian political candidates on aspects of cyber security and coach influencers to stop the spread of misinformation in a bid to boost the integrity of an upcoming election, it said on Tuesday.  Australia has not yet set a date for its next election, which is due by May. Authorities are already on high alert for electoral interference, having previously highlighted foreign interference attempts aimed at all levels of government and targetting [sic] both sides of politics…  RMIT University, which joined Meta's third-party fact-checking effort, said it would review posts the company identified as potential misinformation and try to verify them via interviews with primary sources and checks of public data.  "A continuing focus of our work is to identify the super spreaders of misinformation and the ecosystems in which they operate," said RMIT FactLab Director Russell Skelton in a statement.  "High impact misinformation disrupts evidence-based public policy and debate and so it is crucial we gain a better understanding of what drives this.”'

Facebook allows Ukraine war posts urging violence against invading Russians, Putin

Reuters 10.03.22

Horrific decision on the part of this tech giant, proving it’s no more than a government propaganda tool.  The fact that they would allow praise on their platform for a Nazi regiment is beyond despicable:

‘"As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement…  Citing the Reuters story, Russia's embassy in the United States demanded that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Meta…  "Users of Facebook & Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other," the embassy said on Twitter in a message that was also shared by their India office.  The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, according to one email…  Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.  The Meta spokesperson previously said the company was "for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard.”'

Another step towards authoritarianism?

HART 04.03.22

Freed from the shackles of time-tested human rights law, the UK now heralds its own version of ‘one vision’ reality:

‘The Government’s direction of travel, as indicated by this review document, is alarming. Despite inclusion of the statement that ‘We accept that government should be restrained by the protection of fundamental rights’, it is astonishing that there is no recognition of the state’s unprecedented two-year assault on the basic human rights of the British people, in the form of lockdowns, mask mandates, coerced vaccination and vaccine passports. Furthermore, while highlighting the importance of ‘freedom of expression’ for a ‘free and vibrant media’ that ‘preserves the space for wide & vigorous democratic debate’, the document fails to mention the extraordinary levels of censorship of views that counter the dominant covid-19 narrative witnessed across the mainstream broadcasters, social media platforms and academia. And, despite electronic surveillance – a likely facilitator of more state control over our daily activities – intruding into more and more areas of our lives, there is barely a mention of it in the consultation document.  Ominously, as a way of justifying the proposed changes to the human rights legislation, there is repeated reference to ‘the wider public interest’, ‘the rights of wider society’ and other similar terms. Even when claiming to be supportive of freedom of expression, the Government, when adjudicating on the acceptability of a person’s comments, qualifies this intention by stating that, ‘Where Parliament has expressed its clear will on issues relating to the public interest and the exercise of public functions, this should be given great weight’. So it seems that it supports free speech, so long as it corresponds to the Government’s perspective. HART believes that a primary function of human-rights legislation should be to allow people the freedom to express non-mainstream views; clearly, our political rulers do not concur. And we should never forget that appeals to the ‘greater good’ have characterised some of the most heinous regimes of the 20th century.      

In conclusion, after two years of Government-inflicted human-rights violations, we urgently need to find an effective way of defending our basic freedoms. Clearly, the existing HRA has failed to deliver this protection from the powers that be at a time when it was most needed. Given this situation, the priority goal should be to develop a system – comprising both human rights legislation and a process of implementation – that safeguards the basic human rights of citizens, including those expressing minority views. In stark contrast to this aim, the consultation document suggests that the Government’s intention is to further dilute current human-rights legislation and gain even more control over how we live our lives. Although unlikely to be heeded in the short term, HART believes as many people as possible should make their views known by responding to the consultation (here).  Visible dissent, in whatever form, seems – ultimately – the only way to reverse the Western world’s decline into authoritarianism.’

Four Ways to Counter Russian Aggression That Don’t Risk Nuclear War

Jacobin 02.03.22

The mounting hypocrisy over geopolitical standoffs is astounding.  Ukraine has been beefed up by NATO presence in the last few months, and Russia has been threatening counter measures.  We’re here now and the clarion warmongering call from the west over the ‘sudden invasion’ begets belief:

‘The “restrained” alternative to this that Western leaders in both the United States and Europe are pursuing is to pour military aid, including weapons and now fighter jets, into Ukraine.  Though such moves have an obvious logic to them from the standpoint of averting a Russian conquest of Ukraine, they also have pretty big drawbacks. Any direct intervention by Washington or another NATO government could easily spiral into a nuclear exchange that would leave untold numbers dead, Americans included. A deluge of weapons into Ukraine, meanwhile, isn’t likely to significantly alter the military balance in the war, which is overwhelmingly on Russia’s side, but is very likely to fall into the hands of various regional extremists, including the far-right groups that are part of the Ukrainian military and national guard (currently boasting about its fighters greasing their bullets with pig fat to kill Muslim troops), raising the possibility of al-Qaeda-like blowback in the West, given these groups’ ties to homegrown extremists…  Pushing Western leadership to end their own ongoing crimes against humanity would do that for millions of people, and inarguably make the world a better and safer place, while also boosting the West’s moral authority in condemning Putin and other warmongers.’

EU’s Move to Manipulate Media Coverage of Ukraine Is a Sign of Weakness, Despair and Staggering Hypocrisy

Strategic Culture 02.03.22

We have now fully entered a McCarthy era of information suppression:

‘I was recently taken aback by the near comical statement by the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell who said that RT and Sputnik are to be banned from the EU bloc. His reasons, which RT actually broadcasted to its credit, were because “they were champions of information manipulation”.  The irony here is mind-blowing, given that Borrell himself is really a champion of disinformation and manipulating media and knows what he’s talking about when he uses phrases like that or indeed “full-out propaganda war”. In reality, any journalist who has worked in Brussels, accredited to the EU, will tell you that the PR efforts of the EU institutions – in particular the European Commission – amount to a colossal media manipulation which culminates in fake news being pumped out to the masses across the bloc each day, sexing up the relevance and status of the EU as journalists essentially replicate information which is spoon-fed to them and never question its validity.’

We Should Cover Everyone Like We’re Covering Ukrainians

Discourse Blog 28.02.22

The international standards of the media and social media platforms are staggeringly rife with racism and discrimination.  It’s actually appalling:

‘Running alongside the ongoing horror of the war in Ukraine has been a pernicious thread of racism and hypocrisy in some of the coverage of the conflict…  Running alongside this blatant racism—which a) conveniently elides the fact that the Middle East and Africa are conflict-riven in large part because of continual U.S. and European intervention, rather than because of the innate savagery of their people and b) implicitly erases the Africans and other people of color who are not finding the gates of Europe quite as wide open and c) is just kind of weird when you consider just how much bloodshed has existed in Europe throughout history—was an equally disorienting feature for anyone who has followed coverage of, say, the Israel-Palestine conflict, or any response to U.S. wars in the Middle East: unabashed cheerleading for armed resistance to invasion and occupation…  It should go without saying that ordinary Iraqis fighting the illegal occupation of their country from the United States, or ordinary Palestinians fighting the illegal occupation of their land by Israelis, are not treated with such magnanimity. There is no sense that any of these journalists are aware of the obvious parallels…  . We can see, as clearly as ever, which people are deemed worthy of our sympathy and which are coded as Other; whose resistance is a thing of beauty and whose is a thing to be feared; when violence is noble and good and when it is wrong; when people are part of a “sovereign nation” and when their country is a mere plaything to be toyed with. The feeling of whiplash that comes from watching this play out in real time is hard to understate.’

Moscow battles big tech to control the narrative

Reuters 28.02.22

Disinformation is sprouting on all sides, and an obnoxious disregard for history seems to be prevalent.  The trumpets of war from governments and media seem to have replaced those of the pandemic:

‘On Friday, Russia said it would partially restrict Facebook, a move Meta said came after it refused a government request to stop the independent fact-checking of several Russian state media outlets. By Saturday, Twitter also said its service was being restricted for some Russian users…  The escalation of Russia's clash with big tech comes days before a deadline Moscow set for major foreign tech companies to comply with a new law that requires them to set up official representation in the country, which could make it easier for the Kremlin to regulate platforms. It follows a series of fines and slowdowns imposed on platforms which the Russian government said failed to remove illegal content.’

Johns Hopkins Analysis: ‘Lockdowns Should Be Rejected Out of Hand’

National Review 01.02.22

Lockdowns were a total failure, according to a John Hopkins paper analysis:

‘Unintended consequences may play a larger role than recognized. We already pointed to the possible unintended consequence of SIPOs, which may isolate an infected person at home with his/her family where he/she risks infecting family members with a higher viral load, causing more severe illness. But often, lockdowns have limited peoples’ access to safe (outdoor) places such as beaches, parks, and zoos, or included outdoor mask mandates or strict outdoor gathering restrictions, pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) places. Indeed, we do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality…  Lockdowns have not been used to such a large extent during any of the pandemics of the past century. However, lockdowns during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating effects. They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best. Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.’

UK ‘DARPA’ should let the sunshine in

Nature 02.02.22

A publicly-funded DARPA clone organisation in the UK is planning to remove itself from scrutiny.  Not exactly a democratic move:

‘Can there be any justification for a science-funding agency that makes its decisions in secret — especially if that agency is funded by the taxpayer? The UK government seems to think so. It will shortly launch a new ‘high-risk, high-reward’ funding agency, known as ARIA (Advanced Research and Invention Agency). ARIA, the UK equivalent of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will distribute £800 million (US$1 billion) to researchers in its first 4 years — considerably more than the £110 million a year available to all of the nation’s arts and humanities researchers. But few outside the country’s government, Parliament and audit watchdog will be able to scrutinize its decisions. That’s because ARIA will be exempt from freedom of information (FoI) laws, legislation that allows the public to access information collected and held by the government.’

Israel imposing ‘apartheid’ on Palestinians: Amnesty

Al Jazeera 01.02.22

Will global governments take heed?:

‘Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the “purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded”, the London-based group said.  “Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general.  “We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act,” Callamard added.’

The Pressure Campaign on Spotify to Remove Joe Rogan Reveals the Religion of Liberals: Censorship

Glenn Greenwald 29.1.22

The McCarthy-like speech witch-hunts must end:

‘Given the climate prevailing in the American liberal faction, this authoritarianism is anything but surprising. For those who convince themselves that they are not battling mere political opponents with a different ideology but a fascist movement led by a Hitler-like figure bent on imposing totalitarianism — a core, defining belief of modern-day Democratic Party politics — it is virtually inevitable that they will embrace authoritarianism. When a political movement is subsumed by fear — the Orange Hitler will put you in camps and end democracy if he wins again — then it is not only expected but even rational to embrace authoritarian tactics including censorship to stave off this existential threat. Fear always breeds authoritarianism, which is why manipulating and stimulating that human instinct is the favorite tactic of political demagogues…  There are indeed examples of right-wing censorship campaigns: among the worst are laws implemented by GOP legislatures and championed by GOP governors to punish those who support a boycott of Israel (BDS) by denying them contracts or other employment benefits. And among the most frequent targets of censorship campaigns on college campuses are critics of Israel and activists for Palestinian rights. But federal courts have been unanimously striking down those indefensible red-state laws punishing BDS activists as an unconstitutional infringement of free speech rights, and polling data, as noted above, shows that it is the Democrats who overwhelmingly favor internet censorship while Republicans oppose it.

In sum, censorship — once the province of the American Right during the heyday of the Moral Majority of the 1980s — now occurs in isolated instances in that faction. In modern-day American liberalism, however, censorship is a virtual religion. They simply cannot abide the idea that anyone who thinks differently or sees the world differently than they should be heard. That is why there is much more at stake in this campaign to have Rogan removed from Spotify than whether this extremely popular podcast host will continue to be heard there or on another platform. If liberals succeed in pressuring Spotify to abandon their most valuable commodity, it will mean nobody is safe from their petty-tyrant tactics. But if they fail, it can embolden other platforms to similarly defy these bullying tactics, keeping our discourse a bit more free for just awhile longer.’

France targets groups, websites with expanded powers under anti-terror law

Reuters 26.01.22

Muzzling free speech seems to go hand in hand with vaccine mandates:

‘The French government said this week it was closing down an activist-run media outlet and a Muslim website deemed at odds with "national values", the latest in a series of steps that rights groups and lawyers say infringe on democratic freedoms.  Following a violent protest against the extreme right in Nantes, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would shut down "Nantes Révoltée", a local media platform, which had relayed information about the protest…  The government has been making increasing use of powers to shut down organisations or groups. In the last two years, there have been 12 such shutdowns, an uptick from seven between 2016 and 2019, according to French public records…  n another step that has alarmed some rights groups, the French government has ramped up censorship of content on the internet deemed to be terrorist-related or justifying violence under a 2014 law. Officials say that is necessary to stem violent attacks.’

‘CIA sidekick’ gives £2.6m to UK media groups

Declassified 17.01.22

I always wondered why Reuters acts like such a proponent of fear-mongering tactics re covid:

‘The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit corporation funded by the US Congress, has ploughed over £2.6m into seven British independent media groups over the past five years…  Another UK recipient of NED funding is the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the corporate foundation of the global news company. It was granted $98,870 (£72,500) in 2020 to “strengthen the capacity of independent media to cover the Covid-19 pandemic.”’

Stand News: Police arrest six from Hong Kong independent news outlet

BBC 29.12.21

‘Freedom of expression’ in China is now an oxymoron:

‘Hong Kong police have arrested six people from an independent news website for "conspiracy to publish seditious publications”.  Both current and former staff members of Stand News were among those targeted…  Today's arrests also come a day after media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the founder of Apple Daily, was slapped with the same charge even as he serves a jail sentence for a litany of separate charges against him.’

India: Hindu event calling for genocide of Muslims sparks outrage

Al Jazeera 24.12.21

Modi’s program of racial hatred is doing well:

‘Indian police said on Friday they had launched a hate-speech investigation into last week’s event in Haridwar, in northern Uttarakhand state, in which participants called for the mass killings and use of weapons against Muslims. A speaker at the gathering told the crowd that people should not worry about going to jail for killing Muslims, according to a video that went viral. “Even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious … If you stand with this attitude only then will you able to protect ‘sanatana dharma’ [an absolute form of Hinduism],” the woman said… The meeting was attended by at least one member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party stands accused of encouraging the persecution of Muslims and other minorities by hardline Hindu nationalists since coming to power in 2014, allegations it denies. Prominent Muslim MP Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted that the inflammatory comments in the video were a “clear case of incitement to genocide”. Modi’s government has not commented on the event… Many in the Muslim community say they have been increasingly subject to attacks and threats since Modi, a lifelong member of a hardline Hindu group, came to power.’

COVID-19: stigmatising the unvaccinated is not justified

The Lancet 20.11.21

Someone has some common sense:

‘It is therefore wrong and dangerous to speak of a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Historically, both the USA and Germany have engendered negative experiences by stigmatising parts of the population for their skin colour or religion. I call on high-level officials and scientists to stop the inappropriate stigmatisation of unvaccinated people, who include our patients, colleagues, and other fellow citizens, and to put extra effort into bringing society together.’

How a terrorism law in India is being used to silence Modi’s critics

The Guardian 10.12.1

Full steam ahead for India’s authoritarian march:

‘The law under which Parvez was detained, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), stands accused of being unconstitutional and undemocratic. UAPA, ostensibly a terrorism prevention law, has instead routinely been used by the Modi government to detain those deemed critical of the government, from lawyers and activists to journalists, priests, poets, academics, civil society members, and Kashmiri civilians. The use of the law before Modi’s government came to power in 2014 was negligible. But between 2014 and 2020, 10,552 people were arrested under UAPA.’

Rohingya sue Facebook for $150bn in unprecedented lawsuit over Myanmar genocide

The Independent 07.12.21

It would be very interesting to see whether this case wins as it places discrimination of an entire people/race against a tech giant:

‘Rohingya refugees in the US and UK are suing Facebook for more than $150bn (£113bn), accusing the social media giant of allowing the spread of hate speech and dangerous misinformation against the community. Facebook allowed hate speech to fester in Myanmar for years, long after it was informed of the genocide perpetrated against the country’s persecuted minority, according to the lawsuit that was filed on Monday in San Francisco, on behalf of an estimated 10,000 Rohingya people in the US… The refugees accused Facebook of “willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in Southeast Asia.” The lawsuit said Facebook Messenger was used for spreading similar but conflicting chain messages to Muslim and Buddhist communities, inciting communal violence in the region in early September 2017. It cited several Facebook posts reported by Reuters, as early as 2013, that said: “We must fight them the way Hitler did the Jews, damn Kalars [a derogatory term for Rohingya people].”’

Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is becoming a police state by stealth

The Guardian 01.12.21

So sad to see the country disintegrate under a blatant grab for power:

‘Perhaps most outrageously, the amendments contain new powers to ban named people from protesting. The grounds are extraordinary, in a nation that claims to be democratic. We can be banned if we have previously committed “protest-related offences”. Thanks to the draconian measures in the rest of the bill – many of which pre-date these amendments – it will now be difficult to attend a protest without committing an offence. Or we can be banned if we have attended or “contributed to” a protest that was “likely to result in serious disruption”. Serious disruption, as the bill stands, could mean almost anything, including being noisy. If you post something on social media that encourages people to turn up, you could find yourself on the list. Anyone subject to one of these orders, like a paroled prisoner, might be required to present themselves to the authorities at “particular times on particular days”. You can also be banned from associating with particular people or “using the internet to facilitate or encourage” a “protest-related offence”.  These are dictators’ powers. The country should be in uproar over them, but we hear barely a squeak.'

Spanish police march in Madrid to protest against 'Gag Law' reform

Reuters 27.11.21

Quite surreal; the police is demonstrating in Madrid because they want to keep the 'gag law' that would make it criminal for people to film them, to keep firing rubber bullets and to detain demonstrators for more than two hours:

‘Dubbed the "Gag Law" by those who oppose it, the legislation allows authorities to fine media organisations for distributing unauthorised images of police, strictly limits demonstrations and imposes heavy fines for offenders. Spain's leftist government has proposed reforms including no longer classifying the taking of photographs or making of recordings of police at demonstrations as a serious offence. ‘Under the changes, police will also have to use less harmful materials at protests after a number of people were seriously injured by rubber bullets fired by officers.’

Covid vaccine: Can US troops be punished for refusing the jabs?

BBC 27.11.21

The US government goes against its armed forces in imposing a mandatory vaccine which does not prevent infections, has serious adverse harm and delivers a rising toll of cardiac arrests:

‘In the case of the US Navy, an administrative message released on 13 October said that active-duty personnel who are not fully vaccinated and do not have an exemption will be forced out of the service after their case is sent to a newly established "Covid Consolidation Disposition Authority”. Additionally, a spokesman for the Chief of Naval Personnel said that sailors may have to repay bonuses, special pay, and some training costs if they refuse vaccinations. Although Mr Hanzel thinks vaccine-related court martials are unlikely, they can "certainly happen" under certain circumstances.’

Interpol appoints Emirati general accused of torture as president

The Guardian 25.11.21

The message is: Money Rules:

‘An Emirati general accused of torture has been elected president of Interpol, the global police agency said, despite the concerns of human rights organisations and members of the European parliament… The appointment follows generous funding by the UAE for Interpol, which is based in Lyon, France, and accusations Abu Dhabi has abused its system of “red notices” for wanted suspects to persecute political dissidents. Three European parliament members wrote a letter dated 11 November to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to warn of the impact the general’s appointment would have on Interpol. “The election of General al-Raisi would undermine the mission and reputation of Interpol and severely affect the ability of the organisation to carry out its mission effectively,” they wrote.’

How big tech is changing who’s in charge of our rights and freedoms

The Conversation 16.11.21

At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam, when you censor opposing views, you are sentencing democracy to death:

‘The challenge for constitutional democracies no longer comes from state authorities. Rather, the biggest concerns come from formally private entities but which control things traditionally governed by public authorities – without any safeguards. The capacity of tech firms to set and enforce rights and freedoms on a global scale is an expression of their growing power over the public. For example, when Facebook or Google moderate online content, they are making decisions on freedom of expression and other individual rights or public interest based on private standards that do not necessarily reflect constitutional safeguards. And these decisions are enforced directly by the company, not a court… In Europe, the Digital Services Act and the General Data Protection Regulation arose from the desire to make tech firms more accountable when it comes to content moderation and data protection… Digital constitutionalism offers a variety of perspectives to analyse the protection of rights and the exercise of power by big tech companies. It should also prompt us to raise the debate about how individual rights and freedoms are not just subject to the powers of the state, but increasingly to big tech companies too.’

Priti Patel pressed to explain award of spy agencies cloud contract to Amazon

The Guardian 27.10.21

It’s ridiculous that a country’s most secret information should be dealt with by a US company:

‘Labour is demanding that the home secretary explain why GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 will use a high-security system provided by the US-based firm, and whether any risk assessment was undertaken before the deal was signed. The agreement, estimated by industry experts to be worth £500m to £1bn over the next decade, was signed this year, the Financial Times first reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. Other government departments such as the Ministry of Defence will also use the system during joint operations… The contract has ignited concerns over sovereignty because the UK’s most secret data will be hosted by a single US company. GCHQ told news agencies it would not comment on reports about its relationships with tech suppliers. AWS declined to comment on the report.’

