Glass
24th June 2011, 12:17 AM
No Surprise for you all but the location this story popped up in has me scratching my head. I can't see why this was posted on an IT industry info web site in Australia. The article is also quite detailed which again is very odd given that important stuff like this is neither reported in detail or interprested with such honesty.
Apple, Google, Disney implicated in a US-led mass surveillance apparatus designed to spy and mine data from social media sources in the Arab world.
A crowd sourced investigation dubbed Project PM has probed reams leaked emails involving US intelligence companies and uncovered a massive spy operation targeting social media and telecommunications in the Arab world. The allegations, derived from 70,000 emails stolen from HBGary (http://hbgary.anonleaks.ch/) earlier this year, detailed a project dubbed Romas/COIN, to be proceeded by Odyssey, which could automatically analyse millions of conversations.
The following report has been republished with permission from Barrett Brown, Project PM (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/).
COIN
For at least two years, the US has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once.
And with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/Team_Themis).
The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public – and which in some cases are used against that very same public.
Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate US law as well as American ideals.
And with expanded intelligence capabilities by which to monitor Arab populations in ways that would have previously been impossible, those same intelligence agencies now have improved means by which to provide information on dissidents to those regional dictators viewed by the US as strategic allies.
http://i.haymarket.net.au/Utils/ImageResizer.ashx?n=http%3a%2f%2fi.haymarket.net.a u%2fNews%2fpmo%5b1%5d.png&w=200&c=1 (http://i.haymarket.net.au/News/pmo%5B1%5D.png)
Barr's project MAGII (Magnify Personal Identifying Information).
The nature and extent of the operation, which was known as Romas/COIN and which is scheduled for replacement sometime this year by a similar program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading of hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/HBGary).
Other details may be gleaned by an examination of the various other firms and individuals that are discussed as being potential partners.
Of course, there are many in the US that would prefer that such details not be revealed at all; such people tend to cite the amorphous and much-abused concept of “national security” as sufficient reason for the citizenry to stand idly by as an ever-expanding coalition of government agencies and semi-private corporations gain greater influence over US foreign policy.
That the last decade of foreign policy as practiced by such individuals has been an absolute disaster even by the admission of many of those who put it into place will not phase those who nonetheless believe that the citizenry should be prevented from knowing what is being done in its name and with its tax dollars.
To the extent that the actions of a government are divorced from the informed consent of those who pay for such actions, such a government is illegitimate. To the extent that power is concentrated in the hands of small groups of men who wield such power behind the scenes, there is no assurance that such power will be used in a manner that is compatible with the actual interests of that citizenry, or populations elsewhere.
The known history of the US intelligence community is comprised in large part of murder, assassinations, disinformation, the topping of democratic governments, the abuse of the rights of US citizens, and a great number of other things that cannot even be defended on “national security” grounds insomuch as that many such actions have quite correctly turned entire populations against the US government.
This is not only my opinion, but also the opinion of countless individuals who once served in the intelligence community and have since come to criticize it and even unveil many of its secrets in an effort to alert the citizenry to what has been unleashed against the world in the name of “security.”
Likewise, I will here provide as much information as I can on Romas/COIN and its upcoming replacement.
Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/Northrop_Grumman) had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to regular recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem, can apply to take over.
Full article @ CRN (http://www.crn.com.au/News/261613,huge-us-led-spy-operation-on-arab-world-uncovered.aspx?eid=4&edate=20110624&utm_source=20110624&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter)
Apple, Google, Disney implicated in a US-led mass surveillance apparatus designed to spy and mine data from social media sources in the Arab world.
A crowd sourced investigation dubbed Project PM has probed reams leaked emails involving US intelligence companies and uncovered a massive spy operation targeting social media and telecommunications in the Arab world. The allegations, derived from 70,000 emails stolen from HBGary (http://hbgary.anonleaks.ch/) earlier this year, detailed a project dubbed Romas/COIN, to be proceeded by Odyssey, which could automatically analyse millions of conversations.
The following report has been republished with permission from Barrett Brown, Project PM (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/).
COIN
For at least two years, the US has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once.
And with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/Team_Themis).
The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public – and which in some cases are used against that very same public.
Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate US law as well as American ideals.
And with expanded intelligence capabilities by which to monitor Arab populations in ways that would have previously been impossible, those same intelligence agencies now have improved means by which to provide information on dissidents to those regional dictators viewed by the US as strategic allies.
http://i.haymarket.net.au/Utils/ImageResizer.ashx?n=http%3a%2f%2fi.haymarket.net.a u%2fNews%2fpmo%5b1%5d.png&w=200&c=1 (http://i.haymarket.net.au/News/pmo%5B1%5D.png)
Barr's project MAGII (Magnify Personal Identifying Information).
The nature and extent of the operation, which was known as Romas/COIN and which is scheduled for replacement sometime this year by a similar program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading of hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/HBGary).
Other details may be gleaned by an examination of the various other firms and individuals that are discussed as being potential partners.
Of course, there are many in the US that would prefer that such details not be revealed at all; such people tend to cite the amorphous and much-abused concept of “national security” as sufficient reason for the citizenry to stand idly by as an ever-expanding coalition of government agencies and semi-private corporations gain greater influence over US foreign policy.
That the last decade of foreign policy as practiced by such individuals has been an absolute disaster even by the admission of many of those who put it into place will not phase those who nonetheless believe that the citizenry should be prevented from knowing what is being done in its name and with its tax dollars.
To the extent that the actions of a government are divorced from the informed consent of those who pay for such actions, such a government is illegitimate. To the extent that power is concentrated in the hands of small groups of men who wield such power behind the scenes, there is no assurance that such power will be used in a manner that is compatible with the actual interests of that citizenry, or populations elsewhere.
The known history of the US intelligence community is comprised in large part of murder, assassinations, disinformation, the topping of democratic governments, the abuse of the rights of US citizens, and a great number of other things that cannot even be defended on “national security” grounds insomuch as that many such actions have quite correctly turned entire populations against the US government.
This is not only my opinion, but also the opinion of countless individuals who once served in the intelligence community and have since come to criticize it and even unveil many of its secrets in an effort to alert the citizenry to what has been unleashed against the world in the name of “security.”
Likewise, I will here provide as much information as I can on Romas/COIN and its upcoming replacement.
Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman (http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/Northrop_Grumman) had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to regular recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem, can apply to take over.
Full article @ CRN (http://www.crn.com.au/News/261613,huge-us-led-spy-operation-on-arab-world-uncovered.aspx?eid=4&edate=20110624&utm_source=20110624&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter)