British spies have received government permission to intensively study software programs for ways to infiltrate and take control of computers. The GCHQ spy agency was vulnerable to legal action for the hacking efforts, known as “reverse engineering,” since such activity could have violated copyright law. But GCHQ sought and obtained a legally questionable warrant from the Foreign Secretary in an attempt to immunize itself from legal liability.
GCHQ’s reverse engineering targeted a wide range of popular software products for compromise, including online bulletin board systems, commercial encryption software and anti-virus programs. Reverse engineering “is essential in order to be able to exploit such software and prevent detection of our activities,” the electronic spy agency said in a warrant renewal application.
But GCHQ’s hacking and evasion goals appear to have led it onto dubious legal ground and, at times, into outright non-compliance with its own procedures for staying within the bounds of the law. A top-secret document states that a GCHQ team lapsed in following the agency’s authorization protocol for some continuous period of time. Meanwhile, GCHQ obtained a warrant for reverse engineering under a section of British intelligence law that does not explicitly authorize — and had apparently never been used to authorize — the sort of copyright infringement GCHQ believed was necessary to conduct such activity.
The spy agency instead relied on the Intelligence Services Commissioner to let it use a law pertaining only to property and “wireless telegraphy,” a law that had never been applied to intellectual property, according to GCHQ’s own warrant renewal application. Eric King, deputy director of U.K. surveillance watchdog Privacy International said, after being shown documents related to the warrant, “The secret reinterpretation of powers, in entirely novel ways, that have not been tested in adversarial court processes, is everything that is wrong with how GCHQ is using their legal powers.”
GCHQ may have also circumvented a restriction on using the type of warrant it obtained for domestic purposes; the agency said in one memo that it has used reverse engineering to support “police operations” and the domestic policing-focused National Technical Assistance Centre.
The agency also described efforts to cozy up to dozens of government staffers it believed could help obtain further warrants.
The agency’s slippery legal maneuvers to enable computer hacking call into question U.K. government assurances about mass surveillance. To assuage public concern over such activity, the government frequently says spies are subject to rigorous oversight, including an obligation to obtain warrants. As it turns out, such authorizations have, at times, been vague and routine, as demonstrated by top-secret memos prepared by GCHQ in connection with the reverse engineering warrant.
The controversial path GCHQ took to authorize reverse engineering also seems likely to lend momentum to an ongoing push to reform the way surveillance warrants are issued in the U.K. Earlier this month, the U.K.’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson, issued a report recommending that “all warrants should be judicially authorised” and describing the current regulatory system as “undemocratic, unnecessary and — in the long run — intolerable.”
This story is based on 22 documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, linked below. None have been published before. One was briefly described in a January story in The Guardian.
Widely used commercial software is targeted
One document describing the warrant, a 2008 warrant renewal application, identifies numerous commercially available products in which GCHQ identified vulnerabilities through reverse engineering. These include widely used encryption software such as Exlade’s CrypticDisk and Acer’s eDataSecurity. Exlade’s products are used by “thousands of companies and government agencies,” including tech giants IBM, Intel, GE, HP and Seagate, according to the company’s website. Also successfully targeted were popular web forum services vBulletin and Invision Power Board. VBulletin says its users include Sony Pictures, NASA, Electronic Arts and Zynga. Invision Power Services, the maker of Invision Power Board, said around the time of the warrant renewal application that its users included Yahoo, AMD and Sony. GCHQ also targeted CPanel, software used by large hosting companies like GoDaddy for configuring servers, and PostfixAdmin, used to manage Postfix, popular email server software.
Invision Power Services said in a written statement that it monitors its software and external sources closely for information on vulnerabilities and issues fixes quickly. “There are currently no open vulnerabilities in our software of which we are aware,” it added. vBulletin and Acer did not provide comment by press time. The maker of CPanel did not respond to a request for comment.
Particularly important to GCHQ was the ability to hack anti-virus programs, an offensive operation that would typically come after using reverse engineering to discover vulnerabilities. Interfering with such programs would allow the opportunity to breach a computer’s defenses in order to exploit the computer without detection. GCHQ cited as a particular target Kaspersky Labs, a prominent Moscow-based maker of anti-virus software that claims more than 270,000 corporate clients. (For details on the targeting of Kaspersky, see this accompanying piece by Andrew Fishman and Morgan Marquis-Boire.)
“Personal security products such as the Russian anti-virus software Kaspersky continue to pose a challenge to GCHQ’s CNE [computer network exploitation] capability and SRE [software reverse engineering] is essential in order to be able to exploit such software and to prevent detection of our activities,” the 2008 document says.
Also targeted by the agency’s warrants are hardware products such as large computer network routers, critical pieces of infrastructure. Hacking Cisco routers “has been good business for us and our 5-eyes partners for some time now,” boasts a 2012 NSA document previously published by The Intercept.
The warrant memo describes GCHQ’s “capability against Cisco routers,” specifically that “GCHQ’s [hacking] operations against in-country communications switches (routers) have also benefited from SRE.” That has enabled the agency not only to access “almost any user of the internet” inside the entire country of Pakistan — but also “to re-route selective traffic across international links toward GCHQ’s passive collection systems.” The Guardian previously described, but did not publish, this memo.
Cisco did not comment specifically on the warrant document, saying in a written statement only that its products are securely developed and tested, that the company has a “robust” process for handling vulnerabilities, and that “Cisco does not work with any government, including the U.K. Government, to weaken or compromise our products.”
Stretching the law
To support its efforts to probe and compromise software systems, GCHQ appears to have aggressively stretched Britain’s Intelligence Services Act, failed to comply with its own guidelines based on that law for a continuous period, and even intentionally cozied up to staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or FCO, to get warrants approved. The apparent success of these efforts highlights the illusory nature of surveillance oversight, despite repeated government statements that the U.K. spy machine is tightly controlled.
GCHQ needed warrants, according the documents, to protect itself from potential claims of copyright infringement or of breaching a licensing agreement. The practice of reverse engineering is frequently barred in the terms and conditions attached to the copying and use of particular software by the makers of that software.
“In 2008, there was no real authority on this issue in the EU or the U.K.,” says Indra Bhattacharya, a U.K. solicitor with the firm Jones Day who specializes in intellectual property law. A 2012 EU court ruling and a related 2013 U.K. court ruling allow greater latitude toward specific reverse engineering practices as long as there is no copying of code, he explains, but case law is “very fact-specific” and “deals mostly with commercial situations,” making it difficult to determine how it might apply to a government agency and whether it would obviate the need for GCHQ’s warrant.
But at the time of the warrant renewal application, GCHQ was clear on its legal position. “Reverse engineering of commercial products needs to be warranted in order to be lawful,” one agency memo states. “There is a risk that in the unlikely event of a challenge by the copyright owner or licensor, the courts would, in the absence of a legal authorisation, hold that such activity was unlawful.” Even if warrants shielded GCHQ from domestic law, the agency believed the warrant would not protect it under international law, noting that such warrant-based immunity would be “limited,” given that “it only covers us under U.K. law.”
GCHQ obtained its warrant under section 5 of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, which covers interference with property and “wireless telegraphy” by the Security Service (MI5), Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and GCHQ. Section 5 of the ISA does not mention interference in intellectual property, which the intelligence agency believed was necessary to reverse engineer software, but a top-secret memo states that the intelligence services commissioner approved such use in 2005.
This stretching of the law was dubious, says King, of Privacy International.
“It is not the Commissioner’s function to provide the authoritative interpretation of any law,” King says.
GCHQ did not need to go to an independent court or focus the scope of the warrant on a specific target to obtain the reverse engineering authorization. The warrant, like many surveillance warrants in the U.K., was granted by a cabinet minister, a practice harshly criticized in a just-issued report by the U.K.’s “terrorism watchdog.”
