UK - Privacy International - Surveillance Industry - Surveillance General

Meet the privacy activists who spy on the surveillance industry by Daniel Rivero Illustration by Shutterstock, Elena Scotti/Fusion April 6, 2015 http://fusion.net/story/112390/unveiling-secrets-of-the-international-surveillance-trade-one-fake-company-at-a-time/ LONDON– On the second floor of a narrow brick building [...] Once he’s infiltrated the trade show, he’ll pose as an industry insider, chatting up company representatives, swapping business cards, and picking up shiny brochures that advertise the invasive capabilities of bleeding-edge surveillance technology. Few of the features are ever marketed or revealed openly to the general public, and if the group didn’t go through the pains of going undercover, it wouldn’t know the lengths to which law enforcement and the intelligence community are going to keep tabs on their citizens. “I don’t know when we’ll get to use this [company], but we need a lot of these to do our research,” Omanovic tells me. (He asked Fusion not to reveal the name of the company in order to not blow its cover.) The strange tactic– hacking into an expo in order to come into close proximity with government hackers and monitors– is a regular part of operations at Privacy International, a London-based anti-surveillance advocacy group founded 25 years ago. Omanovic is one of a few activists for the group who goes undercover to collect the surveillance promotional documents. “At last count we had about 1,400 files,” Matt Rice, PI’s Scottish-born advocacy officer says while sifting through a file cabinet full of the brochures. “[The files] help us understand what these companies are capable of, and what’s being sold around the world,” he says. The brochures vary in scope and claims. Some showcase cell site simulators, commonly called Stingrays, which allow police to intercept cell phone activity within a certain area. Others provide details about Finfisher– surveillance software that is marketed exclusively to governments, which allows officials to put spyware on a target’s home computer or mobile device to watch their Skype calls, Facebook and email activity. The technology buyers at these conferences are the usual suspects — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service– but also representatives of repressive regimes —Bahrain, Sudan, pre-revolutionary Libya– as the group has revealed in attendees lists it has surfaced. At times, companies’ claims can raise eyebrows. One brochure shows a soldier, draped in fatigues, holding a portable device up to the faces of a sombre group of Arabs. “Innocent civilian or insurgent?,” the pamphlet asks. “Not certain?” “Our systems are.” The treasure trove of compiled documents was available as an online database, but PI recently took it offline, saying the website had security vulnerabilities that could have compromised information of anyone who wanted to donate to the organization online. They are building a new one. The group hopes that the exposure of what Western companies are selling to foreign governments will help the organization achieve its larger goal: ending the sale of hardware and software to governments that use it to monitor their populations in ways that violate basic privacy rights. The group acknowledges that it might seem they are taking an extremist position when it comes to privacy, but “we’re not against surveillance,” Michael Rispoli, head of PI’s communications, tells me. “Governments need to keep people safe, whether it’s from criminals or terrorists or what it may be, but surveillance needs to be done in accordance with human rights, and in accordance with the rule of law.” The group is waging its fight in courtrooms. In February of last year, it filed a criminal complaint to the UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit of the National Crime Agency, asking it to investigate British technology allegedly used repeatedly by the Ethiopian government to intercept the communications of an Ethiopian national. Even after Tadesse Kersmo applied for– and was granted– asylum in the UK on the basis of being a political refugee, the Ethiopian government kept electronically spying on him, the group says, using technology from British firm Gamma International. The group currently has six lawsuits in action, mostly taking on large, yet opaque surveillance companies and the British government. Gamma International did not respond to Fusion’s request for comment on the lawsuit, which alleges that exporting the software to Ethiopian authorities means the company assisted in illegal electronic spying. “The irony that he was given refugee status here, while a British company is facilitating intrusions into his basic right to privacy isn’t just ironic, it’s wrong,” Rispoli says. “It’s so obvious that there should be laws in place to prevent it.” PI says it has uncovered other questionable business relationships between oppressive regimes and technology companies based in other Western countries. An investigative report the group put out a few months ago on surveillance in Central Asia said that British and Swiss companies, along with Israeli and Israeli-American companies with close ties to the Israeli military, are providing surveillance infrastructure and technical support to countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan– some of the worst-ranking countries in the world when it comes to freedom of speech, according to Freedom House. Only North Korea ranks lower than them. PI says it used confidential sources, whose accounts have been corroborated, to reach those conclusions. Not only are these companies complicit in human rights violations, the Central Asia report alleges, but they know they are. Fusion reached out to the companies named in the report, NICE Systems (Israel), Verint Israel (U.S./ Israel), Gamma (UK), or Dreamlab (Switzerland), and none have responded to repeated requests for comment. The report is a “blueprint” for the future of the organization’s output, says Rice, the advocacy officer. “It’s the first time we’ve done something that really looks at the infrastructure, the laws, and putting it all together to get a view on how the system actually works in a country, or even a whole region,” says Rice. “What we can do is take that [report], and have specific findings and testimonials to present to companies, to different bodies and parliamentarians, and say this is why we need these things addressed,” adds Omanovic, the researcher and fake company designer. The tactic is starting to show signs of progress, he says. One afternoon, Omanovic was huddled over a table in the back room, taking part in what looked like an intense conference call. “European Commission,” he says afterwards. The Commission has been looking at surveillance exports since it was revealed that Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain were using European tech to crack down on protesters during the Arab Spring, he added. Now, PI is consulting with some members, and together they “hope to bring in a regulation specifically on this subject by year’s end.” *** Privacy International has come a long way from the “sterile bar of an anonymous business hotel in Luxembourg,” where founder Simon Davies, then a lone wolf privacy campaigner, hosted its first meeting with a handful of people 25 years ago. In a blog post commemorating that anniversary, Davies (who left the organization about five years ago) described the general state of privacy advocacy when that first meeting was held:     “Those were strange times. Privacy was an arcane subject that was on very few radar screens. The Internet had barely emerged, digital telephony was just beginning, the NSA was just a conspiracy theory and email was almost non-existent (we called it electronic mail back then). We communicated by fax machines, snail mail – and through actual real face to face meetings that you travelled thousands of miles to attend.” Immediately, there were disagreements about the scope of issues the organization should focus on, as detailed in the group’s first report, filed