Montreal police have been spying on journalist for five months

Whistle blower Edward Snowden said that the Montreal chief of police should resign after it was revealed that the police had been tracking the phone of a prominent journalist for five months in order to identify his sources.

Edward Snowden, is an American computer professional born in 1983. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and also as a former contractor for the U.S. government. In 2013 he copied and leaked classified information from the National Security Agency. His leaks exposed many secret surveillance programs. Many were run by the NSA but also by the Five Eyes Alliance with the cooperation of many telecommunication companies and European governments. In spite of pressure from a number of organizations, there is no sign that Snowden will be granted a pardon.

Snowden spoke via a video link to a packed auditorium at McGill university in Montreal. The scandal widened when it was revealed that provincial police in 2013 took out warrants to keep tabs on six journalists. They were attempting to find out who leaked information about a criminal probe into a prominent labor leader.

Snowden wondered whether the law was beginning to fail as a guarantor of rights. For their part, the Montreal police have defended their actions as the surveillance was part of their investigation into allegations that police officers within the drugs and street gangs unit had fabricated evidence. Five officers were arrested in connection with the allegations during this summer. The police had detected contact between one of the officers who was under investigation and journalist Patrick Lagace of La Presse. They had obtained warrants to track Lagace's cell phone. Police Chief Philippe Pichet said that the police actions were not aimed at Lagace but at the officer under investigation. Pichet said: “We are very aware of the importance of freedom of the press. But on the other hand, there were criminal allegations against a police officer … and we have a job to do.”

However, Snowden suggested the police chief should resign a position also taken by some Montreal city councillors. Snowden said: “Rather than the police chief saying ‘all right this was clearly something that went too far and regardless of whether or not I authorised this operation, I recognise that to restore trust I need to re-establish the basis of accountability … for that reason I have chosen to resign.’ We don’t see the mayor calling for that, we don’t see the local premier calling for that.”

The Quebec government said it would launch a full inquiry into the affair. Stephanie Vallee, Quebec Justice Minister said: “We consider that it’s important for the public of Québec to trust their public institutions." Philippe Couillard, Quebec premier, also announced that the government would be examining procedures at Quebec's three major police forces and seek to make it more difficult to obtain search warrants to spy on journalists.

When Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was asked about the Quebec incidents he said that the troubling stories out of Quebec would "lead to reflection on how we must and can continue to ensure protection of the press and their rights." He also claimed that the government had contacted the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to confirm that nothing similar was happening at the federal level. Trudeau claimed: " We have actually strong safeguards and protections in place to protect the freedom of the press in the course of business conducted by CSIS and the RCMP. And I can confirm those safeguards are still very much in place and consistent with the values and concerns this government has and that Canadians have.”

Tom Henheffer of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression noted that the police had broken no law in tracking the journalists as they had proper warrants to do so. He said this is the way that the system is supposed to work. He said this just showed that it was the system itself that was broken.

After spying illegally for 17 years UK intelligence seeks new powers

The U.K. Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the U.K.'s secret bulk collection by the GCHQ between 1998 and near the end of 2015 violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and was never approved as legal by the U.K. parliament.

The GCHQ is the Government Communications Headquarters. The program was first revealed by Edward Snowden. Key points in the Tribunal findings can be found here. The program, or rather programs, allowed the U.K. surveillance agency, the GCHQ, to build up a detailed database of communications with little to no oversight. The bulk collection included a whole year's worth of call data and location records from every cell phone in the U.K. The collection had been kept secret from the public and beyond the reach of the courts. If it were not for the revelations of Edward Snowden the data collection probably would never have been revealed. Snowden is in Russia at present. If he returns to the U.S. he would no doubt face criminal charges. Although some have urged that Snowden be pardoned this seems highly unlikely.

In November last year, the GCHQ program was changed so as to make it legal and to reveal more about the underlying policies. However, the underlying operations continue. No one appears to have been held accountable for the illegality of the earlier operations. The official response of the government to the Tribunal ruling manages to ignore all the damaging aspects of the report:The official public response from the government didn’t touch on the 17 years of unlawful practice, but merely declared it was “pleased the tribunal has confirmed the current lawfulness of the existing bulk communications data and bulk personal dataset regimes”. While underplaying the significance of this ruling, the government is ebullient about how Theresa May’s investigatory powers bill – more commonly known as the snooper’s charter – will usher in a new era of transparency, honesty and rigorous oversight.

The government also appears to have supplemented its former " neither confirm nor deny" policy when questioned about surveillance programs by a policy of never apologizing about the programs and explaining as little as possible when they are revealed.