The warrant renewal request for reverse engineering published today was addressed to the official that oversees GCHQ, the foreign secretary, then David Miliband, as well as two other FCO officials. The warrant is subject to renewal twice a year.
Cozying up to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
While it was trying to hack software, GCHQ actually had efforts targeting FCO as well. Documents reveal the spy agency made a concerted effort to build personal relationships with key FCO staff with the goal of getting GCHQ warrants approved. One GCHQ document marked “Restricted” stated, under the heading “FCO,” that “top five objectives in 08-09” included moves to provide a “greater level of routine contact between GCHQ and FCO seniors, and map members of FCO SLF [Senior Leadership Forum] to their SI/IA [Signals Intelligence/Information Assurance] interests.” Another objective was to “ensure that GCHQ and FCO warrantry and submission procedures are fit for purpose given increasing complexity and need for pace in our work.”
Then followed a list of dozens of named FCO staff members and a corresponding list of “major issues and targets for 09-10” for each, with goals like “win confidence by following his diary and briefing at key times,” “build strong relationship with successor,” “Positive about intelligence, build relationship,” “Colin is new — Build relationship,” and “Generally supportive of submissions but could be more so.”
Oversight issues
For all its efforts to win aggressive warrants clearing its reverse engineering as legal, GCHQ may well have failed to stay even with the broad boundaries it was given. When Snowden first came forward, he said part of his motivation was that there was so little monitoring of the searches NSA analysts could conduct, ensuring that abuse would often go undetected. GCHQ documents indicate there are similar problems of oversight at the British agency.
One agency memo about the reverse engineering warrants notes that, for a length of time that can’t be ascertained from the document, internal authorization procedures were not adhered to by the Intrusion Detection team. When the error was discovered, the actions were simply retroactively approved.
Previously published news accounts have shown that the intelligence services commissioner works only part-time, and as of last year, had a staff of one. It was the ISC who approved the stretching of the Intelligence Services Act section 5 for use in GCHQ’s software reverse engineering warrant. The ISC is also responsible for “independent external oversight” of the intelligence community. The current ISC, Sir Mark Waller, told the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Committee that in 2012 he saw approximately 6 percent of more than 2,800 total warrants, with the percentage rising to roughly 12 percent the following year.
In a detailed and scathing 2014 report, the committee challenged the rigor of the ISC’s oversight, citing as evidence Waller’s own words:
The committee’s report concluded, in boldface type: “We do not believe the current system of oversight is effective and we have concerns that the weak nature of that system has an impact upon the credibility of the agencies accountability, and to the credibility of Parliament itself.”
Did GCHQ improperly use the warrant to “enable police operations?”
GCHQ may have improperly used the reverse engineering warrant for certain police-related activities, judging from language in the renewal document.
The reverse engineering warrant appears to have been used by GCHQ to support domestic law enforcement agencies and also appears to mirror existing authorizations for “activities where the effect is overseas,” as one GCHQ memo put it.
The GCHQ warrant renewal application states that a number of the software exploitation efforts conducted “under the terms of this warrant … enable police operations.”
The application also indicates that the warrant was used to subvert software on behalf of the National Technical Assistance Centre, or NTAC. NTAC is much more focused on domestic and law enforcement matters than on GCHQ’s wider intelligence and security mission. The application says that GCHQ, on behalf of NTAC, reverse engineered Acer eDataSecurity encryption and unlocked “material relating to a high profile police case.” It says it similarly thwarted CrypticDisk for NTAC, “allowing for the decryption of material relating to a child abuse investigation.”
The GCHQ memo on the warrant renewal states:
The full extent of how GCHQ has applied the section 5 warrant authority to “enable police operations” is unknown. But the limitations of ISA are clear: GCHQ and MI6 cannot directly use a section 5 warrant to interfere with “property in the British Islands” if their function is “in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime,” which falls under the purview of traditional law enforcement. “GCHQ should not be obtaining section 5 warrants if the purpose of the warrant is to prevent serious crime domestically,” says King. The citation of police cases right in the application to justify renewal of the warrant would seem to make it difficult for GCHQ to argue that use by the police is incidental.
