Darker Net

The rebirth of blacklisting (new site begging for closure?)

Posted on November 5, 2012 by admin

James Bond lookalike used on HR Blacklist site

Blacklisting – that is the organised and deliberate exclusion of workers from employment on the basis of allegations about their political views and activities, or trade union representation or workplace safety activism – has been reborn in the UK. With the strap line “Telling the Truth about Employees”, a new web based organisation “HR blacklist” is not only offering access to details of potential applicants’ backgrounds, but is offering to pay “HR Agents” a dollar every time one of their alternative “resumes” is viewed by a subscriber.

In the UK the main blacklisting organisation from the end of the First World War onwards was a shadowy organisation on the extreme right of British politics called the Economic League. Throughout its lifetime the League’s blacklisting activities were frequently the subject of articles and criticism from the left, but largely untouched by the mainstream media and by the Labour Party, which might have been expected to take a stand. The dominating view in the media was that blacklisting wasn’t an issue; the numbers involved were small and those that were blacklisted possibly had it coming to them. This changed dramatically in the 1980’s when internal dissent in the League led to the leaking of a remarkable amount of information about the nature and scale of the League’s blacklisting “services” to employers. On prime time independent television, World in Action devoted three specials to the revelations, the BBC ran another expose in its series “Watchdog”. By 1993, following a drubbing at the hands of Parliament’s Employment Select Committee, and in the middle of a defamation claim it seemed likely to lose, the League went to receivership.

When the Labour Party formed a government in 1997 it revised Data Protection legislation against digital AND paper-held databases which saw, finally, regulations that outlawed the use of blacklists as part of the recruitment process. And, so, in the1999 Employment Relations Act government gave itself the opportunity to introduce regulations against blacklisting. However, those regulations were not put in place until 2010, when it emerged that the Economic League’s construction industry blacklist had survived as a trade association –The Consulting Association, run by former League employee Ian Kerr.

In the two years since their introduction, the Employment Relations Act, 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, have not been invoked. And to be honest it is inconceivable how they could be now, and for two quite different reasons. The first reason is the professional respectability of pre-employment vetting. When trying to put together some observations about the changed employment environment for “Spies at Work” (see below) I looked at a number of websites for HR corporations promoting employment vetting in accordance with British Standard BS7858 .

One large corporation, now with problems entirely of its own making, was GS4. On its website it was frank in its pitch for business: “Specialists in Employment Screening. We are a highly experienced team that offer a personal low-cost service to all businesses. It doesn’t matter whether you have a handful of employees or thousands, we tailor our services and costs to suit you! Without G4S employment screening you could be susceptible to: Fraudulent job applications. Dishonesty and security breaches. Exposure to extremists and protest activity.”

The second reason why it might be difficult to effectively implement the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 is the breadth, range and accessibility of information that is posted about us on the internet, either by ourselves or our family and friends. This makes the crude technology of a pre-compiled blacklist more or less redundant. This means that anyone, including potential employers, with the inclination to investigate can build up a realistic picture of an individual.

This new organisation, HR Blacklist, seems to overcome some of the shortcomings of the old technology. To put it simply it take a “wiki” approach to constructing its blacklist, with a small commission paid to the contributing “HR Agent” turning them into chair-based bounty hunters. HR Blacklist make the uploaded CV available to anyone who is registered, and prepared to pay a fee. This is a business plan that could generate a substantial database of damaging and defamatory information about a substantial number of workers very quickly. And its structure of payments would manage any financial risks carefully. Although it is clearly and explicitly in breach of the UK employment regulations, HR Blacklist currently operates from an IP address (182.18.185.47) in India. However it is possible to search for the names of those whose information is held on the database and it would seem most are based in America or the UK.

[Note from Darker Net. We suspect the India IP could well be a proxy using Tor or a VPN. The IP address of HR Blacklist's actual server is listed as being with a Panamanian company and has a proxy email: Fundacion, Email: http://reversewhois.domaintools.com/? email=daeb77de6207aa3177c45d241c2c03f0; 0850-00056, Zona 15, Panama, Tel: +507.65995877. Perhaps by being hosted offshore HR Blacklist hopes this will protect them from any legal action or, say, a DDoS attack.]

The UK transport union RMT is led by Bob Crow and he has said that a number of his members are on the list and has called for it to be shut down: “Action should be taken by the authorities to shut this blacklisting site down”. Even if the UK government was inclined to support Crow’s call, it is unlikely to have much success. As the American Government has discovered with Wikileaks, attempting to close down websites is a fools errand and counter productive. With this new development in blacklisting technology the most successful approach to limiting its impact will come from legal action against those that post the defamatory CV’s, employers that act on them – whether that is in respect of potential and current employees – and against anyone involved in developing or promoting HR Blacklist in the UK whether that is as a party to a breach of Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 or a wider and well organised criminal conspiracy.

While we don’t yet have details of those behind the organisation, no doubt they will eventually emerge. In the meantime in the contents of the HR Blacklist’s news page –“Immigration to the UK: the key Facts” gives us a clue as to where to start looking, and also where HR Blacklist believe left-wing extremism starts.

Mike Hughes

Mike Hughes is the author of the definitive history of the Economic League “Spies at Work”. It has recently been updated and reissued as a paperback ISBN
9781291044911 and an e-book; more information at http://spiesatwork.org.uk

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The plot to assassinate Franco & the man who spied on anarchists: new evidence/commentary by Stuart Christie.

Posted on November 4, 2012 by admin

Angel Jacinto Guerrero Lucas, aka 'El Peque'

So you think you know an infiltrator when you see one? Well, think again… There have been numerous spies inside anarchist organisations, some monitoring activities, others acting as agent-provocateurs. One individual – Angel Jacinto Guerrero Lucas – operated for decades in Spain and France and was responsible for many arrests, some leading to executions. A summary of Lucas’ activities, including his undercover role around the time of the plot to assassinate General Franco, is provided below, together with a detailed commentary based on recently released documents by Stuart Christie.

Angel Jacinto Guerrero Lucas, aka ‘El Peque’, was a Francoist infiltrator from 1961. He infiltrated the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL), Defensa Interior (D.I.) and was a member of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT in Exile. He was also responsible for many arrests in Spain, including complicity in the framing and execution of Francisco Granado and Joaquin Delgado in Carabanchel Prison, August 17, 1963. Lucas allegedly planted incriminating evidence within anarchist and GRAPO (Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre) circles in France as well as a cohort of the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación).

Note: after the death of the Spanish dictator, Franco, Angel Guerrero Jacinto Lucas worked for the Ministry of Interior, under the Socialist Rafael Vera, in the fight against the Basque organization, ETA.

Commentary from Stuart Christie:

[Note... Stuart Christie is a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher and best known for being arrested as an 18-year old while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish dictator, General Franco. He was later alleged to be a member of the Angry Brigade, but was acquitted of related charges. He went on to found the Cienfuegos Press publishing house, later Christie Books and in 2008 the online "Anarchist Film Channel", which hosts over 850 films and documentaries with anarchist and libertarian themes.]

Finally, after ten years or so, I have now received the Spanish police files (Dirección General de Seguridad/Brigada Político Social – DGS/BPS) relating to my arrest in 1964 [to see file in Spanish, see image below]. As I expected, they are heavily redacted, with missing (numbered) pages and contain little I didn’t know already. Interestingly, however, among the papers was a document (Diligencia 3276) dated 10 August 1964 — the day prior to my arrest — indicating that the source of the information (name redacted) about my mission and imminent arrival in Madrid came from an ‘active element of the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) in Tours’. (Tours may be a red herring; only four or five people — all of them in Paris — knew of my rendezvous in Madrid).

Equally interesting (to me, anyway) is the way the police presented my arrest as almost fortuitous, glossing over the fact they had been fully briefed beforehand by a well-placed, malicious — or co-opted — informer or infiltrator. The official BPS report, signed-off by acting Chief Superintendent Don Saturnino Yagüe González, makes no reference as to how or what the BPS knew other than the fact that — certainly from August 10 1964— they were expecting ‘terrorist actions’ in the run-up to the anniversary of the garrotting of Joaquin Delgado and Francisco Granada the previous 17 August. Almost intuitively it seems, Yagüe sent four BPS Inspectors (with a back-up team of armed officers) to the Plaza de las Cortes (the trap was, in fact, laid inside and around the AmeEx office building which they knew I would visit) where, at 3.00 pm on 11 August, they ‘observed a young man with a rucksack whose appearance raised their suspicions sufficiently to detain and interrogate him…’ — the rest is history! To paraphrase Rick Blaine’s mordent observation in ‘Casablanca’: ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…’ I had to walk into the Madrid offices of American Express…

At the same time, I got hold of the DGS/BPS depositions and documents relating to the case of Joaquin Delgado and Francisco Granado, two young anarchists who were arrested the previous August on the grounds that they appeared ‘suspicious’. We know the names of the two so-called ‘comrades’ responsible for their arrest and summary execution: Jacinto Guerrero Lucas and Inocencio Martínez — agent provocateurs working for the DGS/BPS and, certainly in the case of Guerrero Lucas, for the French Renseignements Généraux (RG). Neither of these characters was, however, involved in — or aware of — my identity or my mission to Madrid, so the informer(s) in my case have yet to be exposed and held to account for their actions….