As noted, the U.K. parliament is now faced with the Investigatory Powers Bill which although it has some minor improvements such as error reporting it has no provisions for notifying people if their data is being used and thus perhaps misused. There is no right to seek redress for misuse either. The new bill in effect "enshrines in law the powers of bulk surveillance that led to the collection of our data."

64 Labour members of the House of Lords supported the Conservative bill to expand state surveillance powers. The peers explained that they were protecting an amendment to the bill which the House of Lords passed that web-browsing activities should not be given to police except for offences that carry a penalty of less than 12 months rather than six as in the original bill.

An attempt by Liberal Democrats to delete powers to order the collection and storage of new internet connection records was defeated by a vote of 75 for to 292 against. The actions of the Labour peers contrasted with that of the Labour shadow home secretary Diane Abbott who said that the bill was "draconian" and that the Tribunal report showed why the bill needed to be amended: “The latest ruling from the investigatory powers tribunal should be a sharp reminder that we should not lightly hand over powers to the security services and police and that greater accountability is needed. The government’s bill needs amending in all these areas.” Her reaction shows that Labour may be changing its stance as it had merely abstained on second reading of the bill.

Another article on the Tribunal report claims that M15, the U.K. domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, was involved in the spying as well. The article notes that the intelligence community had several opportunities to notify parliament of its activities but failed to do so.

Privacy International, a U.K.-based advocacy group, maintains that the new U.K. bill still has inadequate safeguards including notifying victims of any misuse of the data collection. The group called the Tribunal report "one of the most significant indictments of the secret use of the Government's mass surveillance powers since Edward Snowden first began exposing the extent of U.S. and U.K. spying in 2013." Millie Graham Wood, Legal Officer at Privacy International said:"There are huge risks associated with the use of bulk communications data. It facilitates the almost instantaneous cataloguing of entire populations' personal data. It is unacceptable that it is only through litigation by a charity that we have learnt the extent of these powers and how they are used. The public and Parliament deserve an explanation as to why everyone's data was collected for over a decade without oversight in place and confirmation that unlawfully obtained personal data will be destroyed."Yet there is no apology or even mention of the misdeeds in the U.K. Home Office statement about the report:The powers available to the security and intelligence agencies play a vital role in protecting the U.K. and its citizens. We are therefore pleased the tribunal has confirmed the current lawfulness of the existing bulk communications data and bulk personal dataset regimes."

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Brooklyn park sported unauthorized bust of whistle blower Snowden

A large bust of whistle blower Edward Snowden was installed on a monument to the Fort Greene Park's Prison Ship Martyrs in a Brooklyn Park.

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The anonymous artists said they intended “to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies.” In a statement they claimed:“It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here not to laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSA’s fourth amendment-violating surveillance programs to light. All too often, figures who strive to uphold those ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.”The monument was erected in memory of 11,000 prisoners who had died while in British captivity during the Revolutionary War. The artists noted that Snowden himself might not approve of their work since he wanted emphasis to be placed on what he had revealed by the thousands of classified National Security Documents he had released rather than on himself.

The bust was on a single Doric column and was about four feet tall. City workers wrapped the bust in a blue tarpaulin while they awaited the decision of city authorities as to what should be done with it. Snowden gained fame by his release to various media outlets documents exposing the massive surveillance by governments in particular the US National Security Agencys(NSA):In June 2013, he came to international attention after disclosing to several media outlets thousands of classified documents that he acquired while working as an NSA contractor[5] for Dell[6] and Booz Allen Hamilton.[7] Snowden's leaked documents revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many of them run by the NSA and the Five Eyes with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments.

In many parts of the world, Snowden has been regarded as a hero but in the U.S. opinion is very much split with a majority considering his actions not ethical. In August of last year a random sample of Americans by Vanity Fair found that 54 percent said that Snowden did not act ethically, with only 27 percent saying he did. Nineteen percent did not know. Snowden was charged under the US Espionage Act. He has received temporary asylum in Russia. There are vastly different estimates of how many documents Snowden took:The exact size of Snowden's disclosure is unknown,[105] but Australian officials have estimated 15,000 or more Australian intelligence files[106] and British officials estimate at least 58,000 British intelligence files.[107] NSA Director Keith Alexander initially estimated that Snowden had copied anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 NSA documents.[108] Later estimates provided by U.S. officials were on the order of 1.7 million.[109] In July 2014, The Washington Post reported on a cache previously provided by Snowden from domestic NSA operations consisting of "roughly 160,000 intercepted e-mail and instant-message conversations, some of them hundreds of pages long, and 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts."[110]

In a recent interview with comedian John Oliver, Snowden refused to answer when asked if he had read all the documents. While he said the documents had been vetted before their release, he also admitted that some of them could have been improperly vetted and pose some danger saying: "Those things do happen in reporting. In journalism we have to accept that some mistakes will be made. This is a fundamental concept of liberty.”

Some locals at the park were irritated that city workers had covered the column. A Fort Greene resident, D. Campbell, considered the covering of the bust ironic: "I think he's actually upholding our values, what we believe in." An artist, Justine Williams, said the the bust fit in well with the park and thought the creation was thoughtful and respectful about the park's status saying: “I’m outraged that they covered it up, though not surprised.” Others also expressed support for the sculpture.

Snowden Documentary by Laura Poitras wins best documentary award at Oscars

Los Angeles - "CitizenFour" is a documentary based on the revelations of Edward Snowden about NSA spying. The title refers to the pseudonym that Snowden used when he first contacted Laura Poitras, the director of the film.

The film, edited by Mathilde Bonnefoy and produced by Dirk Wilutzky, won the Oscar for best documentary. In collecting the award Poitras, with journalist and collaborator Glenn Greenwald at her side, said:“The disclosures of Edward Snowden don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret we lose the power to control and govern ourselves. I share this award with Glenn Greenwald and the many other journalists who are taking risks to expose the truth.”Also on stage was Snowden's girlfriend Lindsay Mills. Host of the Oscars, Neil Patrick Harris, could not pass up a chance to add his own commentary as the winners left the stage: As the filmmaker and her collaborators walked offstage on Sunday night, Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris couldn't help quipping: "The subject of 'CitizenFour,' Edward Snowden, could not be here tonight for some treason."Snowden is in Russia and no doubt would be arrested should he set foot on U.S. soil.

Snowden wrote in response to the news:“When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honour and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”Ewen MacAskill, one of the stars in the film, congratulated Poitras for her work. He said he was very surprised at the professionalism and scope of the film when he saw it. He thought she had filmed Snowden, Greenwald and himself in Hong Kong simply to have a record of events or to create a low-budget film to use in a privacy campaign.

The documentary is the story of revelations by Snowden, a former NSA contractor, of the extensive spying by NSA and others unknown to the public. The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers began publication of the classified information in June of 2013. Both won a Pulitzer prize for Public Service Journalism the following year. The documentary had already won several awards in the last few months and was widely favored to win the Academy award for best documentary. Poitras is not new to film making. Her film My Country, My Country, whose subject was Iraqis who were living under the US-led occupation, was nominated for an Oscar as well. Poitras edited CitizenFour in Berlin for fear the FBI might seize the footage.

In a recent interview, Poitras was asked what has been learned from Snowden's revelations about how the world works. She replied: The most striking thing Snowden has revealed is the depth of what the NSA and the Five Eyes countries [Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and the US] are doing, their hunger for all data, for total bulk dragnet surveillance where they try to collect all communications and do it all sorts of different ways. Their ethos is “collect it all".

The Five Eyesrefers to an intelligence alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the known laws of its own countries." Documents Snowden leaked show that the group spied on each others' citizens and then shared the information in order to get around restrictions placed upon them that prohibited collecting such information on their own citizens.

Obama administration now targeting encryption providers to ensure spying is made easy

Another secure email service that encrypts mail for customers has announced that it is shutting it doors to avoid "becoming complicit" in crimes against the American citizens it serves.

Silent Circle is the second company to close down within just a few hours both for the same reason. Founder Jon Callas who helped start the company in 2011 along with Phil Zimmerman said the two saw the handwriting on the wall and decided it was best to shut down now. Zimmerman is also the creator of the widely-used email encryption program Pretty Good Privacy or PGP. Zimmerman told RT earlier in the year: “We’ve created an architecture that doesn’t share cryptographic keys with the servers that we control. So if the government tries to persuade us to hand over something that we might have on our servers, we can’t give them the keys and we can’t give them the decrypted messages. We don’t keep logs of the connections between people. So a court order can’t make us give them something we don’t have,” Mike Janke, the chief executive of Silent Cirlce, said the company’s customers included heads of state, members of royalty and government agencies. Lavabit.com the encrypted emaill service that was reportedly used by NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden also went offline recently. The administrator of the site claims that the company is legally prevented from explaining the reasons why it has gone off line. The homepage of the service had a letter announcing the shut down said that operations had ceased after a six-week ordeal that has led the company to take legal action. The US government is carrying out a vendetta against whistle blowers who have revealed the extent of NSA spying now it is taking action to close down any encryption service that might prevent them from reading any communications it decides to target. The owner and operator of Lavabit , Ladar Levison of Dallas Texas said in a statement:“I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations, I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the First Amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.” Global Post published an article on July 12 linking Snowden to an email address at Lababit.com. The conference at Sheremetyevo Airpot in Russia held by Snowden was announced to human rights groups with the email address "edsnowden@lavabit.com" and also signed Edward Joseph Snowden. Max Fisher of the Washington Post and Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian also have claimed that Lavabit was Snowden's email provider. Another article suggests that the two companies in effect committed suicide as the only way to avoid government demands they could not in conscience carry out. Levison of Lavabit had a bit of advice for American users of the Internet: “This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without Congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States, In response to US moves, two of the largest German internet providers are intending to encrypt customer's emails by default as many of their customers suspect that unencrypted messages will be caught in surveillance nets. Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG account for about two thirds of primary email addresses in Germany.