in 1991. Some of the group’s 120-odd loosely affiliated members and advisors wanted the organization to focus on small privacy flare-ups; others wanted it to take on huge, international privacy policies, from “transborder data flows” to medical research. Disputes arose as to what “privacy” actually meant at the time. It took years for the group to narrow down the scope of its mandate to something manageable and coherent. Gus Hosein, current executive director, describes the 90’s as a time when the organization “just knew that it was fighting against something.” He became part of the loose collective in 1996, three days after moving to the UK from New Haven, Connecticut, thanks to a chance encounter with Davies at the London Economics School. For the first thirteen years he worked with PI, he says, the group’s headquarters was the school pub. They were fighting then some of the same battles that are back in the news cycle today, such as the U.S. government wanting to ban encryption, calling it a tool for criminals to hide their communications from law enforcement. “[We were] fighting against the Clinton Administration and its cryptography policy, fighting against new intersections of law, or proposals in countries X, Y and Z, and almost every day you would find something to fight around,” he says. Just as privacy issues stemming from the dot com boom were starting to stabilize, 9/11 happened. That’s when Hosein says “the shit hit the fan.” In the immediate wake of that tragedy, Washington pushed through the Patriot Act and the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, setting an international precedent of invasive pat-downs and extensive monitoring in the name of anti-terrorism. Hosein, being an American, followed the laws closely, and the group started issuing criticism of what it considered unreasonable searches. In the UK, a public debate about issuing national identification cards sprung up. PI fought it vehemently. “All of a sudden we’re being called upon to respond to core policy-making in Western governments, so whereas policy and surveillance were often left to some tech expert within the Department of Justice or whatever, now it had gone to mainstream policy,” he says. “We were overwhelmed because we were still just a ragtag bunch of people trying to fight fights without funding, and we were taking on the might of the executive arm of government.” The era was marked by a collective struggle to catch up. “I don’t think anyone had any real successes in that era,” Hosein says. But around 2008, the group’s advocacy work in India, Thailand and the Philippines started to gain the attention of donors, and the team decided it was time to organize. The three staff members then started the formal process of becoming a charity, after being registered as a corporation for ten years. By the time it got its first office in 2011 (around the time its founder, Davies, walked away to pursue other ventures) the Arab Spring was dominating international headlines. “With the Arab Spring and the rise of attention to human rights and technology, that’s when PI actually started to realize our vision, and become an organization that could grow,” Hosein says. “Four years ago we had three employees, and now we have 16 people,” he says with a hint of pride. *** “This is a real vindication for [Edward] Snowden,” Eric King, PI’s deputy director says about one of the organization’s recent legal victories over the UK’s foremost digital spy agency, known as the Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ. PI used the documents made public by Snowden to get the British court that oversees GCHQ to determine that all intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the National Security Administration (NSA) was illegal up until December 2014. Ironically, the court went on to say that the sharing was only illegal because of lack of public disclosure of the program. Now that details of the program were made public thanks to the lawsuit, the court said, the operation is now legal and GCHQ can keep doing what it was doing. “It’s like they’re creating the law on the fly,” King says. “[The UK government] is knowingly breaking the law and then retroactively justifying themselves. Even though we got the court to admit this whole program was illegal, the things they’re saying now are wholly inadequate to protect our privacy in this country.” Nevertheless, it was a “highly significant ruling,” says Elizabeth Knight, Legal Director of fellow UK-based civil liberties organization Open Rights Group. “It was the first time the [courts have] found the UK’s intelligence services to be in breach of human rights law,” she says. “The ruling is a welcome first step towards demonstrating that the UK government’s surveillance practices breach human rights law.” In an email, a GCHQ spokesperson downplayed the significance of the ruling, saying that PI only won the case in one respect: on a “transparency issue,” rather than on the substance of the data sharing program. “The rulings re-affirm that the processes and safeguards within these regimes were fully adequate at all times, so we have not therefore needed to make any changes to policy or practice as a result of the judgement,” the spokesperson says. Before coming on board four years ago, King, a 25-year old Wales native, worked at Reprieve, a non-profit that provides legal support to prisoners. Some of its clients are at Guantanamo Bay and other off-the-grid prisons, something that made him mindful of security concerns when the group was communicating with clients. King worried that every time he made a call to his clients, they were being monitored. “No one could answer those questions, and that’s what got me going on this,” says King. Right now, he tells me, most of the group’s legal actions have to do with fighting the “Five Eyes”– the nickname given to the intertwined intelligence networks of the UK, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. One of the campaigns, stemming from the lawsuit against GCHQ that established a need for transparency, is asking GCHQ to confirm if the agency illegally collected information about the people who signed a “Did the GCHQ Illegally Spy On You?” petition. So far, 10,000 people have signed up to be told whether their communications or online activity were collected by the UK spy agency when it conducted mass surveillance of the Internet. If a court actually forces GCHQ to confirm whether those individuals were spied on, PI will then ask that all retrieved data be deleted from the database. “It’s such an important campaign not only because people have the right to know, but it’s going to bring it home to people and politicians that regular, everyday people are caught up in this international scandal,” King says. “You don’t even have to be British to be caught up in it. People all over the world are being tracked in that program.” Eerke Boiten, a senior lecturer at the interdisciplinary Cyber Security Centre at the University of Kent, says that considering recent legal victories, he can’t write off the effort, even if he would have dismissed it just a year ago. “We have now finally seen some breakthroughs in transparency in response to Snowden, and the sense that intelligence oversight needs an overhaul is increasing,” he wrote in an email to me. “So although the [British government] will do its best to shore up the GCHQ legal position to ensure it doesn’t need to respond to this, their job will be harder than before.” “Privacy International have a recent record of pushing the right legal buttons,” he says. “They may win again.” A GCHQ spokesperson says that the agency will “of course comply with any direction or order” a court might give it, stemming from the campaign. King is also the head of PI’s research arm– organizing in-depth investigations into national surveillance ecosystems, in tandem with partner groups in countries around the world. The partners hail from places as disparate as Kenya and Mexico. One recently released report features testimonials from people who reported being heavily surveilled in Morocco. Another coming out of Colombia will be more of an “exposé,” with previously unreported details on surveillance in that country, he says. And then there’s the stuff that King pioneered: the method of sneaking into industry conferences by using a shadow company. He developed the technique Omanovic is using. King can’t go to the conferences undercover anymore because his face is now too well known. When asked why he started sneaking into the shows, he says: “Law enforcement doesn’t like talking about [surveillance]. Governments don’t talk about it. And for the most part our engagement with companies is limited to when we sue them,” he laughs. When it comes to the surveillance field, you would be hard pressed to find a company that does exactly what it says it does, King tells me. So when he or someone else at PI sets up a fake company, they expect to get about as much scrutiny as the next ambiguous, potentially official organization that lines up behind them. Collectively, PI has been blacklisted and been led out of a few conferences over the past four years they have been doing this, he estimates. “If we have to navigate some spooky places to get what we need, then that’s what we’ll do,” he says. Sometimes you have to walk through a dark room to turn on a light. Privacy International sees a world with a lot of dark rooms. “Being shadowy is acceptable in this world.” http://fusion.net/story/112390/unveiling-secrets-of-the-international-surveillance-trade-one-fake-company-at-a-time/ Highlights are for me.  Link to source article for an easier read. Great article.  Not sure I'll remember all of this information. Prior advocacy work: India Thailand Philippines More investigations coming: Kenya Mexico  Colombia   Completed report:  heavily surveilled in Morocco (strong USA ally, with heavy French & Spanish trade, credit and investment). StingRays are used routinely by Chicago Police Dept: Chicago PD seized drug money = first purchases 2005 incl. StingRay surveillance' digital 'hoovers' http://inthesetimes.com/article/17808/who-do-you-protect-who-do-you-surveil  Central Asia report software companies that have not responded: NICE Systems (Israel) Verint Israel (US / Israel) Gamma (UK) Dreamlab (Switzerland) Most of Privacy International legal actions have to do with fighting the “Five Eyes” - ie.  "intertwined intelligence networks of the UK, Canada, the US, Australia & New Zealand." Six court actions in progress currently. Sales to repressive governments include: Bahrain Sudan Libya (pre-revolutionary) Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Egypt, Tunisia & Bahrain - used European surveillance technology (crackdown protesters). European Commission -  has been looking at surveillance export. Expansive surveillance set down by: Patriot Act (USA) Aviation and Transportation Security Act (USA) Intelligence sharing between USA (NSA) and UK (GCHQ) ruled illegal prior 2014 because undisclosed.  However: "Now that details of the program were made public thanks to the lawsuit, the court said, the operation is now legal and GCHQ can keep doing what it was doing." That outcome sounds rather bizarre to me.

Rwandan Govt Assassins vs. Obama Kill List

Rwanda: Critics ask Canada to protect them from Kagame’s assassins By Ann Garrison Global Research, April 04, 2015 San Francisco Bayview Region: Canada, sub-Saharan Africa Theme: Police State & Civil Rights kagame02 KPFA Evening News Anchor Anthony Fest: Rwandan exiles in Canada and their Canadian allies, all of whom are well-known critics of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, held a press conference earlier this week in Montreal to call on Canadian authorities to protect them from attacks by Rwandan government agents. The dissidents said they’d been warned by allies within the Rwandan government that so-called diplomats assigned to Rwanda’s embassy in Canada were actually there to intimidate or assassinate dissidents. University of Quebec professor Emmanuel Hakizimana, left, attorney and former ICTR defense counsel John Philpot and Paul Kagame’s former Chief of Staff David Himbara hold a press conference in Montreal. Last October, the BBC, in its documentary “Rwanda’s Untold Story,” reported that 12 prominent Rwandan exiles have been assassinated or disappeared in the past 15 years. Two months after that, one of President Paul Kagame’s former bodyguards disappeared in Nairobi while on his way to France. He had planned to testify there that Kagame had ordered the assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents in April 1994. Those assassinations are widely understood to have triggered the ethnic massacres that ensued in Rwanda. KPFA’s Ann Garrison filed this report on the history of assassinations and disappearances that’s causing Rwandan exiles and their Canadian allies to ask the government there to protect them. KPFA/Ann Garrison: At their press conference in Montreal, Canadians and Rwandan exiles said they had to take warnings from insiders in the Rwandan government seriously because of all the precedents, In 2011, BBC Newsnight reported that the London Metropolitan Police had warned Rwandan exiles in London that they were in danger of being assassinated by agents of the Rwandan government. BBC Newsnight: The Metropolitan Police have taken the extraordinary step of warning two British citizens from Rwanda, living in London, that they’re at risk of being assassinated by the Rwandan government. Legal notices were sent to a former Lib Dem candidate Rene Mugenzi and Jonathan Musonera. We’ve spoken with both men. University of Quebec Professor Emmanuel Hakizimana, a member of the Rwandan National Congress, is among those threatened in Montreal. Now it’s understood that a Rwandan suspected of being part of the plot against the exiles was prevented from entering Britain last week. The Embassy here has said the allegations are completely without foundation, but the story raises difficult questions for the British government, who give Rwanda 83 million pounds of aid a year. KPFA: David Himbara, a Rwandan born Canadian citizen and President Kagame’s former chief of staff, said they could not take the warnings lightly and that even in the United States, the FBI have warned his friend, Colgate University Professor Susan Thomson, that she could be in danger: David Himbara: The message to the Canadian government really is that we can’t take any of these things lightly. Even in the U.S., my friend, Professor Susan Thomson – she’s a Canadian teaching at Colgate University; she writes a lot on Rwanda – she has been warned by the FBI to be careful. KPFA: Himbara also said that danger to Rwandans in exile has become a global problem and that Sweden felt compelled to expel a Rwandan diplomat. Himbara: This is now becoming a worldwide problem. Even Sweden had to expel a Rwandan diplomat for endangering lives of Rwandan Diasporans. KPFA: In October 2012, the BBC reported on the assassination of former Rwandan Intelligence Chief Patrick Karegeya and spoke with Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, who has survived four assassination attempts in South Africa. BBC Producer Jane Corbin: Patrick Karegeya was buried with tight security in South Africa. Rwandan diplomats were expelled from the country, suspected of involvement in his killing. Kayumba Nyamwasa: When I talk about Patrick being a man of principle … (Kayumba funeral oration, background to BBC narrative) BBC: Gen. Nyamwasa has survived four assassination attempts and been badly wounded. Four men, two from Rwanda, have been found guilty in South Africa of trying to murder him. The judge said the attack was politically motivated. A dozen prominent Rwandan exiles have been killed or just disappeared in the last 15 years. Patrick Karegeya was assassinated in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2014 in Johannesburg. He was buried there, amid tight security, his casket draped with the banner of the opposition Rwandan National Congress party. [...] Kayumba: We have a dictator; we have a man who is a serial killer, who enjoys killing his citizens, and he thinks he can keep himself in power by killing and imprisonment. KPFA: John Philpot, a former ICTR defense attorney organized the press conference in Montreal, where he represents two of the Rwandans in danger. He said that a Belgian Canadian who had worked as a journalist and Red Cross staffer in Rwanda had been threatened and even run off the road during an ice storm in Canada in the late 1990s, but that he had remained safe after their group protested to the Canadian government and the Red Cross. Philpot also said he would not be surprised if Kagame has now dared to order the assassination of Canadian or American critics of the Rwandan government. John Philpot: They will attack, or they could attack people like us – white, middle class people. Now obviously, the very striking issue is, “Can a country like Canada or the U.S. allow a foreign commando to function on its territory and threaten or kill Canadians and residents? KPFA: Their position, Philpot said, is that this is unacceptable. In Berkeley, Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison. Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Black Star News,Counterpunch, Colored Opinions and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News, KPFA Flashpoints and for her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com. In March 2014 she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa through her reporting. SOURCE http://www.globalresearch.ca/rwanda-critics-ask-canada-to-protect-them-from-kagames-assassins/5440728 Know very little about Rwanda.  Had trouble even spelling it. Think the risk of assassination abroad might come with the territory of being an exile abroad that's in opposition to and critical of an unrestrained government, if that's what's going on. Rwandan embassy staff in Canada being fingered as potential assassins seems either (a) political agenda serving, (b) paranoid ... or (c) someone could really get bumped off in the near future. So what's the difference between this Paul Kagame guy and Obama's kill list, and why was the White House recently receiving him?     Paul Kagame President of Rwanda The Guardian refers to the White House euphemism for the kill list - 'Disposition Matrix' (a fancy database of integrated information, that spits out kill plans by the sound of it) as 'expanding' and 'blurring' legal boundaries: It is a grid, however, that both blurs and expands the boundaries that human rights law and the law of war place upon acts of abduction or targeted killing. There have been claims that people's names have been entered into it with little or no evidence. [1] Seems a rather a watered down description to me. The kill list was US Counter-Terrorism Centre created, "incorporated the existing kill lists of the CIA and the US military's special forces" [1] The Guardian article is interesting and worth a read. Seems as if the Americans do the dirty work for the British? Might come back to this, as if left it way too late to mess around checking things out some more.

Government, Power, Expansion & Keeping the Rabble in Line

Weekend Edition April 3-5, 2015 The Government's Intelligent Design When the Government Views Its Own Population as the Enemy by CHRIS WRIGHT The public debate over government surveillance that was, if not inaugurated, at least intensified by the publication of documents provided by Edward Snowden has been, in some respects, surreal and deluded. One side claims that the NSA’s mass surveillance is necessary to protect the public from terrorism, that in fact it has thwarted many “potential terrorist events.” The other side claims, with much more justification, that bulk data collection does little or nothing to protect ordinary civilians. But few commentators draw another, more subversive conclusion: government has no interest in protecting its citizens (as such) in the first place. In fact, its interest is precisely the opposite: to expose its citizens–with privileged exceptions–to harm. Sounds absurd, of course. But consider, first, the recent historical record, which certainly does not support the idea that the U.S. government cares about protecting Americans. Exhibit 1 is the attacks of 9/11. It became a commonplace long ago for leftists and liberals to cite the White House memo of August 6, 2001 that bore the heading “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” which was apparently ignored at the time by the Bush administration. Perhaps more damning is Lawrence Wright’s 2006 book The Looming Tower, which made it abundantly clear that the CIA and the FBI had not prioritized the fight against terrorism even after the 1993 Twin Tower bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. If one were malicious enough, one might attribute competence to government institutions rather than mere criminal bungling: perhaps the ridiculously counterproductive–from the perspective of thwarting terrorism–organization and efforts of the CIA and FBI before 9/11 were, by some twisted institutional logic, designed to make possible precisely what happened, a major terrorist event. Another commonplace is the observation that George W. Bush’s Iraq war, far from mitigating terrorism, increased it substantially, perhaps sevenfold. This was predictable and predicted in 2003, a fact that, by elementary logic, means that the Bush administration at the very least was perfectly happy to expose American (and of course foreign) civilians to greater threats. The same logic applies to Obama’s global drone war, which apparently has killed 50 civilians for every 1 terrorist. Not surprisingly, it has fueled terrorism, and thus increased threats to Americans. (In fact, the drone campaign itself is terrorism, but here I am confining myself to the conventional American understanding of the word, as applying only to people that the U.S. government doesn’t like.) One could go on listing such facts indefinitely. For instance, the sordid lesson to draw from the Hurricane Katrina debacle in 2005 is that protecting Americans from a natural disaster was not a priority of government at any level, at least not of the governments involved. The wrightworkersdeplorable actions of police in the hurricane’s aftermath confirm this conclusion. The victims were treated as criminals, not people who needed and deserved protection. In addition to ample historical evidence, one can also consider simple logic. Returning to the NSA’s mass surveillance, it shouldn’t be hard for government officials to comprehend that the more time and resources they devote to monitoring ordinary civilians, the less time and resources they are devoting to monitoring plausible terrorist threats. In fact, almost every major terrorist attack in the West during the past fifteen years has been committed by people who were already known to law enforcement. Such was the case, for instance, with regard to one of the brothers accused of the 2013 Boston marathon bombings. But the government, obligingly, was too busy spying on ordinary Americans to pay much attention to him, so he was able to carry out his attack unhindered. But why, you ask, would it be in the interest of government to expose the public to harm? This question cannot be answered except in the context of specific historical circumstances, in this case the circumstances of neoliberal capitalism. In a society that is experiencing stratospheric income inequality, high unemployment and long-term economic stagnation, retrenchment of social welfare programs, the reality and threat of environmental collapse, and, in short, ever-greater social discontent and instability, institutional power-centers will want to increase their control over the population. As a proud plutocrat put it in a warning to his wealthy brethren, “the pitchforks are coming.” And the plutocrats, together with their government representatives, want to be prepared for that. The question is how to justify the expansion of government’s surveillance and police powers that is necessary to keep the rabble in line. Clearly, pretexts are needed. And pretexts are provided whenever a terrorist attack occurs, especially if it occurs on American soil. This