There's some disturbing news coming out of the United States. BART, a San Francisco cell phone service provider that provides cellphone services for subways, shut down all services after rumors circulated that a protest might occur. An official did confirm that this was the sole reason for shuttering services.

"All over the world, people are using mobile devices to protest oppressive regimes, and governments are shutting down cell phone towers and the Internet to stop them," said Michael Risher, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. "It's outrageous that in San Francisco, BART is doing the same thing."

"Organizers planning to disrupt BART service stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police," the transit agency said. "A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators."

This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran, then the UK, and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement. Operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down cell phone service to four stations in downtown San Francisco yesterday in response to a planned protest. Last month, protesters disrupted BART service in response to the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police on July 3rd. Thursday’s protest failed to materialize, possibly because the disruption of cell phone service made organization and coordination difficult. Early reports indicated that BART cut off cell phone service by approaching carriers directly and asking them to turn service off. Later statements by James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, assert “BART staff or contractors shut down power to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers” after the fact. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile have not yet made comment as to whether or not they were complicit in the shutdown. Obviously, we'd like to know exactly what the carriers said to BART, but many other unanswered questions remain as well. Was pulling the plug on people's phones a quick, on-the-spot decision, or part of a protest-response plan vetted by BART's lawyers? Who decided that blocking all cellphone calls at these BART stations was the right response to news that there might be a protest? Were the carriers ever in the loop about this plan or action? Who decided that the news of this planned protest justified the shutdown? How do we know this isn't going to happen again?

News is circulating that the Spanish anti-corruption police have raided the SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) headquarters recently, seizing computers, company laptops and other pieces of property on the premises. Amid the allegations are embezzlement of royalties that were suppose to go to performers.

Early in the morning, officers sealed the building to the public. At 12 o'clock, they permitted some workers to leave the building to go home. For now, the Civil Guard has seized all computers and company owed mobile phones in the building, and issued instructions to workers to hand over their company laptops. According to sources, the investigation is looking into how the SGAE was raising money by way of copyright among those artists residing outside of Spain. These artists did not receive their fair share of the money, and it is alleged that those involved were diverting the money to personal accounts in Switzerland.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor has filed in the High Court a complaint directed against the SGAE for alleged misappropriation of funds in their activities, according to Europa Press legal sources. The brief of the Public Ministry, which was presented a few weeks ago to Dean of the High Court, requested the opening of a preliminary investigation by the department following a complaint filed in November 2007 by the Association of Internet Users, the Spanish Association of Small Business Computing and New Technologies (APEMIT) and the Spanish Association of Innkeepers Victims of the Canon (VACHE). The complaint, which was seen by Europa Press, was based on the appearance in various media of several "alleged illegalities committed in the economic management of the resources of the SGAE."

The AntiSec movement, which in this case, is headed up by Anonymous, has posted another information dump. It seems apparent that targeting the Arizona Police department twice wasn't enough and they have been exposed a third time.

For the third knockout blow against Arizona law enforcement, we decided to get destructive. We're defacing eight AZ Fraternal Order of Police websites and releasing a master list of over 1200 officer's usernames, passwords, and email addresses. Additionally we are leaking hundreds of private FOP documents and several more mail spools belonging to FOP presidents, vice presidents, secretaries, a police chief, and the FOP Labor Council executive directory and webmaster whose insecure web development skills was responsible for this whole mess. We're doing this not only because we are opposed to SB1070 and the racist Arizona police state, but because we want a world free from police, prisons and politicians altogether. In this batch of emails we found more racist email chain emails, including Springerville's police chief Mike Nuttal forwarding jokes about torturing "ragheads". FOP president Brandon L Musgrave was also forwarding anti-muslim emails while also purchasing large amounts of guns, so we're dumping his paypal and credit card information as well. Other drama includes internal arguments over FOP positions, disputes over arrested FOP member Michelle Preiss, lots of crude anti-Obama jokes, and lots lots more. Amusingly we also were reading James Mann's emails as they were discussing the AZDPS hacks and struggling to send out press releases explaining why they had a sex offender in their FOP ranks. Initially James changed all his passwords and pulled the AZFOP sites down out of fear of impending hacker attacks, but there is no stopping the kind of chaos we bring upon all those who cross our path. Truth be told we've been passing around this password list amongst our black hat comrades for a while now. Much to our amusement we've been reading everybody's emails looking for dirt and personal info, while leaking bits and pieces to expose and instill fear into the crooked cops of Arizona. However the list proved to be too great, and now we are seeking community assistance in going through everybody's inbox to retrieve and expose their secrets. Go forth and bring mayhem to the lives of these corrupt officers, and tell us what you find on irc.anonops.li #antisec. Let this third and crushing blow against Arizona police send a strong message to the ruling class around the world. You will no longer be able to operate your campaign of terror against immigrants and working people in secrecy: we will find you, expose you, and knock you off the internet. Many lulz have been had while we purposefully strung you along slowly and painfully for the past two weeks. We know exactly what we're doing, so think twice before considering crossing us. Hackers of the world, join us as we resist against the governments and corporations of the world, for there is enough bounty for everybody aboard the good ship #antisec.

