Results tagged “GCHQ” from Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk

Daily Mail alleges GCHQ / MI6 top secret money laundering project betrayed to the "Russian Mafia"

wtwu

on June 28, 2011 6:40 AM | Permalink

Private bank accounts and money transfers through tax havens by current or former intelligence agency operatives, are major plot themes in several of John le Carré's espionage thriller novels.

Is the media manipulation groundwork being prepared for the revelation of a major UK intelligence scandal, or is this Mail on Sunday story just some "silly season" disinformation ?

Did Russian mafia kill the body-in-a-bag spy? MI6 man found dead in holdall in London, was developing secret technology to track gangsters' laundered cash

By Abul Taher and Robert Verkaik

Last updated at 10:05 PM on 25th June 2011

[...]

But now security sources say Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from the Government's eavesdropping centre GCHQ, was working on equipment that tracked the flow of money from Russia to Europe.

The technology enabled MI6 agents to follow the money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs via internet and wire transfers, said the source.

'He was involved in a very sensitive project with the highest security clearance. He was not an agent doing surveillance, but was very much part of the team, working on the technology side, devising stuff like software,' said the source.

He added: 'A knock-on effect of this technology would be that a number of criminal groups in Russia would be disrupted.

'Some of these powerful criminal networks have links with, and employ, former KGB agents who can track down people like Williams.'

If "former KGB agents" can penetrate the operational security of this "very sensitive project with the highest security clearance" then either it was protected incompetently or there has been a massive security betrayal.

Not only was would the existence of this project have to have been revealed to the "Russian mafia", but details of its technological progress and therefore the potential threat it posed and also the personal details of the key personnel involved would have all had to have been betrayed.

If so, then by whom ?

Is there Yet Another Traitor within GCHQ or Mi6 like Geoffrey Prime or Kim Philby ?
Has the notoriously insecure US Government let the cat out of the bag again, for domestic political reasons, without thought for the consequences to for the United Kingdom, again ?
Why is alleged Russian money laundering the target ? Surely vastly more money is laundered through London, by, say US based criminal gangs or Mexican or Colombian drug smugglers ?

In order to snoop on "Russian" mafia finances (or that any other country), it would require access to all international financial transactions, passing through every financial centre, tax haven or third party country.
Is the "Russian" spin on this story being played up to divert media attention from Chinese communist espionage stories, during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 's visit to the UK this week ?

Bear in mind that it was the Daily Mail which first raised the idea of some sort of "Russian" connection with the case, Did spy's killer steal state secrets? MI6 agents search for 'missing' laptop or MP3 player after body-in-bag murder case.

Quite properly and professionally, they actually did a bit of real investigative journalism, ahead of their rivals, by looking up the Land Registry records for the owners of the top floor flat at 36 Alderney Street, London and interviewing the letting agents

The name of this property company turned out to be "New Rodina". In Russian, and in other slavic languages "Rodina" means "Homeland".

Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Williams, a keen cyclist from Anglesey, North Wales, was involved in another 'secretive' project, developing devices that can steal data from mobile phones and laptops using wireless technology.

Is the anonymous briefing source of that unproven allegation, any more reliable than this one and vice versa ?

A close friend also revealed that Williams was training to take on a new identity when he died.

Tory MP and security expert Patrick Mercer said last night: 'The revelation that Gareth Williams was involved in investigating money- laundering throughout Eastern Europe throws new light on to his death.

'I am sure the police would want to investigate these facts as thoroughly as they have done the details of his private life.'

Neither GCHQ nor the Metropolitan police would discuss the new information.

What "new information" exactly ? Speculation from an anonymous Whitehall briefing ?

"Tory MP and security expert Patrick Mercer" is always ready to give a quote to the media, but some of the people he has been associated with are worse than unreliable - see the saga documented by Bloggerheads.

But now security sources say Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from the Government's eavesdropping centre GCHQ, was working on equipment that tracked the flow of money from Russia to Europe.

The technology enabled MI6 agents to follow the money trails from bank accounts in Russia to criminal European gangs via internet and wire transfers, said the source.

Either this is utter rubbish, or it implies that there has been a disastrous breach of security surrounding Yet Another Intelligence Agency attempt to snoop on financial transactions e.g. on the SWIFT system of international bank transfers.

The fact is, that even legal access to SWIFT by the US Government, has failed to be used to cut off access to funds to terrorists, serious organised crime gangs or foreign spies.

We must assume that such snooping is more likely to be abused by groups and individuals to allow them to gamble on the the world's financial markets with "insider trading" fore knowledge, so as to either enrich themselves, or to build up secret, unaccountable "slush" or "reptile" funds, for bribery or secret operations, which are not audited by their own governments.

Remember the "patriotic" US military and intelligence people who created such illegal funds in the "Iran - Contra" scandal under President Ronald Reagan.?

The Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government politicians should be demonstrating a clear break with their technologically incompetent Labour "control freak" predecessors, who were so in thrall to the tabloid press.

This Mail on Sunday story is yet another example of why there should be named, public spokesmen for each of the UK Intelligence Agencies, who can categorically deny mainstream media and internet spin and rumour.

The old policies of "neither confirm nor deny" or "we do not comment on national security matters" are doing more harm than good, in the 24/7 mainstream media and internet news age.