N.B. Delgado and Granado were innocent of the charges for which they were garroted — the bombings at Security HQ (DGS) in the Puerta del Sol and the HQ of the Falangist labour unions — having been deliberately and cynically framed by the DGS/BPS as fall guys, ‘pour encourager les autres’— that and the fact they were in Madrid preparing an assassination attempt on Franco, an attempt that was abandoned when Franco left Madrid unexpectedly early that summer, on July 25. An additional aggravating factor was, probably — given Franco’s obsession with freemasonry — the fact that Delgado was also a member of the French ‘Grand Orient’ Lodge. The bombings of the DGS and Falangist union HQ were in fact carried out by two other anarchists from ‘Defensa Interior’ (D.I.): Antonio Martín Bellído and Sergio Hernández – both of whom returned safely to Paris after the actions. Neither group was aware of the presence of the other in the Spanish capital. However, Guerrero Lucas and Inocencio Martinez, separately and independently were aware of the mission, and that Joaquin Delgado had been sent to abort the action, cache the weapons and material for the assassination attempt and get Granado out of Spain.

For an extensive investigation on Guerrero Lucas, see here.

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Posted in Far Right, Surveillance | Tagged police, Spain, spies | Leave a comment

Obama’s inquisition-style grand jury system spreads net wide

Posted on November 3, 2012 by admin

For decades the US Grand Jury system has been used to criminalise dissent of one kind or another. Over the last two years its application has accelerated, targeting alleged whistleblowers (and their publishers – e.g. Wikileaks) as well as protesters generally and even supporters of persons arraigned, so setting a new benchmark in the way the US Government asserts its control. Below, we provide a summary of how the Grand Jury system works, together with an outline of three very different cases that act as portents of darker times to come – unless…

Breaking… Anarchists in north-west USA have taken US military to court over alleged infiltrator – court hearing on November 5th (Anarchist Day – no joke!). See below for details.

1. How the Grand Jury works

At a Grand Jury you have no right to remain silent, no right to be represented by an attorney and no right to a trial should you be jailed. In fact, you can be jailed for up to 18 months without even being charged for a crime. A Grand Jury consists of 16 to 23 jurors who are not screened for bias. The purpose is not to determine guilt or innocence but to decide whether there is probable cause to prosecute someone for a crime. The Grand Jury operates in secrecy and the normal rules of evidence do not apply. The prosecutor runs the proceedings and no judge is present. Defense lawyers are not allowed to be present in the Grand Jury room and cannot present evidence, but may be available outside the room to consult with witnesses. The prosecutor and the Grand Jury members may not reveal what occurred in the Grand Jury room and witnesses cannot obtain a transcript of their testimony. Those called before the Grand Jury may be compelled to answer any question, even those relating to lawful personal and political activities. If a witness asserts their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, they may be forced to accept immunity or go to jail for contempt as refusal to speak can be considered civil contempt.

Here is a flowchart on what someone should do if forced to attend a Grand Jury.

Over the years grand juries have been used as a tool to intimidate political activists, create mistrust and pressure people to inform on their friends. Not everyone is capable of standing up to this kind of pressure. And repression against activists in the USA is not new, of course: from the McCarthy “investigations” in the 1950′s, to the counterintelligence programs of the 1960′s and ’70′s, to the Grand Jury investigations of Puerto Rican, Black liberation and white anti-imperialist movements in the 1980s.

2. Three examples of how the GR system is being applied today.

Each of the people featured in the cases below are, in their different ways, idealists, fighters for justice, exposing truth and seeking a better, fairer world – yet instead of being rewarded for their efforts they are victimised.

A. Example 1: The protesters who merely wore the ‘wrong ‘ clothes.
On July 25th, the FBI conducted a series of coordinated raids against activists in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. FBI agents had search warrants for “black clothing,” “flag-making material” and “anti-government or anarchist literature”. Soon after, Matthew Kyle Duran, Katherine “Kteeo” Olejnik and Leah-Lynne Plante were subpoenaed to Grand Jury hearings, where they were asked about their political opinions and the political circles and individuals they associated with. Duran, Plante and Olejnik have not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. The FBI later justified the raids and the use of the Grand Jury as being a response to the May Day protest in Seattle. However, Freedom of Information requests showed that the Grand Jury was convened on March 2 – two months before the May Day protests took place. Matt Duran was subsequently jailed on September 12 after refusing to speak at a Grand Jury hearing. Kteeo Olejnik also refused to testify at a Grand Jury hearing on September 27 and was sent to prison. Leah-Lynne Plante was sent to prison for refusing to testify on the 11th of October but was released a week later.

In a recent development, on October 28, two FBI agents served Matthew “Maddy” Pfeiffer with a subpoena in Olympia. Pfeiffer is scheduled to appear before the Grand Jury in Seattle on November 7. Also, we should recall that it was in Olympia where the notorious infiltrator, John Towery, was based: he was working for the Force Protection Unit and Fusion Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) and gained access to names and email addresses of local protesters – for more on Towery, click here and for an update on a court hearing re. his activities, click here.

Note, too, that the Committee Against Political Repression has released a statement withdrawing support from Leah-Lynne Plante until she clarifies the exact circumstances of her release from custody. Here is another comment on this by Kevin Gosztola of The Dissenter. Whatever happened here, Leah-Lynne Plante, like her co-defendants, remains a victim of the GJ system, which is designed to put people under intense pressure and sow seeds of distrust and thereby create divisions.

Here are details of how police are using drones to spy on activists in Seattle.

B. Example 2: When the Grand Jury net can spread beyond the USA.
On March 5, 2012, Jeremy Hammond was arrested by FBI agents in Chicago ahead of a Grand Jury indictment. It did not stop there: Hammond was but one of six people from the United States, England and Ireland who were indicted, due largely to a cooperating witness (i.e. grass) known online as Sabu. Hammond and the others were arrested in connection with cyber attacks, allegedly organised by the hacktivist collectives Anonymous and LulzSec. Hammond was subsequently charged with hacking into the computer system of intelligence firm, Strategic Forecasting Inc., stealing the information of 860,000 clients, including a former vice-president and a former CIA director, whose names were redacted from the original complaint, and publishing the information of 60,000 credit card holders and using stolen credit card information to charge up to $700,000. The infamous ‘Statfor files’, also known as the ”GIF” (Global Intelligence Files), were allegedly passed to Wikileaks and revealed embarrassing information about governments worldwide. If convicted, Hammond faces up to 10 years in prison.

C. Example 3: When a Grand Jury can be used against a defendant’s supporter.
A Federal Grand Jury was convened in Alexandria, Virginia, in November 2010, to investigate connections between WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, and U.S. Army Private, Bradley Manning, who was arrested six months earlier and accused of being a whistleblower. But it didn’t stop there… Grand Jury subpoenas were subsequently issued to members of the Bradley Manning Support Network (BMSN) and others in the Boston area. One was David House, who refused to answer questions when called before the Grand Jury in June 2011. He invoked his Fifth, Fourth, and First Amendment rights to not testify. Though he answered no questions other than about his identity, House took notes and later conveyed details of the apparent investigation to his and other defense attorneys. The questions focused on what House knew about Manning, WikiLeaks, Jacob Appelbaum and other researchers in the U.S. It was a daunting experience. This Grand Jury investigation is ongoing.

Thus, the Grand Jury system is little more than the equivalent of a Soviet-style show trial. It is the antithesis of justice. If allowed to remain it may well be emulated in other parts of the Western world. This must not happen.

3. Even more information

http://nocompromise.org/issues/06crushgj.html
http://anarchistnews.org/content/nov-12th-nov-19th-international-solidarity-grand-jury-resisters
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/52532
http://darkernet.in/us-legislation-targets-anyone-in-the-world-it-deems-a-threat-that-could-be-you/
http://darkernet.in/obama-wages-war-on-anarchists-in-new-mccarthyism/
http://darkernet.in/usa-martial-law-by-stealth-mass-surveillance-criminalisation-of-dissent-targeting-of-whistleblowers-crushing-strikes-and-protests-all-here/

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Posted in Occupy, Politics, Resistance | Tagged grand jury, NDAA | 2 Comments

New Anonymous message on November 5 uprisings

Posted on November 2, 2012 by admin

The following message from ‘Anonymous’, re. the November 5th 2012 uprisings proposed, has been posted:

Message from Anonymous

Anonymous are the people and the people are Anonymous. United As One. Divided By Zero. #OpNov5 #OpIndect #OpTrapwire

Please organize in these pads:

North America: http://piratenpad.de/p1KoBonJ…
South America: http://piratenpad.de/vHW5kWE…
Europe: http://piratenpad.de/oe25b3XP…
Asia: http://piratenpad.de/tYDQ6wnP…
Middle East: http://piratenpad.de/rxV4cZVPuZ
Africa: http://piratenpad.de/N3oRV8B…
Australia: http://piratenpad.de/tb2MC9P…

IRC Channels:

Step 1: Go to the link, webchat.voxanon.org
Step 2: Type in a nickname, and channel name: #OpNov5
Step 3: Look at the topic at the top and proceed to your designated channel based on your continent location.
Step 4: Organize.

