Category: Corruption Corner

Chicanery in the Zimmerman Trail

Regardless of your opinion on Zimmerman’s innocence or guilt, yesterday’s action by the prosecution should strike you as, at the very least, questionable:

In a surprise move this morning, the prosecution asked the Judge to drop the Aggravated Assault charge and to instruct the jury on Third Degree Murder, which is murder in the course of committing a felony.

The felony the State wanted as the predicate was Aggravated Child Abuse (Jury Instruction) because Trayvon Martin was 17 at the time of the shooting.

Fortunately, Judge Nelson denied the request. But the prosecution’s action still demonstrates how badly they want to find Zimmerman guilty. Throughout the trial the prosecution has, in my opinion, failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman wasn’t acting in self-defense. I believe the prosecutor also believes this but wants to put Zimmerman in a cage no matter the cost. Because of this desire he apparently decided to entering a request to instruct the jury on another lesser charge was his best hope of nailing Zimmerman. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with either the prosecution or defense requesting something but this request was made after both sides made their closing statements. The defense had no time to address the charges so, had the judge agreed to instruct the jury on the charges, there would have been no way for Zimmerman’s lawyer to defend against the charge.

There has been a lot of chicanery going on since the start of this entire Zimmerman/Martin fiasco. It really demonstrates how ineffective the justice system in this country is.

Malware: A Convenient Excuse to Upgrade Hardware

Many of you have probably heard about the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) act of outright destroying perfectly functional hardware because of malware infections:

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) is an agency in the Department of Commerce that promotes economic development in regions of the US suffering slow growth, low employment, and other economic problems. In December 2011, the Department of Homeland Security notified both the EDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that there was a possible malware infection within the two agencies’ systems.

[…]

EDA’s CIO, fearing that the agency was under attack from a nation-state, insisted instead on a policy of physical destruction. The EDA destroyed not only (uninfected) desktop computers but also printers, cameras, keyboards, and even mice. The destruction only stopped—sparing $3 million of equipment—because the agency had run out of money to pay for destroying the hardware.

The total cost to the taxpayer of this incident was $2.7 million: $823,000 went to the security contractor for its investigation and advice, $1,061,000 for the acquisition of temporary infrastructure (requisitioned from the Census Bureau), $4,300 to destroy $170,500 in IT equipment, and $688,000 paid to contractors to assist in development of a long-term response. Full recovery took close to a year.

The full grim story was detailed in the Department of Commerce audit released last month, subsequently reported by Federal News Radio.

Most of the people I’ve talked to about this story have written it off as ineptitude on behalf of the EDA’s leadership, specifically laughing about how poorly they understood technology. Even though I tend to attribute buffoonery to stupidity instead of malice in this case I think the leadership of the EDA knew exactly what they were doing. They were looking for a way to justify upgrading their equipment.

Computer technology advances quickly and hardware that his a mere two years old is already out of date. If you’re the leadership of a massive government bureaucracy looking to have the latest and greatest technology at hand what can you do? You can exploit the first tragedy that arises! The agency had enough foresight to hire a security contractor who likely informed it that there was no reason to replace any hardware. Yes the agency replaced a great deal of hardware. In all likelihood the EDA’s leadership knew there was no reason to do so but went forward with the plan anyways because they knew they could write off their act of destruction and simple ignorance. Everybody knows accountability is dead within the state after all.

The Danger of Databases

Gun control advocates often find gun owners’ opposition to databases irrational. In the minds of gun control advocates a database of gun owners, or at least people prohibited from owning firearms, is a good idea because it can decrease the proliferation of firearms in society. They are generally unconcerned with possibilities of abuse because in their eyes the state is a benevolent entity that obediently serves the people (unless it reduces the number of restrictions on gun ownership, then they believe it is an evil monster controlled by the National Rifle Association).

Gun owners realize those assumptions are incorrect. Databases do nothing to decrease the proliferation of firearms in society because individuals with enough interest in acquiring firearms will find a way to do so in a manner that bypasses any databases. Furthermore, gun owners realize that databases in the state’s hands will be abused:

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s billed by the FBI as “the lifeline of law enforcement” — a federal database used to catch criminals, recover stolen property and even identify terrorism suspects.

But authorities say Edwin Vargas logged onto the restricted system and ran names for reasons that had nothing to do with his duties as a New York Police Department detective. Instead, he was accused in May of looking up personal information on two fellow officers without their knowledge.