Holiday reading for Spy Blog readers - reviews of a couple of books on GCHQ and NSA

wtwu

on August 13, 2010 2:42 PM | Permalink

Holiday reading for Spy Blog readers - reviews of a couple of books on the GCHQ and the NSA

These comprehensive reviews seem to give a good outline of a couple of books about a couple of the world's premier intelligence agencies, which deserve close study:

The Yorkshire Ranter on GCHQ Review: Part 1, The World's Most Classified Blog and Other Stories
- Amazon: GCHQ by Richard Aldrich (hardback).
Public Intelligence Blog - Robert Steele on Review: The Shadow Factory-The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
- Amazon: The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America by James Bamford (paperback).

Spy Blog could be tempted to review

Securing the State by Sir David Omand GCB, the former éminence grise of the Cabinet Office Intelligence bureaucrac and obe of the architechts of Protint - 'protected information' data mining of personal sensitive data by intelligence agencies.

Intelligence and Security Committee publishes Two annual reports - Gordon Brown keeps one still secret

wtwu

on March 14, 2010 9:31 PM | Permalink

The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, who are supposed to provide the public with independent scrutiny of the secret intelligence services, has actually written two Annual reports in the last 9 months.

11 March 2010: The Intelligence and Security Committee's Annual Report for 2008-2009 was laid before Parliament today by the Prime Minister. A copy of the Report can be found here. A copy of the Government Response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's Annual Report 2008-2009 can be found here.

The Committee has issued an accompanying Press Release, which can be found here.

These Annual Reports are not an adequate mechanism for holding the secret intelligence agencies to account, either for their waste of public money, or for how well they are doing their job.

See:

The Register: GCHQ loses Top Secret laptops - And struggles to recruit net experts by Chris Williams
BBC : A snapshot of spies and their accountability by Gordon Corera

Perhaps there is some good reason for the 8 month publication delay of this supposedly Annual 2008 - 2009 report , but since nobody trusts Gordon Brown not to lie by omission, we assume that there was some sort of petty political reason for the unnecessary delay.

Dr. Kim Howell's, the outgoing Labour chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who will not be standing for re-election at the forthcoming General Election, seems a bit frustrated with the

"We also sent our Annual Report for 2009-10 to the Prime Minister on Friday 5 March 2010.
This is a shorter report, given the duration of the Parliamentary year, however it covers some
fundamental issues.

[...]

We have been assured by the Prime Minister that this Report will also be published in good time before the debate next week.

This is an opportunity for Gordon Brown to show his respect or contempt for Parliament and the British public.

We would like to be proved wrong, but we assume that Gordon Brown will break this promise to Kim Howells.

The debate on the Intelligence and Security Committee Report is scheduled for this Thursday 18th March 2010.

On past performance, we expect a few paper copies this 2009 - 2010 report to have been made available a few minutes before, or perhaps even during this debate, in the Vote Office, giving MPs and others no time to read and analyse it beforehand.

We doubt if it will be published on the web until after the debate in the Commons.

Here are a few points which stood out for Spy Blog, when reading this censored ISC report:

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Sir David Pepper, retired boss of GCHQ, joins Thales UK advisory board - familiar photo in the press release

wtwu

on October 1, 2009 1:40 PM | Permalink

Those of you who keep an eye on the revolving door between Government securocrat mandarins and lucrative jobs offered by the defence and security industry vested interests, may be interested in this press release from the French owned Thales Group subsidiary Thales UK plc.

Sir David Pepper joins Thales UK advisory board

28 September 2009

Thales UK today announces the appointment of Sir David Pepper as a member of its advisory board.

 Sir David retired in July 2008 after five years running the Government's signals intelligence centre, GCHQ. He is a member of the National Security Forum, and has a non-executive position on the management board of Gloucestershire County Council.

The addition of Sir David to the board reflects the growing importance of national security and resilience as a core element of Thales UK's long-term strategy.

 Alex Dorrian, CEO of Thales UK, says: "We welcome Sir David to Thales. He brings a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective to the Group, which I am sure we will find invaluable as we accelerate the growth of our national security and resilience business both in the UK and in the export market."

 Sir David Pepper says: "Thales UK is a very successful British company; many of its 8,500 people work on critical security systems for the UK government. Thales UK encompasses a fascinating array of technological and engineering capabilities, and I am delighted to be joining its advisory board."

- Ends

About Thales and Thales UK

Thales is a global technology leader for the Aerospace, Space, Defence, Security and Transportation markets. In 2008 the company generated revenues of £10.2 billion, with 68,000 employees in 50 countries. With its 25,000 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design, develop and deploy equipment, systems and services that meet the most complex security requirements. Thales has an exceptional international footprint, with operations around the world working with customers as local partners.

Thales UK employs 8,500 staff based at more than 40 locations. In 2008 Thales UK's revenues were over £1.4 bn.

Is it significant that this press release no longer appears on the Thales website ?

http://www.thalesgroup.com/Press_Releases/09-09-28_Sir_David_Pepper_joins_Thales_UK_advisory_board/

N.B. this now gives a 404 not found error., although a copy is still in the Google cache, for now.

Has it been censored ?