GCHQ refused to comment on the record about any of these matters, instead providing its boilerplate response about how it complies with the law.
____
Documents published with this article:
- GCHQ Application for Renewal of Warrant GPW/1160
- U.K. Ministry Stakeholder Relationships Spreadsheets (13 documents merged)
- Software Reverse Engineering
- Reverse Engineering — Wiki
- Malware Analysis & Reverse Engineering – ACNO Skill Levels
- TECA Product Centre — Wiki
- Intrusion Analysis
- TSI — Legal Authorisation Flowcharts: Targeting & Collection (2 documents merged)
- Operational Legalities – Powerpoint Presentation
_____
Photo: Getty Images
Soooo, they can redirect traffic. Hmmm, there are laws that state the NSA can only collect traffic that goes out of the country but they have the ability to redirect it to go out of the country. Nice
SWIM suggests you consider the same can be and has been done within the banking system in order to track monetary routing.
interlectual property theft
Apparently British judges are above the law as they can magically make anything otherwise illegal, legal with a warrant. My guess is that comparable acts are occurring in the USA.
CHildren are still disappearing and abused by pedophilers dressed in “”democracry, crown, and public office” DISGUSTING.
like all the soldiers that killed bin laden,,,they disappeared and they are no longer breathing Jim. While those dressed “”in democrcy clothing” are COMMUNICATED and honored by their own propaganda because they own the media while the whistleblowers are desire to be worst than INCOMUNIICADO. and propandized as “”not doing the patriotic thing to do by the subverters(corrupt usa uk) of not just the forth amendment. (the creme de la creme editors want to make this latin word look more american or anglo by writing it with two ‘m”)
back-doors(clandestine vulnerabilitites to infiltrate) and front-doos(spy pacts). Galileo Galilei sounds aweseomely precise against corrupt puppets and infiltrators in governances and law enforcemtn advancing macabre agendas by subverting the constitutional rule of law via executive orders bogus or partial interpretations . Since when executive orders or am extremist fallacious prosecutor’s interpretation (in order to subvert the constitutional statute) above the statutes of the constitutional rule of law?
The usa governance and ita law enforment have proven themselves that they want and have the will to “””collect it all to know it all”” contrary to their own official statements to the domestic and foreign populations. Hackers should keep to themselves their knowledge because they are prone to be blackmailed in order to do the bidding of the corrupt to advance their clandestine “”collect it all to know it all” that is advancing a macabre agenda. The more the hackers give the corrupt government the vulnerabilities, the monitoring and exposing the criminality and illegality of the government when you consider that no matter how much the usa calls it bulk collection it is nothing else than hacking it all to know it all. At this point the people need the hackers for the people otherwise those dressed in “democracy clothing” will continue to use the self-expose hackers that come forward in order to exploit the vulnerabilitites the hackers pointed out to begin with and make a monopoly out of vulnerabilities that the government did not discovered them to begin wtih because the government was not and is not interested in exposing any vulnerabilityy in any type and kind of communication devices but rather exploit them to “”collect it all to now it all” that has the aroma of a worst than all the totalitarian and authoritarians regimes combined. – Alejandro Grace Ararat.
And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please?These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state.” – Galileo Galilei
this is not a domestic usa or uk issue, this hacking by the usa and uk governances is like the slavery of human beings where PRIVACY that is my right, is being abolished. – Alejandro Grace Ararat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs
The fact that US and UK AV software firms were not mentioned tells us that they are cooperating willingly, so there is no need for them to be targeted… not that their work is respected and off-limits.
The big takeaways overall-
Claims of effective oversight should be laughed at vigorously.
The secrecy is not meant to protect us, but rather to protect themselves from us.