may be a virtual truism, but rarely is the implication articulated: in this respect, it is in the interest of government and the top “1%” in income/wealth for civilians periodically to be victims of terrorism. If the terrorist threat disappears, so does the useful pretext. The “pretext” phenomenon has other dimensions. Naomi Klein discusses one of them in her famous book The Shock Doctrine, where she argues that in the last forty years, in the wake of catastrophes of whatever sort–natural, military, terrorist, economic–elites have taken advantage of popular disorientation and disorganization to force regimes of privatization upon the population. “Neoliberalism-by-blitzkrieg,” one might call it. A prime example is what happened to New Orleans after Katrina: with the public’s capacity to resist weakened, nearly all public schools were privatized. Under the pretext of education reform, “corporate profiteers and politicians have zeroed in on black communities, leaving behind devastation and destabilization,” says a spokesperson of a New Orleans community group. So, for the neoliberal state-corporate nexus, the devastation of a particular society, including a domestic region, can be eminently useful not only in smashing popular resistance to power but also in giving elites an opportunity to ram through programs they could not have otherwise. Convenient pretexts can always be thought of. On a more general level, the relevant principle has been stated concisely by Noam Chomsky: the primary enemy of any government is (the majority of) its own population. For the population always wants more power and economic security than it has, and it is willing to fight for it (as the history of the labor movement shows)–which entails, however, the relative diminution of the power of the rich and their political minions. This corollary explains, of course, the U.S. government’s continually savage treatment, through centuries, of workers, the lower classes, left-wing activists, African-Americans, protesters and dissidents and “ordinary people” of all kinds. They must be humiliated, harmed, killed, beaten down, made examples of if they step out of line, kept in a state of constant fear and obedience (however impossible it may be to fulfill that goal). Power exists but to maintain and expand itself; that is its raison d’être, and that is the key to understanding its every move (at the institutional, not the personal, level). For example, if government is not always blatantly aggressive in harming its own population, that is not because it’s too moral to do so; it is because that might threaten its power, by stirring up more dissent. Concessions have to be made to the masses if in the long run they are to tolerate subordination. The appearance, and to some small extent even the reality, of protecting the population has to be maintained in order to appease the meddlesome outsiders. None of this means that policymakers or bureaucrats or members of the “ruling class” necessarily have these intentions in mind when crafting policies or cracking down on dissent. Doubtless few are clear-headed enough. But the logic of the institutions in which they are embedded–the bureaucratic-expansionist, capitalistic, totalitarian, Panopticon-esque logic–manipulates their minds and, by some mysterious alchemy, is sublimated into rationalizations and pretexts that are usually sincerely believed in. It isn’t hard to come up with pretexts to do what is in one’s institutional self-interest. Humans are born to deceive themselves. So, why not throw off all vestiges of sentimentalism about our rulers? Why not state the truth unequivocally: when a terrorist attack occurs, this is not a failure of government. It is a success; for now power-centers have another excuse to expand themselves, and to fear-monger, and to demonize the Other, and to make more profits from selling military and surveillance technology, and to clamp down ever more on the domestic population. And when the police blindly brutalize innocent civilians or protesters, this is not a failure for government to correct. It is what the police are supposed to do, what they were designed to do and the main reason they exist in the first place. It is government acting intelligently, in its own interests and in the interests of its puppet-masters. The population has to protect itself and stand up for itself, and fight for its freedom and power and security. Because the government certainly won’t. Chris Wright is a doctoral candidate in U.S. labor history, and the author of Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States. His website iswww.wrightswriting.com.”  SOUCE http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/03/when-the-government-views-its-own-population-as-the-enemy/ Parts of this article were interesting to me. Police brutalising civilians not being a government failure, and government acting in its own interests and the interests of its puppet masters, stood out as probably accurate. The parts about government seeking to expand control made sense. But the bit about people being willing to fight for more power and economic security didn't seem likely to me.  People tend to take whatever is dished out, probably because there is no means to resist.

Google v. War Photography & Alternative Media

Don’t See Evil: Google’s Boycott Campaign Against War Photography and Alternative Media Dan Sanchez, March 29, 2015  Google Vs. Antiwar.com This may be what Google is doing right now to Antiwar.com, a long-running and popular daily news and commentary site that is strongly critical of US foreign policy. On the morning of March 18, Eric Garris, founder and webmaster of the site, received a form email from Google AdSense informing him that all of Antiwar.com’s Google ads had been disabled. The reason given was that one of the site’s pages with ads on it displayed images that violated AdSense’s policy against “violent or disturbing content, including sites with gory text or images.” Of course the images in question were not “snuff,” or anything intended for titillation whatsoever. They were the famous images of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib US military prison in Iraq. Those images are important public information, especially for Americans. They are the previously secret documentation of horrific state violence inflicted in our name and funded by our tax dollars. They are also eminently newsworthy because they show the government wantonly generating insecurity for the American public. Such abuse fuels anti-American and anti-western rage that can culminate in acts of terrorism. For example, it did just that in the case of Chérif Kouachi, who took part in one of the Paris terror attacks of early this year after becoming radicalized by learning about the Abu Ghraib abuses. Indeed many apologists for such abuse fully acknowledge this blowback effect, since they expressly cite it as the main reason for blocking the release of abuse photos. Of course they ignore the fact that this danger they acknowledge is an excellent reason not to commit such abuses in the first place. And they are naïve if they really think word wouldn’t get out about such abuses among Iraqis and Muslims in general even without the photos. The dissemination of such photos chiefly serves to ultimately make terrorist attacks less likely by driving a disgusted American public to demand an end to such terrorism-inducing abuses. The newsworthy nature of the photos made no difference to Google; or it made altogether the wrong kind of difference. Either way, they were considered non-compliant, and so Antiwar.com’s AdSense account, along with its revenue, were suspended immediately. EXTRACT ONLY - FULL ARTICLE AT SOURCE http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/03/29/dont-see-evil/

CANADA's Recipe for Oversight & Transparency: Cowboy Spy Agencies, Useless Overseer & Ineffectual FOI