The observant readers of Spy Blog might also spot something familiar in the photo image used to illustrate this press release:

Resized Image used to illustrate the Thales UK press release - no copyright metadata

"Enlarged" / Original image used to illustrate the Thales UK press release - no copyright metadata

Spy Blog screen grab June 8, 2009 of Sir David Pepper KCMG from the BBC documentary Who's Watching You ? - includes copyright metatdata

See Who's Watching You ? - GCHQ's Sir David Pepper interviewed - but still too many surveillance topics in one tv documentary

William Gibson's cyberpunk science fiction story Johnny Mnemonic, which starred Keanu Reeves in the Hollywood film version, before The Matrix, featured the use of a screen grab from a television broadcast , as part of the cryptographic key used to secure some secret data which the shady "data courier" Johnny had locked inside his head.

Who's Watching You ? - GCHQ's Sir David Pepper interviewed - but still too many surveillance topics in one tv documentary

wtwu

on June 8, 2009 11:02 PM | Permalink

Overall, the short BBC2 tv documentary series Who's Watching You ? was of considerable interest, but our initial criticism still stands - they tried to cover far too many "surveillance" topics, several of which need much more explanation and analysis, for the public and politicians to be properly informed about their implications.

Despite getting face to face interviews with important Surveillance Database State policy makers (or recently retired ones, at least), like the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (who was re-shuffled during the screening of the series) and Sir David Pepper KCMG, who retired as head of GCHQ in 2008 (replaced by Iain Lobban CB), they either did not ask enough questions, or, more likely, most of the interesting stuff was censored out before transmission.

We have transcribed a few lines from this TV programme below, from the good quality interviews broadcast or streamed in clear English.

This process of transcription (try it for yourself), illustrates just how time consuming and expensive and error prone this must be, for poor quality recordings, with background noises, perhaps in foreign languages or obscure dialects, perhaps using innocent sounding code phrases, done in a hurry by GCHQ or other intelligence agency or police transcribers, translators and intelligence analysts.

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GCHQ: our Intelligence and Security mission in the Internet age

wtwu

on May 4, 2009 1:43 AM | Permalink

The Daily Telegraph newspaper, used to be seen as a Tory leaning newspaper, but recently, it seems to have become a Labour government / Whitehall bureaucracy official mouthpiece. As such, it seems to be the only mainstream media publication which carries a denial of the report by The Sunday Times and The Register, regarding the internet snooping capability upgrade investment supposedly being made at the Government Communications Head Quarters GCHQ, electronic communications spying agency.

That story was sparked off by the job advertisement which mentioned the Mastering The Internet programme, as part of the Interception Modernisation Programme

See:

The Register: Jacqui's secret plan to 'Master the Internet'
The Sunday Times: Jacqui Smith's secret plan to carry on snooping

The Daily Telegraph report of the denial by the secretive GCHQ, published is without a named journalist's byline.

GCHQ - the Government's secret electronic eavesdropping agency - has denied that it was pressing ahead with plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in the UK.

Last Updated: 10:16PM BST 03 May 2009

However, there is actually an official GCHQ Press Release on their website:

GCHQ: our Intelligence and Security mission in the Internet age

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Tony Blair and phone security

wtwu

on November 25, 2008 9:31 AM | Permalink

ABC News in the USA has a whistleblower story: Whistleblower: U.S. Snooped on Tony Blair, Iraqi President

Initially this whistleblower David Murfee Faulk alleged illegal snooping on the phone calls of innocent US citizens, including journalists and the families of US soldiers serving in Iraq. He has worked as a US Army Arabic language translator at the National Security Agency "Black Hall" listening post at Fort Gordon, Georgia, before becoming a local news reporter. These allegations have been taken seriously enough for a US Congressional investigation into them to have been started.

He claims that he had access to a secret database called Anchory, formerly known as the SIGINT Online Intelligence System i.e. a signald intelligence database run by the National Security Agency.

Given that the British press are following the ABC News scoop, it is sad to see them getting simple details from the original wrong:

The Daily Mail has spoiled its report of the story with the following inaccuracy and misspelling:

Mr Blair was given the code named "Anchory" as his private telephone calls were routinely listened into and recorded.

The Daily Telegraph and the Press Association reports do not make that mistake, although somehow The Guardian's headline to the syndicated PA story more accurately describes him as an "ex-Navy Operator", (see the previous ABC News report which describes him as a "former Navy Arab linguist") even though the PA story text says "US Army Arabic linguist"

Such simple errors call into question the accuracy of the rest of these stories, and of these mainstream media organisations as a whole.

These UK media reports , whilst bemoaning some alleged "unwritten rule" about not spying on allies, miss the obvious question of how it was technically possible for anyone to intercept the phone communications of a British Prime Minister, no matter who they are.

Is Gordon Brown's mobile phone or voicemail also being intercepted by the US National Security Agency ?
How much UK mobile phone and landline and internet traffic is currently being handed over in bulk to the US National Security Agency by UK Government agencies like GCHQ ?
Is the United Kingdom's GCHQ intercepting President Bush or President-Elect Barack Obama's mobile phones ?
If GCHQ and the Whitehall ~~securocats~~ securocrats cannot even keep information of a "personal nature" about a British Prime Minister's "private life" out of the clutches of foreign intelligence agency phone interception systems, then why should they be trusted with the massive Communications Traffic Data centralised database, which Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is planning to inflict on tens of millions of innocent British people ?