We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We WILL prevail.

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Documents from Greek Ministry of Finance published by Anonymous on Internet

Posted on October 31, 2012 by admin

Στο στόχαστρο των Anonymous το υπ. Δικαιοσύνης by Newscaster

Earlier today ‘Anonymous’ hacked into the Greek Ministry of Finance. The results have now been made generally available on the Internet and we understand that a journalist in Greece was prepared to go on air later today with the documents. The leaked documents include various classified data from e-mails that were exchanged between the Greek Ministry and envoys from international lenders negotiating more austerity measures and bailouts, to thousands of passwords of Greek individuals and evaluations of banks. SecNews.gr has analyzed some of the leaked documents and they claim that this is one of the largest cyberattacks to hit Greece in the past few years. In support of open government, transparency and out of solidarity with Kostas Vaxevanis, we re-publish, below, the documents and related images, as well as the message posted earlier by ‘Anonymous’ on the Internet.

Update… Spiros Karatzaferis, a journalist, was taken into custody not long after he appeared on ART TV, a local station in Arta, western Greece, when he said he had information from the hackers group Anonymous and facts about the Greek deficit that “forced” Greece to seek bailouts, so proving it was a fraud.

Message from Anonymous

Greetings citizens of the world. Greetings citizens of Greece. We are anonymous.

The Greek government is prepared to testify to a vote in the Greek Parliament the new package of economic austerity measures of 13.5 billion euros which are expected to prolong the recession in Greece. Under the austerity measures, pensioners have seen a 60 percent fall in their pensions – meaning their life savings are now less than half what they expected. Meanwhile, the government is considering more cuts, raising the retirement age and putting a cap on free healthcare provision of just €1,500 per person per year. Greece used to have one of the lowest suicide rates in the EU but since 2010, the number of people taking their own lives has increased by 40 percent, with a large proportion from the older generation. Sixty-eight percent of Greece’s population living below the at-risk-of poverty rate (ie, having an income below 60 percent of the national median) were spending over 40 percent of their income on rent or mortgage payments. More than 439,000 underage children are living below poverty level in Greece due to the ongoing crisis, according to a UNICEF report released on Oct. 16 on the occasion of the World Feed Day 2012 and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The popularity of far right parties, including the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, has risen in tandem. Your goverment failed you.

Greek citizens, it’s time to revolt. Do it while you can. Stick it to the Man. You must resist. We stand by your side.

We gained full access to the Greek Ministry of Finance. Those funky IBM servers don’t look so safe now, do they… We have new guns in our arsenal. A sweet 0day SAP exploit is in our hands and oh boy we’re gonna sploit the hell out of it. Respectz to izl the dog for that perl candy.

We retrieved confidential goverment documents, credentials etc.
https://anonfiles.com/file/5c9fa9402e62bffd2f569ac3d118fbcd
https://anonfiles.com/file/a50145cddeb310ad8250c6c97d569887

Citizens of Greece you are paying Banks and international hedge funds. They own your lives. Revolt before it’s too late. The austerity measures should not pass We need to say no more.

“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us!

[Note: the reductions on the documents below are not ours.]

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Posted in Anonymous, Economy | Tagged Greece | 2 Comments

Lagarde list: 24,000 Eurowide names held by UK Govt; 130,000 names held by French Intelligence

Posted on October 31, 2012 by admin

Kostas Vaxevanis taken by police

The so-called Lagarde list of alleged tax avoiders does not only include the 2056 Greek names but a total of 24,000 names from across Europe and circulated to selected European governments, one copy of which is with the British Government. But this list is not the complete one: the original – seized from a bank employee (see below) by the French secret service – had 130,000 names. Will it ever be revealed? In the meantime, journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, who was responsible for publishing the Greek names on the Lagarde list, is due to appear in court tomorrow (Thursday). See below for an update and the timeline that led up to the present drama…

The Greek magazine Hot Doc published a list of 2056 names of people – Greek business people and politicians and celebrities – who, allegedly, have secret Swiss bank accounts and formed part of the Lagarde list of 24,000 names. The next day, journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, who was responsible for publishing the names, was arrested in the middle of giving a radio interview. He immediately tweeted, “They’re entering my house with the prosecutor right now. They are arresting me. Spread the word.” Darker Net received the tweet and in solidarity, an hour or so later, published the Greek portion of the Lagarde list. As far as we are aware, none of the mainstream press – apart from the Greek daily, Ta Nea (a Wikileaks media partner) – has followed suit, though it is more likely the charges against Vaxevanis will be dropped if media outlets show solidarity too.

Here is the evolution of how the scandal played out in Greece…

1. The HSBC-data, containing the names of 130,000 tax dodgers from several EU countries, was allegedly stolen in 2008 by ex-bank employee Herve Falciani, who was then fired by the bank and arrested. Falciani is said to have stolen the data in 2006 and 2007 and then attempted to sell it to several governments.
2. In the early summer of 2010, former Finance Minister for the George Papandreou government, George Papakostantinou, was approached by the (then) head of Greece’s National Intelligence Agency who briefed him that a French source (within the highest ranks of the DGSE, the French secret service) knew of a list containing names of wealthy Greek depositors in Swiss banks and that French authorities were prepared to deliver this evidence to the Greek government to help them crack down on tax evaders. Later, in a meeting with Ms. Christine Lagarde, he decided to accept this information on the condition that it remain discreet. The handover took place in October 2010.
3. The list was handed to former Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, who later claimed he had shown it to the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) but left it with the Finance Ministry, where it went missing.
4. Papaconstantinou’s successor, Evangelos Venizelos, now the current head of the PASOK Socialists, produced a copy he said he had on a memory stick and began an investigation as to whether any of those listed had evaded taxes. The investigation only looked at around twenty politicians and no legal action was taken.
5. Earlier, in October, this year, Vlassis Kambouroglou, a businessman accused of involvement in a Greek defence ministry bribery scandal, was found dead in a Jakarta hotel room. Kambouroglou was the second high-ranking Greek figure to die in mysterious circumstances within five days.
6. Leonidas Tzanis, a former deputy interior minister, was found dead in the basement of his home, where he had apparently hanged himself. Both Tzanis and Kambouroglou were on the Lagarde List.
7. In another development, the former defence ministry official Yiannis Sbokos was arrested on corruption charges. Tzanis apparently committed suicide the next day after the arrest of Sbokos. Kambouroglou was accused of being part of the bribery and money-laundering network involving the former Defence Minister, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, who is in jail on charges of stealing $1.29bn from defence contracts. He was the managing director Drumilan International, a company involved in the sale of a Russian-made TOR-M1 missile system to Greece, and was called to testify before a parliamentary inquiry into the arms deal in 2004.
8. Kostas Vaxevanis is due to appear in court this Thursday (November 1). He could face 12 months or more. imprisonment.
9. Meanwhile, there is another list – nothing to do with the HSBC list – sourced from the Bank of Greece of 54,000 people who took €22bn out of the country: this list is yet to be investigated.
10. A general strike in Greece (and much of Europe) is planned for November 14 against austerity, unemployment, corruption and the wealthy.

POSTSCRIPT
A series of strikes has begun on state television over the suspension of two presenters for mild criticism of a minister. The state-run broadcaster announced the dismissal of Kostas Arvantitis and Marilena Katsimi after discussing the reaction of the public order minister, Nikos Dendias to a Guardian newspaper report on claims by anti-fascist demonstrators that they had been tortured by the police. Katsimi said on air that Dendias had not carried out his threat to sue The Guardian over the article because the medical examiners report “shows that there was indeed a crime.”

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Posted in Economy | Tagged Greece | 1 Comment

List of Greek business people and politicians with alleged secret Swiss bank accounts

Posted on October 28, 2012 by admin

Greek police attacking protesters

On 28 October Greek prosecutors ordered the arrest of journalist Kostas Vaxevanis after the publication the day before in ‘Hot Doc’ of the so-called “Lagarde List,” allegedly containing the names of 2,056 Greeks with hidden Swiss bank accounts. Darker Net publishes all the names on this list – see links below – plus a synopsis of the list and background info on the story.

1. The Lagarde list (broken into 10 sections)

2. Synopsis

Most names are from the business world – particularly the shipping and banking sectors. Amounts held in the accounts – all in HSBC in Switzerland – are not given. The list was first revealed by French Intelligence and was provided to Greek Intelligence. There is no suggestion that the people on the list have illegally trafficked the money or have evaded taxes or broken the law.

One name on the list is Stavros Papastavros, an advisor to Prime Minister Samaras. Another is Georgios Voulgarakis, a former minister and a member of Samaras’ New Democracy political party, who dismissed his inclusion on the list as “disinformation” and “mudslinging”. The list also includes leading business leaders such as George and Fotis Bobolas, Lavrentis Lavrentiadis Marinopolou and Dimitris Copelouzos.