The Guy Who Oversees Canada’s Cyberspy Agency Is Cash-Strapped and Worried April 2, 2015 Justin Ling By Justin Ling A meeting room at CSE's new office. Is this where they read our emails? Who can say? Photo via Government of Canada This post originally appeared on VICE Canada. The Honorable Jean-Pierre Plouffe is worried he won't have the resources to keep tabs on Canada's rapidly growing spy behemoth. Plouffe is the overseer for the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), a secretive agency that runs Canada's signal intelligence work. As an integral part of the Five Eyes—the intelligence-sharing consortium involving Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom—CSE is basically a sidekick to the American NSA. Financial reports released on Tuesday show the commissioner is going to have to cut back his review processes due to lack of funds, even though CSE's budget is larger than ever. (Motherboard has reported thoroughly on CSE's extensive powers, with help from leaks released by Edward Snowden.) Plouffe, as the CSE Commissioner, is responsible for making sure that the agency does not go outside its mandate. Currently, the agency is forbidden from intentionally collecting Canadians' data, unless it is doing so under the authority of another Canadian agency. However, Snowden's documents as well as Plouffe's own investigations show that CSE does end up with files on Canadians. When that happens, CSE is supposed to delete them. They don't always do so in a timely manner. Yet documents also show that CSE was scooping up Canadians' data as they logged onto a WIFI hotspot in some airport in Canada. Plouffe ultimately cleared the spy agency of wrongdoing in that operation. Concerns remain, however, that CSE is going well outside its mandate. But, as VICE reported in February, the Harper government isn't worried. "The CSE Commissioner's report indicates that they have been operating inside the law," Justice Minister Peter MacKay told VICE. The commissioner, however, doesn't have the power to compel information from CSE. "The office has no authority to enforce specific actions by CSE," reads the commissioner's financial reports from this year. "Cooperation, collaboration, and professional respect between the office and CSE is essential to my office for the conduct of rigorous review and for the formulation of meaningful recommendations for change, where needed, and essential to CSE for the timely and appropriate implementation of corrective action." But even the commissioner's power—which is largely based on the honor system—might be further at risk. In a financial report tabled on Tuesday, Plouffe warned that "Without this positive relationship being in place, the review process will flounder and opportunities for positive change will be lost."  [Think his position might be pointless, so where's the problem?] He said the review process was already at risk, thanks to a lack of funds in his office. "Cost sharing related to central agency initiatives and fiscal restraint measures are reducing the flexibility of the office's available funding. CSE, however, is growing and its activities are changing in response to its changing environment," Plouffe's office wrote. The commissioner begged the federal government for more money. He's not the only one. As VICE reported on Tuesday, Canada's Access to Information Commissioner is also cash-starved, and she says it will hobble her ability to pry documents from resistant government departments. And as Toronto Star reporter Alex Boutillier reported in Wednesday's paper, the review body for Canada's other spy agency, CSIS, has already been impacted by a lack of resources. The commissioner's office has a budget of just over $2 million, which has been pretty much flat for years. CSE's budget, meanwhile, tops out around $829 million. The commissioner's office has a full-time staff of 11, in addition to Plouffe, who works part-time. The lack of money means that CSE needs to cut back on its review process and "focus review resources on CSE activities that pose the greatest risks to non-compliance and/or privacy." As Plouffe may be considering bake sales and silent auctions to keep the lights on, the Conservatives have spent months boasting of Canada's world-renowned intelligence oversight agencies as they defend their controversial anti-terror bill, C-51. That legislation would vastly expand CSE's ability to receive information on Canadians, and to share it among allies. Speaking before a committee on Monday, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said Canada's intelligence review bodies were "the envy of the world." VICE got a chance to ask Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino about the recent revelations about CSE—he is, after all, now responsible for the organization—and he was unconcerned. "First and foremost, we don't talk about operational matters and certainly I'm not going to do that," Fantino began. "Having said that, I can say that CSE operates within the parameters of the law, well established and well supervised. Accountability is there." [Oh, sure.] VICE asked about documents showing that CSE is using its capabilities to attack foreign networks. Fantino wouldn't comment. [LMAO!] "If you won't comment, how can Canadians have faith in what CSE is doing?" VICE asked. "You weren't listening. I just did," Fantino said before he walked away. http://www.vice.com/read/the-guy-who-oversees-canadas-bulk-data-collection-agency-is-cash-strapped-and-worried-785 Canada's intel agency sounds like the world's shonkiest cowboy op ... with a budget of $829 million! The overseer's office is a joke.  An honours system?  Cannot compel?  Understaffed.  The point of not putting funds into this and into freedom of information is to allow politicians and intelligence agencies to do whatever they want ... which they already seem to do in free hand Canada. Creepy.  Supercharged their powers as well - see C51. Terrorizing Canada With Stephen Harper. The Odious C51 “Secret Police Act” http://www.globalresearch.ca/terrorizing-canada-with-stephen-harper-the-odious-c51-secret-police-act/5438134 Might have to come back to read the Global Research article ... too tried now.

Sweden's Competing Political Agendas

GATESTONE INSTITUTE Sweden's Christmas Present: New Laws Curbing Free Speech by Timon Dias December 22, 2014 at 4:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4972/sweden-free-speech     The problem is that within the extremely politically correct culture of Sweden, questions, insults and criticism are often viewed as one and the same.     "Swedes who disagree... risk being labeled racist, fascist, even Nazi." — Mikael Jalving, Author of Absolute Sweden.     One might well ask how Swedes would react if other countries decided to determine their borders.     Furthermore, no one seems to have asked what kind of place this new state of Palestine might be: a free, democratic and transparent society like Sweden, or another rogue state, or eventually even another Islamist state.     Apart from South Africa, Sweden now has the highest number of rapes (that are reported); based on unofficial accounts from policemen and social workers, about 75% of them are committed by Muslims. Sweden, during its September 2014 parliamentary election, voted in a new government. But whom exactly did the people of Sweden elect to run their new government? In a recent (albeit un-sourced) blog, Ilya Meyer, the deputy chair of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Association, shed some light on the backgrounds and motivations of some of Sweden's new cabinet ministers. A few individuals stand out. The Minister for Housing and Urban Development is the Turkish Swede Mehmet Kaplan, who was aboard the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, of the Turkish extremist Humanitarian Relief Foundation, when it tried to break through the legal Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza coastline. Israel had established the naval blockade in 2007 in response to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza to arm the terrorist group Hamas, which is outspokenly dedicated to exterminating Israel. Kaplan has also stated that young European Muslims who are joining the "Islamic State" [IS] in Syria and Iraq are nothing to worry about, and