“Interpretations” of laws to allow what the legislation did not intend is a criminal end-run with a “legal” veneer provided by political elites to avoid accountability and prosecution.
Our “intelligence” agencies are making all of us vulnerable to other “intelligence” agencies and criminals alike… and they don’t care.
Finally, reforms of the system are like screaming at a wall.
Pointless.
Those without ethics and integrity can’t be reformed, and need to be removed with all potential avenues of return or influence shut down… including the political/judicial enablers and their funders… preferably with a sufficient number of high level prosecutions if regaining some semblance of trust is desired. (please don’t dwell on the how… acknowledging that truth is a necessary first step and the choir I am preaching to should just keep working on that… perhaps study some of those psychological techniques?)
Excellent and important reporting. Now, is anybody in Silicon Valley reading this?
I am, not that you really meant that.
Confused about whether they were reverse engineering or copying code. In the U.S., the Phoenix BIOS case has meant that if you “clean room” your work then you aren’t infringing. And it’s also the case that if you are reverse engineering to provide support for a product for which you couldn’t get sufficient information to do so, you aren’t infringing. Copying code is always an infringement AFAIK.
It was the mention of Cisco in particular that bothered me. Backdoor engineering in hardware, perhaps, not just firmware or software. Still, it means consumers and businesses might be leery of products and software in general, and that’s not good for the local economy. You’d think that the industry, and the Northern California House delegation, and the governor might get a little uneasy at that.
Ever heard Keith Alexander speak? Look up some videos of him, maybe. When he’s talking tech to a hacker/security audience, his vocabulary is totally laced with NetFlow vocabulary almost the whole time. That doesn’t require hacking, Cisco Systems sells NetFlow for “monitoring” network “business applications”. It’s totally a backdoor for the administrator who owns a system of their routers, intentionally that way. Why in hell’s name would you think they are on your side? Because of all the nice conservationist gray water xeriscape plants in front of their buildings?
I’m sure they’re not on our side; the only question is whether they’re being used or have gone fully over to the dark side. BTW, if you want to talk about sinister Silicon Valley architecture, check out the similarities between Apple’s new “O” in Cupertino, and GCHQ’s big “O” in Cheltenham.
I have always considered Apple’s project (which so far has looked like they were trying to build a life size replica of a sanitary landfill in downtown Cupertino) to be their own private version of the Pentagon.
Well said. Really, the widespread adoption of SNMP monitoring that picked up approximately back in the late-90s set the stage for it all. Cisco definitely ran with monitoring (and spreading the language of it) quite successfully (to the detriment of society — and even companies who still don’t even use it to monitor for machines that, well, shouldn’t be on a network (because now almost everything is on it given the changes in how people do their work now — you just need to have credentials)).
NO way Goldman Sachs could have hidden Greek debt issues without the help of British issues of CDOs betting she blows against the grain. If you want to find the dirtiest dogs of the resevoir, dig England.
good read! Apart from that it s terrible news really … and makes you wonder how deep the rabbit hole really goes – some of this stuff makes me feel like we live in a bad movie …
Holey Shite! Chalmers Johnson was my second cousin, just picked that one up. How shite a button binger can I be to miss that family bee in the tree? I hate Empire, too. Hubby’s always asking me why I can’t let go of this stupid shite…It’s genetic? It’s fucking WRONG. Brit Gangsters running a fracking protection racket, and can’t even keep their fucking stories straight! And the TEETH! Give it a break, Dave, your email is coming to metadate you!
So getting permission to erase content from Cameron’s corrupting email left in a criminal suspect’s BlackBerry while in police custody in 2011 at the wheels were flying of News of the World must have been OK Dokey, too. I told you the judiciary sue dead rape victims for libel and let the doers go. That’s one place my family ties will never bind me. Fuck you, Britain, and your stupid queen, too. Nice drawers, Elizabeth.
