Category Archives: Government

Britain, Government, Intelligence, National Security, United States

US spying programmes are being used by British spies to snoop on UK email accounts…

COVERT INTELLIGENCE GATHERING ON UK CITIZENS

British spies and intelligence agents have had access to a US government programme that monitors the web activity of millions of Britons.

Secret documents published suggest the US National Security Agency (NSA) has direct access to data held by internet giants including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube, Skype and Apple.

The documents – which appear to be slides from a training presentation for intelligence agents – suggest the agency can access email, photographs, social network information, chat records and other ‘stored data’ held by the companies, as part of its ‘Prism’ project.

They also suggest that the British government’s listening centre, GCHQ, has had access to the system since at least June 2010. During this period the project generated nearly 200 intelligence reports. It is unclear whether other agencies, such as MI5 and MI6, were also involved, meaning the true extent of the snooping could be higher.

A spokesperson for GCHQ said:

… We do not comment on intelligence matters… (but) our work is carried out in accordance with strict legal and policy framework.

Privacy campaigners warned that the revelations suggested the creation of a ‘Snooper’s Charter by the back door’. They come after a proposed plan to pay internet companies to collate user data from UK computers was dropped only last month in face of opposition from Conservative backbenchers and Liberal Democrats.

Labour has called on David Cameron to come clean to MPs on the extent of Britain’s role. Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said:

… In light of these reports, the Prime Minster should brief the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) on what ministers know and should ask the ISC to report on the UK’s relationship with the Prism programme, the nature of intelligence being gathered, the extent of UK oversight by ministers and others, and the level of safeguards and compliance with the law.

The Guardian, a London based newspaper, said it has obtained slides from a whistleblowing intelligence officer worried about invasions of privacy.

Reports by the newspaper and The Washington Post suggested the FBI and the NSA can tap directly into the central servers of nine leading internet companies.

But a number of them, including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook denied that the government had “direct access” to their servers.

Microsoft said it does not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complies ‘with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers’.

Yet one slide appears to be a timeline of when the companies began to participate in Prism, starting with Microsoft in September 2007 and ending with Apple in October 2012.

According to the reports, Prism was established under President George W Bush in 2007 and has grown ‘exponentially’ under President Obama.

The Director of US National Intelligence said that the law ensures that only ‘non-US persons outside the US are targeted’, raising the likelihood that Britons are among those captured in its net.

Revelations about the snooping programme follow separate reports about the NSA being allowed to collect all telephone user data from Verizon, one of the largest telephone firms in the US, for three months.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics

Labour’s vision for welfare reform…

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has outlined his vision for the future of welfare reform and aims to give councils a role to play in getting people back into work.

He also pledged to give councils power to negotiate rents for housing benefit tenants – giving them cash back on the savings to put into house building.

Other proposals included scraping winter fuel allowance for pensioners, maintaining the current Government’s cap on child benefit for families on more than £50,000, and a three-year structural pay cap on social security spending to keep the welfare bill in check.

Mr Miliband made his welfare reform speech in Newham, where he paid tribute to the local Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, for his plans to tackle worklessness locally. Mr Miliband acknowledged the current system would need to be reformed in a bid to cut costs.

He said:

… We must change our economy, so that welfare is not a substitute for good employment and decent jobs.

He outlined four key cornerstones of Labour plans for reform including:

  •  overcoming worklessness
  • rewarding work and tackling low pay
  • investing in the future
  • recognising contribution

Outlining his plans for the future of welfare reform under Labour, Mr Miliband said: ‘For every young man and woman who has been out of work for more than a year, we would say to every business in the country, we will pay the wages for 25 hours a week, on at least the minimum wage.

‘Fully funded by a tax on bankers’ bonuses. The business would provide the training of at least 10 hours a week. And because it is a compulsory jobs guarantee, young people will have an obligation to take a job after a year or lose their benefits.

’And we will do the same for everyone over 25 unemployed for more than two years.’