Public health or private wealth? How digital vaccine passports pave way for unprecedented surveillance capitalism

The Greyzone 19.10.21

Vaccine passports are a prelude to digital IDs which are a prelude to digital currencies; all culminating in the adoption of a social credit system:

'With over one billion Indians in its database, Aadhaar is the largest biometric digital ID program ever constructed. Besides serving as a portal to government services, it tracks users’ movements between cities, their employment status, and purchasing records. It is a de facto social credit system that serves as the key entry point for accessing services in India… As the military surveillance firm and NATO contractor Thales recently put it, vaccine passports “are a precursor to digital ID wallets.” And as the CEO of iProove, a biometric ID company and Homeland Security contractor, emphasized to Forbes, “The evolution of vaccine certificates will actually drive the whole field of digital ID in the future. So, therefore, this is not just about Covid, this is about something even bigger.”… The Gates Foundation recently helped fund a WHO paper providing “implementation guidance” for proof of vaccination certifications across the world. The authors crafted the paper alongside the Rockefeller Foundation and with guidance from several high-level representatives of the World Bank. According to Foreign Affairs, “few policy initiatives or normative standards set by the WHO are announced before they have been casually, unofficially vetted by Gates Foundation staff.” Or, as other sources told Politico in 2017, “Gates’ priorities have become the WHO’s.” Also at the forefront of the shift to digital credentials is the World Economic Forum (WEF). “The Forum is involved in the WHO task force to reflect on those [vaccine credential requirements] standards and think about how they would be used,” reads a May WEF article.'

Police in Australia turn up on doorsteps with print-outs of citizens’ anti-lockdown Facebook posts

Reclaim The Net 11.10.21

Australian seems to have turned the authoritarian tap on full.  How sad:

‘“Why are the police at my door about a protest,” he asks, to which one of the officers responds, “Because it’s illegal.”  “Why? Black Lives Matter protests were two weeks before that. Is that illegal? You’re knocking on their door?,” he asks the police, who responds by saying, “Maybe” – making those on the other end of this debate chuckle and conclude, “Clearly not.”’

On patrol with a real-life Robocop (VIDEO)

BBC 09.10.21

Expensive robot cop operate in LA park.  I guess the Singaporean model is being followed.

Shame on colleges preparing American kids for the ‘real world’ by teaching them to become master snitches

RT 08.10.21

Helen Buyniski lays out a horrific scenario presented to young adults at US universities:

‘American society has slid so far downhill it can probably never be pushed back up again, to the point where the most valued skills lie at the nexus of the ability to create, enforce, and obey byzantine thickets of arbitrary rules, many with fees attached. Predictions of future growth industries are loaded with fields like AI, cybersecurity, e-learning, and tele-health – all fields that, while not especially popular among liberal arts colleges, are everywhere in the interstitial spaces of the university experience and all but require the exploitation of one’s fellow man to achieve success. The more young adults are thus indoctrinated, the more difficult it will be to ultimately reprogram our broken society – and the tighter a grip the successful snitches will have on whatever is left. Perhaps the US should ditch the bald eagle as its national animal and adopt the rat.’

As UK cracks down on protests, surveillance tech market grows

Al Jazeera 05.10.21

So many parts of the world are revealing a dystopian landscape:

‘As UK policing becomes increasingly reliant on big data, several new bills set to expand police powers will boost real-time and retroactive data monitoring, as well as the use of facial recognition software and artificial intelligence (AI).  The most notable of these changes to UK policing is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which reached a third reading in the House of Commons on July 5.  Monumental in its scope, the bill has the power to criminalise selected marches and protests, with breaches of the law carrying a maximum sentence of up to 10 years.  It also seeks to enhance stop and search powers on people who have previously committed violent offences… 

Despite government and company assurances, however, there are deep concerns over privacy regarding surveillance technology. Critics question its ethical uses, the storage of data, and the potential effect and biases of AI.  The London Metropolitan Police came under fire in early 2020 for the unannounced use of facial recognition, manufactured by Japanese tech firm NEC, outside the busy Oxford Circus station in central London. Human rights groups challenged the legality of its use…  “The market for surveillance is hurtling forward,” said Silkie Carlo, director of the privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch. “Different [UK] authorities keep buying and deploying [devices] with a high level of secrecy and often with a very shaky or non-existent legal basis.  “When live facial recognition is in use, you see people on watchlists for no good reason including activists, people with mental health problems, people who’ve not committed any crime whatsoever.”’

‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state

The Guardian 06.10.21

There should be demonstrations at least!:

'Singapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in “undesirable social behaviour”, adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fuelling privacy concerns.  From vast numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts kitted out with facial recognition tech, Singapore is seeing an explosion of tools to track its inhabitants…  Digital rights activist Lee Yi Ting said the devices were the latest way Singaporeans were being watched.  “It all contributes to the sense people ... need to watch what they say and what they do in Singapore to a far greater extent than they would in other countries,” she told Agence France-Presse…  But critics say the city-state’s laws generally put few limitations on government surveillance, and Singaporeans have little control over what happens to the data collected.  “There are no privacy law constraints on what the government can or cannot do,” said Indulekshmi Rajeswari, a privacy lawyer from Singapore who is now based in Germany.’

Russia is building its own kind of sovereign internet — with help from Apple and Google

The Conversation 04.10.21

Who would think of the multiverse theory when the age of parallel realities has begun:

‘The Russian regime secured a key win in its attempt to build a sovereign internet. On one hand, the state now has a technique for ensuring the deletion of sensitive online material that threatens its power.  On the other hand, it still has connections to the mainstream internet (including Google and Apple) that it can manipulate for its own goals. These cyber black-ops — most famously on show in the 2016 US presidential election — are a central part of Russia’s foreign policy.  To build this sovereign internet, Russia is exploiting a simple, unavoidable truth: tech giants are ultimately for-profit corporations, with a priority to maximise profits and shareholder value.  And this poses two worrying questions. Will other authoritarian countries follow Russia’s lead? And how can opposition movements that rely on big tech for their democratic organisation respond?’ 

A cheat sheet to all of the antitrust cases against Big Tech in 2021

Quartz 29.09.21

Maybe one day western states will emulate China in its tech crackdown:

‘In the last four years, the EU has issued a series of multi-billion-dollar rulings against big tech companies, and the bloc’s crusading competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager has announced new investigations at a steady clip. Antitrust regulators in South Korea, India, Australia, and the post-Brexit UK have started to launch investigations and levy fines in an effort to shift tech companies’ business practices. Now the US is joining the fray.’

U.S. court orders Facebook to release anti-Rohingya content records for genocide case

Reuters 23.09.21

Facebook being told off by a judge is fun to read:

‘The judge in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday criticized Facebook for failing to hand over information to investigators seeking to prosecute the country for international crimes against the Muslim minority Rohingya, according to a copy of the ruling.  Facebook had refused to release the data, saying it would violate a U.S. law barring electronic communication services from disclosing users' communications.  But the judge said the posts, which were deleted, would not be covered under the law and not sharing the content would "compound the tragedy that has befallen the Rohingya”.  "Facebook taking up the mantle of privacy rights is rich with irony. News sites have entire sections dedicated to Facebook's sordid history of privacy scandals," he wrote…  A Reuters investigation that year found more than 1,000 examples of hate speech on Facebook, including calling Rohingya and other Muslims dogs, maggots and rapists, suggesting they be fed to pigs, and urging they be shot or exterminated.’

Jamaica is poised to end data privacy

Coda 15.09.21

With a World Bank backing, not much will be stopping this evolving social credit system:

‘If NIDS moves forward, Jamaica would become the latest addition to a growing list of countries with digital ID laws, including India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Colombia, and Nigeria… The World Bank has thrown its weight behind digital identification systems, contending that they “can unlock opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable.” In 2019, the Inter-American Development Bank also approved a $68 million loan to the Jamaican government to develop NIDS. But in addition to international development organizations, a number of voices within the private sector, including financial services providers and telecommunications operators have expressed enthusiasm for digital identity systems. “It is seen as the first step toward building a digital economy, and that supposedly has a lot of positive knock-on effects,” said Christiaan van Veen, a director of the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project at NYU School of Law.’

Russian election: Google and Apple remove Navalny app as Russia goes to the polls

The Independent 17.09.21

The tech giants are now acting as ‘kingmakers’:

‘Early voting for Russia’s legislative elections has begun in much the same way as the campaign ended: with scandal, repression and censorship.  This time, US tech giants Apple and Google were the newsmakers, sensationally agreeing to Kremlin requests to block jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s tactical voting app. Mr Navalny’s team described the Friday morning move, which came after months of pressure from authorities, as “an act of censorship” and “big mistake”.’

Singapore has patrol robots now! This should be fine.

Mashable 07.09.21

Crazy surveillance tactics in an ever-more dystopian landscape:

‘Singapore has started testing patrol robots that survey pedestrian areas in the city-state, where surveillance is a top and often controversial priority.  Named Xavier, the mall-cop robots will be autonomously rolling through the Toa Payoh Central district for three weeks from Sept. 5, scanning for "undesirable social behaviours" according to a press release (via Engadget) from the government's Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX).  It's a joint project involving five Singapore government agencies, including HTX, the National Environment Agency, the Land Transport Authority, the Singapore Food Agency, and the Housing and Development Board. The robots themselves have been built by HTX and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).’

ACLU: Forced vaccine passports is a win for civil liberties

Reclaim The Net 03.09.21

RIP ACLU:

‘The ACLU expressed its controversial opinion in an op-ed in The New York Times. According to the civil liberties groups, there is permissibility for COVID-19 vaccine passport mandates because: “The disease is highly transmissible, serious and often lethal; the vaccines are safe and effective; and crucially there is no equally effective alternative available to protect public health.”  The ACLU added: “In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”’

Has Covid ended the neoliberal era?

The Guardian 02.09.21

This article highlights the changes to global monetary policy directed at the covid pandemic, which is to say, plus ça change…  This other article, written by a professor of critical thinking, states that the pandemic was a simulation intended to keep markets afloat by hugely subsiding them.  Both make for good reading:

‘The historic force that finally burst the dykes of the neoliberal order was not radical populism or the revival of class struggle – it was a plague unleashed by heedless global growth and the massive flywheel of financial accumulation…  These interventions could not but appear as harbingers of a new regime beyond neoliberalism. On the other hand, they were made from the top down. They were politically thinkable only because there was no challenge from the left and their urgency was impelled by the need to stabilise the financial system. And they delivered. Over the course of 2020, household net worth in the US increased by more than $15tn. Yet that overwhelmingly benefited the top 1%, who owned almost 40% of all stocks. The top 10%, between them, owned 84%. If this was indeed a “new social contract”, it was an alarmingly one-sided affair…  As Britain, the US and Brazil demonstrate, democratic politics is taking on strange and unfamiliar new forms. Social inequalities are more, not less extreme. At least in the rich countries, there is no collective countervailing force. Capitalist accumulation continues in channels that continuously multiply risks. The principal use to which our newfound financial freedom has been put are more and more grotesque efforts at financial stabilisation. The antagonism between the west and China divides huge chunks of the world, as not since the cold war. And now, in the form of Covid, the monster has arrived. The Anthropocene has shown its fangs – on an as yet modest scale. Covid is far from being the worst of what we should expect – 2020 was not the full alert.’

For bank regulators, tech giants are now too big to fail

Reuters 20.08.21

It’s finally dawning on western regulators that tech giants are getting too big to fail and that companies and national infrastructure systems may be too reliant on them:

‘"We are only at the beginning of the paradigm shift, therefore we need to make sure we have a fit-for-purpose solution," said a financial regulator from a Group of Seven country, who declined to be named.  It is the latest sign of how financial regulators are joining their data and competition counterparts in scrutinising the global clout of Big Tech more closely.  Banks and technology companies say greater use of cloud computing is a win-win as it results in faster and cheaper services that are more resilient to hackers and outages…  The U.S. Treasury, European Union, Bank of England and Bank of France are among those stepping up their scrutiny of cloud technology to mitigate the risks of banks relying on a small group of tech firms and companies being "locked in", or excessively dependent, on one cloud provider.  "We're very alert to the fact that things will fail," said Simon McNamara, chief administrative officer at British bank NatWest (NWG.L). "If 10 organisations aren't prepared and are connected into one provider that disappears, then we'll all have a problem”…  An IDC survey of 50 major banks globally identified just six primary providers of cloud services: IBM (IBM.N), Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Alibaba (9988.HK) and Oracle (ORCL.N).'

China steps up tech scrutiny with rules over unfair competition, critical data

Reuters 17.08.21

Looks like China has a lot to teach the West:

‘Internet operators "must not implement or assist in the implementation of unfair competition on the Internet, disrupt the order of market competition, affect fair transactions in the market," the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) wrote in the draft, which is open to public feedback before a Sept. 15 deadline.  Specifically, the regulator stated, business operators should not use data or algorithms to hijack traffic or influence users' choices. They may also not use technical means to illegally capture or use other business operators’ data.  Companies would also be barred from fabricating or spreading misleading information to damage the reputation of competitors and need to stop marketing practices like fake reviews and coupons or "red envelopes" - cash incentives - used to entice positive ratings.’

How healthcare workers in India fought a surveillance regime and won

Coda 12.08.21

No surprises here for an evermore authoritarian regime:

‘In the last few years, the Indian government has become notorious for using technology to monitor and track the behavior of low-income workers, including healthcare staff, sanitation and rural childcare workers. In March 2020, sanitation workers in the city of Panchkula were asked to wear smartwatches equipped with cameras and microphones so supervisors could hear and watch them work. The wristbands, which ensured the workers stayed within their assigned areas, have also been rolled out to other cities including Chandigarh and Nagpur.   Last month, the Ministry of Women & Child Development made it mandatory for rural childcare workers across India to download an app named Poshan Tracker, which enables the real time monitoring of food welfare to newborns and their mothers. The government threatened to deduct the pay of the rural childcare workers if they refused to download the app — some have protested against this mandate…  “It’s just concentrating power in ways that are really problematic especially because these technologies are being introduced into relationships that already have a huge power differential,” says Vidushi Marda, a senior program officer at human rights organization ARTICLE 19, where she leads research on the impact of machine learning on human rights. “There isn’t even an illusion of choice. It’s almost like if they want to make money and put food on the table, they have to be subject to surveillance.”’ 

World-famous Moscow Metro system begins trials of ‘FacePay’, a new cutting-edge facial recognition biometric payment technology

RT 13.08.21

Biometric data application in real world has truly taken off:

‘The iconic Moscow Metro has begun the testing of a contactless fare payment system using facial recognition tech that would allow residents of Russia’s capital to use public transport without the need to carry a card or cash…  To use the FacePay system, passengers must link a Russian bank account to their biometric data, and the fare will automatically be debited.  Last year, Moscow Deputy Mayor Maxim Liksutov explained that the FacePay system works even if passengers are wearing face coverings…  The latest technology is not unique in the world, however. Similar systems are already in place in some Chinese cities, including the mega-metropolis Zhengzhou, home to over 10 million people. In 2019, the South China Morning Post revealed that nearly 200,000 commuters opted to use the technology in just a couple months.’

Amazon's palm print recognition raises concern among U.S. senators

Reuters 14.08.21

Biometric technology is being propagated by Amazon:

‘Amazon began rolling out biometric technology at its Whole Foods stores around Seattle in April, letting shoppers pay for items with a scan of their palm. The system, called Amazon One, lets customers link a credit card to their palm print.  (read more)  Klobuchar, who was joined by Senators Bill Cassidy, a Republican, and Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, expressed concern in the letter dated Thursday about both privacy and competition related to Amazon One.  "Our concerns about user privacy are heightened by evidence that Amazon shared voice data with third-party contractors and allegations that Amazon has violated biometric privacy laws," the lawmakers wrote in the letter.  "We are also concerned that Amazon may use data from Amazon One, including data from third-party customers that may purchase and use Amazon One devices, to further cement its competitive power and suppress competition across various markets," they wrote.’

Amazon shifts up to £8.2bn of UK revenues to low-tax Luxembourg, report finds

The Independent 11.08.21

Whilst China is actively discouraging monopolistic behaviour for Big Tech, the system in Europe is encouraging tax avoidance through financial loopholes:

‘A comprehensive analysis of the ecommerce giant’s accounts and public statements found that in its US accounts, Amazon had declared £13.7bn of UK sales in 2019. However, in filings for its UK-based companies, Amazon had only reported £5.5bn in sales.  Labour MP and Treasury committee member Emma Hardy backed the Unite union’s proposal for a probe into the “missing” billions.  Amazon strongly rejected the findings and said the discrepancy was because most of its sales to UK shoppers were booked by UK branches of one of its Luxembourg companies, and that the figures were reported to HMRC. It declined to state how much UK corporation tax it paid on those sales…  One Luxembourg-based subsidiary, Amazon Services Europe Sarl, provides services to the company’s websites. Other Amazon companies in the UK and elsewhere then pay the Luxembourg entity for these services, shifting revenue into the low-tax country.  Amazon Services Europe Sarl’s 2019 accounts show it generated €12bn in revenue and had just 193 staff – representing more than €62m per employee..  John Christensen, director and chair of the board of the Tax Justice Network, said Amazon’s complex corporate structure is indicative of how “misaligned international tax systems have become in recent decades”.   “The tax systems ask for the least from those companies and individuals with the most, whilst the public are left to bear the brunt of austerity-driven service cuts,” he said.'

US regulators want the ‘crypto’ out of cryptocurrency - because that will help them use it to control your every move

RT 05.08.21

From vaccination passports, to digital IDs to CBDCs (central bank digital currency) - all efforts point to data being integrated into a surveillance state apparatus:

‘ The rapidly-disintegrating global financial system doesn’t so much want to wipe out cryptocurrencies as it would like to replace them. With every transaction logged on a permanent, indelible blockchain ledger, crypto could flip from the privacy lover's dream to the pirate’s nightmare should that ledger become public – or merely fall into government hands. Enter central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Most global powers have been working on developing their own CBDC for years now, aware to a greater or lesser extent that fiat currency pegged to an increasingly weak dollar reserve has an expiration date. They’ve also received the message from supranational groups like the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the Financial Stability Board.  The BIS’ Jabba-the-Hutt-esque General Manager Agustin Carstens, for example, recently gushed about the potential CBDCs have in terms of surveillance – essentially the opposite of cryptocurrency, they would use blockchain to ensure every transaction an individual ever makes becomes part of their permanent record…  

“We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that,” he bragged in October.  Carstens, unsurprisingly, is no fan of bitcoin, which he deems an “ecological disaster.” But a CBDC – cryptocurrency minus the “crypto” – would neatly solve many of the ruling class’ biggest problems with the current financial system, from the existence of cash (and thus, privacy) to the inability to exclude certain actors from the system.  Efforts are already underway to create the structure into which CBDCs will fit, turning one’s every move and interaction into nodes of the global surveillance state. France and Italy are making it impossible to do business without proof of vaccination against the novel coronavirus or a recent negative test, a move that risks permanently tying health data to financial data, a profound violation of privacy that is clearly intended to spread to the rest of the EU…  And all of these layers of surveillance are eventually intended to merge into the Known Traveler Digital Identity (KTDI) system, a combination health-travel-banking-passport and social credit score envisioned by the World Economic Forum.’

Here is why we are boycotting the UN Food Systems Summit

Al Jazeera 25.07.21

The United Nations are are entrenching their position with the agritech sector.  This is a serious mistake:

‘A handful of transnational companies dominate the current global food and commodity trade. For instance, just two firms – Dow Dupont and Monsanto-Bayer Crop Science – hold a 53 percent market share in the seed industry. Merely three firms own 70 percent of the global agrochemical industry that manufactures and sells chemicals and pesticides used on crops. This corporate concentration is also evident in the livestock breeding sector, animal pharmaceutical industry, farming machinery, commodity trade and so forth.  Therefore, from the sowing of seeds and growing of crops to the processing, distribution, and consumption of food, transnational agribusinesses control and decide everything. Most of these corporations are now entering into partnerships with Big Tech firms to digitalise the global food system to cement their dominance.  But here is what is striking about these giant corporations. Despite their control over nearly 75 percent of the world’s food production-related natural resources, they can barely feed a third of the global population. Furthermore, they are responsible for most of the $400bn worth of food lost annually and for the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases.’

White House: If you’re banned for “misinformation” on one platform, you should be banned from ALL platforms

Reclaim The Net 16.07.21

So this is how the ‘One Truth Ministry’ works:

'After making the shocking admission that the Federal Government is flagging content for Facebook to censor in yesterday’s White House Press Briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on the censorship rhetoric in today’s Press Briefing by calling for users to be banned from all platforms if they post “misinformation” and dismissing concerns that the Biden administration is acting as “Big Brother.”’

France protests: clashes with police on Bastille Day amid anger at tighter Covid rules

The Guardian 15.07.21

An absolutely ridiculous move from a president doing a volte-face regarding vaccine passports:

‘The demonstrators are unhappy at the decision announced on Monday to oblige health workers to get vaccinated and bring in a vaccine health pass for most public places.  Unvaccinated people would require, for example, a negative test result to enter restaurants…  The interior ministry said that there were altogether 53 different protests throughout France.  “Down with dictatorship”, “down with the health pass” protesters chanted.  One of them, Yann Fontaine, a 29-year-old notary’s clerk from the Berry region in central France, said he had come to demonstrate in Paris arguing that the imposition of a health pass equalled “segregation”.'

Biden and the DNC want to censor text messages to stop ‘misinformation’ – well, ‘if it saves just one life,’ who needs privacy?

RT 14.07.21

Helen Buyniski on the authoritarian rise in US politics:

‘The White House plans to interfere with people’s ability to send text messages if it doesn’t like what they say. This is not a question of whether one supports or rejects the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, or what one thinks about vaccines at all; this is the curtain being yanked back on the police state the US has long insisted it isn’t (but that all its enemies are). It’s Washington rearing up with bared teeth, concealing its scabrous pelt in a lab coat, and hoping you don’t see the claws grasping the syringe. The US gave up its moral authority regarding freedom of the press somewhere between the Pentagon Papers and the revelations of Operation Mockingbird, but interfering with the content of individual text messages sent between innocent civilians brings the nation much deeper into the thickets of fascism than it has ever dared venture before, to a spot where it seems intent on setting up shop permanently.’