[…]

NYPD recruits are warned that “if you misuse or you access information in an inappropriate manner … you are in serious trouble — such as being prosecuted, being fired and also big fines,” a police academy instructor testified at the trial of Gilbert Valle, who was convicted in March in a bizarre plot to kidnap, cook and cannibalize women.

In addition, an FBI compliance unit conducts spot audits to examine users’ “policies, procedures, and security requirements,” the FBI said in a statement. The FBI also requires each state to have its own audit programs and claims that “malicious misuse is not commonly discovered.”

But both the instructor testifying at the Valle trial and an Internal Affairs Bureau investigator who took the witness stand in an earlier case have conceded that officers can easily circumvent safeguards.

Databases will always, I repeat always, be abused by the state.

No Honor Among Thieves

State informants are some of the lowest of the low. Before becoming informants many are participants in crime rings (real crime rings, not anti-state activists). After becoming informants they continues their participation in their crime rings and they snitch on their fellows. Sometimes this cycle of subterfuge leads to hilarity:

For much of 2011, Icelandic then-teenager and self-described hacker Sigurdur Thordarson worked as both a WikiLeaks volunteer and an FBI informant.

[…]

In an instant message conversation with Thordarson Thursday, I asked him what he might have given to the FBI that could be relevant to its investigation, and he responded immediately with a log of an instant message conversation between himself and the member of the LulzSec hacker group known as Sabu, which he says he gave to the FBI and which he claims shows “that information was passed on from LulzSec that later got published by WikiLeaks.” Thordarson told me he believes the log supports a “conspiracy” charge against Julian Assange or others in WikiLeaks.

[…]

More interesting, or at least more humorous, is the fact that the chat log represents a conversation between two FBI informants, both of whom seem to be trying to lure the other into providing evidence they can turn over to their law enforcement handlers–or even into a meeting that could lead to the other’s arrest. Sabu, also known as Hector Xavier Monsegur, had agreed to work as an FBI mole within LulzSec months before his conversation with Thordarson.

It’s always nice to see informants wasting their energy on trying to turn in fellow informants. There truly is no honor among thieves.

The NSA Has Been Collecting E-Mails Since 2001

The list of known crimes perpetrated the National Security Agency (NSA) keeps growing and growing. So far the agency has been caught intercepting Internet traffic, and accessing customer data directly from corporate systems. As this information has continued to roll out people have assumed that those practices are relatively new. Not surprisingly, the NSA has been spying on us for a long time:

The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata “every 90 days”. A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011.

The collection of these records began under the Bush administration’s wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind.

The NSA claims that the program ended in 2011 but the only reason it ended was because they had a new program to accomplish the same things. Same shit, different name.

You Can’t Trust Anybody These Days

This day and age it’s very difficult to find trustworthy people. Julian Assange knows this fact better than most people since his involvement in WikiLeaks made him a primary target for state aggression. As it turns out, a volunteer for WikiLeaks was actually a paid Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) informant:

On an August workday in 2011, a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man named Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson walked through the stately doors of the U.S. embassy in Reykjavík, his jacket pocket concealing his calling card: a crumpled photocopy of an Australian passport. The passport photo showed a man with a unruly shock of platinum blonde hair and the name Julian Paul Assange.

Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: the first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks. For the next three months, Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000. The FBI flew him internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C., and on the last meeting obtained from Thordarson eight hard drives packed with chat logs, video and other data from WikiLeaks.

This news demonstrates two things: Julian Assange’s paranoid was justified and the FBI was investing notable resources into destroying investigating WikiLeaks. The FBI’s tenacity in investigating WikiLeaks also shows how transparent the current government isn’t. WikiLeaks does little more than release dirty secrets of corporations and governments. If the government was actually transparent it wouldn’t care about its dirty secrets being released, but the government has actually put a great deal of resources into stopping leaks and prosecuting leakers.

The Government Learned Its Lesson, Kill the Whistleblower Before He Blows the Whistle

Michael Hasting’s mysterious death last week left a lot of unanswered questions. Somehow the man managed to die in a car accident, that was so horrific his vehicle burst into flames, shortly after contacting WikiLeaks with concern that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was investigating him. More evidence has been brought to light that gives credence to the idea that Hastings was murdered by the United States government:

Hours before dying in a fiery car crash, award-winning journalist Michael Hastings sent an email to his colleagues, warning that federal authorities were interviewing his friends and that he needed to go “off the rada[r]” for a bit.

[…]Here’s the email, with the recipients’ names redacted.