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BBC Panorama - interesting transcript of the full interview with Ray White regarding GCHQ and the Omagh bomb attack

wtwu

on September 15, 2008 10:53 PM | Permalink

Our previous article BBC Panorama - GCHQ mobile phone interception and tracking and the Omagh bomb attack and speculations, seem to have been broadly correct.

The half hour broadcast programme itself, did not really add any extra factual details to the Sunday Telegraph article.

However, the BBC Panorama programme website does have an interesting transcript of full interview with Ray White (.pdf) (110Kb) , the former Assistant Chief Constable in charge of Crime and Special Branch for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who features heavily in the programme.

This interview also reveals some of the other material, e.g. details of communications traffic data and intercept recordings, and other reports and transcripts which the BBC journalist John Ware seems to have been given access to.

Ray White and John Ware discuss:

The matrix of friends , families and associates which gets hoovered up when a particular telephone number comes under suspicion and telephone interception and communications data traffic analysis.
The difficulty of picking up the significance of coded phrases, which, even if intercepted might be plausible sounding construction work or taxi service related phrases.
The very limited phone capability of, what was then the Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Branch, compared to GCHQ.
The inadmissibility of telephone intercept evidence , or even reference to it , under the Interception of Communications Act 1985, which was in force at the time.
(N.B. the same restrictions and mindset continue today under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000).
The sensitivity of the possible disclosure of any cross border monitoring of communications, brought home recently by the Capenhurst Phone Tap Tower case, which reached the European Court of Human Rights, which found in favour of the human rights organisations Liberty Human Rights and their Irish equivalents, the British Irish Rights Watch and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties - see the Spy Blog article Liberty wins a minor European Court of Human Rights judgment against the UK Government over telephone and electronic data interceptions
The political aspect of any such disclosures with respect to the ongoing Peace Process between the United Kingdom and Irish republic governments and the factions in Northern Ireland.
The possible pressures which timely cell site analysis etc. might have been able to put even experienced terrorists under, during the Police interrogations, had anybody actually been arrested in the immediate aftermath of the bomb attack.
Mention of problems regarding data entry into the Holmes system, the major inquiry data system linked into the Police National Computer.This has ow been upgraded to Holmes 2)
Issues of evidential disclosure versus the protection of intelligence sources
The possible relaxation of the ban on the use of intercept evidence, now that so many other countries use it against Al Quaeda etc.

BBC Panorama - GCHQ mobile phone interception and tracking and the Omagh bomb attack

wtwu

on September 14, 2008 5:38 PM | Permalink

The forthcoming BBC Panorama television documentary Omagh - What The Police Were Never Told scheduled to be broadcast on Monday 15 September on BBC1 at 8.30pm might be of interest to regular Spy Blog readers.

The Sunday Telegraph article

The words that might have saved Omagh

Could a coded message intercepted by intelligence have prevented the biggest atrocity of the Irish Troubles, in which 29 people died? Despite two trials, and millions of pounds spent, still no one is in prison for the Omagh bombing. In a special investigation, John Ware asks why covert monitoring failed - and why this and other pieces of evidence were not passed on to police hunting the killers

By John Ware
Last Updated: 1:32PM BST 14 Sep 2008

This does ask some hard questions about the inept or deliberate lack of communications between the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Security Service MI5, and the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (called the Police Service of Northern Ireland since 2001).

The article, and presumably the documentary, does, however, include some technical nonsense about mobile phone tracking .

The article and documentary appear to publish the details of actual Intercept transcripts and some of the Communications Traffic Data details,

The article also claims that 6.4 million telephone records were trawled through by the Police. What exactly has happened to that data, almost all of which has nothing to do with the investigation ? When, if ever, was it destroyed ? Or has it already been lost or stolen on an unencrypted hard disk or other portable memory device or media ?

Will the former senior Police officers who have been talking to Panorama now be treated like other whistleblowers by this Labour Government, with criminal prosecutions under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 section 19 Offence for unauthorised disclosures. which is currently in force, or the Interception of Communications Act 1985 Schedule 2 Disclosure of messages etc., which was in force in 1998, or failing that, under the Official Secrets Act 1989 ?

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New GCHQ careers recrutiment website launched - why is this not run securely by GCHQ themselves ?

wtwu

on August 22, 2008 7:31 AM | Permalink

A new GCHQ careers recruitment website seems to have been launched this week at www.gchq-careers.co.uk

This is again, like the MI6 Officers website (see our previous blog article - Yet Another MI6 Secret Intelligence Service recruitment website), a Government website which has been outsourced to a recruitment agency, in this case to TMP Worldwide

For no good reason, this website does not bother to use a ".gov.uk" domain name for credibility, and it could therefore be potentially vulnerable to typo squatters and fake confidential CV phishing websites.

Again, there is a bit of Flash, but at least the job vacancy pages and the email alert subscription pages do actually seem to be run from an SSL / TLS encrypted webserver.

However, the fact that the SSL encrypted sessions are running from the".i-grasp.com" domain, might, very reasonably, put off some IT security aware candidates from applying via this method, but, unfortunately, some of the advertised vacancies only allow online applications.

GCHQ also seems to be competing for some of the same potential recruits as the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 and the Security Service MI5.