I don’t buy the argument that reverse engineering of an anti-virus program is a violation of copyright law if it is done for the limited purpose of verifying the security of the software. Everyone should have a right to take necessary measures to ensure the security of their own computer systems. Possibly any reverse engineered code might be required to be destroyed once the verification was complete. But this is a relative detail.
The main issue is the ability of the agency to use whatever security flaws it finds to launch its own attacks on outside computer systems. Other actors are no doubt analyzing the same software, finding the same flaws and exploiting them. Some of them may even be more malign than the GCHQ itself. The law should therefore state that the GCHQ must notify the original vendor so that the flaws can be fixed, making the internet more secure.
Instead, the British Government exempts itself from hacking laws. This no doubt makes life more enjoyable for the hackers at GCHQ, but contributes to the general decline in the security of the internet.
So as usual, the real story isn’t about the laws which the GCHQ is breaking, but about those which it is following. However, most people operate from the premise that if something is legal, there is no problem. So if enough people express discomfort with the British Government violating copyright law, it may create a new law to exempt itself from that too. That would solve things.
All true, Duce, but it suggests that if the software and relevant hardware makers (e.g., Cisco) tire of this — and it has been going on for some years now, according to the story, so it is egregious — then perhaps the industry, if not the US Dept of Commerce, may not want to export such products. After all, we have the usual terms-and-conditions warnings about not exporting this stuff to rogue states like North Korea, Iran, Syria or Cuba, to cite some recent examples, so why not add the UK to the list? They can always try making computers out of Legos or Ikea products, if Silicon Valley boycotts them.
Also, and as you point out, SRE or similar backdoor entries mean that any number of bad guys, from government hackers in China to criminal hackers in Transdnestria, will also know that the product can be hacked. (It’s like selling a standard lock that can be picked if you poke it just so, so that every shop can be burgled). The industry will have to spend considerable staff time re-reverse engineering their products, which means quantifiable general, special and punitive damages they can take to a California civil court and name the UK as a defendant. Forum non conveniens and all that.
It’s that, or their products won’t be trusted by future customers, and not just in the UK. Bad show, what?
While I agree with you that “Everyone should have the right…[to reverse engineer]”, sadly that is not the case. Bad laws were passed that made it illegal. Now, that the government is inconvenienced by the bad laws it created, it simply exempts itself in a very questionable way, while it continues to send people to prison for the same infractions. That’s the problem.
Whoa! … would have been nice if you had included that there are 379 Pages in that “just issued report”.
It’s great to see that The Intercept is getting into “the coach’s room” where we find out what and who are making all the plans for the all players, but as many commentators have pointed out they are still getting away it in spite of, or because of, the legal loopholes making an end-run on the ground.
I have high praise for GG and all at the Intercept. However, I think it should be clear by now that none of the disclosures so far have had much effect. Laws don’t really matter, they just redefine (secretly) the words themselves or the meaning of “laws” and do as they please. We live under Post-fascist authoritarian government and failing to recognize that “legal” or “democratic” solutions have been foreclosed is unhelpful. No Imperial court is going to stand in the way of what it supports – that is Neoliberal oppression. I don’t see any real difference between US/EU/UK courts and those of say, Egypt. Yes, of course law suites should be filed and fought but real progress will not come from legal “victories” as we have already seen.
I respectfully disagree (albeit with my tongue firmly in cheek and half-seriously). If we are going to live in a totalitarian corporatist police state, the least we can do is know what the rules are and how they plan on enforcing them instead of finding out via trial-and-error, guesswork, and bloodshed. Those’ll still exist, of course, because who’d believe there was transparency even if there were (and why in the world would there be?), but at least it gives people goals and steady boundaries to trudge around as their personal albatrosses, only occasionally bathed and fed.
If you stop thinking that the only effects that matter are laws these same governments pass to limit their own powers, you’ll see that this isn’t true.
dat iz just cra-cra!
So we’re supposed to believe the spooks have have hacked every computer of consequence on the planet *except* voting machines?
