Newswires: Surveillance / CCTV | WOMBLES - News, Information for anarchist direct action

Various Resources

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:39:48 +0000

A government website (USAspending.gov) that is intended to provide transparency on government contracts and awards currently presents incomplete, inconsistent and sometimes invalid data, the Government Accountability Office said last week. See “Electronic Government: Implementation of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006″ (pdf), GAO-10-365, March 2010. “Improving Transparency and Accessibility of Federal Contracting Databases” [...]

U.K. May Ask RBS, Lloyds to Subsidize Identity Cards

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:45:59 +0000

Kitty Donaldson writes in US magazine Business Week: Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government may ask U.K. banks and supermarkets to subsidize its national identity-card program, paying for documents for poorer customers to attract business. Home Office minister Meg Hillier said companies might offer to buy the 30-pound ($46) cards for people who wouldn’t pay for them otherwise. [...]

Un-policing the borders!

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:54:43 +0000

Noise demo outside the “Policing the Borders” conference at the Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London W1G 9DT (nearest tube: Oxford Circus) on Tuesday 23rd March at 2.30pm. This Tuesday representatives of the European Border Agency FRONTEX, various UK police forces and the Identity and Passport Service are gathering in central London for a conference under the title “Policing the Border”. The conference, which claims to secure the border against “illegal immigration” and terrorism, will also be attended by representatives of many security companies and feature an exhibition about border security and surveillance. read more

More following the killing of Lambros Fountas - from the Greek press

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:03:00 +0000

from Greek daily KathimeriniDNA tests thwart terror probeDNA tests on drops of blood found at the scene of a shootout last Wednesday in southeastern Athens match the blood of Lambros Fountas, the 35-year-old terrorist suspect killed in the exchange of fire, according to counterterrorism police officers, who had hoped the blood would shed light on the identity of a second man who eluded arrest.The blood found at the scene of the shooting also failed to match blood samples gathered from the sites of recent terrorist attacks and bank robberies, thwarting police efforts to link Fountas to domestic terrorist groups such as Sect of Revolutionaries and Revolutionary Struggle.Police believe that the second suspect is a member of an anti-establishment group with links to another recently formed terrorist group, the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire. Officers who were at the scene of the shooting last Wednesday claim to have recognized the second suspect before he fled.Police have stepped up their investigation into Fountas’s suspected involvement in terrorist activities after a search of his home at the end of last week turned up a detailed map of the capital’s surveillance cameras.Sources told private television channel Mega yesterday that police fear a revenge attack by domestic terrorists for Fountas’s death. These fears were fueled by the discovery of the map, which pinpoints all the capital’s street cameras and includes notes regarding the scope and blind spots of each camera’s lens.Officers have also boosted their search for a possible hideout and have intensified surveillance of the dead man’s relatives and close friends. Seven keys found at Fountas’s home in Ambelokipi, near central Athens, are being tested but have not yet matched any addresses linked to the suspect.Police have also asked the director of the private diagnostic clinic where Fountas was employed for a list of the dates the 35-year-old had taken off work to determine whether they correspond with those of any domestic terrorist attacks.

What feedback does the government really want on ID cards?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:13:05 +0000

Nicole Kobie writes in the IT Pro Editorial blog: My mum — and yours too, I’m sure — used to say this: “If you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” That’s not bad advice for six-year-olds, but I’d expect better from the government. Yesterday, I went to a speech delivered by identity minister Meg [...]

Obama Supports DNA Database of 'Presumed Innocents'

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:29:58 +0000

President Barack Obama recently expressed support for DNA sampling within the criminal procedure upon arrest by local, state and federal au...

EFF Asks Illinois Appellate Court to Block Unmasking of Anonymous Online Critic

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:19:50 +0000

Chicago - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Media Freedom and Information Access Practicum (MFIA) at Yale Law School filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging the Illinois Court of Appeals to block the unmasking of an anonymous online critic of a local political candidate. The critic, commenting on a story on the website of a suburban Chicago newspaper called the Daily Herald, engaged in a heated debate with other commenters. One turned out to be the son of the village trustee candidate in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, who was discussed in the article. The candidate, Lisa Stone, who eventually won her race, asked a state court to order the newspaper to release the critic's name and address without appropriately showing that the statements directed towards her son were defamatory or otherwise illegal. Stone indicated that she may choose to subsequently file a lawsuit once she determines the critic's identity through the pre-complaint procedure. "Because of the enormous potential for abuse, the First Amendment requires litigants to demonstrate that they have a legitimate case before they can use the courts to unmask anonymous online critics," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Insults are not enough, especially when the conversation takes place in the context of a political campaign." In November, a lower court granted Stone's pre-lawsuit request for her critic's identity, incorrectly arguing that a narrow disclosure to Stone would adequately protect the speaker's First Amendment rights. The court stayed the disclosure requirement in light of the speaker's appeal. In its amicus brief filed today, EFF and MFIA argue that this low standard for unmasking an anonymous speaker has a chilling effect on all manner of anonymous speech, political or otherwise. "Lisa Stone is now a person of political power in the community. She does not have a blank check to pry into someone's life just because he said something she didn't like," said Margot Kaminski, Yale Law student and co-founder of MFIA. "We hope the Court of Appeals will recognize the importance that anonymous speech plays in the free and robust political debate generated by newspapers online." For the full amicus brief: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/stone_v_paddock/Scanned%20Brief.pdf Contact: Matt Zimmerman Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation mattz@eff.org