Snowden still stuck in Moscow Airport transit area

- Ecuador has asked Russia for talks concerning Edward Snowden according to a Russian state broadcaster. Snowden is seeking asylum in Ecuador to avoid trial in the US.

Snowden is believed to be in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. This is confirmed by Russian president Vladimir Putin. As reported earlier in the Digital Journal, President Corea of Ecuador has revoked the travel papers that were issued by the Ecuadorean consul in London. This makes it difficult for Snowden to travel on to Ecuador since his US passport has already been revoked.

Ecuador has insisted that Snowden must be on Ecuadorean territory to be given refugee status. Perhaps the talks are aimed at allowing Snowden transit to the Ecuador embassy in Moscow. Alexei Pushkov, the Russian parliamentary foreign affairs committee chair, said on Twitter that the case was tragic."The idealist Snowden was apparently convinced that it would be like in a Hollywood movie: he would blow the whistle, and democracy would prevail. But life and the US are harder."Perhaps this is a sign that Snowden will be turned over to the US as part of improving relations but we will just have to wait and see.

Ecuador says a decision on asylum could take months. and has asked that the US argue its case for extradition. Translated this probably means that Ecuador wants to know what it can get in return for turning over Snowden. The US has alternated between the good cop, bad cop routine. On the one hand there are threats to end preferential access of Ecuadorean goods to the US and on the other hand Joe Biden is the good cop who was praised by President Corea. Corea noted the good manners of Biden in contrast to some "brats" in the US Congress: "He communicated a very courteous request from the United States that we reject the (asylum) request."

Correa said that he would respect US opinion in evaluating Biden's request but that Ecuador cannot even begin to process Snowden's application until he reaches Ecuadorean soil. By revoking Snowden's travel papers, Corea has made this difficult. Corea is a game theorist and economist and a politician to boot. This hardly makes him trustworthy.

So far, Putin has insisted that he will not extradite Snowden. In claiming that he is in the transit area, Putin can claim as well that he has not even entered Russia. However Russian law requires any travellers staying in the area for more than 24 hours to obtain a transit visa for up to three days. There is no confirmation that Snowden has such a visa or when it might expire. Several refugees have actually stayed in the airport for months. The longer the situation is unresolved the more Russian US ties are strained.

US National Security Agency spied on both the UN and the European Union in US and Brussels

The well-known German newspaper Der Spiegel claims that the US National Security Agency spied on European Union computer networks in Washington and also at the the UN.The source of the claims are a September 2010 "top secret" document that whistleblower Edward Snowden had taken with him. Journalists from Der Spiegel had read the document in part. The document shows how the NSA  bugged offices and spied on internal EU computer networks in both Washington and the United Nations. The NSA not only listened to conversations and phone calls but were able also to peruse documents and emails. The document specifically referred to the EU as a target. These reports, if confirmed, could be highly damaging to relations between the US and the EU.
Not surprisingly,[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/10150905/NSA-suveillance-US-bugged-EU-offices.html t=_blank] EU officials [/url]have already demanded that the US explain the alleged bugging.  The NSA also targeted telecommunications at a building in Brussels that houses the European Council, the group of European Union governments.
 US officials have yet to comment but the European Parliament chief Martin Schulz said that more information was needed , but if the charges of spying were confirmed, it would be a huge scandal. [url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136300321519491.html t=_blank]Schultz [/url]said in statement: [quote]"On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations".[/quote]  The Foreign Minister of Luxembourg said that it the reports are true it is disgusting.[quote]"The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies. We must get a guarantee from the very highest level now that this stops immediately."[/quote]

  Snowden is apparently still in a Moscow airport transit area. President Corea of Ecuador revoked his transit papers to Ecuador where he seeks asylum. However Snowden first has to reach Ecuador which will be difficult without the transit papers.[url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136291811995947.html t=_blank] Joe Biden[/url] spoke to president Corea and has asked Ecuador to refuse the request for asylum.