I suspect your comment is somewhat tongue-in-cheek but, just in case it’s not, then the answer is “of course not”. At least for anyone who’s been paying attention in Ohio and elsewhere since 2004:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_080316_hackable_voting_mach.htm
Hack, hack, hack. Sounds like a worsening bug that’s terminal, especially if earth’s doctor decides to euthanize the victim.
And that could be soon — very soon. For example: Spaceweather.com — BIG SUNSPOT FACES EARTH: One of the biggest sunspots of the current solar cycle, AR2371, is directly facing Earth. The active region has an unstable ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field that harbors energy for strong explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of M-class solar flares and a 30% chance of X-flares on June 22nd.
A big X-flare not seen for a century and a half since Carrington Event, could euthanize our global technologies. So could other natural cosmic events that periodically hammer our planet.
Hey, I just got a quick look at your comments elsewhere — do you think you can hook me up with your RSS feed list? It’s a veritable global cornucopia of completely unrelated sites, sounds, localities and suchforth. Interesting tapestry, from small towns, to Jewish papers, to quirky sidestreets, to Pakistan and beyond. How ever can you manage to find the time?
Oh, I didn’t bother to mention — the stuff in this article is tame in comparison to what’s really going on.
Tea-time!
…cozied up to staff in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or FCO, to get warrants approved…
…The warrant, like many surveillance warrants in the U.K., was granted by a cabinet minister…
…list of dozens of named FCO staff members and a corresponding list of “major issues and targets for 09-10” for each…
Love that word, cozy. Is it unreasonable to wonder about the nature of the leverage* GCHQ might have been able to use to facilitate getting the authorizations they wanted?
*https://news.vice.com/article/did-the-british-establishment-cover-up-a-political-pedophile-ring-a-new-zealand-judge-will-decide
That’s exactly where my mind went, especially after reading this:
Anyone who still doubts that these short hair collectors would hesitate for an instant to use the information they dig up to enhance their “relationships” with officials charged with limiting/overseeing their power might as well turn in their rose-colored glasses for the ones with opaque black lenses.
> > “MAD magazine” used to have a snippet called “$py v. $py”. tripping over each other’s feet – banging into walls – using “duds” for bombs…
real. terrorists…….be afraid – be very afraid…..and think these people are actually getting paid????
I think a lot of people are still suffering from the inclination of thinking of these agencies and military contractors as the ones they thought of 30 or so years ago when vapourware and broken weapons were king and there was a lot of, shall we say, fumbling around in the investigatory department, often coupled with general lack of technical competence and knowledge of that lack. Now we have a different sort of and level of competence with different things, and instead of being powerless, they’re overly powerful — so any incompetence that may exist compounds the badness instead of eases it.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t dreadfully incompetent people out there — it’s just that nobody calls them out on it and people just repeat a lot of patter, call it justification, and have no need to back it up. Like a tree falling in a forest, is it incompetence if noone calls it out as such, or merely criminal and considered justifiable, with any competence (or lack thereof) completely left out of the conversation?
. . Intelligence – – or actually lack of . . working hand-in-hand with the U.S. intelligence agencies… I’m surprised they don’t try to cover it with blaming China or Terrorists…. Next Up they will be telling everyone how honest they are – – ha ha. ha ha. ha ha. good one
Page 33 of Operational Legalities – Powerpoint Presentation == sad.
…or page 87, where they say there’s ‘Just’ 3 at the moment (reasons to not follow the European Convention on Human Rights, as stated within the ECHR) — but ‘No reason why GCHQ’s remit could not be changed in future but this is what we are allowed to do at the moment’. Reasons they’re ‘just’ allowed to abridge human rights: ‘interests of national security’, ‘for the economic well-being of the country’, and ‘for the prevention of disorder or crime’.
I say, chaps, doesn’t that pretty much cover it?
for the TECA Product Centre — Wiki link, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2015/06/18/teca-product-centre-gchq-wiki , getting a Page Not Found page. Can you repair the link please? Cheers.
Thanks for fixing the link. :)