ID cards can help fight social exclusion

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:44:50 +0000

Meg Hillier writes in Progress Online, advocating the Home Office’s ID Cards Scheme: There is so much potential for a service which has citizens’ rights at its heart. It can help reach the very people who find it hard to assert their rights now. And the technological possibilities are exciting. My vision is of an identity service [...]

EFF to Urge True Transparency in Congressional Hearing Thursday

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:14:03 +0000

Washington, D.C. - On Thursday, March 18, at 2 p.m., members of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a public hearing on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Obama administration compliance with transparency law. The hearing comes as transparency advocates celebrate Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of our nation's open government laws that features numerous events measuring the progress made in combating official secrecy. Senior Counsel David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify at Thursday's hearing, urging the White House to fulfill its promises for open government. Despite President Obama's order to government agencies last year to renew their commitment to FOIA, EFF and other organizations still see delays in releasing relevant documents, excuses for not releasing other records, and excessive redactions, among other needless secrecy. In one case, for example, EFF has compared heavily redacted documents from the FBI released to us under FOIA with documents leaked from a whistleblower containing no redactions. We found that much of the blacked-out content concerns the FBI's attempts to avoid court oversight of its inappropriate surveillance tactics through the use of generic and legally questionable "umbrella" authorizations. However, these umbrella authorizations had already been revealed to the public in a previous report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General. You can see a revealing side-by-side comparison at http://www.eff.org/pages/sunshine2010. WHO: David Sobel Senior Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation WHAT: "Administration of the Freedom of Information Act: Current Trends" U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives WHEN: 2 p.m. Thursday, March 18 WHERE: Rayburn House Office Building Room 2154 Washington, D.C. 20515 For more on the hearing: http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=2&extmode... For a side-by-side comparison of the FBI redactions: http://www.eff.org/pages/sunshine2010 Contact: Rebecca Jeschke Media Relations Director Electronic Frontier Foundation press@eff.org

TSA worker tried to sabotage terror database, feds say

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:40:00 +0000

Posted in Crime, 11th March 2010 23:59 GMTA former data analyst for the US Transportation Security Agency has been accused of trying to sabotage a terrorist screening database used to vet people with access to sensitive information and secure areas of the nation’s transportation network.A 46-year-old man who worked as a TSA contractor for five years, planted the malicious code in the server used to maintain the database in mid October, a week after he was told his employment would be terminated at the end of the month, according to documents filed in US District Court in Colorado.

COP15 Arrestees head to trial March 16th and 19th. Resist state Repression!

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:59:19 +0000

On March 16th and March 19th, Noah (American) and Natasha (Australian) will go to trial for charges related to the organization of demonstrations against the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. They are facing politically motivated charges which accuse them of organizing to disrupt the public order and do violence to police, and face stiff prison sentences as well as deportation form Denmark. Both were targeted by Danish police and arrested in December during the COP15, and kept in jail for 25 days in isolation before being released in advance of their trials. Their trials are part of a campaign of police repression carried out by the Danish police during the COP15 in which over 2,000 people were arrested within a week of protests. Of all arrested, only around 30 were charged with any crime, and those that were charged were kept in jail for between one week and 47 days without trial. Some have already gone to trial and either been acquitted or received small jail sentences and heavy fines for charges such as assaulting a police officer or throwing a stone. Some have also been deported and banned from Denmark for 6 years. Noah And Natasha are the first two to go to trial of seven accused of organizing demonstrations, and face much stiffer jail sentences (a year or more) then those who have previously gone to trial. The case is being brought on minimal and sketchy evidence, primarily acquired through dubious phone taps and other types of police surveillance. read more

Irish Army set to buy Israeli Bullets?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:34:04 +0000

Recent event show israel is not our 'friend', so why buy Bullets from them/ In light of recent events, with Israeli murder squads putting Irish Citizens in danger by illegal use of Irish passports to facilitate their illegal murders, what possible reason could our useless Gov't use in order to justify financially supporting the Israeli Military Murder Machine?