Subject: FBI Investigation, re: NSA

Hey (redacted names) — the Feds are interviewing my “close friends and associates.” Perhaps if the authorities arrive “BuzzFeed GQ,” er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.

Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.

All the best, and hope to see you all soon.

Michael

I think the federal government learned its lesson with Edward Snowden, kill the whistleblower before he has a chance to blow the whistle. Anything is possible considering how out of control the federal government has proven to be.

The NSA’s Complete Lack of Oversight

Since Edward Snowden leaked information regarding the National Security Agency’s (NSA) PRISM program the state has been ensuring us that a great deal of oversight exists between the NSA’s agents and private communications. As it turns out, that isn’t the case:

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

That is a major point to note. If the NSA “inadvertently” collects data on people living in the United States, the very same people the NSA claims it’s not spying on, it can use that data without so much as a warrant. I ask you, what motivation does the NSA have not to collect domestic communications? If there’s no punishment for doing so then there is no motivation against doing it. What makes this even worse is that this policy comes from the top:

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

Is anybody surprised that Eric Holder has authorized the NSA to collect data on people living in the United States? After all the skeletons that have been pouring out of his closet I doubt anybody is even slightly shocked by this revelation. Just how far does this authority go? Pretty damned far:

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of “inadvertently acquired” domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve “foreign intelligence information” contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from “U.S. based machine[s]” or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

In other words, there is no real oversight or any form of protection against the NSA spying on people residing in the United States. Most of us have suspected this for a long time but until now we’ve been unable to surface proof.

We’re Accountable Because We Say We’re Accountable

Whenever anarchists challenge statists about rampent abuses of power such as the National Security Agency (NSA) spying on anybody and everybody, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) creating terrorist so it has somebody to bust, or the United States bombing of children in the Middle East the standard response is that a more accountable state is needed. An accountable state is a paradox because a state maintains a monopoly on creating and enforcing laws. In order to be prosecuted the state must first find itself guilty of breaking the law.

Case in point, agents of the FBI has been involved in numerous shootouts but not once has the FBI decided any of those agents were in error:

But if such internal investigations are time-tested, their outcomes are also predictable: from 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The last two years have followed the same pattern: an F.B.I. spokesman said that since 2011, there had been no findings of improper intentional shootings.

In most of the shootings, the F.B.I.’s internal investigation was the only official inquiry. In the Orlando case, for example, there have been conflicting accounts about basic facts like whether the Chechen man, Ibragim Todashev, attacked an agent with a knife, was unarmed or was brandishing a metal pole. But Orlando homicide detectives are not independently investigating what happened.

How can a monopoly holder of justice ever be held accountable? Advocates of democracy will claim the people can hold the state accountable by voting out agents that do wrong. The first problem with such a claim is that most employees of the state, including FBI agents, aren’t elected officials. The second problem is that justice becomes a decision of a voting majority. If a voting majority believe a murder was justified then the murderer remains unaccountable.

Monopoly holders of justice can’t be held accountable because they hold a monopoly on the very thing that would otherwise make them accountable and that’s one of the biggest failures of statism.

More on the Marriage of the State and the Private Sector

Last week I mentioned the trend of the state and private enterprise merging to assist one another in spying on us. This week it was revealed that Skype was working with the state to place a back door in its software in 2008:

Skype, the Internet-based calling service, began its own secret program, Project Chess, to explore the legal and technical issues in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials, according to people briefed on the program who asked not to be named to avoid trouble with the intelligence agencies.

Project Chess, which has never been previously disclosed, was small, limited to fewer than a dozen people inside Skype, and was developed as the company had sometimes contentious talks with the government over legal issues, said one of the people briefed on the project. The project began about five years ago, before most of the company was sold by its parent, eBay, to outside investors in 2009. Microsoft acquired Skype in an $8.5 billion deal that was completed in October 2011.

News like this shouldn’t surprise anybody but the real concern this story raises, as Bruce Schneier pointed out is that Skype denied such allocations previously, meaning they, along with every other tech company, can’t be trusted:

Reread that Skype denial from last July, knowing that at the time the company knew that they were giving the NSA access to customer communications. Notice how it is precisely worded to be technically accurate, yet leave the reader with the wrong conclusion. This is where we are with all the tech companies right now; we can’t trust their denials, just as we can’t trust the NSA — or the FBI — when it denies programs, capabilities, or practices.

We’re in a pretty bad situation since we can’t trust the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Microsoft, Apple, Google, or anybody else that’s part of this unholy mess of a spying operation.