China to remove 25 Didi apps from store as crackdown intensifies

Reuters 09.07.21

Chinese government coming down strong on data collection apps.  Let’s hope the US government gets into that famous competitive spirit about the issue:

‘China's cyberspace administration on Friday said it would remove 25 mobile apps operated by Didi Global Inc (DIDI.N) from app stores as the government stepped up a crackdown on the ride-hailing giant.  The apps in question used data that was illegally collected by Didi and include those for its delivery service, camera device and finance services, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement.  Last week, just days after Didi's $4.4 billion listing on the New York Stock Exchange, the cyberspace regulator ordered app stores to remove Didi's main ride-hailing app.’

Hong Kong defends privacy law after Big Tech raises concerns

BBC 06.07.21

Hong Kong may no be bothered by doxxing as much as they are with ‘harmful ideologies’ that are infecting the population:

‘The new law targets "doxxing" - the malicious act of publishing people's personal information online.  But an industry group says technology giants may pull out of the city over fears that they could become liable for user content…  The tactic was used to name police officers and court officials who had helped to crack down on protests online or worked on legal cases in which activists were prosecuted. Journalists and protestors were also targeted. The proposed changes to the laws would ban doxxing and give authorities the power to force social media companies and websites to remove personal information from their platforms.’

Global Coalition for Digital Safety

WEF 29.06.21

Under the guise of securing a safer net for children and combatting terrorism, the World Economic Forum is venturing into content censorship with the aim of creating a One Truth version of events with no possibility of debate.  It is even creating a framework for snitches within the framework of Big Tech:

'With the growing challenge to counter health misinformation, violent extremist and terrorist content, and the exploitation of children online, there is an urgent need for more deliberate global coordination to improve digital safety.   The Global Coalition for Digital Safety aims to accelerate public-private cooperation to tackle harmful content online and will serve to exchange best practices for new online safety regulation, take coordinated action to reduce the risk of online harms, and drive forward collaboration on programs to enhance digital media literacy.’

US government blocks Iran-affiliated news websites

BBC 24.06.21

No US foreign policy criticism to be allowed any more.  By seizing news outlets’ domain names, the US government is effectively banning free speech:

‘The US has taken down dozens of Iranian and Iran-linked news sites which it accuses of spreading disinformation.  The sites were replaced on Tuesday with notices saying they had been "seized" as part of a law enforcement action. They included Iran's state-run English-language channel, Press TV…  Most of the domain names seized were .com, .net and .tv addresses. The .com and .net addresses are generic domains and are not specific to a particular country. The .tv domain is owned by the Pacific nation of Tuvalu but is run by the US firm Verisign.   The seizure of another country's top-level domain - such as Iran's .ir - could potentially be seen as a violation of sovereignty…  The Iranian government has made no official comment in response to the move, but media outlets in the country have accused the US of censorship. "Is this another example of US freedom of the press where if DC doesn't like what u say, ur domain is seized? (sic)," tweeted American-born Press TV host Marzieh Hashemi.’

Priti Patel’s new threat to British journalists

DeClassified 15.06.21

Sweeping powers are set to muzzle journalists in the UK whilst the government avoids accountability using ‘disappearing messages’ through tech:

'In 2017, the Cabinet Office acknowledged that the transition from paper-based to email and electronic documents created “real and immediate risks for accounting officers, who may be unable to provide evidence for past decisions and actions or to meet their statutory obligations for public records and FoI [freedom of information]”.  Ministers are ignoring those Cabinet Office’s warnings. Plans are being drawn up to challenge in the courts the government’s reportedly growing use of WhatsApp and other electronic messaging platforms to avoid scrutiny.   The action is being brought jointly by Foxglove, a non-profit organisation pursuing what it calls “justice in technology” and The Citizens, a group set up to hold governments and big tech to account.  “We believe communicating in this way is a blatant attempt to dodge transparency and democratic accountability and that it’s unlawful”, says Martha Dark, Foxglove’s director.   “The Public Records Act 1958 requires that messages between politicians, officials, and advisers about government business must be reviewed and retained — for historical archives, and for any future investigations or inquiries into how a decision was taken.”  She adds: “The stakes are high. We simply won’t be able to hold the government to account for what they do if the evidence is automatically erased within minutes. Disappearing message apps are the modern equivalent of politicians shredding the evidence. It’s the perfect tool for people who just want to get away with it.”’

Irish police to be given powers to make people hand over passwords

The Independent 15.06.21

The Irish government is playing the authoritarian game.  How will this play with GDPR EU rules?

‘Police in Ireland are to be handed new powers, including the right to issue a fine of up to €30,000 to anyone who refuses to surrender an electronic device’s password, according to new legislation in the Republic.   Justice minister Heather Humphreys announced the change as part of the Garda Síochána Bill, published on Monday.  It means a person who fails to give up their details will be committing a crime and could face up to five years in prison.’

Breaking up Big Tech in focus as new U.S. antitrust bills introduced

REUTERS 11.06.21

Here’s hoping that these US bills get passed and gain traction worldwide:

‘One measure bans platforms from owning subsidiaries that operate on their platform if those subsidiaries compete with other businesses - potentially forcing the Big Tech firms to sell assets…  A second measure would make it illegal in most cases for a platform to give preference to its own products on its platform with a hefty fine of 30% of the U.S. revenue of the affected business if they violate the measure.  The third bill would require a platform to refrain from any merger unless it can show the acquired company does not compete with any product or service the platform is in.  A fourth would require platforms to allow users to transfer their data elsewhere if they desire, including to a competing business.  In addition to those four, a fifth bill would raise what the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission charge to assess the biggest companies to ensure their mergers are legal and increase the budgets of the agencies. A companion to this has already passed the Senate.’

No jab, no phone: Unvaccinated to have SIM cards blocked, Pakistan’s Punjab govt say

RT 11.06.21

Serious authoritarian coercion going on in India:

‘Punjab’s Primary and Secondary Health Department announced the measure on Thursday in a tweet detailing the outcome of the meeting. “Mobile SIMS of people not getting vaccinated may be blocked,” the department wrote.  Officials later signaled that the plan was moving forward.  “[A] final decision has been taken to block the mobile SIM cards of people not getting vaccinated,” Punjab Specialized Healthcare Department spokesman Syed Hammad Raza told Dawn, a Pakistani daily.’

Frequent run-ins with India gov’t cloud U.S. tech expansion plans

REUTERS 11.06.21

India is being accused of nationalism after the country thwarts US big tech expansion in the country:

‘The government on Saturday said Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) had not indicated compliance with new rules aimed at making social media firms more accountable to legal requests, and therefore risked losing liability exemptions for content posted on its platform.   Twitter joins compatriots Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Facebook-owned WhatsApp in long being at loggerheads with the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over data privacy bills and policies some executives have called protectionist, but tension has escalated in recent weeks…  The government has argued that its rules are needed to stem the spread of misinformation that can spark violence - such as in 2017 when kidnapping rumours shared on message apps including WhatsApp led to lynching. It also said the rules are necessary to hold large technology companies accountable for practices that hurt domestic businesses or compromise customer privacy.  India is a massive market for U.S. tech giants. It is the biggest market for both Facebook and WhatsApp by user numbers, showed data from Statista, and third for Twitter. Amazon has committed as much as $6.5 billion to invest in the country…  The government has also forced foreign firms to store data locally against fierce lobbying, and its promotion of a domestic payment card network prompted Mastercard Inc (MA.N) to complain to the U.S. government about the use of nationalism.’

China’s Uyghurs living in a ‘dystopian hellscape’, says Amnesty report

The Guardian 10.06.21

If only a similar outrage could be sustained for Palestinians living in ‘occupied territories’:

‘Amnesty International has collected new evidence of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, which it says has become a “dystopian hellscape” for hundreds of thousands of Muslims subjected to mass internment and torture.  The human rights organisation has collected more than 50 new accounts from Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who claim to have been subjected to mass internment and torture in police stations and camps in the region.’

Apple's new 'private relay' feature will not be available in China

REUTERS 08.06.21

Some governments need to know all about their subjects:

‘Apple's decision to withhold the feature in China is the latest in a string of compromises the company has made on privacy in a country that accounts for nearly 15% of its revenue…  Apple's "private relay" feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of a piece of information called an IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website…  Apple said it also will not offer "private relay" in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines.’

China’s ‘splinternet’ will create a state-controlled alternative cyberspace

The Guardian 03.06.21

The move to create a centralised blockchain-operated internet is a signal that we won’t all use the same ‘space’:

‘As I write, Beijing is planning to lay undersea cables along Africa’s western and eastern coasts to provide internet access to previously neglected towns and villages. Connectivity sounds like progress, and many in Africa are understandably pleased. But here’s the problem: the Chinese are building their own internet, in a potential fragmentation that has been called the “splinternet”, an alternative cyberspace in which Britain does not even get a look in, unless invited. Many developing countries are likely to sign up to it.’

Journalists in Australia Censured for Demanding Better Coverage of Israel and Palestine

The Intercept 27.05.21

There really is a ‘One Truth Ministry’!:

‘Five journalists in Australia published an open letter on May 14 calling on news outlets to “do better” coverage of Israel and Palestine by actively including Palestinian perspectives in coverage and refraining from “both-siderism that equates the victims of a military occupation with its instigators.” More than 720 journalists and media staffers have since signed the letter criticizing coverage of the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Israel has killed over 240 Palestinians, 66 of them children, and has left parts of Gaza completely destroyed, including a tower that housed offices for the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, among other media and nongovernmental organizations. Hamas, meanwhile, has killed 12 Israelis, including two children. Already some of those journalists have faced consequences. At least a dozen staffers at two of Australia’s largest public broadcasting corporations, Special Broadcasting Service and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, were asked by management to remove their signatures from the letter, according to letter organizers and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, an Australian media union. Several staffers at both SBS and ABC said they were also told that their contracts might not be renewed… Reporters in other countries are facing similar backlash. Canadian journalists circulated a similar open letter on the same day. Several signatories were reprimanded by management or completely taken off coverage of the region, The Intercept reported. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sent an email to staff Friday addressing the letter as a “conflict of interest” and advising that journalists on staff who signed it would be taken off coverage of the region.’

WhatsApp sues India govt, says new media rules mean end to privacy

REUTERS 27.05.21

In an escalating authoritarian rule, Modi’s government is facing prosecution from US tech giants in the country, as he seeks the end of privacy:

‘WhatsApp has filed a legal complaint in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force on Wednesday that experts say would compel the California-based Facebook (FB.O) unit to break privacy protections, sources said… While the law requires WhatsApp to unmask only people credibly accused of wrongdoing, the company says it cannot do that alone in practice. Because messages are end-to-end encrypted, to comply with the law WhatsApp says it would have break encryption for receivers, as well as "originators", of messages… The lawsuit escalates a growing struggle between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and tech giants including Facebook, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and Twitter (TWTR.N) in one of their key global growth markets… The government has also pressed the tech companies to remove not only what it has described as misinformation on the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging India, but also some criticism of the government’s response to the crisis, which is claiming thousands of lives daily… Among the new rules are requirements that big social media firms appoint Indian citizens to key compliance roles, remove content within 36 hours of a legal order, and set up a mechanism to respond to complaints. They must also use automated processes to take down pornography.’

Palestinians’ digital rights ‘violated’ by censorship on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, new report claims

The Independent 22.05.21

Glaring bias in how Palestinian voices are being silenced within US social media:

'Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have all been used by Palestinians to share information from, among a variety of areas, the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah where families face eviction. However the report from 7amleh, The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, shared exclusively with The Independent, argues that social media companies’ moderation attempts and codes of conduct have resulted in numerous citizens’ accounts being taken down… 7amleh documented 500 cases of what it calls the digital rights violations of Palestinians between 6 May and 18 May this year through a form shared via its social media channels with the support of partners including MPower Change, Adalah Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Eyewitness Palestine. These violations include content being taken down and accounts being removed or their visibility restricted… There have also been instances of Facebook blocking the accounts of Palestinian journalists, a critique which has been also levied at Twitter – on which there were 55 cases of violations of Palestinian content, 91 per cent of which were suspension of accounts, according to 7amleh. “Our automated systems took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error by an automated spam filter. We are expeditiously reversing this action to reinstate access to the affected accounts, many of which have already been reinstated”, Twitter said in a statement, adding that it had an appeals process for such accounts. Twitter also temporarily restricted the account of Palestinian-American writer Mariam Barghouti, who was reporting on Palestinians being evicted from Sheikh Jarrah. "We took enforcement action on the account you referenced in error. That has since been reversed," Twitter said in a statement, changing Barghouti’s account to say that it was “temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.”’

Covid: India tells social media firms to remove 'India variant' from content

BBC 22.05.21

When a huge market government orders tech behemoths to jump, they’ll ask ‘how high’?:

‘India's government has instructed social media companies to remove any content that refers to the "Indian variant" of Covid-19… India's government this year introduced guidelines it said were intended to curb misuse of social media and the spread of misinformation. If what is termed "unlawful" material appears on a platform, the company can be given a takedown order. If it does not comply within a deadline, it can face the possibility of prosecution. The rules in essence mean companies cannot evade responsibility for what users post. Questions have arisen over whether these guidelines promote more censorship and undermine freedom of speech.’

Google employees call for company to support Palestinians and protect anti-Zionist speech

The Verge 18.05.21

Good move by Google employees. Let’s hope this spreads to other tech sectors:

‘A group of Jewish Google employees is calling on the company to increase its support of Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly bombing campaign in Gaza. The conflict started with Israel’s attempt to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and escalated when militants fired rockets toward Jerusalem and Israel responded with airstrikes. In an internal letter, Google workers ask CEO Sundar Pichai to put out a statement condemning the attacks, including “direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by Israeli military and gang violence.” The letter currently has 250 signatures. (An external version of the note can be found here). The request is coming from a new employee resource group which formed last year in response to pro-Zionist sentiment within “Jewglers” — Google’s official Jewish ERG. While Jewglers has tried to be apolitical, two current workers say it has supported pro-Israel discussions and is not a safe space to express anti-Zionist beliefs. This rift led to the formation of the Jewish Diaspora in Tech — a group of Jewish anti-nationalists within Google. “We were compelled to form our own space because of the fact that we were quite literally not allowed to express our viewpoints in the ERG,” says a product marketing manager in the group.’

Johnson’s voter ID checks are not about electoral fraud, they’re about power

The Guardian 18.05.21

Worrying new rules in the UK:

‘The government’s voter identity scheme should be abandoned. It is unnecessary, inconvenient and a disincentive to vote. More serious, voter cards for those without a current form of photo ID would be another step, however modest, towards the regulation and surveillance of daily life, an obsession of governments worldwide since the digital revolution.A classic test of state liberalism is how soon after an emergency a regime chooses to dismantle any acquired emergency powers. Boris Johnson has gloried in his daily display of control, this week permitting Britons to hug, but “with caution”. In his post-pandemic Queen’s speech he announced thatproof of ID would now be required by those wishing to exercise the right to vote. This, he says, will prevent election fraud. Voters without driving licences should apply to their local council with a photograph. Their details will presumably be registered. Those who do not register will be denied the vote…

The 2006 card became so controversial it was eventually made voluntary, destroying its counter-terrorism role. As its launch costs soared to in excess of £12bn, it lost all contact with common sense or value for money. It was pointed out that driving licences and passports were a perfectly adequate proof of identity where one was really needed. What had become an obsessional Whitehall data trawl was repealed by David Cameron’s government in 2011. As with Churchill, it was announced that information so far amassed on the data register would be destroyed. But as Edward Snowden later disclosed, such pledges are useless from ministers who feel “national security” licenses mendacity. In 2013, a database belonging to the NHS also collapsed under a blizzard of National Audit Office criticism. Dodgy consultants were ripping off Whitehall left, right and centre. An estimated £10bn was lost by the NHS – as if it had money to burn. Meanwhile, regular leaks of health records show that all digital data is now inherently insecure.’

Digital apartheid: Palestinians being silenced on social media

Al Jazeera 13.05.21

Israel using social media to promote its government policies. But why stop there when it can actually bomb media offices on the ground?

‘In recent years, social media became a lifeline for many who want to raise awareness about causes and struggles ignored or undermined by mainstream media outlets. Yet tech companies are now actively working to exclude Palestinian voices from their platforms, thereby expanding the calculated erasure and silencing of the Palestinians to social media. In April, for example, Zoom, Facebook and Youtube blocked the online academic event “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?” co-sponsored by the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program at San Francisco State University, the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUFCA), and the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI)… Coming on the heels of Zoom’s repeated attempts to arbitrate what is and is not acceptable speech in academia, Facebook’s deletion of the AMED page made clear Big Tech’s modus operandi when it comes to Israel-Palestine: censor material related to the Palestinian struggle on Israel’s demand, and ignore any criticism of these unlawful and unjust actions. Israel and its allies are not only pressuring Big Tech to silence the Palestinians from outside. Facebook’s oversight board, an independent body tasked with deliberating on the platform’s content decisions, includes former director-general of the Israeli ministry of justice, Emi Palmor. Palmor personally managed Israel’s Cyber Unit in the past, which successfully lobbied for the removal of thousands of pieces of Palestinian content from Facebook. While it is only logical to assume Palmor’s presence on the oversight board is contributing to Facebook’s anti-Palestinian actions, Big Tech’s routine silencing of Palestinian voices cannot be blamed on such overtly pro-Israeli actors in its higher echelons alone.’

Buying a Single Version of the Truth

UK Column 03.05.21

The ‘One Truth Ministry’ is backed by the WEF:

‘Omnicom has been awarded a number of sizeable contracts by the UK government. These have included a December 2018 advertising campaign contract for the Cabinet Office, worth up to £184 million, a £119 million October 2020 media buy-in contract with a £230 million extension clause, and a £112 million media contract for the Ministry of Defence... The CCS claim there are a number of advantages to be gained by having one US multinational corporation overseeing the UK government’s entire communication strategy, including robust pricing, neutrality and transparency. Putting aside Omnicom's obvious monopoly, as mentioned above, when the UK Column looked at the client brief for the recent £320 million media buy-in, it was entirely redacted. We might question the CCS notion of transparency… In 2018 the UK government awarded a four year £800 million contract to Omnicom's OMD Group for media buy-ins…

The Chairman and CEO of Omnicom is John D. Wren. His personal Omnicom bio reads: ‘Mr. Wren was part of the team that created Omnicom Group in 1986. Mr. Wren is a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and is active in a number of philanthropic endeavors.’.. In 2020 the WEF's International Business Council (IBC), with Wren as a member, released their Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism report. Speaking about the need to shape the recovery, they noted that the global pandemic was a fantastic opportunity. They wrote: ‘We must mobilize all constituencies of our global society to work together and seize this historic opportunity ... The principles of stakeholder capitalism, championed by the World Economic Forum … have never been so important. In 2017, the IBC spearheaded a commitment from more than 140 CEOs to align their corporate values and strategies with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’ … The IBC has been leading the way in this initiative to deliver on the promise of stakeholder capitalism.’

Giants Tencent, Bytedance among companies reined in by China

BBC 30.04.21

For tech companies that may become ‘too big to fail’ in China, the government ensures that financial flow is strongly regulated:

'For many years, Beijing took a hands off approach to encourage the tech platforms to grow. But official scrutiny of their platforms has stepped up as they have branched out into financial services. Platforms operated by e-commerce giant JD.com, handset maker Xiaomi, ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing and food delivery firm Meituan were among those to face the regulators. They were ordered to set up financial holding companies, a move that tightens capital requirements. They were also asked to draft "business rectification" plans to comply with regulations, cut "improper" links between their payment tools and other financial products and break "monopolies" in holding data.’

Judicial review changes will make government ‘untouchable’, warns Law Society

The Guardian 30.04.21

A clear sign of our times, no more governmental accountability:

‘Proposed changes to the judicial review process will reduce the accountability of government to the public and go beyond what was recommended by its hand-picked experts, the Law Society has warned… The society’s president, Stephanie Power, said: “The Ministry of Justice has gone beyond what was recommended by the expert panel set up to advise it, with no evidence to back up this over-reach. “Collectively, the most controversial proposals would allow unlawful acts by government or public bodies to be untouched or untouchable. This would harm individuals that challenged them and others who might fall foul of the same unlawful act or decision in the future. “The effect of the proposals would be a fundamental distortion of the protection judicial review is supposed to provide against state action, undermining the rule of law and restricting access to justice.” …Sam Grant, Liberty’s head of policy and campaigns, said: “We all want to live in a fair and equal democracy. No one should be above the law and judicial review protects that principle, allowing ordinary people to hold government and public authorities to account. “If judicial review is limited, we’re on a dangerous path where governments – both now and in the future – can no longer be held to account.”'

Researchers Take Down Botnet Pretending to Be Millions of People Watching TV

Gizmodo 22.04.21

Fraudulent practices are key to profitable deception:

‘TopTop Media, a subsidiary of Tel Aviv-based M51 Group, bills itself as a tech company focused on solutions for app developers and advertisers. It promises to employ “real-time optimization and user profiling” in order to leverage data it gathers from its “ongoing media acquisition activities” and, you know, deliver profits somewhere in there. However, according to new research from security firm HUMAN, TopTop’s “solutions” are less than desirable. In an elaborate scheme, the company allegedly created 29 malicious Android apps and then snuck them into the Google Play Store and third-party stores, managing to quietly infect close to a million devices with malware. The infected devices were then allegedly used to build an ever-growing botnet that fraudulently spoofed connections to streaming-TV platforms all over the world, thereby generating illegitimate ad revenue.’

I Thought My Job Was To Report On Technology In India. Instead, I Got A Front-Row Seat To The Decline Of My Democracy.

Buzzfeed 12.04.21

Tech players are authority-enablers, looking to protect their global margin profits:

‘Tech made us and unmade us. Before Facebook let misinformation thrive, before Twitter let the trolls run wild, and before WhatsApp got Indians lynched, tech companies unshackled us and promised a billion people a seat at the same table the rest of the world was at — as long as they had an inexpensive data plan. But at the same time, a different kind of churning was underway. In 2014, a year before Pichai flew down to India, millions of Indians had voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a right-wing politician with deep roots in the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization that his Bharatiya Janata Party draws its ideology from. Many people had hoped that Modi would usher in economic prosperity, but instead, India’s democracy has crumbled. Ham-fisted decisions like banning most banknotes destroyed India’s cash-based economy, while crimes against minorities shot up. Journalists were harassed, jailed, and shot; human rights activists languished in jail for years without trials; communal clashes erupted in the capital; millions spoke out against a contentious new citizenship law that fast-tracks Indian citizenship for members of major South Asian religions except Islam; and for months, farmers have protested new agricultural laws that they said would hurt their businesses… I love tech. But watching it intersect with a Hindu nationalist government trying to crush dissent, choke a free press, and destroy a nation’s secular ethos doesn’t feel like something I bought a ticket to. Writing about technology from India now feels like having a front-row seat to the country’s rapid slide into authoritarianism. “It’s like watching a train wreck while you’re inside the train,” I Slacked my boss in November.’

US blacklists Chinese supercomputing entities

E&T 09.04.21

Biden ups Trump’s sanctions against China:

‘The US Commerce Department has extended its economic blacklist of Chinese firms by adding seven supercomputing organisations, which it believes are assisting Chinese military efforts, on the grounds of national security concerns.   Non-US companies need approval from the US Commerce Department before they can receive items from US-based suppliers. The Commerce Department alleges that the seven supercomputing firms were building supercomputers used by China’s aggressive military actors, including potentially for weapons of mass destruction programs.’

UK's 'headlong rush into abandoning human rights' rebuked by Amnesty
The Guardian 07.04.21

Amnesty report highlights the UK government’s burgeoning love with its authoritarian identity:

‘Amnesty expressed serious concern about the government’s reviews into the Human Rights Act and judicial review – both of which “are being sped through during the pandemic” and could seriously diminish the public’s capacity to challenge government decisions, said Allen. The report also highlighted the controversial and far-reaching police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which Amnesty warns could severely curtail the right to peaceably challenge or protest in the UK.  Two separate pieces of legislation that could effectively give “get-out clauses” for rape, murder and torture to police, MI5 officers and overseas military personnel are also deeply troubling, said Allen.  “On the right to protest, on the Human Rights Act, on accountability for coronavirus deaths, on asylum, on arms sales or on trade with despots, we’re speeding toward the cliff edge,” said Allen.  “We need to stop this headlong rush into abandoning our human rights.”’

Seeing stones: pandemic reveals Palantir's troubling reach in Europe

The Guardian 02.04.21

This US tech company is embedding itself in governments and global infrastructures:

‘A months-long joint investigation by the Guardian, Lighthouse Reports and Der Spiegel used freedom of information laws, official correspondence, confidential sources and reporting in multiple countries to piece together the European activities of one of the most secretive companies in the world. The findings raise serious questions over the way public agencies work with Palantir and whether its software can work within the bounds of European laws in the sensitive areas where it is being used, or perform in the way the company promises…  When health concerns are driving business, the software product Palantir sells is Foundry; when terrorism fears are opening up budgets, it is Gotham.  Foundry is built to meet the needs of commercial clients. One of its champions in Europe is Airbus, which says the system has helped identify supply chain efficiencies. Foundry has more recently found its way into governments, and Palantir’s CEO, Karp, has called Foundry an “operating system for governments”.  Gotham has long been used by intelligence services in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and France and was built for investigative analysis. Some Palantir engineers call what it does “needle-in-haystack” analysis that agencies can use to look for bad actors hiding in complex networks.  Since 2013 Palantir has made a sustained drive to embed itself via Gotham in Europe’s police systems.  The first major opportunity to do this came at the EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, when it won a tender to create a system to store and crunch the reams of data from member states’ police forces. The Europol Analysis System was meant both to store millions of items of information – from criminal records, to witness statements to police reports – and crunch this data into actionable intelligence.’

Nike, H&M face China fury over Xinjiang cotton ‘concerns'

BBC 25.03.21

If western countries are serious about imposing sanctions on China over the Uighurs’ treatment (and they should be), they vastly underestimate the effect it would have on global economies.  Every single gift I received over xmas has been ‘made in China’, from John Lewis to electrical items and items of clothing:

'Many Chinese have called for boycotts, celebrities have cut ties, and e-commerce platforms have dropped H&M.  It comes as several Western countries imposed sanctions on China this week.  It is accused of committing serious human rights violations against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.  The sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, target senior officials in the north-west region.’

Chinese tech stocks fall as U.S. SEC begins rollout of law aimed at delisting

REUTERS 24.03.21

Auditing and transparency will kill off Chinese companies in US market.  That’s one way of disabling a serious competitor:

‘The move by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adds to the unprecedented regulatory crackdown in China on domestic technology companies, citing concerns that they have built market power that stifles competition.  The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in December, is aimed at removing Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges if they fail to comply with American auditing standards for three years in a row.  The rules also require firms prove to the SEC they are not owned or controlled by an entity of a foreign government and to name any board members who are Chinese Communist Party officials, the SEC said in a statement Wednesday.’

How Washington fumbled the future

Politico 16.03.21

While US regulators are inept at breaking down US tech monopolies, China is forging ahead:

‘The memos show that at a crucial moment when Washington’s regulators might have had a chance to stem the growth of tech’s biggest giants, preventing a handful of trillion-dollar corporations from dominating a rising share of the economy, they misread the evidence in front of them and left much of the digital future in Google’s hands.  The documents also add to doubts about whether Washington is any more capable today of reining in the tech industry’s titans, despite efforts by a new generation of antitrust enforcers to turn up the heat on Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon — all of which now rank among the United States’ wealthiest companies. That will be a crucial test awaiting President Joe Biden’s regulators, including the outspoken Silicon Valley critic he plans to nominate to an open slot on the FTC’s five-person board.'

Greenwald: The Leading Activists For Online Censorship Are Corporate Journalists

Geopolitics 15.03.21

The censorship of ‘divergent’ views that do not conform to the ‘established’ mainstream truth has been snowballing in the US.  Helped by the ‘truth lords’, the corporate journalists, tech companies have been acting as the propaganda police.  There’s no place for that in any democracy:

‘This Subcommittee produced one of the most impressive and comprehensive reports last October detailing the dangers of the classic monopoly power wielded by Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. That report set forth numerous legislative and regulatory solutions to comply with the law and a consensus of economic and political science experts about the need to break up monopolies wherever they arise.  Until that is done, none of these problems can be addressed in ways other than the most superficial, piecemeal and marginal. Virtually every concern that Americans across the political spectrum express about the dangers of Silicon Valley power emanates from the fact that they have been permitted to flout antitrust laws and acquire monopoly power. None of those problems — including their ability to police and control our political discourse and the flow of information — can be addressed until that core problem is resolved.’

The UK is secretly testing a controversial web snooping tool

WIRED 11.03.21

UK’s Snooper’s Charter is now competing with the US NSA:

‘The Investigatory Powers Act is a wide-ranging law that sets out how bodies in the UK can collect and handle data that may be linked to criminal activity. Since it was passed in 2016 the law has led to sweeping reforms of UK surveillance powers, adding new controls on what law enforcement and intelligence agencies can do and explaining when phones, computers and other systems can be hacked – other legislation previously covered these powers. As part of the changes, ICRs were introduced as a new type of data that could be collected and stored for security purposes.  People’s internet records can contain the apps they have used, the domains they have visited (wired.co.uk, for example, but not this specific article), IP addresses, when internet use starts and finishes, and the amount of data that is transferred to and from a device. While not containing the content of what people are viewing, metadata can still be hugely revealing. Amongst other things it can reveal health information, political leanings and personal interests. Documents from the Home Office say “there is no single set of data that constitutes an ICR” and that the logs are likely to be held by people’s internet service providers.   When passed five years ago, many aspects of the legislation were controversial – and ICRs were high on the list. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden called the law “the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy”. Since then the scope of the legislation has been expanded to include more organisations. Lawsuits have followed – both succeeding and failing – to challenge the enormous quantity of data being collected.'

'Wolf in watchdog's clothing': India's new digital media laws spark fears for freedoms

The Guardian 11.03.21

India exits the democracy club:

‘Not long before he was elected as India’s prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi spoke of his dreams of a “digital India”, where “access to information knows no barriers”.  But this week, unprecedented barriers on every form of digital content, from online news to social media and films and television on streaming platforms, came into force, making India’s digital realm one of the most heavily regulated of any major democracy. The series of sweeping new IT rules bring almost everything that happens online under a mechanism of government regulation, including giving the government powers to remove “objectionable” online content and erasing people’s right to privacy on social media and encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp…  Freedom of the press and freedom of expression has been heavily curtailed since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, with mainstream media largely within the government’s grasp, but it is online news platforms who have become one of the last bastions of independent journalism.  Social media, such as Twitter, is also used as a vital organising and information tool for anti-government actions, such as the huge farmers’ protests which have been going on in India since November. In turn, the government has attempted to control the platforms, by demanding for example that Twitter remove thousands of accounts critical of the government and threatening their staff with arrest if the company did not comply.’

Bangladesh bought phone-hacking tools from Israel, documents show

Al Jazeera 08.03.21

Backdoor deals between repressive regimes and Israel are open to investigation:

‘Documents obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) and Israeli newspaper Haaretz reveal how the Bangladesh government spent at least $330,000 on phone-hacking equipment made by an Israeli company, even though the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.  Developed by the Cellebrite security firm, UFED is a product that is capable of accessing and extracting data from a wide range of mobile phones. Its ability to hack encrypted phone data has worried civil rights campaigners, who have long called for its use to be more strictly regulated…  Bangladesh has faced international criticism over its 2018 Digital Security Act (DSA), which gives security forces broad powers to arrest and detain journalists and political activists who are critical of the state online.’

Naomi Klein: how big tech helps India target climate activists

The Guardian 04.03.21

Google and Facebook follow government censorship lines so that profits are left undisturbed in highly lucrative market:’

‘Many US tech executives regret early decisions, made under public and worker pressure, to refuse to cooperate with China’s apparatus of mass surveillance and censorship – an ethical choice, but one that cost companies like Google access to a staggeringly large, lucrative market. These companies appear unwilling to make the same kind of choice again. As the Wall Street Journal reported last August, “India has more Facebook and WhatsApp users than any other country, and Facebook has chosen it as the market in which to introduce payments, encryption and initiatives to tie its products together in new ways that [CEO Mark] Zuckerberg has said will occupy Facebook for the next decade.”  For tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Zoom, India under Modi has heralded a harsh moment of truth. In North America and Europe, these companies are going to great lengths to show that they can be trusted to regulate hate speech and harmful conspiracies on their platforms while protecting the freedom to speak, debate, and disagree that is integral to any healthy society. But in India, where helping governments hunt and imprison peaceful activists and amplify hate appears to be the price of access to a huge and growing market, “all of those arguments have gone out the window,” one activist told me. And for a simple reason: “They are profiting from this harm.”’

China’s ‘Sharp Eyes’ Program Aims to Surveil 100% of Public Space

OneZero 03.03.21

When the districts and communities themselves slavishly spy on their neighbours:

‘Much of the funding for these various surveillance schemes comes from the central government, but regional municipalities and cities also foot the bill for local networks of cameras. At times, counties’ surveillance spending far outstrips other municipal services. An analysis of more than 76,000 government procurement notices by ChinaFile showed that surveillance spending has become a significant portion of many cities’ budgets.  In some instances, Chinese citizens even crowdfund these surveillance measures. In the Shandong province, residents of the small city of Linyi raised an additional 13 million yuan, or $2 million, to help support the full coverage of video surveillance cameras.’

The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19

The Guardian 22.02.21

The UN chief gives his two cents on global human rights abuses since Covid.  It looks like most nations have been favouring a totalitarian approach and a total disregard for human rights:

‘The virus is also infecting political and civil rights, and further shrinking civic space. Using the pandemic as a pretext, authorities in some countries have deployed heavy-handed security responses and emergency measures to crush dissent, criminalise basic freedoms, silence independent reporting and restrict the activities of nongovernmental organisations.  Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, political activists – even medical professionals – have been detained, prosecuted and subjected to intimidation and surveillance for criticising government responses to the pandemic. Pandemic-related restrictions have been used to subvert electoral processes and weaken opposition voices.’

Facebook unfriends Australia: news sites go dark in content row

REUTERS 18.02.21

It looks like war is brewing between Australia and the tech giants, starting with the government wanting Goggle to pay for news content.  Nothing like bullying to get bills demolished it seems:

‘Australians woke to empty news feeds on their Facebook Inc pages on Thursday after the social media giant blocked all media content in a surprise and dramatic escalation of a dispute with the government over paying for content…  “These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behaviour of Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”  Facebook’s dramatic move represents a split from Alphabet Inc-owned Google after they joined together for years to campaign against the laws. Both had threatened to cancel services in Australia, but Google has instead sealed preemptive deals with several outlets in recent days.’

Amazon documents reveal company’s secret strategy to dodge India’s regulators

REUTERS 17.02.21

Leaked memos show the extent of Amazon striving to undercut small companies in India through predatory tactics:

‘Amazon favored big sellers on its India platform – and used them to maneuver around rules meant to protect the country's small retailers from getting crushed by e-commerce giants, internal documents show. As one presentation urged: “Test the Boundaries of what is allowed by law.”…  The briefing note for Carney is contained in hundreds of internal Amazon documents that are reported here for the first time. News of their contents could deepen the risks facing the company as it encounters intensifying government scrutiny in one of its fastest-growing markets. The documents lay bare that for years, Amazon has been giving preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its India platform, publicly misrepresented its ties with the sellers and used them to circumvent increasingly tough regulatory restrictions here.’

Farmers’ Protest in India – Price of Failure Will Be immense

Off-Guardian 13.02.21

Agri-tech business is set to swallow farm holders in a repugnantly aggressive way.  I really hope that farmers in India win this confrontation and that the government and the IMF bow out of this arena:

‘India was directed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies, run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops for export to earn foreign exchange. Part of the strategy would also involve changing land laws so that land could be sold and amalgamated for industrial-scale farming.  The plan was for foreign corporations to capture the sector, with the aforementioned policies having effectively weakened or displaced independent cultivators.  To date, this process has been slow but the recent legislation could finally deliver a knock-out blow to tens of millions of farmers and give what the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Facebook, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midlands, Louis Dreyfus, Bunge and the global agritech, seed and agrochemical corporations have wanted all along. It will also serve the retail/agribusiness/logistics interests of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and its sixth richest, Gautam Adani. During their ongoing protests, farmers have been teargassed, smeared and beaten. Journalist Satya Sagar notes that government advisors fear that seeming to appear weak with the agitating farmers would not sit well with foreign agrifood investors and could stop the flow of big money into the sector – and the economy as a whole.’

India to recruit online snitches to report ‘anti-national’ activities to police

The Independent 13.02.21

Witch-hunt season is now open in India:

‘The Indian government has launched a programme to identify online activities deemed to work against the “sovereignty of the nation," inviting people to register as “cyber volunteers" in a move that has fuelled rights groups' fears of online vigilantism…  Besides unlawful content such as child pornography, the list includes content deemed to be against the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence and security of the state, and friendly relations with foreign nations, without providing any definition into what constitutes such offences…  “This entire system seems to give ordinary citizens almost an incentive or a route to file complaints that may or may not be legally valid,” Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist tells The Independent.’

Want AT&T to Fix Your Internet? Try Taking Out a $10,000 Newspaper Ad

Gizmodo 12.02.21

For a rich country, the US has a serious problem with internet connectivity.  This might unfortunately drive users to use Starlink and clog up the skies with more satellites:

‘Last October, AT&T announced that it would no longer offer DSL as a new service. Those already paying for DSL, like Epstein, would be able to keep their service, but the company would no longer sell DSL plans. This is a major problem, because for many Americans, AT&T DSL is their only internet provider option.  A joint report from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDLA) revealed that AT&T has been connecting newer and more affluent neighborhoods to fiber and only laying fiber foundation in some unserved and underserved areas. Epstein’s case seems to be a textbook example of this happening.’ 

The Big Tech takeover of agriculture is dangerous

Al Jazeera 05.02.21

Couldn’t agree more.  It started with Wholefoods being acquired by Amazon, which should never have been allowed:

‘In China, Alibaba has been leading a wave of investments and takeovers by technology companies in the food system, most recently spending $3.6bn to acquire the country’s largest chain of hypermarkets. In India, similar moves are being made by companies like Amazon and Facebook, through the backdoor of e-commerce, to take over food distribution and retail in partnership with India’s wealthiest tycoons and the backing of the central government’s reforms.  Big Tech’s ambitions with food and agriculture go beyond China and India. They are global and extend to all aspects of the food system, including what is being called digital agriculture. While some see in this a means to bring new technologies to farming, technology does not develop in a bubble. It is shaped by money and power both of which the technology sector currently enjoys…  For the corporations investing in digital agriculture, the objective is to integrate millions of farmers into a vast, centrally controlled digital network. Once integrated, they will be heavily encouraged – if not obligated – to buy their products and to supply them with agricultural commodities, all of this functioning through the mobile money systems being developed by the same companies.’

Google launches platform in Australia with news it has paid for

Al Jazeera 05.02.21

In order to bypass payment to news publishers in Australia, as mandated by the government, Google has set up its own news website for paid news content:

‘Tech giant Google on Friday launched a platform in Australia offering news it has paid for, striking its own content deals with publishers in a drive to show that legislation proposed by Canberra to enforce payments is unnecessary.’

India's Future likens Amazon's bid to stall retail deal to 'ruthless' Alexander the Great

REUTERS 31.01.21

Amazon’s tactics likened to Alexander the Great’s scorched earth policy.  The company really wants to rule the world of e-commerce:

‘Amazon, locked in protracted legal disputes with Future, alleges the Indian firm violated contracts by agreeing to sell its retail assets to Reliance Industries last year. Future denies wrongdoing.  The two sides this week traded barbs in a New Delhi court, the latest legal case where Amazon is seeking to block the sale. India’s second-largest retailer says the deal is critical for the survival of its 1,700 stores and thousands of employees.  Dubbing it a corporate battle “for supremacy over Indian customers”, Biyani’s staff e-mail late on Friday said Amazon was “playing the dog in the manger”.  Taking a further dig at Amazon, he said the “vexatious litigation and harassment makes one wonder about the similarity in ruthless ambition to scorch the earth akin to the Greek Alexander - after all, they are inspired to name their product as Alexa”.  “History tells us that Alexander conquered large parts of the world but failed in India.”’

Hundreds protest against Amazon expansion

Al Jazeera 30.01.21

Amazon is unwanted in many part in France:

‘Among the places where demonstrators staged rallies on Saturday was the small southern town of Fournes near Pont-du-Gard, a World Heritage site, where the United States-based company plans to set up a 38,000-square-metre (400,000-square-feet) facility…  “It’s two years that the citizens of Fournes and its surroundings have fought against the installation of a giant Amazon warehouse,” said Raphael Pradeau, spokesman of French citizens’ activist group Attac.  “At the start they were a bit alone against everyone, but they have succeeded in halting the project thanks to legal recourse,” he added.  “We want to show that these are not small isolated fights and that we can mobilise hundreds of people who are ready to return to stop the work,” said Pradeau.’

Google says to block search engine in Australia if forced to pay for news

REUTERS 22.01.21

Google threatens to withdraw from Australia, one of its biggest ads revenue market, if forced to pay for news content.  Would be interesting to see the outcome:

‘Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that would force it and Facebook Inc to pay media companies for the right to use their content…  Australia is on course to pass laws that would make tech giants negotiate payments with local publishers and broadcasters for content included in search results or news feeds. If they cannot strike a deal, a government-appointed arbitrator will decide the price.  “Coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the Code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia,” Mel Silva, managing director for Australia and New Zealand, told a senate committee…  Australia announced the legislation last month after an investigation found Google and social media giant Facebook held too much market power in the media industry, a situation it said posed a potential threat to a well-functioning democracy.’

Google's Finally Giving the Little Guys a Cut

Gizmodo 21.01.21

In France, publishers with certified journalists will get a cut through ad revenues from the tech giants:

‘Among a fair share of other semi-controversial statutes, one sticking point for the tech companies of the world was a new set of legal rights allowing publishers to go after players like Facebook, Google, and their ilk if they fail to offer a “fair and proportionate remuneration” for the “digital use” of their press assets.  It’s the type of legal requirement that seems tricky to wiggle out of, but Google’s had a lot of practice as of late. When authorities in Spain enacted a similar set of anti-competitive copyright measures way back in 2012, Google chose to shut down Google News for the entire country instead of complying. When Google largely eschewed the German version of these mandates that the country put into practice in 2013, major publishers quickly realized that boycotting Google’s adtech business would cause their own to plunge—and they were better off giving up their content for free rather than waging that war. Years later, when a German publisher consortium ended up taking Google to court over some of these—I’ll just say it—extrortion-y tactics, German justice officials sided with the company anyway.   And that’s not even touching on the kerfuffle happening in Australia right now over its own proposed copyrighting mandate—an idea that Google is doing its darndest to lobby against. So, you can kind of see why the company’s choice to finally cave in one of these major markets is a big shift.’ 

Saudi Crown Prince Asks, Answers What if a City, But It's a 105-Mile Line

Gizmodo 12.01.21

The future AI city is a line and is attracting big investments.  A last-ditch attempt to change the regime’s image?:

‘In a promotional video from the Saudi government-run Center for International Communication posted this Sunday, Salman pondered the issues plaguing our world today: Why do people spend years of their lives commuting? Where will the estimated 1 billion people displaced by climate change by 2050 relocate? Why do millions die every year of air pollution and car accidents every year? …  We need to transform the concept of a conventional city into that of a futuristic one,” Salman said in the video. “Today, as the chairman of the board of directors of Neom, I present to you The Line. A city of a million residents with a length of 170 kilometers that preserves 95 percent of nature within NEOM”…  According to Bloomberg, Saudi officials project the Line will cost around $100-$200 billion of the $500 billion planned to be spent on Neom and will have a population of 1 million with 380,000 jobs by the year 2030. It will have one of the biggest airports in the world for some reason, which seems like a strange addition to a supposedly climate-friendly city.’

The Democrat-Big Tech censorship alliance just ran a masterclass in media control for dictators around the world

RT 09.01.21

Censorship is dictatorship.  No two ways about it:

‘Cutting off an opponent’s access to the media is step one in the regime change playbook, and the US government would know, having written several of them. When US-sponsored protesters deposed Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, the first building they seized after parliament was a TV station. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan avoided a communications blackout by using FaceTime to address the public during an attempted coup against him in 2016. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak cut off internet access as protesters organized against him in 2011. Every coup or counter-coup hinges on media control, and the only difference between the deplatforming of Trump and the examples above are that for the first time, foreign regime-change strategies are being openly deployed by Americans, against Americans, in America.’

Twitter, Facebook freeze Trump accounts as tech giants respond to storming of U.S. Capitol

REUTERS 06.01.21

Tech social media freezes Trump’s account for reasons of incitement to violence.  Calls are being made to remove him completely:

‘Twitter locked Trump’s account until 12 hours after he deletes those tweets and a video in which he alleged the presidential election was fraudulent and urged protesters to go home. If the tweets are not deleted, the account will remain locked.  Facebook and YouTube, owned by Alphabet’s Google, likewise removed the video.  Facebook later said it would block Trump’s page from posting for 24 hours, with vice president of integrity Guy Rosen tweeting the video “contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”  The company said in a blog post that it would ban calls to bring weapons to locations across the country and would remove any support for the events at the Capitol.’

U.S. tech giants face 6-10% fines as EU set rules to curb their power

REUTERS 15.12.20

Expect a very long and protracted litigation:

‘Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet unit Google may have to change their business practices in Europe or face hefty fines between 6-10% under new draft EU rules to be announced on Tuesday…  The draft rules need to reconcile with the demands of EU countries and EU lawmakers, some of which have pushed for tougher laws while others are concerned about regulatory over-reach and the impact on innovation.  Tech companies, which have called for proportionate and balanced laws, are expected to take advantage of this split to lobby for weaker rules, with the final draft expected in the coming months or even years.’

US’s FTC probes how social media giants use personal data

Al Jazeera 15.12.20

FTC wants to know how big tech identifies us.  Good:

‘The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media and video-streaming companies about how they use the personal information that they collect on their users, the United States’s agency said on Monday.  In addition to Facebook and Twitter, the orders requesting data were sent to Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp, Amazon.com, China’s ByteDance unit TikTok, Discord, Reddit, Snapchat’s parent company, and Google subsidiary YouTube.‘

Online harms bill: firms may face multibillion-pound fines for illegal content

The Guardian 15.12.20

Bg tech is facing a mountain of legal challenges:

‘The online harms bill, first proposed by Theresa May’s government in April 2019, sets out strict new guidelines governing removal of illegal content such as child sexual abuse, terrorist material and media that promotes suicide, which sites must obey or face being blocked in the UK.  It also requires platforms to abide by a new code of conduct that sets out their responsibilities towards children. The bill requires the most popular sites to set their own terms and conditions, and face fines if they fail to stick to them…   However, Adam Hadley, director of the Online Harms Foundation, described the proposals as “at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive”. He said: “Bad actors such as terrorists are more likely to be found on smaller platforms and websites they build and control themselves – not the big tech platforms the government’s proposals are targeting.  “Creating onerous financial penalties on tech companies only incentivises overzealous removal of content, leading to content that is not illegal being removed and pushing conspiracy theorists on to self-owned underground platforms, where their views cannot be challenged or easily monitored.”'

Sci-fi surveillance: Europe's secretive push into biometric technology

The Guardian 10.12.20

Big bucks to be made after ‘terror/pandemic’ events:

‘Large-scale investment in security by the EU began in the early 2000s, after 9/11, the invasion of Iraq and an increase in domestic terror attacks. EU leaders, concerned about further strikes as well as organised crime gangs and securing borders, vastly expanded cooperation with the European defence industry. In 2004, EU institutions launched a security research programme by bringing together senior officials from national interior ministries and law enforcement agencies alongside multinational weapons and IT corporations such as BAE Systems, Finmeccanica (now Leonardo), Siemens, and the French defence and aerospace company Thales. This programme would lay the groundwork for Horizon 2020’s security funding, which increasingly became focused on the development of biometric and other surveillance technologies…  

For the next seven years (2021–27), Horizon 2020 will be rebadged Horizon Europe, with an expected overall budget of €86bn and security funding of approximately €1.3bn.  However, a complementary budget of at least €8bn will go towards research and development of military technologies. The explicit aim is to fund dual-use technologies with civilian and military applications, and a number of preliminary projects have explored unmanned drone “swarms” and other surveillance devices.  The fight against Covid-19 has further accelerated a push by European governments to develop surveillance technologies, including unprecedented use of drone surveillance, data tracking, facial recognition and other forms of biometrics for quarantine enforcement and contact-tracing. Poland, for example, has launched an app that asks quarantined citizens to upload selfies throughout the day to prove they are staying home. The app relies on geolocation and facial recognition technology and notifies the police when users fail to respond.’

Facebook faces U.S. lawsuits that could force sale of Instagram, WhatsApp

REUTERS 09.12.20

That would be wonderful if successful:

‘Facebook Inc could be forced to sell its prized assets WhatsApp and Instagram after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state filed lawsuits against the social media company, saying it used a “buy or bury” strategy to snap up rivals and keep smaller competitors at bay.  With the filing of the twin lawsuits on Wednesday, Facebook becomes the second big tech company to face a major legal challenge this year after the U.S. Justice Department sued Alphabet Inc’s Google in October, accusing the $1 trillion company of using its market power to fend off rivals.  The lawsuits highlight the growing bipartisan consensus to hold Big Tech accountable for its business practices and mark a rare moment of agreement between the Trump administration and Democrats, some of whom have advocated breaking up both Google and Facebook.’

More on this this from The Verge.

Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report

The Guardian 09.12.20

The road to repressive regimes has been paved:

‘“Our research reflects a deepening civic space crisis across the globe and highlights how governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to further curtail rights, including by passing legislation to criminalise speech”…  “The expansion of surveillance is also of concern. China, which already had an extensive surveillance industry, used the pandemic to expand that technology, and in Armenia and Israel, the governments took monitoring measures far beyond what is acceptable under international human rights law.”  Civicus Monitor is calling for governments to work with civil society and human rights defenders “to halt this downward spiral and push back against the authoritarian forces at work”.’

Vietnam: Facebook and Google 'complicit' in censorship

BBC 01.12.20

Tech giants wishing to enjoy huge market shares in some countries become the new NSA engine:

'Facebook and Google have aided the Vietnamese government in censoring criticism and repressing dissent, says rights group Amnesty.  In a new report, the group accuses the tech giants of "far-reaching complicity" by blocking content deemed critical of authorities…  "In the last decade, the right to freedom of expression flourished on Facebook and YouTube in Vietnam. More recently, however, authorities began focusing on peaceful online expression as an existential threat to the regime," said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for campaigns.   "Today these platforms have become hunting grounds for censors, military cyber-troops and state-sponsored trolls. The platforms themselves are not merely letting it happen - they're increasingly complicit”…  Vietnam is one of the biggest markets in South East Asia for tech firms.  In 2018, Facebook's revenue from Vietnam was nearly $1bn (£750m) - almost one third of its revenue from South East Asia - according to industry estimates quoted by Amnesty. Google is said to have earned $475m during the same period, primarily from YouTube advertising.’ 

Britain bans new Huawei 5G kit installation from September 2021

REUTERS 30.11.20

UK ban on Huawei comes into effect in one year but operators are banned to buy its equipment by the end of this year:

‘Monday’s announcement comes ahead of a debate over new telecoms legislation in parliament and fleshes out the timeline for equipment removal.  “I am setting out a clear path for the complete removal of high risk vendors from our 5G networks,” digital minister Oliver Dowden said in a statement.  “This will be done through new and unprecedented powers to identify and ban telecoms equipment which poses a threat to our national security.”’

New regulator DMU could ‘suspend, block and reverse’ decisions by Facebook and Google, government says

The Independent 27.11.20

A new technology regulator in the UK aims to take tech giants for antitrust and data violations:

‘The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has said it will create a Digital Markets Unit (DMU), which will be set up under the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and work with Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office.  “There is growing consensus in the UK and abroad that the concentration of power among a small number of tech companies is curtailing growth of the sector, reducing innovation and having negative impacts on the people and businesses that rely on them,” Oliver Dowden, the digital secretary, said.  Under the new code, platforms that are funded by digital advertising could have to be more transparent about the services they provide and how they are using consumers’ data…  “The government’s latest move to create a healthy environment for tech companies, by setting up a dedicated Digital Markets Unit, is exactly what’s needed in order for the UK to be truly pro-tech, innovative and lead in the digital age,” said Stephen Kelly, chair of the Tech Nation consultancy.  “As tech becomes increasingly core at the heart of everyday life, these measures are necessary to ensure that the government and regulators are ahead of the digital change curve, bringing new opportunities to early stage innovative businesses and greater benefits to consumers.”’

More in-depth reporting from TechCrunch on this issue.

Technology is the new border enforcer, and it discriminates

Al Jazeera 23.11.20

Technology is as discriminatory as its developers:

‘On November 10, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Discrimination released a critical new report on racial and xenophobic discrimination, emerging digital technologies, and immigration enforcement. Supported by an investigation by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) and other researchers, the report shows the far reaching ramifications of technological experiments on marginalised communities crossing borders.  Despite popular public perception that technology is objective and perhaps less brutal and more neutral than humans, its use in border policing deepens discrimination and leads to tragic loss of life.’

UN warns of impact of smart borders on refugees: ‘Data collection isn't apolitical’ 

The Guardian 11.11.20

Of course it’s biased and of little value, except for private data collection:

‘The UN’s special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Prof Tendayi Achiume, said digital technologies can be unfair and regularly breach human rights. In her new report, she has called for a moratorium on the use of certain surveillance technologies…  “One of the key messages of the report is that we have to be paying very close attention to the disparate impact of this technology and not just assuming that because it’s technology, it’s going to be fair or be neutral or objective in some way…  You see that there isn’t a similar sense of outrage when digital technologies are deployed to serve the same function … if you actually look at some of the statistics, and if you look at some of the research, which I cite in my report, it turns out that border deaths have increased in places where smart borders have been implemented”…  

Last year the UN’s World Food Programme partnered with Palantir Technologies, a data mining company, on a $45m (£34m) contract, sharing the data of 92 million aid recipients.  “Data collection is not an apolitical exercise,” notes Achiume’s report, “especially when powerful global north actors collect information on vulnerable populations with no regulated methods of oversights and accountability.”  Covid-19 has also accelerated “biosurveillance” – focused on tracking people’s movements and health. Biosurveillance has everyday uses, such as the “track and trace” app in the UK, but there are concerns about the regulation of large-scale data harvested from populations.  One example is the “Covi-Pass”, a health passport developed by Mastercard and Gavi, a private-public health alliance, that is reportedly due to be rolled out across west Africa. The UN report highlighted the implications of such passports for freedom of movement, “especially for refugees”.’

China to clamp down on internet giants

BBC 11.11.20

The move from the CCP is a slap on the wrist for companies who may become ‘too big to fail’ or too huge to be controlled:

‘China has proposed new regulations aimed at curbing the power of its biggest internet companies.   The regulations suggest increasing unease in Beijing with the growing influence of digital platforms.   The new rules could affect homegrown tech giants like Alibaba, Ant Group and Tencent, as well as food delivery platform Meituan.   The move comes as the EU and the US are also seeking to curb the power of internet giants…  The 22-page draft by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) will for the first attempt to define anti-competitive behaviour for the tech sector.  The new rules will attempt to stop companies from sharing sensitive consumer data, teaming up to squeeze out smaller rivals and selling at a loss to eliminate competitors.’ 

Big Tech crackdown: EU files antitrust charges against Amazon

Al Jazeera 10.11.20

None too soon:

‘EU antitrust enforcers on Tuesday accused Amazon of using data to gain an unfair advantage over merchants using the e-commerce giant’s platform… Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice president of the EU group A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and commissioner in charge of competition, said it is not a problem that Amazon is a successful business but “our concern is very specific business conduct which appears to distort genuine competition”.’

More on this story.

Brazilian telecoms snub U.S. official over Huawei 5G pressure

REUTERS 06.11.20

US clout is on the wane as Brazil declares itself for Huawei:

‘Brazil’s top four telecom companies have decide not to meet with a visiting senior U.S. official who has advocated excluding China’s Huawei Technologies Co [HWT.UL] from the Brazilian 5G equipment market, an industry source said on Friday… Telefonica Brasil SA, Grupo Oi SA, TIM Participações SA, controlled by Telecom Italia SpA and Claro, owned by Mexico’s America Movil, each control between 19% and 29% of Brazil’s wireless market.  They already use Huawei equipment in preparation for the auctioning of spectrum concessions next year in Brazil and do not support a ban on Huawei sought by the U.S. government.’

Japan to join forces with U.S., Europe in regulating Big Tech firms: antitrust watchdog head

REUTERS 19.10.20

More forces make a show of joining the anti trust probe into big tech:

‘Japan will join forces with the United States and Europe to take on any market abuses by the four Big Tech companies, the new head of its antitrust watchdog said on Monday, a sign Tokyo will join global efforts to regulate digital platform operators…  Japan is laying the groundwork to regulate platform operators. Among them are big tech giants dubbed "GAFA" - Google, Apple, Amazon AMZN.O and Facebook FB.O - that face various antitrust probes in western nations.’

EU needs long-term plan to tackle 5G fake news, 15 EU countries say in joint call

REUTERS 19.10.20

Wouldn’t it be much easier to do an independent study on 5G health effects, rather than dump all concerns into a conspiracy bag?:

‘The European Union needs to come up with a strategy to counter disinformation about 5G technology or risk false claims derailing its economic recovery and digital goals, a group of 15 countries including Poland and Sweden said.  Conspiracy theories that the novel coronavirus may be linked to the wireless technology have led to the torching of mobile phone masts in 10 European countries and assaults on maintenance workers in recent months.’

Governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to restrict internet freedom

Technology Review 14.10.20

Disgusting developments worldwide:

‘In at least 20 countries, the pandemic was cited as a reason to introduce sweeping new restrictions on speech and arrest online critics. In 28, governments blocked websites or forced outlets, users, or platforms to censor information in order to suppress critical reporting, unfavorable health statistics or other content related to the coronavirus. In at least 45 of the countries studied, people were arrested as a result of their online posts about covid-19.  Many countries are also conducting increasingly sweeping surveillance of their populations, with contact tracing or quarantine compliance apps particularly ripe for abuse in places like Bahrain, India, and Russia. In China, the authorities used high- and low-tech tools to not just manage the outbreak of the coronavirus, but also to stop people from sharing information and challenge the official narrative…  

The report says “the internet freedom movement must raise its ambitions from simply demanding policies that respect basic rights, to actually building robust governance structures that enshrine and enforce those protections.” The authors provide a list of recommendations, including calling for policymakers to introduce robust data privacy laws and protect encryption.   It also calls for them to take steps to ensure an internet connection is accessible and affordable for all, especially in the light of jobs and schooling moving online. The report calls for private companies to ensure “fair and transparent” content moderation while resisting government efforts to ban digital services or shut down internet connectivity. Crucially, it says it’s time for governments to bolster “cyber diplomacy” to defend a free and open internet, coming up with rules to restrict the export of repressive technologies.’

Huawei: 'Clear evidence of collusion' with Chinese Communist Party

BBC 08.10.20

More conflict ahead in light of new inquiry:

‘The House of Commons defence committee based its findings on the testimony of academics, cyber-security experts and telecom industry insiders, among others. These included executives from Huawei itself, as well as some long-term critics of the company…  "It is clear that Huawei is strongly linked to the Chinese state and the Chinese Communist Party, despite its statements to the contrary," the committee concludes.  "This is evidenced by its ownership model and the subsidies it has received.”'

Google drops Australia from News Showcase launch amid regulator rancour 

REUTERS 02.10.20

Australia’s regulators are squeezing Google over royalty payment for news content.  Facebook, another news publisher, should follow suit:

'Google has postponed the Australian roll-out of News Showcase citing regulatory complications, just three months after announcing the product, as the U.S. internet giant grapples with one of the most audacious attempts to police its activities.  After naming Australia, Germany and Brazil as markets where it would start paying publishers to feature their news, the Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O unit dropped Australia from the product's launch this week because its antitrust body has since pushed for laws forcing Google to pay royalties for content industry-wide.  Google said it has therefore “paused” contracts with five local publishers whose news was due to feature on News Showcase, which presents content on swipeable cards it dubs story panels…  A month after Google announced content deals in Australia, Germany and Brazil, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it may bring in arbitrators to decide how much the U.S. company and social media giant Facebook Inc FB.O should pay for news that appears on their sites.  Facebook responded by saying it might pull all news items from its Australian web pages. Google has said the ACCC’s stance has put its flagship search engine under threat.’

Thailand takes first legal action against Facebook, Twitter over content

WIRED 24.09.20

When the people mass protest that the monarchy has to go and have the means to send that message, the government clamps down on social media.  A typical example from ‘The Social Dilemna’ on how social media divides countries (Netflix):

‘Thailand began legal action on Thursday against Facebook FB.O and Twitter TWTR.N for ignoring requests to take down content, in its first such move against major internet firms.  The digital ministry filed legal complaints with cybercrime police after the two social media companies missed 15-day deadlines to comply fully with court-issued takedown orders from Aug. 27, the digital minister, Puttipong Punnakanta, said…  Thailand has a tough lese majeste law that prohibits insulting the monarchy. The Computer Crime Act, which outlaws the uploading of information that is false or affects national security, has also been used to prosecute online criticism of the royal family… The ministry also filed separate cybercrime complaints against five people who it said criticised the monarchy on Facebook and Twitter during a major anti-government demonstration at the weekend, Puttipong said.’

UK awards border contract to firm criticised over role in US deportations

The Guardian 17.09.20

Peter Thiel’s Palantir firm is earning big bucks from the UK:

‘The government has awarded oversight of the UK’s post-Brexit border and customs data to Palantir, an American tech firm notorious for assisting the Trump administration’s drive to deport migrants from the US.  Palantir, whose co-founder Peter Thiel has been a vocal supporter of Trump, was formally awarded a contract last week to manage the data analytics and architecture of the UK’s new “border flow tool”, which will collate data on the transit of goods and customs from 31 December, according to a Cabinet Office document seen by the Guardian…  The document describes how a Cabinet Office working group, the border and protocol delivery group, is creating a “border impact centre” in Whitehall to assess issues with customs and the movement of goods after 31 December.  “Services are being procured from Palantir, a leader in data analytics, to provide the data infrastructure and analytics capabilities to support the development of a border flow tool,” the document states.’

China attempts to take lead on global data security: Report

Al Jazeera 08.09.20

With all the tech trade wars taking place between China and the US, the country establishes rules for data and cyber protections:

'Under its "Global Initiative on Data Security," China would call on all countries to handle data security in a "comprehensive, objective and evidence-based manner," the Journal said on Monday, citing a draft that it had reviewed.  The initiative would urge countries to oppose "mass surveillance against other states" and call on tech companies not to install "back doors in their products and services to illegally obtain users' data, control or manipulate users’ systems and devices”.'

 China Is Gunning To Be The World Leader In AI Chips While Restricting Exports

Forbes 31.08.20

Copyrights are being tightened in China:

'Chinese companies are criticized for only filing patents in their home country and this leads to some speculation about how valuable these patent filings are. As seen in the graph above, Cambricon is a notable exception to these criticisms, since a substantial portion of its portfolio is made up of patents filed for in the U.S. or using the World Intellectual Property Organization international application. Even if Chinese patent filings weren’t included—and they most certainly should be—Cambricon would still have more U.S. and international filings in this area than Nvidia. The U.S. company does have a larger patent portfolio than Cambricon overall, but only a portion of it covers AI acceleration hardware… The Chinese government’s new export restrictions will make that even more challenging. Cambricon and its brethren have a home field advantage in China, but will face an uphill struggle to overcome not only internal restrictions but foreign constraints such as the ones Huawei has encountered with Western governments. Chinese companies have an advantage with the stockpile of patents they’ve generated, but it remains to be seen if they can translate this into a stunning commercial success.’

China's new tech export controls could give Beijing a say in TikTok sale

REUTERS 30.08.20

China and US trade spat heats up with China now placing restrictions on whether its national companies can sell themselves to foreigners.  Does that mean TikTok had always been under the government’s thumb?

‘However, China late on Friday revised a list of technologies that are banned or restricted for export for the first time in 12 years and Cui Fan, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said the changes would apply to TikTok.   “If ByteDance plans to export related technologies, it should go through the licensing procedures,” Cui said in an interview with Xinhua published on Saturday. China’s Ministry of Commerce added 23 items - including technologies such as personal information push services based on data analysis and artificial intelligence interactive interface technology - to the restricted list.   It can take up to 30 days to obtain preliminary approval to export the technology.   TikTok’s secret weapon is believed to be its recommendation engine that keeps users glued to their screens. This engine, or algorithm, powers TikTok’s “For You” page, which recommends the next video to watch based on an analysis of your behaviour.   Cui noted that ByteDance’s development overseas had relied on its domestic technology that provided the core algorithm and said the company may need to transfer software codes or usage rights to the new owner of TikTok from China to overseas.’ 

The new media elite will stop at nothing to protect their profits. They’re rapacious monopolists, and we are their food

RT 26.08.20 

Poaching policy makers and lobbying governments, the tech industry wants a guaranteed foothold to preserve its profits:

‘In recent weeks, there has been heightened media concern that Facebook is cultivating a close relationship between government and big tech monopolies by poaching and recruiting former senior policy officials. The findings reveal a systematic hiring of government insiders with knowledge of regulation by offering them huge incentives to join…  The attack on TikTok is driven by the threat it poses to Facebook. It has gained more than 100 million US users and, in the first quarter of 2020, became the most downloaded app in a single quarter, according to research firm Sensor Tower.  The pattern and behaviour of the tech giants should by now be obvious and not surprising. Even with masks on you should be able to smell the coffee. This is not maverick behaviour which might appear to be out of character with the cool, woke moralistic image these tech giants like to project. This is nothing more than old-fashioned monopolistic lobbying and protectionism, which makes the efforts of old media barons like Rupert Murdoch look tame.  

It’s time the world (and especially younger tech users) recognised that these tech giants and their increasing insider government and non-governmental networks are just as ruthless and rapacious as yesterday’s robber-barons and bankers.  This is the new elite, dressed in its rainbow colours and diversity values, but who will do whatever it takes to protect their profits today and tomorrow. They are not our friends. Indeed, we are their food. The sooner we call their bluff the better. In fact, it is the first step to ensuring some sort of control can be exercised over their ever-growing financial and networked empires.’

Trump orders ByteDance to divest interest in U.S. TikTok operations within 90 days

REUTERS 15.08.20

Trump is a study of how to have your cake and eat it by eliminating all foreign tech rivals that threaten US dominance:

‘Trump’s latest move comes on top of an executive order he issued last week that would prohibit certain transactions with TikTok unless ByteDance divests it within 45 days. ByteDance is already in talks to sell the North America, Australia and New Zealand operations of TikTok to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).   The new order adds to pressure for ByteDance to divest TikTok, and legally buttresses the U.S. government’s crackdown on the Chinese-owned social media app. It authorizes U.S. officials to inspect TikTok and ByteDance’s books and information systems to ensure the safety of personal data while the sale talks are ongoing.’ 

Trump: US firms must end links with TikTok and WeChat

BBC 07.08.20

The most important Chinese apps to be banned in the US (and elsewhere) as Trump’s rhetoric states they Chinese sources of surveillance.  It would also mean a ever increasing market size share for US tech giants::

‘The executive orders against the short-video sharing platform TikTok - owned by Chinese firm ByteDance - and the messaging service WeChat - owned by the Tencent conglomerate is the latest measure in an increasingly broad Trump administration campaign against China.  Earlier on Thursday, Washington announced recommendations that Chinese firms listed on US stock markets should be delisted unless they provided regulators with access to their audited accounts…  

In both executive orders, Mr Trump says he has found "additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain”.  He adds: "The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People's Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”  He refers to both apps as a "threat". Both orders say any unspecified "transactions" with the apps' Chinese owners or their subsidiaries will be “prohibited".  The orders cite legal authority from the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.’

Singapore to tag visitors with electronic monitoring devices to ensure Covid-19 quarantine compliance

RT 03.08.20

With 27 covid deaths in the country, this move is absolutely absurd:

‘Singapore announced on Monday that it will track incoming travelers coming from a select group of countries – including residents and citizens – with electronic monitoring devices, starting on August 11.  Authorities framed the trackers as a positive for travelers, noting they would allow recipients to self-isolate at home instead of quarantining in a government facility. New arrivals will be ordered to activate the devices upon reaching home, at which point they are programmed to alert the authorities should the user try to leave or tamper with the device.’

Facebook puts global block on Brazil's Bolsonaro supporters

REUTERS 01.08.20

When your social media gets threatened by fines over ‘hate speech’, your speech outlet is crushed.  Wouldn’t it be better if hateful comments are seen and condemned for what they are?:

‘Facebook said on Saturday it has put a global block on certain accounts controlled by supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro implicated in a fake news inquiry, a day after it was fined for not complying with a Supreme Court judge’s order to do so.   A spokesperson for Facebook said the order was “extreme” and threatens “freedom of expression outside of Brazil’s jurisdiction”, but said the company has agreed to the order.   “Given the threat of criminal liability to a local employee, at this point we see no other alternative than complying with the decision by blocking the accounts globally, while we appeal to the Supreme Court,” the spokesperson said.’ 

Apple removes thousands of game apps from China store: research firm

REUTERS 01.08.20

Apple submits to Chinese restrictions:

‘Apple Inc AAPL.N removed 29,800 apps from its Chinese app store on Saturday, including more than 26,000 games, according to data from research firm Qimai.   The takedowns come amid a crackdown on unlicensed games by Chinese authorities.’ 

Inside Huawei's 5G implosion

WIRED 21.07.20

Corporations allied with governments have little room to manoeuvre.  Still, nice to see Ed Brewster stumped:

‘“This has been a 20 month campaign orchestrated by the United States government against Huawei that’s seen us locked out of US supply chains, a propaganda campaign of personal attacks and dirty dossiers,” Brewster barks down the phone. “We’ve become a lightning rod for a global geopolitical and macroeconomic fight.”  Under the new terms of the UK ban, telecoms operators must remove all of Huawei’s components from their 5G mobile infrastructure by 2027, and are prohibited from purchasing the company's products from January 2021. Dimitris Mavrakis, 5G and mobile network infrastructure research director at ABI Research, thinks Huawei customers such as BT, EE and Vodafone won’t hang around. “UK operators can’t buy anything from Huawei after the end of the year but it is likely they will stop buying immediately,” he says. “This is a really big deal, a major concern. There will be an immediate effect on Huawei.”  Huawei plans to conduct a detailed review of what the UK’s decision will mean for the business, and plead its case – “we’ve got to talk to the government and understand their position, we want them to reconsider,” says Brewster – but influential minds in the British political establishment have already been made up.’

China’s health code system shows the cost of controlling coronavirus

WIRED 17.07.20

In China, your societal transactions depend on a QR code:

‘Chongqing-native Chen Yao also complains about the confusing self-reporting questions. After returning to Beijing from her hometown, she only listed Chongqing as her travel history, which led to failure in generating the code. “When I asked the guards ‘what am I doing wrong’, they laughed and said I also have to put Beijing in,” she says. “They thought it was obvious, but it is not.” There is little help or support for those struggling to generate the correct health codes or trying to investigate why their health code is yellow or red. “There is no human factor,” Chen, adds “when you go somewhere, they only want to see your green health code. They do not care about explanations.”  Such lack of support can also leave people hanging when it comes to bugs in the system. In early April, all Beijing health code users who had registered with foreign passports suddenly saw their codes turn yellow. Even though the bug was fixed in less than a day, it could prevent people from entering their offices or boarding the subway.’

Boris Johnson bans Huawei from UK’s 5G network in major U-turn

The Independent 14.07.20

Really good news.  Perhaps the delay in launching 5G in the UK would allow for an independent review of the network in the health, cybersecurity and environmental sectors:

‘The block on Huawei’s use of US-produced components and software was judged by the NCSC to be a “game-changer” making it unsafe to rely on the Chinese company for key elements of the hi-tech new mobile communications network which is expected to power UK GDP growth in future years…  Announcing the decision to the House of Commons, digital secretary Oliver Dowden acknowledged that the change in strategy will delay the introduction of 5G in the UK by around two to three years to 2027-28 at an additional cost of around £2bn. But the government is sticking by Mr Johnson’s 2025 target for national rollout of full-fibre broadband.’

Saudi Telecom extends Vodafone Egypt stake purchase for second time

REUTERS 12.07.20

When the deal through, would Saudi Arabia be able to control content in Egypt?:

‘Saudi Arabia’s largest telecoms operator Saudi Telecom Co (STC) (7010.SE) said on Sunday it would need another two months to complete the purchase of Vodafone Group’s 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt… Vodafone Egypt is the country’s biggest mobile operator with 44 million subscribers and a 40% market share.’

Exclusive: Italy pushes to end stalemate over single broadband network - source

REUTERS 11.07.20

Telecom infrastructure acquisition shows that national borders do not matter:

‘Italy has told state-controlled utility Enel (ENEI.MI) to reach a deal with Telecom Italia (TLIT.MI) by the end of July on plans to create a single broadband network for the country, a person close to the matter told Reuters on Saturday… TIM’s insistence on retaining control of any combined entity with Open Fiber has also held up a deal. But pressure for agreement has increased as TIM has held talks with U.S. private equity fund KKR about selling 40% of its secondary or last-mile copper and fibre network from the street cabinet to users’ homes.   With a binding offer expected before Aug. 4 that could see the U.S. fund taking a significant position in Italian telecoms infrastructure, the Treasury wants to nail down guarantees from Enel over the broadband network plan.’ 

Britain's COVID-19 app: The game changer that wasn’t

REUTERS 29.06.20

UK’s expensive tracing app falls flat on its face:

'The Oxford researchers believed that a smartphone app could help locate individuals who didn’t know they were infected – and by alerting them quickly could reduce and even halt the epidemic if enough people used it. Within days of the meeting, NHSX began the process of awarding millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts to develop such an app, government procurement records show.   In the weeks that followed, ministers seized on the technology as a route out of Britain’s lockdown that began on March 23. At a Downing Street coronavirus briefing on April 12, health secretary Matt Hancock announced that testing had begun on what he called the government’s “next step – a new NHS app for contact tracing.” 

Tech takeovers feed into China Cold War fears

BBC 19.06.20

‘Who owns what’ gets a belated spotlight:

‘The UK government is planning new measures to restrict foreign takeovers on national security grounds.   But security experts caution the UK has been late to the issue.   It comes amid growing concern about the risk of China buying high-tech companies, especially in the economic turmoil resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.  At the height of the crisis, a boardroom manoeuvre nearly went unnoticed.   And it flared up into a row that goes to the heart of on an increasingly contentious issue - has the UK failed to stop high-tech industries passing into Chinese hands?…  

And Elisabeth Braw, of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, believes many other cases in which cutting edge technology have shifted to China have gone unreported.   "The UK has been late to understand this," she says.   "It sort of goes against this idea that globalisation is a force for good, if you start saying, 'Well, we need to scrutinise foreign investors.’  But actually the world has changed and China is exploiting globalisation for its own gains.”'

UK ditches homegrown COVID-19 tracing app to use Google-Apple model

REUTERS 18.06.20

UK’s reputation is eroding:

‘Britain will switch to the Apple and Google model for its COVID-19 test-and-trace app, ditching an attempt to develop an app by itself after the homegrown system did not work well enough on Apple’s iPhone, the government said on Thursday.  The test-and-trace programme is key to reopening the country but has been dogged by problems. A smartphone app developed by the National Health Service (NHS) was initially expected to be rolled out nationwide in May but did not materialise.’

Coronavirus: Alarm over 'invasive' Kuwait and Bahrain contact-tracing apps

BBC 16.06.20

When tech meant to help save lives just doesn’t cut it anymore:

‘The country's data protection authority said the app represented a disproportionate intrusion into users' privacy given the low rate of infection there… Researchers at Amnesty's Security Lab carried out a technical analysis of 11 apps in Algeria, Bahrain, France, Iceland, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.  Bahrain's "BeAware Bahrain" and Kuwait's "Shlonik" stood out, along with Norway's "Smittestopp", as being among the most alarming mass surveillance tools, according a report published on Tuesday…  "When you equip a repressive state with the means to surveil an entire population - whether it's in the name of public safety or not - you can be certain that it's only going to enhance their means of control and repression to then track down dissidents or anyone that they consider to be a public threat. And in a lot of places like the Gulf, that means activists," says Sarah Aoun, chief technologist at privacy campaign organisation Open Tech Fund.’

EU privacy watchdog thinks that Clearview AI is illegal

TNW 11.06.20

Hopefully, the EU may thwart this company’s vampiric feeds:

‘Clearview AI’s planned expansion into the EU hit a roadblock yesterday when the bloc’s privacy watchdog said it “doubts” that the service is legal.  The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) said that the use of the service by law enforcement would “likely not be consistent with the EU data protection regime.”  The body added that it “has doubts as to whether any Union or Member State law provides a legal basis for using a service such as the one offered by Clearview AI.”’

Zoom shuts account of US-based rights group after Tiananmen anniversary meeting

The Guardian 11.06.20

Zoom obeys China in censorship rules:

‘Zoom temporarily closed a US account of activists who met to mark the anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, raising alarm about free speech on the fast-growing video-meeting service…  Zoom acknowledged it had shut down and restored the account after the attention. “Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate,” a Zoom spokesperson said.  “When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws.  “We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters.”’

NATO chief says on Huawei: UK review of 5G security is important

REUTERS 10.06.20

Now NATO jumps into the fray with 5G and Huawei:

'The head of the NATO military alliance said on Wednesday that the West could not ignore the rise of China and so it was important that the United Kingdom had a review of the role of Huawei in its 5G network to ensure its security.   NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said China was coming closer to the West in various ways - in the Arctic, in cyberspace and in critical infrastructure, including telecommunications.’ 

US senator: Huawei 5G is like Soviets building west's submarines

The Guardian 02.06.20

More posturing from the American side re UK using Huawei.  So glad they’re highlighting the cybersecurity risk from any 5G installations:

‘Tom Cotton, who represents Arkansas, said he had geopolitical and technical objections to Huawei and claimed that, if hacked, its equipment could track the movements of key parts for F35 fighter jets.  Deploying Huawei, the politician continued, “would be as if we had relied on adversarial nations in the cold war to build our submarines, or to build our tanks. It’s just not something that we would have ever considered.”’

Armed with disinfectant and admonishments, South Korean robot fights coronavirus spread

REUTERS 01.06.20

Robots act as social and health calibrators:

'The robot, developed jointly by SK Telecom and Omron Electronics Korea, an industrial automation solution provider, transmits data to its server in real time, powered by the telecom company’s fifth-generation (5G) technology.   It sets off an alarm if anyone’s temperature is over 37.5 Celsius (99.5 Fahrenheit), while using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect gatherings and advise people to disperse. Those not wearing a mask will be reminded to put one on.’

And here is the video.

Privacy group prepares legal challenge to NHS test-and-trace scheme

The Guardian 31.05.20

In the UK, questions are being asked about its contact tracing methods:

‘The Open Rights Group (ORG) has instructed the data rights lawyer Ravi Naik to draft a letter outlining its concerns after Public Heath England said it would retain “personally identifiable” data of those who test positive for 20 years... The privacy group is also unhappy that the government has failed to complete a legally mandated data protection impact assessment, which is supposed to be filed with the Information Commissioner’s Office before any “high-risk” activity is carried out.  The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has argued that existing data protection law is sufficient, while last week Lady Dido Harding, the chair of NHS test-and-trace programme, said any data collected wold be part of “an NHS conversation, entirely confidential”… 

Nikita Malik, the author of the Leaving Lockdown report, said that the government’s response to Covid-19 had involved “navigating the balance between civil liberties and national security” and that “what was needed now was greater transparency, oversight, and accountability.  Malik also highlighted attempts to consolidate NHS databases in work being conducted to help ministers respond to the pandemic by the data mining firms Palantir and Faculty, the second of which worked on the Vote Leave campaign in 2016. The report said there were “concerns around ‘surveillance creep’ where intrusive powers are expanded or data is used to prosecute for a range of crimes”.'

Coronavirus: researchers no longer need consent to access your medical records

The Conversation 31.05.20

Apparently, no need to respect data privacy in the UK any more:

'There are two main laws that dictate how healthcare data privacy in the UK is handled: the European-wide General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and an additional UK-specific protection called the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality.   Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this second legal duty has been quietly relaxed and the authority of an important review body suspended to allow researchers unprecedented access to patient data…  

However, in emergency circumstances the regulations also allow the secretary of state to suspend even this safeguard, essentially bypassing CAG. This is precisely what was announced on March 20, 2020 allowing, in the wording of this control of patient information notice:  "NHS Trusts, Local Authorities and others to process confidential patient information without consent for COVID-19 public health, surveillance and research purposes.”  Additionally, and so long as the purpose is COVID-19 related, the notice allows the use of data from people who had previously opted out of their data being used for purposes beyond their direct clinical care…  Patient data is an extremely valuable research resource which now, more than ever, must be handled appropriately. Prioritising research is the right thing to do in order to find answers to the coronavirus pandemic, but any relaxation of rules can lead to people taking advantage.’

Trump to 'sign executive order about social media’

BBC 28.05.20

It took one of his tweets to be deemed propaganda, for Trump to start laying down authority on social media:

‘Twitter has tightened its policies in recent years as it faced criticism that its hands-off approach was helping fake accounts and misinformation to thrive.  Some of America's biggest technology companies have also been accused of anti-competitive practices and violating their user's privacy. Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon face antitrust probes by federal and state authorities and a US congressional panel.  Shares in both Twitter and Facebook fell in Wednesday's trading session in New York.’

Big Brother benefits: Covid accelerates transition to cashless society – but does it mean more safety or less freedom for us?

RT 25.05.20

Everything monitored, finance flow controlled:

‘A wad of bank notes gives you the freedom to buy what you want without any Big Tech company or government snoop knowing. The fight for the right to pay in cash is going to be a crucial one in the battle against the new hi-tech behavioral-control model which is being rolled out in front of our very eyes. It’s a war that must be won, otherwise we need to get used to a terrible new servitude. In the end we need cash, because the price we’ll pay in a society without it will be far too high.’

French industrialist calls for 5G MORATORIUM amid Covid-19, conspiracy theories & burning of masts

RT 23.05.20

5G really isn’t getting popular approval:

‘Some of the more radical among these conspiracy theorists directly blame these broadcasting masts for causing the coronavirus in the first place, despite the lack of evidence to support their claims. 5G towers erected in the Netherlands and UK have been set on fire by activists, with British protesters going as far as spitting on and attacking the telecoms engineers installing the masts.’

Boris Johnson forced to reduce Huawei’s role in UK’s 5G networks

The Guardian 22.05.20

Cybersecurity fears or kowtowing to US interests?:

‘The mooted retreat will delight the White House which has been relentlessly campaigning against Huawei, but is likely to provoke a hostile reaction from Beijing, which has believed the UK was open to inward investment until now…  But political concerns about the Chinese company lingered. The rebels forced a vote on an unrelated telecoms bill in early March, and 38 Conservative MPs voted with the opposition after Johnson refused to slash Huawei’s market share to zero.’

Activists Are Trying to Stop the FBI From Snooping on Your Web History

VICE 18.05.20

Snoopers’ bill may have a chance to be defeated in the US in second congress round:

‘Last week, the U.S. Senate voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, the sweeping surveillance law that infamously expanded the U.S. security state in the aftermath of 9/11…  Democratic leaders have been criticized for handing vast surveillance powers to the federal government while simultaneously warning that the Trump administration routinely abuses those powers to target vulnerable people. In early 2017, members of both parties voted to reauthorize another surveillance authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), extending domestic spying powers into the Trump era.  Since then, the Trump administration has consistently used its surveillance powers to target immigrants and other vulnerable groups, contracting data mining companies like Palantir to track, detain, and confine thousands of migrants in tightly-packed detention centers.’

Airport tests 'smart helmet' that will spot coronavirus carriers and stop them travelling

The Independent 14.05.20

What will they think of next?:

‘Engineers at an airport are testing a "smart helmet" that will allow people to scan passengers and check if they could be carrying coronavirus.  The scanner would allow a worker to move around the airport and scan anyone in its radius with infrared.  If they showed up as being hot, they could have a fever and may be carrying coronavirus. In that case they could presumably be removed from the plane.  Security officers would be able to scan people as they waited at the airport and remove anyone that would be unsafe for travelling.’

MPs and peers call for legal requirement to delete UK contact-tracing data

The Guardian 15.05.20

Beyond the collection of health data:

‘The joint committee on human rights (JCHR) has taken the unusual step of producing a draft bill for the government to pass as soon as possible that would prevent the government from using the information gathered for any other purpose than fighting Covid-19, and require it to delete all the data after the pandemic ends… But the government has declined to guarantee that the data will be deleted after the pandemic is over. Matthew Gould, the head of NHSX, the health service’s digital transformation arm, told the JCHR that the data “will either be deleted or fully anonymised in line with the law, so that it can be used for research purposes”.’

Coronavirus vaccine search: how we’re preparing to make enough for the whole world

The Conversation 13.05.20

What would normally take at least fifteen years in order to be deemed safe, covid vaccines are being fast-tracked.  Looks like a pharma money race to me:

‘Of course, all these efforts will only come into play if the Oxford vaccine (or potentially another in the same category) is found to work. Other vaccine candidates, such as that being developed by Imperial, will require a substantially different manufacturing process. In these unprecedented times, the world’s vaccine experts will have to work with unprecedented speed and innovation to deliver a way to save potentially millions of lives and start returning society to normal.’