Israel Seals Off West Bank as Tensions Rise

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:11:14 +0000

By Matthew Kalman - Daily Telegraph [Israeli] Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to cut off the [West Bank] until midnight on Saturday, citing a heightened risk of attacks...Israel also limited access to Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Only worshippers with Israeli identity cards and aged over 50 were permitted. read more

Netflix cancels recommendation contest over privacy

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:20:06 +0000

Not as anonymous as you think Netflix has canceled a contest designed to improve its movie recommendation system out of concern it might compromise the privacy of its customers.…What is your recession sales strategy?

(en) Canada, Vancouver, Media, During the Olympics, two young activists learn the finer points of militant action, , Printer-Friendly Version

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:22:10 +0000

In monumental buildings in Vancouver, people gathered to bear witness to the strength of the human body and the spectacle of the recent Olympic games. On the streets, thousands gathered to mourn and protest to its current and future cost: the mountains and trees removed to build lodges and ski trails on un-ceded indigenous territory; the eviction of low-income people from homes designated for Olympics inspired renovation and demolition; the homelessness beyond “Project Civil City,” an initiative that criminalized aggressive panhandling and sleeping outdoors. ---- Beneath the surveillance cameras recently installed on public streets, two Seattle residents, Michelle Woo and Stephen Clark, raised their voices in protest. ---- When did you decide to go and why? ---- Michelle: We decided a month or two before the Olympics, but I had been thinking about it for a long ...

Pushed by the Violence of Our Desires: A Statement Regarding March 4

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:22:03 +0000

Over the past few days, dozens of communiqués, letters, and statements have been circulating regarding issues of race, gender, and disrespect on M4. We have no intentions of addressing or disputing particular accusations or narratives regarding M4 in this statement; these things will inevitably be argued about elsewhere. Here, we attempt to discuss the language and politics that have been used in framing these issues. As queer women of color, we feel as if we are trapped in the middle of all of this talk about identities. We have had, for some time, our own frustrations with and critiques of a number of white men with whom we have worked. At the same time, we are uncomfortable with the way in which the identities of "people of color" and "women" are being used to critique and condemn the events of M4, because we – as queer women of color – don’t agree with how these critiques and condemnations are being framed. In fact, we're not just uncomfortable; we’re actually really angry about the way a small group of people, purporting to speak for the entire population of CUNY, has hijacked this rhetoric of talking about privilege and identity and deployed it in a fashion entirely too simplistic, generalized, and essentialist. Issues of privilege and identity are incredibly important to us and we wholeheartedly agree that they should be talked about. But as it stands now, identities like "person of color" and "woman" are being invoked in order to mask reactionary politics, and furthermore, are being employed in ways that contribute to the erasure of our identities as active participants in militant struggle. read more

Teach-In about Points Based Immigration at Goldsmiths

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:42:16 +0000

Plenaries, Workshops, Music, Food RHB 141, Main building, Goldsmiths University, Lewisham Way, New Cross, March 18, 5 p.m. till late. We stand united, as students and staff, in opposition to the new points-based immigration rules.... They frame students as suspects and turn staff into border agents. Join us, meet others, and help spread the campaign! With Frances Webber (Human Rights Lawyer), Phil Booth (NO2ID), Valerie Hartwich (Manifesto Club), Sandy Nicoll (SOAS Living Wage Campaign/Justice for Cleaners), speakers from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, No Borders, and more. Hosted by Goldsmiths Student Union and Goldsmiths UCU Register at studentsnotsuspects@gmail.com More details about the campaign at: http://studentsnotsuspects.blogspot.com/ Join us on Facebook (Students Not Suspects)

Against Education - in Solidarity with Alfredo Bonanno - Communique from New York City