"i-grasp.com" is a subsidiary of StepStone Solutions, who seem to be a multi-national recruitment software company, with offices from the USA, Latin America, most of Europe and including the Russian Federation, the Middle East and Asia.

Does this mean that they have wide experience and are highly professional in online recruitment, or does it mean that copies of all the personal details and confidential CV's of key GCHQ staff will be available to foreign intelligence agencies, directly or indirectly through their international branch offices ?

Why does this www.gchq-careers.co.uk website use third party, USA based Google Analytics code for tracking visitors ? Even if GCHQ cannot do a better job at analysing web site visitor data, surely they should be running such software in house, rather than leaking information to foreign companies and intelligence agencies ?

Whilst this might be reasonable for commercial recruitment, is this really how the people who will be privy to some of our most sensitive national security secrets, should be recruited ?

Why could they not run the i-grasp recruitment website software on a GCHQ managed web server, using a .gchq.gov.uk sub-domain name, with a matching Digital Certificate ?

Counter-Terrorism Bill - DNA and Data Sharing by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - no more Duty of Confidentiality or the Wilson Doctrine ?

wtwu

on April 3, 2008 4:29 AM | Permalink

The Labour Government's latest terrorism legislation got an unopposed Second Reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday 1st April 2008. The Opposition parties and the media, as we predicted when the Bill was announced, have been distracted by the extremely controversial 42 days internment without charge provisions and have, so far, ignored all the other sneaky and repressive bits of the Bill.

The text of the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 and the (not very) Explanatory Notes is available on the Parliament website.

Where is the Business Case and the Regulatory impact Assessment setting out why such further legislation is actually necessary, why the existing vast legal powers available under the large amount of existing Primary and Secondary legislation is somehow inadequate, how much extra this is all going to cost to enforced, and what the expected result will be in terms of the number of terrorists who will be caught, convicted or even slightly deterred. Neither the Explanatory Notes, nor any of the media spin and manipulation so far presented to the public have made any of this clear.

There appears to be a carte blanche for legally covering up any of DNA or fingerprint sample abuses "that are not held subject to existing statutory restrictions."

The Bill also provides for the use of DNA samples and for fingerprinting to be used not just for terrorism cases , not just for serious crime, not just for petty crime, but for general "identification" purposes, whether you are dead or alive.

There also seems to be another statutory attempt to destroy the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, and probably also to circumvent the "Wilson Doctrine".

Any legislation which claims that "Nothing in that section shall be read as casting doubt on the legality of anything done by any of the intelligence services before that section came into force." only succeeds in raising precisely those sort of doubts in the mind of anyone reading it.

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This United Kingdom based blog attempts to draw public attention to, and comments on, some of the current trends in ever cheaper and more widespread surveillance technology being deployed to satisfy the rapacious demand by state and corporate bureaucracies and criminals for your private details, and the technological ignorance of our politicians and civil servants who frame our legal systems.

The hope is that you the readers, will help to insist that strong safeguards for the privacy of the individual are implemented, especially in these times of increased alert over possible terrorist or criminal activity. If the systems which should help to protect us can be easily abused to supress our freedoms, then the terrorists will have won.

We know that there are decent, honest, trustworthy individual politicians, civil servants, law enforcement, intelligence agency personnel and broadcast, print and internet journalists etc., who often feel powerless or trapped in the system. They need the assistance of external, detailed, informed, public scrutiny to help them to resist deliberate or unthinking policies, which erode our freedoms and liberties.

Please feel free to email your views about this blog, or news about the issues it tries to comment on.

blog@spy[dot]org[dot]uk

Our PGP public encryption key is available for those correspondents who wish to send us news or information in confidence, and also for those of you who value your privacy, even if you have got nothing to hide.

Current PGP Key ID: 0x111CB613 which will expire on 2nd August 2013

You can download a free copy of the PGP encryption software from www.pgpi.org
(available for most of the common computer operating systems, and also in various Open Source versions like GPG)

We look forward to the day when UK Government Legislation, Press Releases and Emails etc. are Digitally Signed so that we can be assured that they are not fakes. Trusting that the digitally signed content makes any sense, is another matter entirely.

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders manual, by Irish NGO Frontline Defenders.

Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide (.pdf - 31 pages), by the Citizenlab at the University of Toronto.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - March 2008 version - (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) by Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics by Human Rights Watch.

A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns (v 2.6) (.doc - 62 pages), by experienced UK direct action political activists

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor - useful step by step guide with software configuration screenshots by Ethan Zuckerman at Global Voices Advocacy. (updated March 10th 2009 with the latest Tor / Vidalia bundle details)

Privacy International
United Kingdom Privacy Profile (2011)

Cryptome - censored or leaked government documents etc.

Identity Project report by the London School of Economics
Surveillance & Society the fully peer-reviewed transdisciplinary online surveillance studies journal

Statewatch - monitoring the state and civil liberties in the European Union

The Policy Laundering Project - attempts by Governments to pretend their repressive surveillance systems, have to be introduced to comply with international agreements, which they themselves have pushed for in the first place

International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance

ARCH Action Rights for Children in Education - worried about the planned Children's Bill Database, Connexions Card, fingerprinting of children, CCTV spy cameras in schools etc.