Persons from the fields of medicine, media, and politics are included. For example: Katerina-ax, notary; Panagiotis Agraniotis, obstetrician gynecologist in Kolonaki; Daniilidis Vasileios, dentist in Thessaloniki; Karaitianos-John, Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Athens; Sotirios-Stylogiannis, Surgeon in Athens; Mary-Vidali, actress; Ptolemy-Petrides, ENT specialist in Thessaloniki; George Papadimitriou, a gynecologist in Athens; Angela Kanellopoulou, veteran tennis player; John Lekakis, specialist cardiologist, professor of cardiology; Ellie-Manchu, pediatrician in Agia Paraskevi; the journalist George Traghen; cartoonist Katerina Shina; Ioanna-Sakkoulas, wife of founder of publishing group, “Sakkoulas”; Antonis Kyriazis, founder and CEO of Singular AE; Moutoussi-Amalia, actress; and Alexandra Athanasiadis, sculptor.

It has been alleged that the list may be out of date, or could even be fake. There are also some anomalies – for example, the list includes people who are not alive, like John Bush, a politician who died in 2004.

3. Background

In 2010 the then-Finance Minister, Giorgos Papaconstantinou, was given the list by his then French counterpart Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund. Papaconstantinou then claimed he had handed the CD to the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE), where it went missing.

The complete list allegedly contains the name of 24,000 tax dodgers in various European countries. Twenty Greeks were revealed to have deposits in excess of one billion euros.

For more on the background to the story click here and here and here. For more on the arrest of Vaxevanis, click here.

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Posted in Economy, Politics | Tagged Greece | 4 Comments

Video proof of Greek police collaborating with Golden Dawn fascists

Posted on October 28, 2012 by admin

Darker Net presents an extraordinary video, only just released, showing evidence of Greek police collaborating with Golden Dawn members in attacks on immigrants and on demonstrators supporting immigrants. The video includes secretly filmed footage of cops bussing in neo-nazis to demonstrations and of Golden Dawn members assaulting immigrants, including a knife attack. But there is hope. We also see over 100 anti-fascist warriors on motorcycles being cheered on by locals as they patrol the streets at night to protect the immigrants against further attacks. It is a remarkable film.

Recently The Guardian published an article on how police in Greece have been infiltrated by members of the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party. The police have denied this but the video shows otherwise. Another Guardian article tracks the rise of the far right in Greece. See also this excellent report from tge BBC.

On November 14, Greek workers, as also workers across Spain and Portugal, will stage a general strike. This may well prove to be the biggest mobilisation of workers across the southern rim of Europe ever seen and could prove a turning point – against austerity, capitalism and fascism.

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Posted in Far Right | Tagged Greece, police | 2 Comments

US legislation targets anyone in the world it deems a threat – that could be you

Posted on October 27, 2012 by admin

The US Administration has the legislation (National Defense Authorization Act) in place to allow it to seek the extradition and indefinite detention of anyone in the world it perceives to be acting against US interests, or is reporting on or revealing information against US interests, or is regarded as an ‘enemy of the state’, or is a supporter of an ‘enemy of the state’. It could be applied, for example, against Wikileaks supporters/organisers, or citizen or mainstream journalists, or political dissidents generally. Or you. And if you are not a US citizen you could be subject to extradition proceedings and held on an offshore facility – e.g. Guantanamo.

Already the legislation is being used in the USA to criminalize anyone who gets in the way – for example:
1. The ‘Portland Three’ – Leah-Lynne Plante, Matt Duran and Katherine Olejnik were arrested after a raid by the FBI for simply being at a demonstration in Seattle. Matt and Katherine are still in prison. Why? Because they have been identified as anarchists – i.e. they wear black clothes, carry banners, etc – and have refused to talk about who may have been involved in the politically motivated vandalism in downtown Seattle on May Day when activists smashed out the windows of several banks and stores—including Wells Fargo and Niketown — as well as a federal courthouse door. Matt and Katherine could face indefinite detention until, that is, they decide to testify.
2. Bradley Manning has been held in custody for 875 days without a proper trial. He is a soldier accused of leaking US war crimes.
3. Alexa O’Brien is a journalist and has been documenting the developments in the pre-trial hearings of Bradley Manning and the developments re. the Wikileaks Grand Jury. Recently Alexa was threatened with indefinite detention under the NDAA legislation. Why? Because she is also involved in a project to change the funding of political campaigns in America.

The NDAA may also be applied as part of the prosecution currently under way via the secret Wikileaks Grand Jury against Julian Assange and, similarly, against anyone – e.g. bloggers or twitters – who expose US Government dealings that are not meant for public consumption. Far-fetched? Well, Icelandic MP, Birgitta Jonsdittir, a Wikileaks supporter, has received legal advice to be wary of visiting the US as she may be arrested for having simply expressed her views (she is also currently challenging the NDAA legislation – see below).

But, assuming this legislation is not halted through legal means, does that mean that anyone critical of the USA should be in fear of arrest from now on? Yes – if your criticisms are perceived to be a threat – though bullies can be dealt with if enough of the bullied stand together and resist. So, one possible outcome of this pre-totalitarian lurch by the US authorities is that the current torrent of leaks published via channels such as Wikileaks and Anonymous will become a deluge, so making the legislation unworkable. (And, some may argue, if SOPA and PIPA could be stopped by concerted action (an Internet strike) then the NDAA can also be stopped.) And how might this happen? The answer is simple: by journalists – ‘mainstream’ or ‘alternative’ – taking a united stand with Wikileaks and their kind and making it clear they will not allow this erosion of our liberties to continue.

It is time to open the floodgates.

Quotes on the NDAA:

“For the first time in American history, we have a law authorizing the worldwide and indefinite military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. The NDAA has no temporal or geographic limitations. It is completely at odds with our values, violates the constitution, and corrodes our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.” American Civil Liberties Union.

“The NDAA gives the federal government the power to behave like dictators and arrest any American citizen, or anyone for that matter, without warrant and indefinitely detain them in offshore prisons without charge and keep them there until the ‘end of hostilities,’”. Former CNN correspondent, Amber Lyon,

“I have discussed the terms of the Homeland Battlefield Bill – also known as the National Defense Authorization Act – with numerous other journalists, writers, and members of democracy-supporting organizations across the political spectrum. I have also discussed the bill with various political leaders, including city council members and legislators, who span the political spectrum in the United States. They all agree that the bill can potentially affect an American journalist who meets with and publishes reports on individuals connected to organizations deemed terrorist by the United States government.” Naomi Wolf, journalist.

Timeline of the legislation:

The NDAA was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and was signed into law by President Obama on December 31, 2011. The controversy has been over a clause – Section 1021(b)(2) – which basically allows indefinite detention of anyone who commits a “belligerent act” against the U.S. or its coalition allies in aid of enemy forces, under the law of war, “without trial, until the end of the hostilities”. The text authorizes trial by military tribunal, or “transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin”, or transfer to “any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity”.

In May of this year, Icelandic MP and Wikileaks activist, Birgitta Jonsdottir, together with Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg and other activists, and with support from Michael Moore, joined together to sue the United States government to stop the implementation of the NDAA. Note that Birgitta could not attend in person in the United States as she had received legal advice that she may be arrested on entering the country, so Naomi Wolf read her testimony in court in her stead.

The result of the hearing was that the court agreed to a temporary injunction, preventing the legislation from being implemented. On September 12, 2012, the courts agreed to grant a permanent injunction against Section 1021(b)(2). However, the US Government filed an appeal and requested a stay of execution on the injunction. This month, a stay against the permanent injunction was granted by a three judge motions panel of the Second District US Court of Appeals, pending appeal on the merits. Appeal briefs are due to the court on November 2 and December 3. The Government then has until December 13 to file their brief in reply.

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Posted in Politics, Protests, Resistance | Tagged NDAA | 3 Comments

NATO and US Homeland Security link-up via comms resource – to a ‘very dark place’

Posted on September 8, 2012 by admin

NATO Special Operations Forces Headquarters (NSHQ) has selected Mutualink as its official communications platform and its coalition partners will be equipped with advanced anywhere, anytime, interoperable communications and information sharing capability. Interestingly, Mutualink is already integrated within US civil security systems and is being used on that basis with Canada too. In short, this is a significant step to linking global military systems with North American continent-wide domestic communications coordination.

Mutualink, Inc. is a privately held high technology company headquartered in Wallingford, Connecticut and with research and development facilities in Westford, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico. Mutualink is the leader in providing real time interoperable communications and information sharing solutions for homeland security and defense markets. Here is a 2010 paper on Mutualink to download.

Mutualink is a completely new paradigm that will enhance security, allow for standardization and improve flexibility and interoperability among all NATO Special Operations Forces (SOF) across the alliance. According to its marketing docs, Mutuallink “enables warfighters and command and control elements to be securely linked with each other as and when needed across different communications systems and can share real time ISR, including files, maps, system views and full motion video (FMV) on the fly… Often first on the ground in challenging operational environments, harnessing collaborative multi-national information and intelligence sharing and seamless communications capability is critical, and Mutualink delivers this capability. Having been successfully deployed both in theater operations as well as with command and control, Mutualink was proven to be a highly effective and reliable system, bringing a new level of agile communications and information sharing in dynamic multi-partner operational environments. Prior to deployment, Mutualink’s interoperable communications and information sharing solution was extensively tested and evaluated through sponsorship by the Department of Defense’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program (CTTSO/IWSP), specifically under a rapid technology integration program known as LOCHAN.”