The Labour leader also outlined his plans to make this happen through ‘local action’, with the kind of work he had seen in Newham.

‘Devolving power and resources to local communities so there can be advice and support suitable for the individual who is looking for work and tailored to the particular needs of businesses in the area.’

He added:

… And we will do everything in our power to promote the living wage. If local councils can say if you want a contract with the council then you need to pay the living wage, then central government should look at doing that too.

He also outlined plans to tackle the housing benefit bill which continues to rise because ‘we have built too few homes in this country’.

Mr Miliband said: ‘Any attempt to control housing benefit costs which fails to build more homes is destined to fail.’ He pledged to put house building as a key priority for the next labour government and added: ‘We will need every local authority in Britain to be part of this effort.’

Under Labour plans, local authorities would be given the ability to negotiate rents on behalf of tenants on housing benefit to get a better deal for taxpayers in a ‘radical devolution’ of power.

In return, they would be able to keep some of the savings to invest in building new homes. ‘This is the way we can start to bring about the shift from benefits to building. Bringing the housing benefit bill down for the long-term too.’

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Government, Politics, Turkey

Turkey’s anti-government demonstrations…

Turkey Riots

Riots have broken out in the streets of Turkey, as the people of Istanbul are fighting to keep Gezi Park from being uprooted and turned into a shopping centre.

TAKSIM SQUARE in Turkey is Istanbul’s equivalent to Cairo’s Tahir Square, now the epicentre of demonstrations triggered by construction plans for a new shopping mall in one of the city’s few remaining green spaces.

What started as a small sit-in has morphed into a major series of protests. Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said this was due to ‘excessive force’ by the police. But these protests reflect, in part, the deep ideological polarisation between secular, liberal-minded Turks, and the more pious Turks, representing a quarter and two-thirds of the population respectively (based on the 2011 general election results).

Secular Turks complain that the Islamist-rooted government is intolerant of criticism and the diversity of lifestyles. Mr Erdogan’s robust and muscular stance with demonstrators has reinforced those perceptions.

A typical example cited by detractors is the government’s recent legislative enactment of tight restrictions on the sale and promotion of alcohol, even though the Turkish government’s Household Budget Surveys estimates that only 6 per cent of Turkish households are alcohol drinkers. According to the Turkish economist Emre Deliveli, less than 1.5 per cent of car accidents in 2012 were alcohol related.

At the same time, critics are unhappy at the rapid pace of urbanisation in Turkey’s metropolitan cities. Erdogan is planning to build a third airport, a third Bosphorus bridge and a canal linking the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara – all of which are likely to destroy millions of trees and a delicate ecosystem in northern Istanbul. A staggering $4.7 billion was spent on ambitious projects last year in Istanbul alone.

Given the litany of grievances and the confrontational nature of Turkish politics, the raging protests may have come as no surprise. They coincide with a rapidly slowing economy that is likely to witness moderate growth rates (at best) for the foreseeable future. Turkey desperately needs a programme of structural reforms if its economy is to fruitfully grow. The Turkish government, however, is not expected to undertake major reform initiatives anytime soon, especially since the campaigning for the local and presidential elections in 2014 and the parliamentary elections in 2015 are already underway.

Despite the rising emotions sweeping Turkey, this is not equivalent to the Arab Spring that led to the toppling of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Unlike Egypt and other Arab countries, Turkey is a functioning, albeit, incomplete democracy, and has been since 1950.

Mr Erdogan received a resounding mandate of almost half the vote in the last general elections in 2011. He still remains by far the most popular politician in Turkey, while the opposition is widely perceived as being weak and ineffective.

The global media coverage of the riots and the disproportionate security response has dented the international image of Erdogan and the governing Justice and Development Party as a progressive force in Turkey’s political scene. Nevertheless, the ultimate determinant of Erdogan’s staying power will be the state of the Turkish economy rather than anti-government demonstrations.

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