India follows China's lead to widen use of coronavirus tracing app

REUTERS 14.05.20

Narendra Modi’s authoritarian leanings are starkly outlined in national program:

‘Like many apps being rolled out around the world, Aarogya Setu uses Bluetooth signals on smartphones to record when people come in close contact with one another, so that contacts can be quickly alerted when a person tests positive for COVID-19.   But the Indian app also uses GPS location data to augment the information gathered via Bluetooth and build a centralized database of the spread of the infection—an approach avoided by most countries for privacy reasons.   And it mimics China’s health QR code system with a feature that rates a person’s likely health status with green, orange or red colours, signifying whether the individual is safe, at high risk or a carrier of the virus.’ 

As Coronavirus Restrictions Lift, Millions in U.S. Are Leaving Home Again

NY Times 12.05.20

Smartphone owners have not given explicit permission for Cuebiq to follow them, despite the article’s assertion:

‘The estimates of the number of people moving were made using data provided by the location analysis company Cuebiq. The data comes from a representative sample of about 15 million smartphone users nationwide who have agreed to share their location data with certain apps, according to the company. Because the sample is only a proportion of the population — and because not everyone in the United States owns a smartphone, or carries one with them everywhere they go — the numbers are estimates.   The share of people staying home varied by state, with some states seeing more significant drops in sheltering.’

RT explains:

‘If readers don’t remember giving the New York Times permission to track their movements, that’s because they didn’t. Rather, the data was provided by Cuebiq, an “offline intelligence and measurement company” that’s amassed a value of up to $162 million by gathering and selling cellphone data to advertisers.  Smartphone users didn’t offer this data directly to Cuebiq either. Instead, when a person installs one of around 180 mobile apps partnered up with the firm, they grant the app permission to send their data to Cuebiq. These apps include MyRadar NOAA Weather Radar, Photobucket, Tapatalk, and several popular coupon apps.’

Senate Votes to Allow FBI to Look at Your Web Browsing History Without a Warrant

VICE 13.05.20

US granting itself authoritarian powers:

‘The US Senate has voted to give law enforcement agencies access to web browsing data without a warrant, dramatically expanding the government’s surveillance powers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The power grab was led by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell as part of a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which gives federal agencies broad domestic surveillance powers. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT) attempted to remove the expanded powers from the bill with a bipartisan amendment.  “The Patriot Act should be repealed in its entirety, set on fire and buried in the ground,” Evan Greer, the deputy director of Fight for the Future, told Motherboard. “It’s one of the worst laws passed in the last century, and there is zero evidence that the mass surveillance programs it enables have ever saved a single human life.”’

France is using AI to check whether people are wearing masks on public transport

The Verge 07.05.20

Facial recognition by another name.  In the name of protection of course:

‘France is integrating new AI tools into security cameras in the Paris metro system to check whether passengers are wearing face masks… Although technology like DatakaLab’s is only being tested right now, it’s likely it will become a staple of urban life in the near future. As countries begin to weigh the economic damage of a lockdown against the loss of life caused by more COVID-19 infections, greater pressure will be put on mitigating measures like mandatory masks. In countries in the West where mask-wearing is more unfamiliar, software like DatakaLab’s can help authorities understand whether their messaging is convincing the public.’

India is forcing people to use its covid app, unlike any other democracy

Technology Review 07.05.20

Goodbye democracy.  India to become the new China?:

‘India is currently the only democratic nation in the world that is making its coronavirus tracking app mandatory for millions of people, according to MIT Technology Review’s Covid Tracing Tracker, a database of global contact tracing apps… MIT Technology Review’s database shows that India’s app is unique in a number of other ways, too. Many countries are developing limited services that use Bluetooth or GPS to give “exposure notifications” to people who have interacted with someone found to have covid-19. India’s app, though, is a massive all-in-one undertaking that far exceeds what most other countries are building. It tracks Bluetooth contact events and location—as many other apps do—but also gives each user a color-coded badge showing infection risk. And on top of this, Aarogya Setu (which means “a bridge to health” in Hindi) also offers access to telemedicine, an e-pharmacy, and diagnostic services. It’s whitelisted by all Indian telecom companies, so using it does not count against mobile data limits.’

The UK state’s desire to keep tabs on us via smartphone apps is sinister. Fortunately, it’s turning into another Covid-19 cock-up

RT 07.05.20

The UK government health arm NHSX has opted to go for a centralised Big Brother virus app.  It’s doomed to fail because there are no tests available and the virus keeps mutating:

‘But if the NHS doesn't solve the multiple problems the app currently seems to face, probably by accepting the decentralised model put forward by Apple and Google, it is highly unlikely that enough people would use it to make it work as a track-and-trace option. It doesn't help that NHSX, the NHS's digital arm, is working with Palantir, the controversial data-processing giant that is part-funded by the CIA. How long before the government gets the message?’

UK may ditch NHS contact-tracing app for Apple and Google model

The Guardian 07.05.20

Palantir or Google/Apple?  Under fire to lead a more decentralised approach to Big Brother monitoring, NHSX may go the US way:

‘On Monday, Matthew Gould, the head of NHSX, told a parliamentary committee that the decision to build the app without the involvement of the Californian companies was not fixed in stone. “If it becomes clear that a different approach is a better one and achieves the things that we need to achieve more effectively, we will change. We are not particularly wedded to a single approach. It is a very pragmatic decision about which approach is likely to get the results that we need.’

Government by billionaires? Cuomo names former Google CEO to join Gates & Bloomberg in drafting post-pandemic ‘reforms’

RT 06.05.20

In NY the map to carving out data plans post-coved is becoming clearer to see:

‘New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appointed ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt to lead a panel on post-pandemic “reform” of health and education systems, despite criticism for taking other billionaires with conflicts of interest on board… While Cuomo confirmed in the same presser that the state is partnering with former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg – another billionaire – in building a human contact-tracing network, any digital component will likely involve the participation of Google. At the same time, the tech giant's insatiable hunger for health data, as evinced by initiatives like Project Nightingale and Google's acquisition of Fitbit, is unlikely to sit well with New Yorkers concerned about the company's privacy record.’

Tech company’s ties to white supremacism trigger debate on surveillance algorithms

CODA 04.05.20

Palantir is the company run by Peter Thiel who is or was going to run the NHSX surveillance watch in Uk:

'...Peter Thiel, who sits on the board of Facebook and runs the data mining giant Palantir, is also reported to be linked to several alt-right figures, including the former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos.' 

Draganfly’s ‘Pandemic Drone’ technology Conducts Initial Flights Near New York City to Detect COVID-19 Symptoms and Identify Social Distancing

Globe News Wire 21.04.20

Don’t want to piss on their parade but even stationary thermal detectors are notoriously inaccurate in detecting people’s temperatures:

‘Draganfly’s new pandemic drone technology is being tested by the Westport Police Department as a new “Flatten the Curve Pilot Program” and is made possible by the collaboration and integration of technologies developed by Draganfly, Vital Intelligence Inc., a healthcare data services and deep learning company, and the University of South Australia (UniSA). Westport is deploying the technology and data tools to enhance town services, advance public safety, promote the efficient use of taxpayer dollars, engage residents, and encourage growth in the local economy.’

Anti-Netanyahu demonstrators in Israel stage unique protest, keeping social distance

RT 19.04.20

‘The demonstrators took aim at the emergency powers granted to the country’s security agencies last month. Under the new powers, domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet has been authorized to track citizens’ mobile phone data, under the auspices of enforcing quarantine measures.

Sunday’s protest may have been allowed to take place, but Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem weren’t given the same freedom last week. Police fined anti-settlement demonstrators in the city 5,000 shekels ($1,400) on Friday. A week earlier, left-wing Israeli protesters were also slapped with fines after picketing the Kfar Saba home of former defense forces chief Gabi Ashkenazi.’

Dutch telecommunications towers damaged by 5G protestors: Telegraaf

REUTERS 11.04.20

Protestors set fire to 5G masts.  Until an independent health inquiry from expert medical and biology professionals takes place, the telecom industry will be facing many more such incidents:

‘Several Dutch cellular broadcasting towers have been damaged by arson or sabotage in the past week by opponents of a rollout of a new 5G telecommunications network, newspaper De Telegraaf reported on Saturday… 

In a statement on its website, the Dutch government’s Security and Counter-Terrorism (NCTV) said it had registered “various incidents” around broadcasting masts in the past week, including arson and sabotage, and that opposition to the 5G rollout is a possible cause.   “This is a concerning development,” it said. “Disruption of broadcasting masts...can have consequences for the coverage of the telecommunications network and reachability of emergency services.”’

U.S. agencies back revoking ability of China Telecom to operate in U.S

REUTERS 10.04.20

China telecom booted out of the US:

‘The U.S. Justice Department and other federal agencies on Thursday called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revoke China Telecom (Americas) Corp’s authorization to provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States…

The FCC last May voted unanimously to deny another state-owned Chinese telecommunications company, China Mobile Ltd, the right to provide services in the United States, citing risks that the Chinese government could use the approval to conduct espionage against the U.S. government, It said then that it was “looking” at the licenses of China Telecom and China Unicom… 

China’s telecommunications networks and companies have come under heightened scrutiny by U.S. agencies. An FCC spokeswoman said the agency “has been looking at this issue. We welcome the input of the executive branch agencies and will review it carefully.”   The agencies, including Homeland Security, Defense, State, Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, cited “substantial and unacceptable national security and law enforcement risks associated with China Telecom’s operations.”’

Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build 'the Architecture of Oppression’

VICE 09.04.20

Well of course they’d be jumping at the golden opportunity:

‘As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what’ is being built is the architecture of oppression.’

Shelter In Place With Shane Smith and Edward Snowden (Video)

VICE 10.04.20

As fever checks become the norm in coronavirus era, demand for thermal cameras soars

REUTER 09.04.20

Thermal cameras in high demand to scan for coronavirus.  Shame they don’t work:

‘Major employers such as Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) are experimenting with thermal cameras to ensure workers do not enter factories with potential illness, a critical part of maintaining production during the pandemic that could become more widespread as economies reopen. Thermal camera companies such as U.S.-based FLIR Systems Inc (FLIR.O), UK-based Thermoteknix Systems Ltd and Israel’s Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd say the surge in interest has caused a sales spike - with some tripling quarterly revenue or selling as many units in a few weeks as they had in more than five years… 

As coronavirus has spread around the globe, some thermal camera startups have emerged that claim to scan crowds of people over a wide area for fevers. Officials at FLIR, Thermoteknix and Opgal, each of which have sold thermal systems for decades to military and industrial customers, said such an approach is unlikely to meet international accuracy standards for fever detection.'

Daleks, drones, and high-tech cops: Robots come out on top amid coronavirus pandemic

RT 08.04.20

Robots make an entrance:

‘While admitting that “using drones with cameras and loudspeakers to fly around to see if people are gathering where they shouldn’t be” was perhaps “a little Orwellian,” drone manufacturer Impossible Aerospace’s Spencer Gore insisted “this could save lives.”…

Described as “rugged security robot[s] for multi-terrain applications,” the brawny bots are manufactured by Enova Robotics and come equipped with infrared cameras, GPS, laser telemetry, and an audio input so their controllers can lambaste targets remotely. What they lack in speed, they totally make up for in ominousness — though they don’t appear to be armed… 

While no one publicly admitted to ownership of the domineering Dalek, Scotland’s Tayside police retweeted the video, winkingly identifying the mysterious ‘bot as a “Direct Action Local Enforcement Kop” (DALEK).’

Coronavirus Surveillance Helps, But the Programs Are Hard to Stop

Bloomberg 06.04.20

Just like with 9/11, measures will stay in place against a perpetual invisible war:

‘The privacy questions are real. What rights can people expect to safeguard? Will measures enacted during a pandemic be dismantled when they’re no longer needed?  “Unfortunately, emergency powers quickly become normal operating procedures,” says Richard Brooks, a computer engineering professor at Clemson University in South Carolina whose research has focused on how human rights activists in authoritarian countries can avoid surveillance. “If the ability to track social contacts exists to stop a contagion, I can guarantee you it will be used to track the spread of dissent.”’

Celebrities criticised for ‘fanning flames’ of 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories after reports of phone masts set on fire

The Independent 05.04.20

5G masts are being burnt and attacked.  Worldwide media condemns these attacks.  Rather than discredit popular belief, why wouldn’t governments enact independent health studies to look at the tech’s nefarious health consequences?:

‘A Facebook page, which was created on Thursday, encouraged people to set fire to the towers due to baseless claims about the health risks posed by 5G technology, before the social media company took down the page on Friday morning.  Actor Woody Harrelson and former Dancing on Ice judge Jason Gardiner were among the celebrities who shared theories connecting 5G to the Covid-19 pandemic… 

On Friday, Mobile UK, the trade body representing network providers, described the conspiracy theories about 5G as "baseless", following videos posted on social media showing workers being harassed and phone masts on fire.  The trade body said it was "concerning that certain groups are using the Covid-19 pandemic to spread false rumours and theories about the safety of 5G technologies”.  "More worryingly some people are also abusing our key workers and making threats to damage infrastructure under the pretence of claims about 5G," a statement said.’

UK media outlets told not to promote baseless 5G coronavirus theories

The Guardian 03.0420

Let the witch-hunts begin:

‘British broadcasters are being warned that they face sanctions from the media regulator if they give airtime to false health advice about coronavirus, after a Sussex radio station was given a severe warning for broadcasting baseless conspiracy theories that the pandemic is linked to the rollout of 5G phone networks… 

Ofcom decided that the 20-minute interview with a person purporting to be an authoritative health figure who was not sufficiently challenged posed a significant risk to public health at a time of national crisis. It ordered the station to broadcast an apology in a manner of regulator’s choosing and warned other outlets that it would be stepping up monitoring.’

We cannot allow Facebook and Twitter to use Covid-19 to launch their own coup d’état

RT 02.04.20

Twitter and Facebook pick and choose which world leaders are allowed to have a platform:

‘World leaders are having their social media posts deleted under the guise of the pandemic, but is this just the beginning of socially destructive subterfuge?  A few days ago, Facebook and Twitter decided to delete contributions from two world leaders. The first was Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who shared a video and aired his view that “hydroxychloroquine is working in all places” to treat Covid-19. Facebook decided it was against what the World Health Organization had decreed and trashed the video. Twitter followed up by removing two of Bolsonaro’s tweets.  

They also deleted a tweet by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in which he spoke of a “brew” that would eliminate any infectious genes… 

Whatever the scientific truth behind what works in the fight against Covid-19 is another debate. The bigger issue here is now that Facebook and Twitter have crossed the threshold, will they ever go back?’

New MI5 head promises to focus on China and harness AI

The Guardian 31.03.20

New spooks’ head to demand clearance for encrypted texts:

‘The spy agency believes it no longer has the internal capability to develop what it needs in fields such as artificial intelligence and data analysis, while McCallum will continue to demand that spy agencies have lawful access to secure messaging services.

At one point, around a decade ago, McCallum was responsible for MI5’s cyber activities, when the subject was less fashionable in intelligence circles. It was a period that helped shape his interest in China and working with the technology industry.’

Coronavirus: NHS uses tech giants to plan crisis response

BBC 26.03.20

And the winners are… tech giants - in this war against this new 9/11 :

‘Data collected gathered via the NHS's 111 telephone service is to be mixed with other sources to help predict where ventilators, hospital beds, and medical staff will be most in need. The goal is to help health chiefs model the consequences of moving resources to best tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Three US tech firms are aiding the effort - Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir - as well as London-based Faculty AI…
Amazon's AWS division is helping to provide the cloud computing resources required, while Palantir is providing its Foundry software to help draw all of the data sources together. The program was previously used by the US to help co-ordinate response efforts to Haiti's cholera outbreak after an earthquake in 2010. Microsoft's cloud division Azure has built what has been termed a "gigantic" data store to aid the project.’

China's IT ministry calls for faster 5G network rollout: government document

REUTERS 24.03.20

Whilst the public is wondering whether the 5G rollout has effected the spread of corona virus due to its systemic weakening of people’s immune system, some governments are clamouring for a faster and bigger rollout:

‘China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has called for the 5G network to be built faster to minimize the impact of the coronavirus, according to a document published on Tuesday.
The agency also called for the acceleration of 5G smart medical systems and platforms, and called on localities to speed up 5G virus prediction and prevention applications.’

US tech giants team up to tackle coronavirus

BBC 05.03.20

The tech giants increase their role in fighting the virus:

‘“We are grateful to be surrounded by a strong community of public health, global health and academic leaders and are eager to leverage Amazon Care’s infrastructure and logistics capabilities to support this local effort,” an Amazon spokesman said.
The partnership could help improve coronavirus testing in the US as it lags behind other countries in getting people checked for the virus.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday reported 33,453 cases of coronavirus in the country. That's an increase of 18,185 cases from its previous count, while the death toll almost doubled to 400.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation along with research charity Wellcome and Mastercard's Impact Charity have committed $125m (£107m) in funding to develop treatments for the coronavirus.’

UK mobile firms asked to alert Britons to heed coronavirus lockdown

The Guardian 24.03.30

The move all governments wish for:

‘The UK government has taken the unprecedented step of asking mobile companies to send an alert to everyone in the UK telling them to heed the new nationwide lockdown rules…
The government has begun talks with mobile companies about using phone location and usage data to monitor whether coronavirus limitation measures such as asking the public to stay at home are working.’

I am an American constitutional lawyer – and I see our government using Covid-19 to take away our fundamental rights

RT 23.03.20

An op-ed delineates the march to totalitarianism:

‘Panics from pandemics unleash unchecked governmental power. The very premise of popular films like V for Vendetta reveal this: a group uses a virus to seize power and create a totalitarian society. Anyone could witness this from far-off lands, watching the news about China locking people up in their own homes and then removing them screaming from those homes whenever the state wanted. World War I and the Great Depression birthed virulent forms of governments with leaders like Hitler, Mao, Mussolini and Stalin….
Our founders were intimately familiar with pandemics, viruses and plagues, yet they did not allow any to suspend our Constitutional liberties. Not one word in the Constitution about plagues or pandemics to exempt the government from any of our Bill of Rights. Why do our current courts allow it? Because the public is asleep at the wheel. Think the pandemic threatens to kills us all? A review of the data shows the pandemic is more panic than plague.
Time to wake up. Maybe it is time in the motto of V for Vendetta, to "Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot." As that film's lead character well said: “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Only when an awake public asserts their human liberties to protest the loss of their liberties will, then, governments quit using public health crises to seize power that does not belong to them. The answer to 1984 is still 1776.’

Israel to use ‘anti-terrorism’ tech to monitor infected citizens, as Netanyahu declares ‘war’ on coronavirus

RT 15.03.20

And here we go!  Israel to use full surveillance because of virus.  Other countries to follow soon:

‘Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has said he was given the go-ahead to deploy invasive digital surveillance tools to track coronavirus patients, sparking privacy concerns and fears the move will be used to suppress dissent.’

Johnson urges top UK tech firms to join coronavirus fight

The Guardian 13.03.20

And here comes tech to the rescue.  Not long now before full surveillance is implemented:

‘The UK’s leading tech companies and artificial intelligence researchers queued up to offer staff and technical support to fight coronavirus at a Downing Street summit on Wednesday night, in what one attendee called a “digital Dunkirk”.

The meeting, which was attended by about 30 different companies from across the UK online and science sectors, was personally addressed by the prime minister who gave a “rousing” speech urging companies to provide relevant resources to contain the outbreak.’

Coronavirus: China’s attempts to contain the outbreak has given it new levels of state power

The Conversation 11.03.20

China uses Coronavirus to extend its dystopian surveillance methods:

’With the flick of a few switches, the Chinese state has been able to gather data on practically every person in the country. The government knows exactly where everyone is, what their daily public routine is and even the temperature of their bodies. Punishments are handed out if people break the rules.

This represents an unprecedented level of surveillance and exertion of power and control. But, given the seriousness of the purported threat of the coronavirus outbreak, these measures have been acknowledged and endorsed by international researchers.’

Huawei: PM faces Commons rebellion by Tory MPs over 5G contract

BBC 10.03.20

Parliament MPs will try and block Huawei from being used in the UK, bowing to US pressure:

‘Whatever the outcome of Tuesday's vote, Tory MP Bob Seely said it was the "start of a process" about Parliament talking about Huawei's role in the UK's mobile telecoms infrastructure.

"The important thing is that, with the vibe that we're getting from colleagues, many many more are very concerned about it," he said.’

Human rights activist 'forced to flee DRC' over child cobalt mining lawsuit 

The Guardian 10.03.20

If you speak against tech giants, you have to ensure your family’s safety:

‘In December, the Guardian revealed that a group of families from DRC were launching landmark legal action against Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell. They claim they aided and abetted the deaths and injuries of their children, who were working in mines that they say were linked to the tech companies… 

Siddharth Kara, a Harvard academic and anti-slavery activist, worked with Mutombo to conduct field research in cobalt mines across DRC. He said action has been taken to ensure that the families who are acting as plaintiffs in the case are protected.  “We are monitoring the situation in the DRC very closely. We are the only two people in contact with the plaintiffs and our team on the ground, and we have made arrangements to ensure their safety”, he said.  “The aggressive threats against our colleagues after the filing of our lawsuit is further testament to the fact that the humanity of the impoverished people of the Congo, who mine cobalt in horrendous conditions, is considered little more than an impediment to the immense profits being generated by global cobalt industry.”’

Facebook sued by Australian information watchdog over Cambridge Analytica-linked data breach

The Guardian 09.03.20

Australians fight back”

‘In a case lodged in the federal court on Monday, the Australian information commissioner Angelene Falk has alleged Facebook committed serious and repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law because data collected by Facebook was passed onto the This is Your Digital Life app by Cambridge Analytica for political profiling, which was not what it was collected for.  Data included people’s names, dates of birth, email addresses, city location, friends list, page likes and Facebook messages for those who had granted the app access to the messages.  “We consider the design of the Facebook platform meant that users were unable to exercise reasonable choice and control about how their personal information was disclosed,” Falk said.  “Facebook’s default settings facilitated the disclosure of personal information, including sensitive information, at the expense of privacy.”’