But on examining the Mutualink website – here is the Canadian version – a very different picture is provided. The resource is all about the coordination of emergency systems – police, fire services, ambulance services, etc. Here it is promoted as follows… Mutualink, Inc. operates as an Internet protocol based multimedia interoperable communications company. It creates networks of interoperable emergency communities that enable users to share radio, voice, text, video, telephone, and data files on a real time basis. The company’s solutions also include Mutualink application software that converts communications and information input into IP packets and routing them to the appropriate destinations; Interoperability Workstation, a PC-based platform that provides the dispatcher with a graphical user interface to control and operate the Mutualink system; and network interface controllers for radio, video, telephony, intercom, and related communications interoperability. Its interoperable communities include local, state, and federal government; fire, police, and EMS; hospitals; critical infrastructure, such as utilities; schools and universities; school buses and mass transit; airports, ports, and shipping; and high value community assets. The company provides its solutions through resellers in the United States, Canada, Argentina, and the Middle East. Mutualink, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in Wallingford, Connecticut.

So which version of Mutualink is correct?

Answer: both.

In other words, what we are seeing here is spin. The real giveaway is the people who head Mutualink. Two names stick out. One is General Wesley K. Clark. Clark spent thirty-three years of service in the United States Army, he held numerous staff and command positions and rose to the rank of 4-star general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He was also a candidate for the presidency in 2003. He is the author of Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism and the American Empire. The other top name behind Mutualink is Tom Ridge. After 9/11, Tom Ridge became the first Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and, on January 24, 2003, became the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Basically, Mutualink will tie-in NATO communications globally with domestic security communications. Or, as Julian Assange said in a recent interview, “It’s not going to be the UK or U.S. this happens to, no, because of the way the equipment is flowing, the way it’s flowing socially, the linking up of all the intelligence apparatuses, military apparatuses, the social elites of these various countries. It’s a transnational phenomena, it’s a western phenomena. It’s not about simply the United States; it’s bigger than the United States. That’s moving to a very, very dark place.”

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Posted in Intelligence, Occupy, Protests, Resistance, Surveillance, Uncategorized, War | Tagged DHS, Mutualink, NATO | 2 Comments

TrapWire and it’s training and demo satellites are all disabled

Posted on September 8, 2012 by admin

TrapWire, the surveillance system, is down as well as its satellite sites (at time of going to press). See https://trapwire.net/ This might be because it is undergoing maintenance, or because it is being moved to a more secure site, or because it is under DDoS attack.

All the following Trapwire IP addresses are disabled: 208.86.144.37 ca.trapwire.net 208.86.144.37 access.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 demo.trapwire.net, 208.86.145.176 cert.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 lv.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.40 smtp.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 training.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 west.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 www.trapwire.net

Meanwhile, the main information/marketing site for TrapWire – https://trapwire.com – has been redesigned.

Other interesting news is that Tom Ridge, the former Secretary for US Homeland Security and who was appointed on to the Advisory Board of Abraxas Corporation, also heads Mutualink, the communications platform being used jointly for US and Canadian domestic com’s coordination and NATO. For more on this click here.

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Posted in Computer security, Intelligence, Protests, Surveillance | Tagged Trapwire | 1 Comment

TrapWire: training courses provide glimpse into modus operandi

Posted on October 2, 2012 by admin

Via its training courses (extracts below) we get a glimpse into the modus operandi of TrapWire, the surveillance system that has global ambitions and which shares it’s senior board directors and officers with Cubic Corporation (Defense systems, mass transit smart cards, etc) and Abraxas Dauntless.

Breaking… Trapwire/Cubic/Abraxas/Ntrepid/Tartan CEO, Richard Hollis Helms (ex-CIA) has had his details hacked and published by Anonymous: click here for more. See a Tartan style mapping of all his connections here.

Meanwhile, we can report that the main TrapWire portal is still displaying problems with logins being routed to https://trapwire.net/Login.mvc. Also, all the following Trapwire IP addresses continue to be disabled: 208.86.144.37 ca.trapwire.net 208.86.144.37 access.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 demo.trapwire.net, 208.86.145.176 cert.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 lv.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.40 smtp.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 training.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 west.trapwire.net, 208.86.144.37 www.trapwire.net. (Draw whatever conclusions you like). The photo below shows the building that houses the offices of TrapWire.

TrapWire courses

1. Surveillance Awareness Workshop (SAW) is designed to instruct network and security personnel to use and navigate the TrapWire software system to familiarize themselves with the indicators of surveillance, terrorist surveillance methodologies, facility vulnerabilities and the identification of probable surveillance zones that exist within each facility. The objective is to train network and security personnel to utilize the TrapWire software applications to view their facility the same way as would a terrorist, and then to be alert to the indicators of pre-attack surveillance. This course includes an important Observational Awareness module used to demonstrate, train and elevate the observational and technical skill level of each attendee. SAW can be structured as a half day or full day (with practical exercises) classroom course; and is also available as a half day, self-paced, interactive, web-based seminar.

2. Terrorist Pre-Attack Operations Course (TPOC) is a two-hour training workshop designed for security professionals, law enforcement, military, and any other personnel in a position to observe and report suspicious activity. The workshop will enhance overall security awareness and improve participants’ understanding of terrorist and criminal pre-attack surveillance and intelligence collection operations. Students will learn how to counter pre-attack operations by exploiting the “Terrorist’s Greatest Vulnerability” and gain an understanding of the “Paradigm Shift” introduced by the TrapWire methodologies. Class participants will also learn what information is important to gather when suspicious behavior is observed and how to report that information.

3. Deception Detection and Eliciting Responses (DDER) is a specialized training workshop that is a logical follow-on course to the TrapWire Surveillance Awareness Workshop. It is designed to teach students to detect deception and elicit responses in individuals including those which have been identified by TrapWire as having been engaged in suspicious behavior. The results of such an interview may then be entered into the TrapWire system to ratify or modify the original TrapWire report.

To download a complete listing of all TrapWire courses and related material, click here.

Also, it was interesting to note that according to recently retrieved evidence Abraxas Corporation was “managing sales for the TrapWire system at least as recently as February 2011 – meaning Cubic during this period had its hands on both highly sensitive private information on millions of ordinary people and a networked surveillance system sold to governments.”

Note: for a complete list of GIF files, courtesy of Wikileaks, that mention TrapWire, click here.

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Cubic defense missions worldwide ops

Posted on October 10, 2012 by admin

Cubic Corporation has a relatively little known arm called Cubic Mission Support Services (MSS). Here we provide an insight into this division of Cubic – the organisation that runs mass transit system smart cards and owns Abraxas Corp. We list it’s operations worldwide.

Note: for more on the connections between Cubic, Abraxas, Trapwire, Anonymizer, Ntrepid and Tartan, click here, here, here, here and here.

Cubic Mission Support Service consists of three legal entities, Cubic Applications, Inc. (CAI), Cubic Worldwide Technical Services, Inc. (CWTS), and Omega Training Group, Inc. (OTG).

MSS is functionally organised into 5 operating divisions, one large program (division equivalent) and the Abraxas Corporation. These are: Operations Support Division (OSD), Omega Training and Education Division (OTED), Worldwide Technical Services Division (WTSD), Information Operations Division (IOD), Defense Modernization Division (DMD,) Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) and Abraxas (ABX).

Major MSS programmes include:
Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) training in support of US Army combat operations; Cultural role player and battlefield effects; enhanced Leader training and computer assisted components.
Korea Battle Simulation Center (KBSC) “Cradle-to-grave” training support services to the Combined Force Command/US Forces Korea/Eighth US Army (CFC/USFK/EUSA); Computer-driven Service, Joint, and multinational training and battle simulation; Wide distributing of exercises to multiple international locations.
National Simulation Center (NSC) Training simulation fielding in support of the US Army and the TRADOC mission; Managing legacy simulations, future simulations, current and future C4ISR systems; Cutting edge digitized training to the Army.
MAGTF Training Systems Support (MTSS) Worldwide Marine Corps training and simulation support; High-level simulation-based training to component, Joint, and MEF commanders; Support to battle simulation center, information system, a virtual environment facilities.
Fielded Training Systems Support (FTSS III) Training system management to the US Navy and Marine Corps; Contractor Operation and Maintenance Services (COMS); Training Device Relocations (TDR); Training Device/Equipment Modifications; Contract Instruction Services (CIS).
Joint Multi National Simulation Center (JMSC) Simulations Technical Support (STS) Contract in Germany and Technical support to United States Army-Europe Army Battle Command; Systems integration Tactical gaming, battle and logistics simulations, unmanned aerial vehicle simulation systems, various database creation; Simulations networking and selected communications support in a digital environment.

Here is an interactive map showing all of MSS’s 130 locations worldwide.

Main MSS ops:
The MSS HQ is in Olympia, Washington, and comprises approximately 4,800 Cubic employees working at more than 130 locations in over 20 nations throughout the world. The main functional divisions include:
Strategic Programs/Operations, managed by Rich McLaughlin, VP, 2280 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92106 (rich.mclaughlin@cubic.com (858) 810-5748);
Cyber/IT Business Operations, 426 C-3 Delaware, Leavenworth, KS 66048 (wayne.parks@cubic.com (913) 680-2035);
Operations, 400 Union Avenue SE, Suite 300, Olympia, WA 98501-1427 (bob.schmitt@cubic.com (360) 493-6706).

Regional ops:
Operations Support Division (OSD), One Enterprise Parkway, Suite 100, Hampton, VA 23666 (757) 722-0717;
Omega Training and Education Division (OTED), 7201 Moon Road, Columbus, GA 31909 (706) 569-9100;
Defense Modernization Division (DMD) 5695 King Centre Drive, Suite 201 Kingstowne, VA 22315 (703) 971-2505;
Worldwide Technical Services Division (WTSD), 2280 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92106 (858) 505-2489;
Information Operations Division (IOD) 2280 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92106 (619) 523-0848;
Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), 7172 Mobile Ave D, Bldg 7172, Ft. Polk, LA 71459 (337) 531-1858.

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Menwith Hill and GCHQ eavesdropping facilities coordinating intelligence of US drone attacks

Posted on October 7, 2012 by admin

Menwith Hill

Menwith Hill, the US eavesdropping facility in Britain, is believed to play a crucial role in the coordination of US drone attacks as part of the highly classified ‘ECHELON‘ umbrella. It is the United States’ largest overseas intelligence station, staffed by several hundred National Security Agency operatives. Intelligence gathered by GCHQ at Cheltenham and it’s outstation at Morwenstow is also believed to be provided to US forces planning the drone attacks.

Ken Macdonald, the former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, has stated there is evidence that Britain is collaborating with the US on drone attacks, which have been condemned as illegal by the United Nations. Since 2004 over 3000 people have been killed by drones in Pakistan alone. Also, Fabian Hamilton, MP, tabled a question in Parliament about the role of Menwith Hill in planning drone attacks, but was refused an answer on grounds of national security.

Meanwhile, an Afghan man who lost five relatives in a drone attack has begun proceedings against the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Ministry of Defence, demanding to know details of the UK’s participation “in the compilation, review and execution of the [kill] list and what form it takes”. (Bank worker in Kabul, Habib Rahman lost two brothers, two uncles and his father-in-law in a US missile attack on their cars on 2 September 2010.) Critics have described such a kill list as legally sanctioned murder.

Also, the case lodged against British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who s being sued over the alleged use of intelligence in assisting US drone attacks in Pakistan, is still ongoing. The case is being raised by Reprieve at the High Court in London on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a US strike. On 17 March 2011, Malik Daud Khan attended and presided over a meeting of the Jirga, which had been called to settle such a dispute. During the course of the meeting a missile was fired from an unmanned aircraft or “drone”, which is believed to have been operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Malik Daud Khan was one of more than 40 people killed in the strike. Lawyers from Leigh Day and Co say civilian intelligence officers who give information to the US may be liable as “secondary parties to murder”. They added that they had “credible, unchallenged” evidence Mr Hague oversaw a policy of passing British intelligence gathered by GCHQ at Cheltenham and it’s outstation at Morwenstow to US forces planning attacks against militants.

Note… Waihopai, near Blenheim in New Zealand’s South Island and Kojarena, Geraldton, near Perth in Western Australia, are respectively New Zealand and Australian bases of Echelon. According to investigative journalist, Duncan Campbell… ‘Australia’s more extensive intercept facility near Geraldton, Western Australia, opened in 1993… The Australian government has said that Geraldton is a fully integrated part of the global surveillance network, and in constant contact with all ECHELON stations… Although it is under Australian command, the station – like its controversial counterpart at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs (which downlinks U.S. Sigint satellites) – employs American and British staff in key posts.’ Below is an (out of date) map showing Echelon bases globally.

Click here for the seminal 2000 report on Echelon by Duncan Campbell. See also background info on Echelon and an earlier 1988 report on Echelon .

In 2001 the European Parliamentary (EP) report lists several ground stations as possibly belonging to or participating in the ECHELON network:
Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station (Geraldton, Western Australia)
Menwith Hill (Yorkshire, UK)
Misawa Air Base (Japan)
CHQ Bude, formerly known as GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, (Cornwall, UK)
Pine Gap (Northern Territory, Australia – close to Alice Springs)
Sugar Grove (West Virginia, US)
Yakima Training Center (Washington, US)
GCSB Waihopai (New Zealand)
GCSB Tangimoana (New Zealand)
CFS Leitrim (Ontario, Canada)

Se also http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/drone-body-count

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Britain’s dirty war in Iraq: war crimes, torture, renditions – the evidence mounts

Posted on October 14, 2012 by admin

A list of alleged war crimes committed by British military and Intelligence personnel, involving torture, abuse of legal process, rendition and illegal detention, is being compiled. What emerges is evidence of a dirty war, the story of which is still to be fully told. Below, we summarise just a few of the cases under review and that may lead to the prosecution of politicians and military (time for Garzon to step forward?).

1. Sami al-Saadi and Abdul Hakim Belhadj were Libyan dissidents under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime who allege UK involvement in their kidnap and rendition to Libya, where they were detained and tortured. Saadi’s wife and four children were also rendered and imprisoned, and Belhadj’s wife was abducted along with Balhadj. Civil proceedings were commenced in 2011, and proceedings against the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the former director of counter-terrorism at MI6, Sir Mark Allen were issued in the High Court in June 2012. An update in current proceedings is here.

2. In June 2012, The Mail on Sunday reported it could reveal claims of abuse carried out by British soldiers at a secret network of illegal prisons in the Iraqi desert. One civilian victim is alleged to have died after being assaulted on an RAF helicopter, while others were hooded, stripped and beaten at illegal ‘black ops jails’. The newspaper reported that the whereabouts of 64 Iraqi men who were taken to another ‘black site prison’ remained unknown. Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, the chief British Army lawyer in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, is reported to have stated that “These are alleged war crimes, but what Britain did may never be disclosed.”

3. The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (and Ali Zaka Mousa) is investigating alleged instances of prisoner abuse by British Service Personnel, and deaths in custody in Iraq. These allegations involve over 140 Iraqi civilians. Louise Thomas, an official working who was with the inquiry team but who says she resigned in protest at the lack of progress, spent six months with the inquiry and had seen 1,600 videos of interrogation sessions. The alleged abuse took place at a joint services interrogation centre under the Joint Forces Interrogation Team, which operated at three locations in the Basra area between March 2003 and December 2008. Abuse included prisoners threatened with rape or told they would be hanged and given a detailed description of the mechanics of hanging. IHAT is reported to have now identified more than 100 serving and former members of the armed forces who they want to interview relating to the alleged torture and abuse of Iraqi civilians. That number is expected to increase significantly.

4. The Guardian reported that Mr Serdar Mohammed is seeking compensation after allegedly being mistreated whilst detained by British troops in Afghanistan. He was subsequently handed over to the Afghan intelligence services who, he claims, tortured him. Mr Mohammed’s lawyers are currently seeking a judicial review of the decision to transfer him.

5. A & A v Security Services & Others: the claimants’ lawyers, Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, describe this case as involving “claims against the Security Services, the Foreign Office and the Home Office in relation to allegations of complicity in torture inflicted on British nationals detained in the custody of the Inter Services Intelligence Agency in Pakistan.”

6. Yanus Rahmatullah was captured by UK forces in Iraq in February 2004 and handed to US forces who have held him at Bagram Airbase. On 14 December 2011, the Court of Appeal ordered the Government to ask the US to return him to UK custody, finding that the UK remained responsible for Mr Rahmatullah’s well-being. A request was made but the US has refused to return him. A further appeal found that habeas corpus could not apply.

7. Noor Khan v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, case brought by Leigh Day & Co, Solicitors. Noor Khan’s father was killed in a drone strike in North West Pakistan. The case alleges that British intelligence was unlawfully provided by GCHQ and the Menwith Hill eavesdropping facilities to US agencies in the direction of drone attacks and “targetted killings”.

8. The Al Sweady Inquiry is examining allegations that Iraqi nationals were detained after a firefight with British soldiers in Iraq in 2004 and unlawfully killed at a British camp, and that others had been mistreated in that camp and later at a detention facility. Interrogations by British military personnel allegedly involved young men, some seriously injured with gunshot wounds, being stripped naked, forced to stand, not given appropriate medical treatment, and threatened with violence whilst still under the shock of capture in the middle of the night. The al-Sweady inquiry has identified more than 500 troops who will have to give evidence. Members of the SAS, the SBS, and interrogators from a unit called the Joint Support Group are also likely to be questioned.