are just similar to Swedish fighters who joined the Finns in WW2 to fight the Soviet Union. He has also claimed at the same time that the main reason young European Muslims are joining the Islamic State is "Western Islamophobia." Sweden's Minister of Education, Gustav Fridolin, was arrested in Israel in 2003 for allegedly blocking the construction of Israel's security barrier in the West Bank, where he has engaged in protests alongside the International Solidarity Movement – an organization that "recognizes armed struggle as the right of Palestinian Arabs." Sweden's Minister of Interior, Ardalan Shekarabi, who is also responsible for Domestic Law and Order, is a former illegal immigrant from Iran who defied a Swedish deportation order in 1989 by going into hiding. Shekarabi is also known for embezzling state funds for an integration project to aid in his reelection as leader of the Social-Democratic Youth Party. Sweden's Minister for Culture and Democracy, Alice Bah Kuhnke is a hard-line feminist known for threatening to cut off funds to organizations that oppose honor killings if any of those funds went to men working against honor killings. As a feminist, it seems as if she wants only women to receive these funds. These are not merely parliamentarians, these are ministers. Not surprisingly, one of the first actions of this new government was the recognition of the Palestinian State, a move considered as illegal as it was odd: the Palestinians do not yet meet the requirements for statehood, and seem not even to have agreed on even what the borders of their state should be. Furthermore, no one seems to have asked what kind of place this new state would be: a free, democratic and transparent society like Sweden, or one that might, in fact, be another rogue state, or eventually even another Islamist state. Nonetheless, Swedish MP Hillevi Larsson, as opposed to the Palestinians themselves, seems to have no doubt about what the borders of "Palestine" should be. One might well ask how Swedes would react if other countries decided to determine their borders. In just two months, this government fell — new elections take place this March — but not before bestowing on the people of Sweden a second measure, far less publicized, and that will come into effect this Christmas. The new measure is designed to make it easier to prosecute those who offend immigrants, immigration policies, LGBT people and politicians online. As Swedish MP Andreas Norlén, initiator and driving force behind the law, stated: "I do not think it takes very many prosecutions before a signal is transmitted in the community that the Internet is not a lawless country — the sheriff is back in town." A multitude of online sources reported on this new law as one that "criminalizes online criticism of immigrants," and as such, the news went viral on European immigration critical websites. But is this a correct assessment of this new law? According to the Swedish parliament, the new law will effectively abolish existing barriers that prevented people from pressing charges if their alleged defamation occurred online instead of in real life. It will facilitate and improve Sweden's ability to participate in international legal cooperation on matters covered by the Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, and it enables people to avoid having to pay for the other party's legal costs. On paper, this might sound reasonable, and there is a chance the practical results will remain reasonable as well. The problem is that within the extremely politically correct culture of Sweden, questions, insults and criticism are often viewed as one and the same. Mikael Jalving, the Danish journalist and author of the book "Absolute Sweden" stated: "Sweden's leftist establishment and media believe a cornerstone of their perfect society is multiculturalism — large-scale immigration from some of the poorest, most backward nations on Earth — and Swedes who disagree with that plan risk being labeled racist, fascist, even Nazi." Even the immigrants themselves do not seem to be allowed to challenge immigration policy or immigrant culture. Last year, a Somali-born female journalist, critical of immigrant culture, was intimidated to such an extent by the Swedish journalistic establishment that she decided Mogadishu was a safer place for her than Sweden. The ambivalence of Swedish courts toward free speech already became apparent when in 2002 a district court sentenced the white native Swedish neo-Nazi Fredrik Sandberg to six months in prison for publishing a Nazi pamphlet, "The Jewish Question." Four years later, however, the same official who initiated the case against Sandberg — Chancellor of Justice Göran Lambertz — chose to discontinue an investigation into the Stockholm Central Mosque, after it distributed audiotapes that encouraged Muslims to kill Jews, described in them as "brothers of apes and pigs." He justified the discrepancy by saying that the distribution of the tapes should be judged in a geo-political context. Swedish society seems to be increasingly known for its bias in wanting to criminalize supposed racism by native Swedes against immigrants, while wanting to rationalize Muslim racism against native Swedes, and Jews in particular. Sweden's third largest newspaper, Expressen, has used hackers affiliated with the left-wing extremist Anti-Fascist-Action group to obtain the addresses of individuals commenting on websites critical of mass immigration. The newspaper then visited their homes and in some instances, published their pictures and addresses. The Swedish TV station TV3 announced that the TV-show "troll-hunters," would visit online commentators in their homes — in a sort of 21st century televised witch-hunt. The Swedish newspaper Expressen hacked databases of website commenters, targeted critics of immigration, and confronted them at home. The above screenshot is taken from a video on the Expressen website, published under the headline "Jim Olsson writes on hate sites." This new law has the potential to carry that witch-hunt to the next level. Not only is the political-journalistic establishment intimidating critics of online immigration by knocking on their front doors and shaming them, but under this new law, they could even charge a perceived critic with committing a crime. Economist Dr. Jan Tullburg published a book in which he states that annually, immigration costs Sweden 7% of its GDP. Sweden is also home to sizeable Muslim enclaves that have become off-limits to Swedish police. The multitude of violent riots that erupt in these enclaves not only cost millions of Krona but are undermining the fabric of Swedish society. Sweden apparently enjoys tolerating the intolerable. In the meantime, apart from South Africa, Sweden now has the highest number of rapes (that are reported) in the world per capita (see UN "Statistics on Crime, Sexual Violence"). However, this number should be nuanced, as the term "rape" in Sweden is defined broadly and includes more than just forced, non-consensual intercourse. There are, however, rapes that are not being reported to the police at all. A significant percentage of these "rapes" are apparently committed by immigrants from a Muslim background. The Swedish government has refused to keep track of these numbers, which by definition cannot be exact, but multiple reports, based on unofficial accounts from policemen and social workers, put the percentage at around 75%. It must be emphasized that these numbers come from unofficial sources and cannot be verified since there aren't any official Swedish numbers on what percentage of rapes are committed by Muslim immigrants. But, Mohammed, for example, a 27-year-old illegal immigrant from Syria, who arrived in Sweden in September, has thus far sexually molested 21 girls and women between the ages of 4 and 69. According to a police report in neighboring Norway, a country politically similar to Sweden, 100% of all rapes in Oslo over the last five years were committed by Muslim immigrants. [Oslo figure seems improbable, but the figure is said to come from a 'police report', so it is presumably correct?] It will be illuminating to see what impact this new law has on Sweden's citizenry and their free speech once it goes into effect this Christmas. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4972/sweden-free-speech#.VSEc1TuZWUE.twitter ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Article grabbed my attention because of the reference to Expressen newspaper being involved in hacking databases of commenters, which is rather an unusual activity for a news outlet (I think?). By my estimation, from other material I'd looked at, Gatestone Institute is a pro Israel NGO.  So that's worthwhile bearing in mind when looking at the article.  On the other hand, it's all relative, I guess.  For the pro Israel supporters, the arrest for blocking construction of a security barrier in Israel would not be seen in a positive light.  For Palestinian supporters, this would be seen as a positive form of protest.   However, facts are facts and presumably Expressen was involved in hacking databases, or Gatestone would have been compelled not to disseminate this information. There's a number of hot issues and conflicting political forces in Sweden. Generalising from the contents of this article and from what I've read so far elsewhere:  there's a totalitarian quality to Sweden's liberalism, it would seem:  incursions into freedom of speech and media-led witch-hunts against those with opposing views; labelling of those with opposing views as extremists of one kind or another:  'nazi' or 'fascist'; a politically correct approach to crimes statistics gathering and, it would seem, a parallel justice system; physical no-go areas to police (which I found astounding); violence; and from what I've previously read, issues regarding cultural integration. Find this stuff fascinating, but I haven't read enough to get a handle on what's really going on.  Looks to be very interesting competing political interests in Sweden. Maybe I'm strange, but the most shocking thing for me was Expressen involved in hacking of databases.  I'm still spun out by that. Thought the bit about 'free', 'democratic' and 'transparent' Sweden was quite a giggle. But I guess even freedom etc is relative?  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ PS  Forgot to do a look-up regarding the Somali-born female journalist that was 'run out of town'.  Sounds an interesting story to check out, given this has occurred in 'feminist Sweden'. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Players mentioned by Gatestone currently in the following posts: Mehmet Kaplan (Green Party) Housing urban development and IT Minister. Sweden. Gustav Fridolin (Green Party) Minister for Education Ardalan Shekarabi (Swedish Social Democratic Party) Minister for Public Administration (resides Belfast, Ireland) Alice Bah Kuhnke (Green Party) Minister of Culture and Democracy Hillevi Larsson (Swedish Social Democratic Party) Riksdag member  since 2004, Pro Palestinian Andreas Norlén (Moderate Party) Riksdag member  since 2006,  * Norlén Initiator of online dissent silencing laws * Göran Lambertz Chancellor of Justice (Swedish: justitiekansler) Sweden 2001-2009 currently serving as a judge on the Supreme Court of Sweden TV3 (Sweden) owned by:  Viasat Broadcasts from:  London Markets:  Nordic and Baltic Countries Visat owned by:  Modern Times Group publicly traded Industry              Media Founded             1997 Headquarters     Stockholm, Sweden Key people                 David Chance (Chairman)                 Jorgen Madsen (President & CEO)                 Mathias Hermansson (CFO) Sweden is "one of the most capital-centralized countries in Europe" [Wikipedia]  Look-ups = Wikipedia

UKRAINE - US Intel Implanted into Formerly Ukraine Intel Service (SBU) - Repressive Political Police

Ukraine Security Chief Holds up Holocaust Abettors as Example to Follow The chief of Ukraine secret police (SBU) has stated wants to build on the traditions and methods of the WWII-era OUN-UPA, which is historically complicit in the Holocaust and responsible for a campaign of mass murder against West Ukraine's Poles (Colonel Cassad) Along Poles 1943-44 UPA murdered Ukrainians who tried to hide them Note: In 1941 OUN offered to collaborate with the German occupiers of Ukraine. The offer was refused by the Germans, but OUN leadership still directed its members to join the German Auxillary Police, which they did en masse and as part of it helped perpetrate the Holocaust. In 1943-44 UPA - OUN's military wing - carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Poles of Western Ukraine as part of which 50,000-100,000 Poles were murdered and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee. 'Colonel Cassad' is a Russian blog (reportedly from the pen of Boris Rozhin of Sevastopol, Crimea) that does not attempt to hide its anti-Maidan orientation, thus references to Kiev government as "junta" and "fascist regime". However, in this instance he could not be more right just how scandalous it is (should be) for a state official to hold up the murderous, ultra-violent OUN-UPA as something to emulate. This article originally appeared at Colonel Cassad. It was translated at Colonel Cassad in English The Chairman of the Ukrainian Security Service Valentin Nalivaichenko believes that the SBU should be reformed by using the security service of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Ukrainian Insurgent Army as an example. “There is no need to come up with anything unnecessary—it’s important to use as foundation the traditions of and methods used by the OUN-UPA Security Service between 1930 and 1950. It operated against the aggressor under conditions of temporary territorial occupation, it had patriotic upbringing, combat counter-intelligence, and it relied on the peaceful Ukrainian population, whose unprecedented support it enjoyed,” Nalivaichenko said. According to the SBU chairman, when reforming the agency we should reject not only “KGB designations, but also organizational structures of a security service that is alien to us.” “For example, instead of directorates and departments, we should have districts and task forces. Task forces, unlike departments, would have broader functions, including both information war against the enemy, but also community relations,” Nalivaichenko remarked. Nalivaichenko believes that task forces ought to operate more decisively, and “counteract any signs of separatism or aiding the aggressor in business or in any other aspect of civic life.” http://www.unian.net/politics/1062460-reformirovat-sbu-nado-po-obraztsu-slujbyi-bezopasnosti-oun-upa-schitaet-nalivaychenko.html (in Russian) - link Considering that OUN-UPA carried out mass killings of Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews, using it as a point of reference for the Kiev junta repressive apparatus is noteworthy. It is perfectly normal within the fascist regime in Ukraine for the president to wear the label “Cynical Banderite,” and for the SBU head to openly say that one should rely on the experience of Nazi-collaborating organizations which were party to war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have noted earlier that the Junta leadership plans include reformatting the SBU to increase its powers and to transform it into a pure political police, while ridding it of “unnecessary” functions that will be transferred to other agencies. Keeping in mind the tasks facing SBU and the US intelligence infrastructure implanted into the formerly Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU’s transformation into political police is unavoidable, since in the event of the conflict becoming prolonged the repressive apparatus will play an even greater role due to the population’s disappointment in government policies, not to mention separatist and pro-Russian sentiments which the reformed SBU will suppress to the best of its abilities. http://russia-insider.com/en/ukraine-security-chiefs-holds-holocaust-abettors-example-follow/5319 Article's self explanatory.  Ukraine's become like some South American victim of  US leaches, post CIA coup.