Apple, Samsung and Sony among 83 global brands using Uighur Muslim 'forced labour' in factories, report finds

The Independent 03.03.20

Modern slavery in Chinese internment camps:

‘More than 80,000 Uighurs had been transferred far from their homes to work in at least 27 factories across nine provinces, it said.  There, the workers continued to be subject to surveillance, banned from practising their religion, forced to take part in mandarin language classes and restricted in their travel back to Xinjiang.  “Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uighurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen,” the think-tank said in the introduction to its report.’

What happens when the internet vanishes?

BBC 25.02.20

Internet shutdown is used by governments globally to isolate and and repress flow of information:

‘"Throttling" is a form of blackout that is harder to monitor, and happens when a government slows down data services. They might bump modern, fast 4G, mobile internet down to 1990s-era 2G, making it impossible to share videos or livestream.
This happened in May 2019, when the President of Tajikistan admitted to throttling most social networks. including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, saying they were "vulnerable to terrorist activity”.
Some countries, like Russia and Iran, are currently building and testing their own versions of a locked-off nationwide internet, thought to be a sign of increased control on the web.
Digital rights group Access Now says: "It seems more and more countries are learning from one another and implementing the nuclear option of internet shutdowns to silence critics, or perpetrate other human rights violations with no oversight.”'

Telecom Jackboot: A 5G Kick to the Groin

Off-Guardian 20.02.20

Brilliant article laying out the paranoia of the West being left behind and the dystopia presently evident in China:

‘On the surface, it seems as though the Western push for 5G arises from a fear that East Asia is way ahead. The principal concern for many American politicians appears to be that China has gained an insurmountable leading edge on the United States in this sector. Yet, one glance at Chinese society will promptly remind everyone that citizens of the most populous nation on earth appear to be contending with any one of the many dark social forces prevailing in Black Mirror. Hardly way ahead in terms of freedom of thought and speech.

Notwithstanding the electronic tools leaders now have in wielding totalitarian control, citizens of Western democracies might expect that politicians would have, at least, gained some understanding of the effects that radiation would have on life. But, similar to the appalling indifference toward nuclear experiments on people of Bikini and Rongelap Atolls from the 1940s to the late 1950s, no one in power today seems to grasp the implications of these untested technologies on biological life.’

US ‘very concerned’ over Huawei’s role in UK 5G network

The Guardian 19.02.20

The longer it takes, the better:

‘The UK plan is to limit Huawei to a cap of 35% for each of the country’s four mobile phone operators, Vodafone, O2, EE and Three, although it will require the consent of parliament. Eliminating Huawei immediately would cost hundreds of millions more and would delay the rollout of 5G by a couple of years, officials say.’

China detains Uighurs for growing beards or visiting foreign websites, leak reveals

The Guardian 18.02.20

More on the Uighurs in China indicating a hard-clamp on ‘deviancy’:

‘The database indicates much of the information is collected by teams of cadres stationed at mosques, sent to visit homes and posted in communities. This information is then compiled in a dossier called the “three circles”, encompassing their relatives, community, and religious background..  

The blueprint obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, showed that the centres were in fact forced ideological and behavioural re-education camps run in secret. Another set of documents leaked to the New York Times revealed the historical lead-up to the mass detention.’ 

Germany’s 5G Debate Ought Not Be a Referendum on Donald Trump

QUARTZ 16.02.20

‘As the European Union has stated repeatedly, this debate is about more than technical solutions to technical problems. At its core, it is about democratic nations protecting their societies and economies from authoritarian influence and coercion well into the future. Germans no doubt understood that point well before Huawei’s slick marketing campaign. Ultimately, Berlin must make a 5G decision that respects and protects the values it holds dear.’

US charges Huawei with RACKETEERING & attempting to steal American trade secrets

RT 13.02.20

In public, Huawei is the bad guy, in business, all is good:

‘The indictment filed in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, states that Huawei conspired to steal trade secrets from as many as six US companies, including router source code, cellular antenna and robotics technologies… While US President Donald Trump formally banned Huawei tech from the US market back in May last year, the US Commerce Department has since repeatedly extended temporary general license, allowing the company to buy components from its US-based supplies. On Thursday, the department greenlighted yet another extension, to expire on April 1.’

The US Fears Huawei Because It Knows How Tempting Backdoors Are

WIRED 11.02.20

Encryption backdoors are a staple for the US:

‘Huawei has consistently and vigorously denied that it conducts wrongful surveillance or that it cooperates with the Chinese government by creating backdoors in its network systems. But US government officials have pointed out that China is an authoritarian state that maintains laws about corporate cooperation with government demands.  

Furthermore, the US knows all too well that private companies can be infiltrated for espionage or technical control. Take the Swiss secure communications and equipment firm Crypto AG, which operated for decades under secret US intelligence control. Components of the scheme came to light over the years, but Crypto AG continued to operate until 2018, selling security tools with weakened encryption to foreign governments. In the most comprehensive expose on the operation to date, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Crypto AG was co-owned and managed from the 1940s by the CIA and West German intelligence (later the German agency, the BND) until the early 1990s, when the BND sold its stake to the CIA.’

China warns France not to discriminate against Huawei on 5G contracts

RT 10.02.20

‘In a statement issued on Sunday on its website, the Chinese embassy said that if those claims are true, the treatment of a company based just on its country of origin would be “blatant discrimination” and “disguised protectionism,” that violates free-trade principles. It said that security fears about Huawei were unfounded, and urged France and the EU to treat all equipment makers equally, if they want similar treatment for European firms on the Chinese market.’

Huawei: Senior Tories want Huawei 'ruled out' of 5G plans

BBC 06.02.20

Dissent among Tories re Huawei.  In a letter sent to the PM:

‘"We are seeking to identify a means by which we ensure that only trusted vendors are allowed as primary contractors into our critical national infrastructure," it says.  "Trusted vendors would be companies from countries that have fair market competition, rule of law, respect human rights, data privacy and non-coercive government agencies."

The men say they want the government to "rule out hi-tech from untrusted, high-risk vendors" in the UK's infrastructure, or to ensure future legislation includes "sunset clauses" to limit the length of time such companies can be used.’

5G: Trump administration suggests US and allies invest in Nokia and Ericsson, despite UK opening door to Huawei

The Independent 06.02.20

‘“If China establishes sole dominance over 5G, it will be able to dominate the opportunities arising from a stunning range of emerging technologies that will be dependent on, and interwoven with the 5G platform,” Mr Barr said at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. From a national security perspective, he said: “China would have the ability to shut countries off from technology and equipment upon which their consumers and industry depend. The power the United States has today to use economic sanctions would pale by comparison to the unprecedented economic leverage we would be surrendering into the hands of China.”’

How US-UK intelligence sharing works – and why Huawei 5G decision puts it at risk

The Conversation 05.02.20

Am not sure whether this act of defiance signals that the UK seeks to show independent volition re the US or whether the security concerns derived from US technology far supersedes those from a distant country which offers great trade potential:

‘The risk in overruling US objections over Huawei is that it begins to undermine the closest aspects of cooperation, over communications and surveillance, and leads to a more transactional (and potentially fragile) relationship in the future. That could have a big impact on future intelligence sharing between the two countries.’

Apple has a Vladimir Putin problem

Fast Company 29.01.20

‘In November 2019, Russian parliament passed what’s become known as the “law against Apple.” The legislation will require all smartphone devices to preload a host of applications that may provide the Russian government with a glut of information about its citizens, including their location, finances, and private communications.’

EU defies US’ calls to ban Huawei, granting Chinese tech firm limited role in 5G rollout

RT 29.01.20

’“Today we are equipping EU member states, telecoms operators and users with the tools to build and protect a European infrastructure with the highest security standards so we all fully benefit from the potential that 5G has to offer,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton said.  European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager added: “We can do great things with 5G. The technology supports personalized medicines, precision agriculture and energy grids that can integrate all kinds of renewable energy.” According to Vestager, “This will make a positive difference. But only if we can make our networks secure. Only then will the digital changes benefit all citizens.”  Huawei welcomed the decision, saying in a statement: “This non-biased and fact-based approach towards 5G security allows Europe to have a more secure and faster 5G network.”’

The Guardian view on Huawei and 5G: the risks are real

The Guardian 28.01.20

’The company has been designated a “high-risk vendor”, excluded from “core” activities of the 5G network, and its share of the market has been capped at 35%. Those limitations are sensible, but they do not eliminate risk. In Australia it was judged that the 5G era would collapse the distinction between core and periphery digital activity, making it impossible to police. In essence Mr Johnson has therefore signed up to a “known unknown”, authorising Chinese participation in vital national infrastructure where future vulnerabilities are impossible to assess. There will be a need for constant and ongoing vigilance, especially if China continues to develop its authoritarian and domineering tendencies, at home and abroad, under the leadership of Xi Jinping.’ 

Human Rights Watch report blasts China as its chief barred from Hong Kong

Reuters 14.01.20 

A UN report condemns China’s treatment of Uighurs:

‘The report condemns Beijing’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region and warns that China’s growing political influence and efforts to censor people abroad pose an “existential threat to the international human rights system.”  “If not challenged, Beijing’s actions portend a dystopian future in which no one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors, and an international human rights system so weakened that it no longer serves as a check on government repression,” Roth said in the report….“The European Union has been diverted by Brexit, it’s been obstructed by nationalist members, it’s been divided over migration and as a result it’s often found it difficult to adopt a strong common voice on human rights,” he said. “Other governments are simply bought off (by China.)”’ 

JOHNSON: Huawei critics 'must tell us what's the alternative'

The Guardian 14.01.20

Pressure on UK from US re Huawei:

‘The US has repeatedly warned the UK that allowing Huawei to operate its 5G network could put transatlantic intelligence sharing at risk. US officials have said allowing access would be “nothing short of madness”.

US officials brand possible Huawei 5G rollout in UK ‘act of madness’ as MI5 plays down US fear-mongering

RT 14.01.20

US says using Huawei in UK would be dangerous:

‘The US has upped the rhetorical ante on its largely unfounded claims that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will severely compromise a country’s cyber security if it is allowed to work on any of the world’s burgeoning national 5G networks.  A team of high-ranking US officials, including those from the National Security Agency (NSA), were set to present supposedly damning evidence to the UK government on Monday, arguing the equipment supplied by the Chinese company may come with hidden ‘backdoors’ granting Beijing access to critical British infrastructure.’

China’s smart supercities powered by 5G to become new growth engine

RT 14.01.20

China’s expansion of 5G smart cities:

‘Such rapid development will push demand for telecommunications and utilities, spur investment in areas like public cloud, 5G infrastructure and IoT devices.  “Over the longer run, more advanced smart city features, such as driverless cars, auto-delivery drones, and fully interconnected and automated home appliances should take productivity to the next level,” said Shawn Kim, head of Morgan Stanley's Asia Technology research team.  The research suggested that China's transition to tech-driven supercities would create numerous opportunities for global investment. Smart cities will emerge as an early pilot project for telecom operators to monetize 5G investments, Morgan Stanley said.’

Smart Cities Plan

Australian Government 2016

Australian government plan for smart cities.

ICT Minister Masiu halts 5G trails amid health risk debate

Post-Courier 02.01.20

Papua New Guinea halts 5G.

Moratorium on 5G: American Scientists, Doctors and Healthcare Practitioners’ Letter to President Trump

Global Research 18.12.19

Letter asking for moratorium on 5G addressed to Trump.

‘We have full confidence in Modi’s govt’: Huawei thanks New Delhi after being cleared for 5G trials

RT 31.12.19

Huawei cleared for take-off in India:

‘“The age of 5G is coming... We have taken a decision to give 5G spectrum for trials to all the players,” India’s telecommunications and IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said on Monday. This comes after months of speculation as to whether New Delhi would follow the example of the US and some of its allies by shutting the Chinese firm out of its budding 5G market.’ 

Germany responds to Trump: Huawei has no back door, but Cisco has 10

Canadian News Agency 02.01.10

Cisco has more backdoors than Huawei:

‘This article reveals a very important fact that no backdoors were found in Huawei's products, and 10 vulnerabilities were discovered on Cisco products in the United States.’ 

China detaining millions of Uyghurs? Serious problems with claims by US-backed NGO and far-right researcher ‘led by God’ against Beijing

The Grey Zone 21.12.19

RT questions the claims put out by mainstream media:

‘While this extraordinary claim is treated as unassailable in the West, it is, in fact, based on two highly dubious “studies.” The first, by the US government-backed Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, formed its estimate by interviewing a grand total of eight people.  The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.’

Uyghurs and Other Muslims Forced to Labor in Chinese Factories

Truthout 09.01.10

Amy Goodman discusses the NY Times exposé re internment camps. 

Google, Facebook, Neuralink Sued for Weaponized AI Tech Transfer, Complicity to Genocide in China and Endangering Humanity with Misuse of AI

The AI Organisation 19.12.19

The AI Organisation sues various tech companies for misuse of power.

China cuts 'freedom of thought' from top university charters

The Guardian 18.12.19

China deletes ‘freedom of thought’ from university charter:

‘Changes to the charter of one of China’s top universities, including dropping the phrase “freedom of thought” and the inclusion of a pledge to follow the Communist party’s leadership’.

Top tech firms sued over DR Congo cobalt mining deaths

BBC 16.12.19

Tech companies being sued for deaths in Congolese mines:

‘Apple, Google, Tesla and Microsoft are among firms named in a lawsuit seeking damages over deaths and injuries of child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The case has been filed by the International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 Congolese families.They accuse the   companies of knowing that cobalt used in their products could be linked to child labour.  DR Congo produces 60% of the world's supply of cobalt.’

5G is a weapon. Why implement it in every country…simultanously? (video)

13.12.19

Great video from Denmark by politician Mads Palsvig.

5G scandal – 11 telecom industry experts taking the FCC to federal court in January 2020 in estimated $1 Trillion lawsuit

US telecom companies being taken to court:

‘Bruce and Scott lead the IRREGULATORS, a group of telecom industry experts and insiders who are taking the FCC to federal court in January 2020, armed with evidence — of an estimated $1 Trillion scandal — and strategy that could very well pave the way to a great restructuring of telecom and dissolution of the 5G agenda.’ 

Sterilization Fears Force Greek City of Kalamata to Suspend 5G Network

Greek Reporter 05.12.19

Kalamata city in Greece stops 5G:

‘The majority who protested the advanced wireless technology claim that their city’s population would become guinea pigs, with possible serious repercussions for public health, including, some say, on fertility rates.’

How China exports censorship into corporate America (video)

The Hated One 27.10.19

Companies being dictated by Chinese policies:

‘Chinese censorship doesn't just stay confined within the Chinese borders. As more and more corporations chase profits in Chinese markets, they find themselves blackmailed into complying with Chinese rules even outside of China's jurisdiction. The latest NBA controversy is the loudest example of this reality.’

CHINA IS USING BLOOD FROM MINORITIES FOR GENETIC RESEARCH

Futurism 28.01.10

The Chinese are using the Uighurs’ DNA for tests:

‘“There’s a kind of culture of complacency that has now given way to complicity” within the world of science, University of Windsor in Ontario sociologist Mark Munsterhjelm told the NYT. And that international complicity is now manifesting as “essentially technologies used for hunting people.”’ 

Boris Johnson suggests Huawei role in 5G might harm UK security

The Guardian 04.12.19

Johnson  makes a stand against Huawei:

‘… Johnson said: “I don’t want this country to be hostile to investment from overseas. On the other hand, we cannot prejudice our vital national security interests nor can we prejudice our ability to cooperate with other Five Eyes security partners. That will be the key criterion that informs our decision about Huawei.”’

China protests as US House passes Uygur bill demanding sanctions over human rights abuses in Xinjiang camps

South China Morning Post 04.12.19

Sanctions on China because of Uighurs’ abused situation.

‘In a statement, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the bill “deliberately defames the human rights situation in Xinjiang and discredits Beijing’s efforts to fight against extremism and terrorism in the region”. “The core of the Xinjiang issue [in China] is not human rights, ethnic minority or religion; instead, the core is anti-terrorism and anti-separatism,” the statement said. “We warn the US that Xinjiang is China’s internal affairs and has no room for foreign forces.”’

Exclusive: EU antitrust regulators say they are investigating Google's data collection

Reuters 30.11.19

EU is investigating Google:

‘Competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetise data.’

Secret documents reveal how China mass detention camps work

AP 25.11.19

More on China’s mass detention camps:

‘The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.’

Allow no escapes': leak exposes reality of China's vast prison camp network

The Guardian 24.11.19

‘The cables provide apparent confirmation from within China’s bureaucracy that the camps were envisaged from the start as brainwashing detention centres, to be constructed on a massive scale, with inmates confined by multiple layers of security.’

China's secret 'brainwashing' camps

BBC 25.11.19

Insider speaks from Xinjiang prison:

‘“China's UK ambassador Liu Xiaoming dismissed the documents as fake news. He said the measures had safeguarded local people and there had not been a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the past three years. "In total disregard of the facts, some people in the West have been fiercely slandering and smearing China over Xinjiang in an attempt to create an excuse to interfere in China's internal affairs, disrupt China's counter-terrorism efforts in Xinjiang and thwart China's steady development," he said.”’

 Rage against the (bureaucratic) machine: Putin says AI could ease Russia’s red tape woes

RT 10.11.19

Putin on AI:

‘“In general, AI developers should always have a clear goal in mind regarding why they are making it, he said. “Technology must not be invented for its own sake,” and researchers must harness AI in such a way so it serves humankind, helping people to ensure sustainable development and to improve the quality of life, the president added.  ‘’Because people are the supreme value”’.

Will WHO Kick Its ICNIRP Habit? - Non-Thermal Effects Hang in the Balance Repacholi’s Legacy of Industry Cronyism

Microwave News 04.11.19

The WHO had asked - in a poorly distributed form - another review of ICNIRP standards:

‘“Applicants had less than a month to complete the paperwork —that is, if they heard about it right away. The call was not published anywhere or posted on the Internet. Rather, Emilie van Deventer, the team leader of the WHO radiation program, sent a notice to her mailing list. Though the call is dated September, no one I spoke to received it before October 8. Many heard about it second hand, as did I.”’

Google sister company agrees to scale back controversial Toronto project

The Guardian 31.10.19

Sidewalk Labs have had to curtail their hectares’ development in Toronto:

‘The Google sister company Sidewalk Labs has agreed to scale back and refine its approach to a controversial hi-tech neighbourhood it has proposed for a swath of Toronto’s prime waterfront land.’

A summit in Egypt will decide the future of 5G and weather forecasts

The Verge 28.10.19

Summit in Egypt re spectrum bands from satellites affecting weather predictions: ‘

To keep 5G from interfering with forecasting, English and other scientists have pushed for strict limits on the noise that 5G devices are allowed to generate outside of the 24GHz channel. But the US Federal Communications Commission has proposed much less stringent limits, even though concerns over the potential threats to science and public safety have been mounting ever since the FCC decided in March to auction off that part of the radio spectrum.’

Australian regulator files privacy suit against Google alleging location data misuse

Reuters 29.10.19

Google’s Android embroiled in Australian case:

‘“Google’s conduct caused users to understand that personal data about their location was not being obtained ... by Google when in fact personal data was being obtained,” the ACCC wrote in a Federal Court filing on Tuesday, which it published on its website.”’

Il Parlamento italiano vota per bloccare il 5G

Orticaweb 04.10.19

Italian parliament to vote to put a moratorium on 5G on 7th October.

5G Cell Phone Radiation: How the Telecom Companies Are Losing the Battle to Impose 5G Against the Will of the People

Global Research 30.12.19

All international efforts to thwart 5G deployment.

Africa should not be too quick to embrace the fourth industrial revolution

The Guardian 16.09.19

Africa and the Fourth Revolution:

‘But for all the allure of the World Economic Forum’s claim that the fourth industrial revolution could create 3 million more jobs across Africa by 2025, the dash to digitise comes with potential pitfalls - vulnerabilities that make the continent particularly exposed to data manipulation and cyber attacks, even before a fully automated revolution such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence become a daily reality.’

International Actions To Halt And Delay 5G

ETH Trust

A list of countries opposing 5G and/or asking for more research.

New Hampshire HB522 establishing a commission to study the environmental and health effects of evolving 5G technology

Hampshire bill to examine the impact of 5G:

‘1 (a) Examine the health and environmental impacts from radifrequency radiation (RF) between 30-400GHz… which are required with the rollout of 5G technology’

Russian telecom giant & China’s Huawei launch 5G zones in Russian cities

RT 30.08.19

Russia trials it out with Huawei:

‘Russian mobile operator MTS has teamed up with Chinese tech giant Huawei for a 5G pilot scheme in Moscow and Kronshtadt, where for the first time the super-fast network will cover almost the entire city… Functioning on the 28GHz and 4.9GHz frequency bands, it will test so-called Smart City technology, designed to improve security and urban services management, as well as helping to develop the transport system, according to MTS.’

Corporations, Agencies and Govt Bodies involved in 5G

Vigiliae 08.11.18

Cisco and others’ involvement in 5G:

‘The CIA are responsible for funding many of the companies that have created software and hardware for 5G applications. The CIA uses its venture capital company In-Q-Tel to fund 5G companies, a partnership between the CIA and private companies.  Qualcomm is the leading developer of microchips and processors for mobile communication networks, they developed the first generation of 5G after buying out an Israeli company called DesignArt in 2012. Qualcomm is just one of many companies connected to the CIA.’