9. Fourteen claims of torture against the British Army include accounts of a team of military and MI5 interrogators who allegedly authorised the physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi detainees at a unit called the Joint Forward Intelligence Team (JFIT), based at the Shaibah Logistics Base, between 2004 and 2007. Nearly all the men say they were beaten, denied sleep and dragged around the prison compound before facing multiple interrogations. In one account the interrogators are accused of creating an image superimposing a suspect’s head on the body of a man who is sexually abusing a child, and then threatening to disseminate the image throughout Basra. In another, a detainee, held in solitary confinement for 36 days, alleged interrogators threatened to rape his wife and kill his children. Many of the detainees’ witness statements appear to corroborate each other by referring to named soldiers responsible. According to the Iraqis’ solicitors, the JFIT interrogators were a mix of military, MI5 and civilian staff who took their orders from London. Allegations were also made against troops in the wake of the killing of Baha Mousa, an Basra Iraqi hotel worker who died in 2003 while in British custody, and the Battle of Danny Boy in 2004, where it is alleged that British soldiers tortured and murdered Iraqi gunmen after a firefight.

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Cubic support for drones: the Australian connection

Posted on October 4, 2012 by admin

Cubic, the company that runs smart cards for transit systems worldwide, including Australia, also provides support for Australian drones used in military and policing operations and the surveillance of refugees. Cubic Defense Systems work closely with Brisbane based Unmanned Systems Australia, which delivers consulting and training services to the Australian Army in the deployment of unmanned aerial systems as well as unattended and remotely monitored ground sensors, target acquisition systems and surveillance devices.

Unmanned Systems Australia also boast UAV support (drones) for policing. From their website: “Examples include over-watch of vehicle checkpoint and search, situational awareness during hostage situations (close look through windows without risk), traffic monitoring, assistance in vehicle apprehension, crowd monitoring and control (with loudspeakers), disaster response and management, wide area detection of drug making facilities, drug crop detection, distributed video to ground patrols and HQ facilities simultaneously.”

Unmanned Systems Australia also offer UAV support for border security (apprehending refugees). “The ability for unmanned systems to be used in border security application is already well documented and under-way in parts of the world. Unmanned system offer a vastly increased capability when compared to their manned equivalent. When used in conjunction with manned and unmanned surveillance platform the ability to greatly extend the coverage in existing location is greatly enhanced. Vertical Take off and Landing UAVs are ideally suited to maritime protection task , landing on ships or or land with maritime search radar and high fidelity day and nigh cameras.”

Cubic Defence Australia Pty Ltd. additionally provides live combat training systems and integration services directly to the Australian Defence Force. The company is based in Aitkenvale and operates as a subsidiary of Cubic Defense Applications, Inc.

For more on Cubic defense systems in Australia (and on the acquisition of drones):
http://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/10395
http://www.defence.gov.au/dmo/lsd/land134/index.cfm
http://defense-update.com/20120214_royal-australian-air-force-super-hornets-to-receive-new-air-combat-training-system.html
http://www.defense-unmanned.com/article/650/australia-moves-to-buy-%243b-spy-drone-fleet.html

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USA: martial law by stealth, mass surveillance, criminalisation of dissent, targeting of whistleblowers, crushing strikes and protests – all here…

Posted on October 5, 2012 by admin

This is a remarkable video, compiled by Anonymous. It is nearly 30 minutes long, but worth watching every minute. It charts how the United States has gradually, quietly and with no approval been transformed into a country diametrically opposed to the very ideals it has long professed to own. The video shows via numerous examples how America is now in a state of martial law, how dissent is considered a crime and how the increasing use of mass surveillance systems have rendered Americans prisoners in their own land. To quote just one example of this state of affairs from the video… The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has placed an order for 450 million rounds of Hollow Point ammo: Obama can now declare martial law during peace time. “We are Preparing for Massive Civil War,” says DHS Informant. Three other, very specific and recent examples (of criminalising dissent) not quoted in the video are given below.

First, we should re-state that dissent has always been criminalised. In the USA during the Great Depression the unemployed and striking workers alike were beaten and jailed. During the 1950′s thousands of dissenters were labelled communist as part of the McCarthy onslaught. During the Sixties civil rights’ marchers and black people generally were harassed, jailed and murdered. And now, with all the advanced technologies at their disposal, the US Administration is taking this trend to a new level, from keeping whistleblowers like Bradley Manning locked up indefinitely, to declaring Wikileaks and it’s organisers as ‘enemy of the state’, to arresting protesters before they even protest and merely for wearing the wrong clothing (see below), and to sending in riot police to deal with a peaceful picket by strikers at Walmart. This is America – government as ever: paranoid, sanctioning police brutality, protecting the rich from the poor. But the American people don’t take kindly when their liberty is under attack. See also breaking report on DHS.

Criminalising dissent example 1

Leah-Lynn Plante

Matt Duran

Three months back an FBI task force raided a home in Portland, Oregon, and broke down the front door with a battering ram and threw in a stun grenade. The operation was one of several which also occurred in Olympia, WA and Seattle, WA, involving some 60-80 officers. So, who were these dangerous criminals in the Portland raid? Answer: Leah-Lynn Plante and Matt Duran (see photos above) Reportedly, the FBI search warrant was given to search for ‘black clothing, paint, sticks, computers and cell phones, and anarchist materials or literature.’

Leah-Lynn and Matt have since been subpoenaed and ordered before a Grand Jury hearing, which took place on August 2. Leah refused to co-operate with the jury proceedings and refused to answer questions. Leah was then re-subpoenaed, and she returned to court some weeks later, where she again refused to co-operate. She was then re-re-subpoenaed. And all this is because someone vandalized a Seattle courthouse on May Day. Leah has publicly stated that she does not endorse what happened on May Day, and that she was not in Seattle during that time. She has made it clear that her refusal to co-operate is not a strategy to protect criminals but a protest against a legal system that is unconcerned with the civil rights of citizens. Matt Duran, who was also subpoenaed and brought before a Grand Jury, has been held in contempt of court and is currently in U.S. Federal custody. His contempt hearing was made private by the presiding Judge, a move unprecedented since the McCarthy era.

You can read a statement by Leah-Lynn Plante here, and you can read Matt Duran’s statement here.

Criminalising dissent example 2

Alexa O’Brien (see photo above) is a journalist who has been assiduously documenting the Bradley Manning hearings as well as the US war on Wikileaks. Recently, she provided an account of how she was targeted by the authorities and threatened with indefinite detention. Why? Because she has started an organisation that advocates political campaign finance reform. Further, Darker Net can attest that she can be accused of being an aficionado of Monty Python sketches (which clearly marks her out as a subversive!).

To find out the background to this in Alexa’s own words, click here .

Criminalising dissent example 3

Barrett Brown

Barrett Brown – as also others, including researchers from Darker Net – is undertaking research work on TrapWire, the surveillance database system, as well as Cubic, Abraxas, Ntrepid etc, via the Project PM and Blue Cabinet websites. He has formerly been associated as a publicist for Anonymous and has stated his support for Wikileaks. For the second time this year he was raided by the FBI and subsequently charged with making threats via YouTube against an FBI officer (because of the previous raid, which frightened his mother). In many other countries, this misdemeanour would have resulted in a caution or a fine or similar, but in America it resulted in an armed raid by FBI operatives who resorted to violence in carrying out the arrest. Barrett Brown is now incarcerated in America’s gulag.

The latest incident occurred while Barrett Brown and a woman identified by some as his girlfriend were participating in an online chat. Two minutes into the session loud voices could be heard in the background of Brown’s residence in Texas. The woman quickly closed the computer screen, but the audio continued to capture events in the room as the FBI appeared to strong-arm Brown and put handcuffs on him. Brown could be heard yelling in the background. Later Brown said: “Apparently I am not just a danger to the fragile FBI agents who have taken to threatening my mother and fracturing my ribs in the course of heavily-armed raids on my uptown Dallas apartment, but must be prevented from explaining to my associates, followers, and even enemies why I have again been subjected to violence and indignity.”

For more on this see message via pastebin from Barrett Brown, who is being held inside Mansfield Law Enforcement Center. See also: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/barret-brown-raid/ and https://privacysos.org/node/814
Posted from the darker net via Android.

Posted in Anonymous, Intelligence, Resistance, Surveillance, Wikileaks | Tagged Abraxas, Cubic, FBI, Ntrepid, Occupy, Tartan, Trapwire | Leave a comment

Obama wages war on anarchists in new McCarthyism

Posted on October 12, 2012 by admin

Update (20 October 2012): Leah Plante has been released from prison.

Yesterday, Leah Plante appeared before a federal grand jury in Seattle, Washington, for the third time, and refused to testify about her political beliefs and political associations. It is likely she will be imprisoned for her principled stance against what she calls a witch hunt against local anarchists. A grand jury was set up to investigate anarchists in the Northwest following FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force raids in search of “anarchist literature.” Her co-defendants, Matthew Kyle Duran and Katherine Olejnik, have already been imprisoned for merely wearing black clothes and harboring anarchist literature and refusing to testify. Welcome to the return of McCarthyism! This time it’s ‘Are you, or have you ever been an anarchist or know anyone who is or has been an anarchist?’ For more, see below…’

Here is a transcript of the statement read by Leah in the above video and released only hours before yesterday’s appearance at the Grand Jury.