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:33:00 +0000

from: Comrades 10:36μμ, 26 Friday February 2010We attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating.Capitalism is a system of relationships, which goes from inside to out, from outside to in, from above to below, and from below to above. Everything is relative, everything is in chains. Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul.-Franz KafkaThere is nothing left; nothing that hasn’t been molded, molested, or completely crushed; nothing that has managed to escape the network of power as it scours every inch of the earth, lodging itself into every crevice. Crowding each moment, the omnipresent asphyxiation provides ample evidence to this all-encompassing totalization. Heads bowed, backs bent, we bear the weight of the day in our beleaguered entrails.Now taking on increasingly monstrous qualities, a vampire-likeness of achieved full nocturnality, even the sleeper finds his dreams inhabited. Robbing us of expectations, snatching away our latent potential, Capital has acquired the speculative capability to recuperate futures and integrate things before their invention. After colonizing the entire world, the enemy now works to conquer the collective realm of our imaginations where we once plotted and, consequently, envisioned its very demise.The cooption of creativity signaled the predetermined defeat, which led the Marxists to surrender to the British Museum before they realized an 1848. The only pseudo-victory to their credit consists in pushing Negri out of the spotlight by ushering “communization” and “insurrection” into the academy’s discursive field. Both trends can be written off as failed experiments because each has neglected to activate the only concept capable of giving jargon any significance. The Struggle.“To fight, to be defeated, to fight again, to be defeated again, to fight anew until the final victory.”- An old Italian adageIn practice, the clashes and occupations have divorced the leftist baggage and chosen everyday life as the terrain for conflict, yet unfortunately expression still continues to abide by the activist calendar. A day of action is paled by a year of misery. Like long fits of depression, extended bouts of downtime undermine each subversive act, resulting in the production of militant event planners: blinded to the past and merely anticipating the next unsuccessful Bastille storming. They strike at the same tempo ordinary citizens attend birthday parties, riot at the same rate of wedding crashers and surely, at this pace, they will never RSVP the bourgeoisie funeral.Detached theory and relegated practice present themselves as nothing other than the comorbid symptoms of statified ideology. Now we can confidently diagnose that the much prophesized “coming” can only amount to a passing fad.We notice the relentless internalized repression masquerading as patience and so we refuse to wait for March 4th, the ides of March or, for that matter, any date to come. We expressed our distaste for the veiled technological prison of surveillance and electronic monitoring by sabotaging several of the soon to be installed ID-card scanners at the Hunter College campus. Against education as such, we then struck Brooklyn College’s administrative building. Lastly, we attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating. We extend our solidarity to the two imprisoned comrades and, as Bonanno’s health deteriorates in a prison cell, we adhere to the following principle.“For an eye, two eyes. For a tooth, the whole face.”

Déjà vu: the frame up against Alfredo Bonanno has begun

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:40:00 +0000

ANSA, 25 février 2010translated from: cette semaineGREECE: ANARCHIST BONANNO SUSPECTED OF SECOND ROBBERYAthens, 25 feb. - Alfredo Bonanno, the Italian anarchist over 70 years old imprisoned last October following an accusation of concourse in robbery of a bank in Trikala, is suspected of being the author of another robbery carried out last July at Argostoli, on the island of Cefalonia. Bonanno's lawyers contest this accusation. According to police sources cited by the media, Bonanno, with a false beard and wig, would have been recognised by one of the witnesses on the basis of a cctv video, while he robbed the Bank of Cyprus, pistol in hand, 6 July in Argostoli. The information has been partially confirmed to Ansa by a spokesman of the central police station, according to which "an old Italian is considered author of the robbery at Argostoli, which rendered 26 000 euros". The spokesman did not give Bonanno's name directly but implied that it was him.Joanna Kurtovic, the Greek lawyer of the old Italian imprisoned in Korydallos (Athens), has expressed her doubts concerning the identification on the basis of a video and a critique of the way this accusation was made public. Bonanno, who suffers from diabetes and has cardio-respiratory problems, is one of the main theoreticians of anarcho-insurrectionnalism (sic). He was arrested at the beginning of October with the Greek anarchist Christos Stratigopoulos following the robbery of a bank in Trikala, for 47 000 euros. The Italian was later arrested in an hotel where the police found the proceeds of the robbery. Bonanno's defence is that he received the bag from Stratigopoulos, without knowing what it contained. His version, the lawyer points out, has been confirmed by Stratigopoulos, who has taken full responsibility for the robbery. The judge, apparently due to Bonanno's previous record, already having been sentenced in Italy, did not believe him and sent him to prison awaiting trial.

09/25/08 PRESS RELEASE: Rise in Federal Policing, Surveillance and Immigration Enforcement Signals Growth and Adaptation of U.S. Criminal Justice System

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:01:06 +0000

US: The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Bush administrations wiretapping program has come under new scrutiny. Two influential congressional committees have opened probes into allegations US intelligence spied on the phone calls of U.S. military personnel, journalists and aid workers in Iraq. James Bamford discusses the NSAs domestic sprying, the agencys failings pre-9/11 and the ties between NSA and the nations telecommunications companies.

US: Translator Who Faked Identity Pleads Guilty To Having Secret Data

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:09:43 +0000

An Arabic translator who used an assumed identity to get work as a contractor for the U.S. Army in Iraq pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges of possessing classified national defense documents, including sensitive material about the insurgency that he took from an 82nd Airborne Division intelligence group in 2004.