Foundation for Information Policy Research
UK Crypto - UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group email list

Technical Advisory Board on internet and telecomms interception under RIPA

European Digital Rights

Open Rights Group - a UK version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a clearinghouse to raise digital rights and civil liberties issues with the media and to influence Governments.

Digital Rights Ireland - legal case against mandatory EU Comms Data Retention etc.

Blindside - "What’s going to go wrong in our e-enabled world? " blog and wiki and Quarterly Report will supposedly be read by the Cabinet Office Central Sponsor for Information Assurance. Whether the rest of the Government bureaucracy and the Politicians actually listen to the CSIA, is another matter.

Biometrics in schools - 'A concerned parent who doesn't want her children to live in "1984" type society.'

British and Irish Legal Information Institute - publishes the full text of major case Judgments

Her Majesty's Courts Service - publishes forthcoming High Court etc. cases (but only in the next few days !)

House of Lords - The Law Lords are currently the supreme court in the UK - will be moved to the new Supreme Court in October 2009.

Information Tribunal - deals with appeals under FOIA, DPA both for and against the Information Commissioner

Investigatory Powers Tribunal - deals with complaints about interception and snooping under RIPA - has almost never ruled in favour of a complainant.

Home Office - "Not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes" - Home Secretary John Reid. 23rd May 2006. Not quite the fount of all evil legislation in the UK, but close.

No. 10 Downing Street Prime Minister's Official Spindoctors

Public Bills before Parliament

United Kingdom Parliament
Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

House of Commons "Question Book"

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

FaxYourMP - identify and then fax your Member of Parliament
WriteToThem - identify and then contact your Local Councillors, members of devolved assemblies, Member of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament etc.
They Work For You - House of Commons Hansard made more accessible ? UK Members of the European Parliament

Read The Bills Act - USA proposal to force politicians to actually read the legislation that they are voting for, something which is badly needed in the UK Parliament.

Bichard Inquiry delving into criminal records and "soft intelligence" policies highlighted by the Soham murders. (taken offline by the Home Office)

ACPO - Association of Chief Police Officers - England, Wales and Northern Ireland
ACPOS Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland

Stand - email and fax campaign on ID Cards etc. [Now defunct]. The people who supported stand.org.uk have gone on to set up other online tools like WriteToThem.com. The Government's contemptuous dismissal of over 5,000 individual responses via the stand.org website to the Home Office public consultation on Entitlement Cards is one of the factors which later led directly to the formation of the the NO2ID Campaign who have been marshalling cross party opposition to Labour's dreadful National Identity Register compulsory centralised national biometric database and ID Card plans, at the expense of simpler, cheaper, less repressive, more effective, nore secure and more privacy friendly alternative identity schemes.

NO2ID - opposition to the Home Office's Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID bulletin board discussion forum

Home Office Identity Cards website
No compulsory national Identity Cards (ID Cards) BBC iCan campaign site
UK ID Cards blog
NO2ID press clippings blog
CASNIC - Campaign to STOP the National Identity Card.
Defy-ID active meetings and protests in Glasgow
www.idcards-uk.info - New Alliance's ID Cards page
irefuse.org - total rejection of any UK ID Card

International Civil Aviation Organisation - Machine Readable Travel Documents standards for Biometric Passports etc.
Anti National ID Japan - controversial and insecure Jukinet National ID registry in Japan
UK Biometrics Working Group run by CESG/GCHQ experts etc. the UK Government on Biometrics issues feasability
Citizen Information Project feasability study population register plans by the Treasury and Office of National Statistics

CommentOnThis.com - comments and links to each paragraph of the Home Office's "Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme".

De-Materialised ID - "The voluntary alternative to material ID cards, A Proposal by David Moss of Business Consultancy Services Ltd (BCSL)" - well researched analysis of the current Home Office scheme, and a potentially viable alternative.

National Roads Telecommunications Services project - infrastruture for various mass surveillance systems, CCTV, ANPR, PMMR imaging etc.

CameraWatch - independent UK CCTV industry lobby group - like us, they also want more regulation of CCTV surveillance systems.

Every Step You Take a documentary about CCTV surveillance in the Uk by Austrian film maker Nino Leitner.

Transport for London an attempt at a technological panopticon - London Congestion Charge, London Low-Emission Zone, Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, tens of thousands of CCTV cameras on buses, thousands of CCTV cameras on London Underground, realtime road traffic CCTV, Iyster smart cards - all handed over to the Metropolitan Police for "national security" purposes, in real time, in bulk, without any public accountibility, for secret data mining, exempt from even the usual weak protections of the Data Protection Act 1998.

DNA Profiles - analysis by Paul Nutteing
GeneWatch UK monitors genetic privacy and other issues
Postnote February 2006 Number 258 - National DNA Database (.pdf) - Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology

The National DNA Database Annual Report 2004/5 (.pdf) - published by the NDNAD Board and ACPO.

Eeclaim Your DNA from Britain's National DNA Database - model letters and advice on how to have your DNA samples and profiles removed from the National DNA Database,in spite of all of the nureacratic obstacles which try to prevent this, even if you are innocent.

e-nsecure.net blog - Comments on IT security and Privacy or the lack thereof.
Rat's Blog -The Reverend Rat writes about London street life and technology
Duncan Drury - wired adventures in Tanzania & London
Dr. K's blog - Hacker, Author, Musician, Philosopher

David Mery - falsely arrested on the London Tube - you could be next.