Summary

Leah-Lynn Plante is prepared to go to jail for refusing to talk about who may have been involved in the politically motivated vandalism in downtown Seattle on May Day, when activists smashed out the windows of several banks and stores—including Wells Fargo and Niketown—as well as a federal courthouse door. Refusal to testify before a federal grand jury can result in jail time for contempt of court. (Video journalist Josh Wolf, for example, served seven and a half months in 2006 and 2007 for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury and turn over his footage of a protest in San Francisco.) In a follow-up interview with The Stranger, Plante said she wasn’t even in Seattle on May 1 and is neither a witness to nor a perpetrator of any related crimes. She is, however, a self-declared anarchist and thinks the FBI singled her out because of her political beliefs and social affiliations.

Plante had been summoned to Seattle by a federal subpoena, delivered to her in the early hours of July 25, when the FBI raided her home—one of several raids in Seattle and Portland in the past couple of months. FBI agents, she said, smashed through her front door with a battering ram with assault rifles drawn, “looking paramilitary.” According to a copy of the warrant, agents were looking for black clothing, paint, sticks, flags, computers and cell phones, and “anti-government or anarchist literature.” The warrants for the related raids used similar language. One warrant for an early morning raid at a Seattle home also listed black clothing, electronics, and “paperwork—anarchists in the Occupy movement.” In effect, witnesses in Portland and Seattle say, federal and local police burst into people’s homes while they were sleeping and held them at gunpoint while rummaging through their bookshelves, looking for evidence of political leanings instead of evidence of a crime. (For the record, I executed a quick search of my home early this morning and found black clothing, cans of paint, sticks, cloth, electronics, and “anarchist literature.”)

During the raid at her home, Plante said, some of the agents were initially hyper aggressive, but seemed “confused” by finding nothing more sinister than five sleepy young people. “It seemed like what they expected was some armed stronghold,” she said. “But it’s just a normal house, with normal stuff in the pantry, lots of cute animals, and everyone here was docile and polite.”

For more on the above, see here.

See also here on the extent of the criminalisation of dissent in the USA.

Posted from the darker net via Android.

Posted in Politics, Protests, Resistance | Tagged anarchists, FBI, police | Leave a comment

Monsanto and how spying can be a two-way process

Posted on October 26, 2012 by admin

It is known that for at least two years Monsanto, the company that specialises in genetically modified organisms, contracted Blackwater (later renamed Xe, then Academi) to spy upon anti-GM protesters (see below for details), though what Monsanto do not like is when the tables are turned and they are spied upon (by citizens at large). So, as a first step in this process, thanks to an anonymous leaker, Darker Net can provide names and email addresses of 300 key Monsanto staff should you like to offer your thoughts on their products (and espionage strategies).

Note: the window of names and email addresses is scrollable..

Summary of Monsanto/Blackwater deal

Internal communications from Total Intelligence (later renamed OODA) showed Monsanto first hired Blackwater operatives in 2008. Here are the events that led to that.

1. In January, 2008, Total Intelligence chair, Cofer Black, travelled to Switzerland to meet Kevin Wilson, Monsanto’s global security manager. Afterwards, Black emailed other Blackwater executives, saying that Wilson “understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name…. Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for.” Black also wrote that payments to TI would be paid out of Monsanto’s “generous protection budget” and estimated the potential payments at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents exposed by journalist, Jeremy Scahill, Monsanto paid TI $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

2. In a later email to The Nation , Wilson confirmed that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence until early 2010, but claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto “with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information”.

3. Wilson asserted that Black told him that Total Intelligence was “a completely separate entity from Blackwater.” However, we should note the following… Academi (the current name for Blackwater) was founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and Cofer Black was its vice-chairman from 2006 to 2008 (he was formerly the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001). Before joining Academi, Black was the Chair of Total Intelligence Solutions as well as vice-chair of Blackwater. Also, Robert Richer was vice-president of intelligence at Academi until January 2007, when he then formed Total Intelligence (he was formerly the head of the CIA’s Near East Division).

4. In summary, Black and Richer are the key players that link Blackwater with Total Solutions and both with Monsanto and their contract to spy on anti-GM groups and organisations worldwide as well as retail disinformation via the Internet using proxy identities. Click here for a map of Xe (Blackwater’s new name before becoming Academi) front companies and here for map of company relationships.

Posted from the darker net via Android.

Posted in Economy, Protests, Surveillance | Tagged Monsanto | Leave a comment

Video of Assange and Ellsberg in conversation

Posted on October 23, 2012 by admin

A fascinating and little known video from the Frontline Club archives of a conversation between Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg in October 2010, shortly after the release of the Iraq War Logs. The conversation ranges from civilians deaths, assassination attempts (on Ellsberg), Bradley Manning, the duplicity of the New York Times, and much, much more. A MUST view.

Meanwhile, we reprise this inspiring declaration by John Perry Barlow that was first published in 1996 but still has resonance today, if not more so. It speaks of Anonymous, of cyber-snooping and of Wikileaks – all by anticipation, of course. Barlow was the lyricist for the Grateful Dead and later set up the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don’t exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

See also:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/pMh8oBdKkK4
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/3634951002/
http://aworldbeyondborders.com/about-2/page-2-the-revenge-of-aaron-barr-firing-the-social-engineering-cannon-at-anon/character-assassination-of-anon-cyber-war-internal-strife-and-beyond-page-2/

Posted from the darker net via Android.

Posted in Anonymous, Bradley Manning, Media, Politics, Protests, Resistance, Wikileaks | Tagged Assange, Ellsberg | Leave a comment

WikiLeaks, Occupy, the global uprisings and the illegitimacy of authority

Posted on October 30, 2012 by admin

Note: the following article is reblogged from Dissident Voice. Re-blogging an entire article is a first for Darker Net (we’ve had plenty of our articles re-blogged – and that’s fine) but this is an interesting article to read and we recommend it. All hyperlinks are as in the original article.

‘WikiLeaks and the Anarchistic Roots of Global Uprising’, by Nozomi Hayase

There has been increasing interest in anarchism, with people around the globe writing and talking about it. A whole new generation is beginning to discover anarchists from the past like Emma Goldman and Alexeyevich Kropotkin and a new documentary is in the works. The word anarchy is swimming through twitter feeds and Facebook shares, coursing through avenues of the public mind. Ideas of mutual aid and voluntary association are becoming more and more relevant as the world stands in dire need of solutions to the current ballooning crisis of economic and political corruption.

Interestingly, the word is bandied about by governments with a very different meaning. On one side, the security apparatus of the US has generated a demonized version of ‘anarchist’ to promote fear within the general public by equating it with chaos and violence. ‘Black Bloc’, ‘terrorist’ and other loaded terms are associated with anarchism to engender fear and justify repression. Recently, the FBI raided Northwest activists and search warrants were used to find ‘anti-government or anarchist’ literature. Three young people were subpenaed and jailed for refusing to answer questions at a grand jury.

On the other side, the term anarchy is used to represent unmediated people power; non-violent, horizontally based social structures and direct action to awaken others to the working of the dominant system. It has come to mean defiant decentralization, where instead of confronting state power with a reaction to control, people are simply beginning to divest from the hierarchical oppressive systems and working together to build alternatives.

From the Arab Spring to Occupy, a new form of organizing is emerging. The recent uprisings around the world are marking a new era of social change. This trend stands out from movements of the past, as global solidarity and rapid mobilization through social networking reflects the inherently decentralized and stateless habitat of the Internet. Governments such as China and increasing surveillance and censorship in the Western world have tried to control the discourse. But, as long as the neutrality of the Internet is maintained, this explosion of online sharing of information knows no borders and as people rapidly adapt to free sharing of information, it is proving very difficult for governments and corporations to control.

Continue reading →

Posted in Anonymous, Bradley Manning, Intelligence, Politics, Protests, Resistance, Surveillance, Wikileaks | 2 Comments

Darker Net

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The plot to assassinate Franco & the man who spied on anarchists: new evidence/commentary by Stuart Christie.

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Documents from Greek Ministry of Finance published by Anonymous on Internet

Lagarde list: 24,000 Eurowide names held by UK Govt; 130,000 names held by French Intelligence

List of Greek business people and politicians with alleged secret Swiss bank accounts

Video proof of Greek police collaborating with Golden Dawn fascists

US legislation targets anyone in the world it deems a threat – that could be you

NATO and US Homeland Security link-up via comms resource – to a ‘very dark place’

TrapWire and it’s training and demo satellites are all disabled

TrapWire: training courses provide glimpse into modus operandi

Cubic defense missions worldwide ops

Menwith Hill and GCHQ eavesdropping facilities coordinating intelligence of US drone attacks

Britain’s dirty war in Iraq: war crimes, torture, renditions – the evidence mounts

Cubic support for drones: the Australian connection

USA: martial law by stealth, mass surveillance, criminalisation of dissent, targeting of whistleblowers, crushing strikes and protests – all here…

Obama wages war on anarchists in new McCarthyism

Monsanto and how spying can be a two-way process

Video of Assange and Ellsberg in conversation

WikiLeaks, Occupy, the global uprisings and the illegitimacy of authority

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