James Hammerton
White Rose - a thorn in the side of Big Brother
Big Blunkett
Into The Machine - formerly "David Blunkett is an Arse" by Charlie Williams and Scribe
infinite ideas machine - Phil Booth
Louise Ferguson - City of Bits
Chris Lightfoot
Oblomovka - Danny O'Brien

Liberty Central

dropsafe - Alec Muffett
The Identity Corner - Stefan Brands
Kim Cameron - Microsoft's Identity Architect
Schneier on Security - Bruce Schneier
Politics of Privacy Blog - Andreas Busch
solarider blog

Richard Allan - former Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam
Boris Johnson Conservative MP for Henley
Craig Murray - former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, "outsourced torture" whistleblower

Howard Rheingold - SmartMobs
Global Guerrillas - John Robb
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

Vmyths - debunking computer security hype

Nick Leaton - Random Ramblings
The Periscope - Companion weblog to Euro-correspondent.com journalist network.
The Practical Nomad Blog Edward Hasbrouck on Privacy and Travel
Policeman's Blog
World Weary Detective

Martin Stabe
Longrider
B2fxxx - Ray Corrigan
Matt Sellers
Grits for Breakfast - Scott Henson in Texas
The Green Ribbon - Tom Griffin
Guido Fawkes blog - Parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy.
The Last Ditch - Tom Paine
Murky.org
The (e)State of Tim - Tim Hicks
Ilkley Against CCTV
Tim Worstall
Bill's Comment Page - Bill Cameron
The Society of Qualified Archivists
The Streeb-Greebling Diaries - Bob Mottram

Your Right To Know - Heather Brooke - Freedom off Information campaigning journalist

Ministry of Truth _ Unity's V for Vendetta styled blog.

Bloggerheads - Tim Ireland

W. David Stephenson blogs on homeland security et al.
EUrophobia - Nosemonkey

Blogzilla - Ian Brown

BlairWatch - Chronicling the demise of the New Labour Project

dreamfish - Robert Longstaff

Informaticopia - Rod Ward

War-on-Freedom

The Musings of Harry

Chicken Yoghurt - Justin McKeating

The Red Tape Chronicles - Bob Sullivan MSNBC

Campaign Against the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Stop the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

Rob Wilton's esoterica

panGloss - Innovation, Technology and the Law

Arch Rights - Action on Rights for Children blog

Database Masterclass - frequently asked questions and answers about the several centralised national databases of children in the UK.

Shaphan

Moving On

Steve Moxon blog - former Home Office whistleblower and author.

Al-Muhajabah's Sundries - anglophile blog

Architectures of Control in Design - Dan Lockton

rabenhorst - Kai Billen (mostly in German)

Nearly Perfect Privacy - Tiffany and Morpheus

Iain Dale's Diary - a popular Conservative political blog

Brit Watch - Public Surveillance in the UK - Web - Email - Databases - CCTV - Telephony - RFID - Banking - DNA

BLOGDIAL

MySecured.com - smart mobile phone forensics, information security, computer security and digital forensics by a couple of Australian researchers

Ralph Bendrath

Financial Cryptography - Ian Grigg et al.

UK Liberty - A blog on issues relating to liberty in the UK

Big Brother State - "a small act of resistance" to the "sustained and systematic attack on our personal freedom, privacy and legal system"

HosReport - "Crisis. Conspiraciones. Enigmas. Conflictos. Espionaje." - Carlos Eduardo Hos (in Spanish)

"Give 'em hell Pike!" - Frank Fisher

Corruption-free Anguilla - Good Governance and Corruption in Public Office Issues in the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the West Indies - Don Mitchell CBE QC

geeklawyer - intellectual property, civil liberties and the legal system

PJC Journal - I am not a number, I am a free Man - The Prisoner

Charlie's Diary - Charlie Stross

The Caucus House - blog of the Chicago International Model United Nations

Famous for 15 Megapixels

Postman Patel

The 4th Bomb: Tavistock Sq Daniel's 7:7 Revelations - Daniel Obachike

OurKingdom - part of OpenDemocracy - " will discuss Britain’s nations, institutions, constitution, administration, liberties, justice, peoples and media and their principles, identity and character"

Beau Bo D'Or blog by an increasingly famous digital political cartoonist.

Between Both Worlds - "Thoughts & Ideas that Reflect the Concerns of Our Conscious Evolution" - Kingsley Dennis

Bloggerheads: The Alisher Usmanov Affair - the rich Uzbek businessman and his shyster lawyers Schillings really made a huge counterproductive error in trying to censor the blogs of Tim Ireland, of all people.

Matt Wardman political blog analysis

Henry Porter on Liberty - a leading mainstream media commentator and opinion former who is doing more than most to help preserve our freedom and liberty.

HMRC is shite - "dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of the HMRC, who have to endure the monumental shambles that is Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)."

Head of Legal - Carl Gardner a former legal advisor to the Government

The Landed Underclass - Voice of the Banana Republic of Great Britain

Henrik Alexandersson - Swedish blogger threatened with censorship by the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishement, their equivalent of the UK GCHQ or the US NSA.

World's First Fascist Democracy - blog with link to a Google map - "This map is an attempt to take a UK wide, geographical view, of both the public and the personal effect of State sponsored fear and distrust as seen through the twisted technological lens of petty officials and would be bureaucrats nationwide."

Blogoir - Charles Crawford - former UK Ambassodor to Poland etc.

No CCTV - The Campaign against CCTV

Barcode Nation - keeping two eyes on the database state.

Lords of the Blog - group blog by half a dozen or so Peers sitting in the House of Lords.

notes from the ubiquitous surveillance society - blog by Dr. David Murakami Wood, editor of the online academic journal Surveillance and Society

Justin Wylie's political blog

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Armed and Dangerous - Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures… - by Open Source Software advocate Eric S. Raymond.

Georgetown Security Law Brief - group blog by the Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law , at Georgtown University, Washington D.C, USA.

Big Brother Watch - well connected with the mainstream media, this is a campaign blog by the TaxPayersAlliance, which thankfully does not seem to have spawned Yet Another Campaign Organisation as many Civil Liberties groups had feared.

Spy on Moseley - "Sparkbrook, Springfield, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. An MI5 Intelligence-gathering operation to spy on Muslim communities in Birmingham is taking liberties in every sense" - about 150 ANPR CCTV cameras funded by Home Office via the secretive Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM) section of ACPO.

FitWatch blog - keeps an eye on the activities of some of the controversial Police Forward Intelligence Teams, who supposedly only target "known troublemakers" for photo and video surveillance, at otherwise legal, peaceful protests and demonstrations.

Spam Huntress - The Norwegian Spam Huntress - Ann Elisabeth

Fuel Crisis Blog - Petrol over £1 per litre ! Protest !
Mayor of London Blog
London Olympics 2012 - NO !!!!

Cool Britannia

NuLabour

Free Gary McKinnon - UK citizen facing extradition to the USA for "hacking" over 90 US Military computer systems.

Parliament Protest - information and discussion on peaceful resistance to the arbitrary curtailment of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, in the excessive Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Designated Area around Parliament Square in London.

Brian Burnell's British / US nuclear weapons history at http://nuclear-weapons.info

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The United Kingdom suffers from tens of thousands of pages of complicated criminal laws, and thousands of new, often unenforceable criminal offences, which have been created as a "Pretend to be Seen to Be Doing Something" response to tabloid media hype and hysteria, and political social engineering dogmas. These overbroad, catch-all laws, which remove the scope for any judicial appeals process, have been rubber stamped, often without being read, let alone properly understood, by Members of Parliament.

The text of many of these Acts of Parliament are now online, but it is still too difficult for most people, including the police and criminal justice system, to work out the cumulative effect of all the amendments, even for the most serious offences involving national security or terrorism or serious crime.

Many MPs do not seem to bother to even to actually read the details of the legislation which they vote to inflict on us.

UK Legislation Links

UK Statute Law Database - is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online, but it is not yet up to date.

Intelligence and Security Committee - the supposedly independent Parliamentary watchdog which issues an annual, heavily censored Report every year or so. Currently chaired by the Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Why should either the intelligence agencies or the public trust this committee, when the untrustworthy ex-Labour Minister Hazel Blears is a member ?

Anti-terrorism hotline - links removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

MI5 Security Service - links to encrypted reporting form removed in protest at the Climate of Fear propaganda posters

Secure Your Fertiliser - advice on ammonium nitrate and urea fertiliser security

Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure - "CPNI provides expert advice to the critical national infrastructure on physical, personnel and information security, to protect against terrorism and other threats."

Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) recruitment.

Government Communications Headquarters GCHQ

Serious Organised Crime Agency - have cut themselves off from direct contact with the public and businesses - no phone - no email

Defence Advisory (DA) Notice system - voluntary self censorship by the established UK press and broadcast media regarding defence and intelligence topics via the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee.

It is not just the UK government which tries to snoop on British companies, organisations and individuals, the rest of the world is constantly trying to do the same, regardless of the mixed efforts of our own UK Intelligence Agencies who are paid to supposedly protect us from them.

For no good reason, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office only keeps the current version of the London Diplomatic List of accredited Diplomats (including some Foreign Intelligence Agency operatives) online.

Presumably every mainstream media organisation, intelligence agency, serious organised crime or terrorist gang keeps historical copies, so here are some older versions of the London Diplomatic List, for the benefit of web search engine queries, for those people who do not want their visits to appear in the FCO web server logfiles or those whose censored internet feeds block access to UK Government websites.

UK Public ~~CCTV~~ Surveillance Regulation Campaign

NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

Data Retention is No Solution - Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

Open Rights Group

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

Icelanders are NOT terrorists ! - despite Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's use of anti-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks.

No CCTV - The Campaign Against CCTV

I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist !

Power 2010 cross party, political reform campaign

Cracking the Black Box - "aims to expose technology that is being used in inappropriate ways. We hope to bring together the insights of experts and whistleblowers to shine a light into the dark recesses of systems that are responsible for causing many of the privacy problems faced by millions of people."

Open Rights Group - Petition against the renewal of the Interception Modernisation Programme

WhistleblowersUK.org - Fighting for justice for whistleblowers

Results tagged “GCHQ” from Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk

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