Should using the internet Anonymously be a thing of the past? That's what police in Denmark are hoping. They are currently recommending that identities be verified before someone is able to log on to the internet. But is it one thing to hope that internet anonymity be abolished and quite another to make it happen?

How people should make themselves known to the as yet open, anonymous connections are still unclear. Working with the Ministry of Justice mentions various possibilities such as Social Security numbers, electronic signature or SMS solutions. The requirement will, however, according to Politiken be that a network user "will not have access to the Internet before the information about the person's identity is registered and verified."

LulzSec had vowed to expose secret government documents, saying that the dump was set to Friday. As far as "Western" societies are concerned, Friday isn't for another several hours. Still, that hasn't stopped LulzSec from dumping the classified documents now.

We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona. The documents classified as "law enforcement sensitive", "not for public distribution", and "for official use only" are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements. Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust "war on drugs". Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world. See you again real soon! ;D

The Philippine Federal Police (PNP) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) have reached an agreement to work more closely together to combat movie piracy. The agreement includes influence from the Motion Picture Anti-Film Piracy Council (MPAFPC) and the National Cinema Association.

As we’ve noted previously, we should also note that this review of the legislation is made by someone who is not a lawyer, expert of the law or someone giving away legal advice by any stretch of the imagination. What this review strictly is is an average Canadians interpretation of the law who is not specifically or formally trained to be a law expert.

You can read Bill C-46 here.

You can read Bill C-47 here.

Bill C-47 – Quotes and Comments

:

What one can notice right away when looking at this bill is that this particular bill, unlike Bill C-46, Bill C-47 is directed at Canadian telecoms specifically.

6. (1) For the purpose of enabling authorized persons to exercise their authority to intercept communications, every telecommunications service provider shall have the capa- bility to do the following:

(a) provide intercepted communications to authorized persons; and

(b) provide authorized persons with the prescribed information that is in the possession or control of the service provider respecting the location of equipment used in the transmission of communications.

Not off to a good start considering the act defines “authorized persons” with the following:

“authorized”, in relation to a person, means having authority, under the Criminal Code or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, to intercept communications.

“person” includes a partnership, an unincorporated organization, a government, a government agency and any other person or entity that acts in the name of or for the benefit of another.

It’s pretty safe to assume that, at the very least, this includes members of CSIS (Canada’s spy agency). It’s unclear who else that entails such as police officers (probably) for instance.

(3) If an intercepted communication is encoded, compressed, encrypted or otherwise treated by a telecommunications service provid- er, the service provider shall use the means in its control to provide the intercepted communication in the same form as it was before the communication was treated by the service provider.

“telecommunications service provider” means a person that, independently or as part of a group or association, provides telecommunications services.

So one could look at this in this light. Someone decides to use an encryption service in Canada (such as, say, a VPN-like service) and authorities have suspicion that you are doing something wrong. They can order the owner of the encryption service to decrypt that information and they would be legally obliged to do so. This defeats the reasoning behind encryption in the first place and Canadians would be forced to use a service in another country in order to secure their communications. This law only serves as an inconvenience to some and insecurity to others. There is an exception here:

(4) Despite subsection (3), a telecommunications service provider is not required to make the form of an intercepted communication the same as it was before the communication was treated if

(a) the service provider would be required to develop or acquire decryption techniques or decryption tools;

So really make sure the service has no means to decrypt that information in the first place before using it.

7. The operational requirements in respect of any transmission apparatus are that the telecommunications service provider operating the apparatus have the capability to do the following:

(a) enable the interception of communications generated by or transmitted through the apparatus to or from any temporary or permanent user of the service provider’s telecommunications services;

(b) isolate the communication that is authorized to be intercepted from other information, including

(i) isolating the communications of the person whose communications are authorized to be intercepted from those of other persons, and

(ii) isolating the telecommunications data of the person whose communications are authorized to be intercepted from the rest of the person’s communications;

(c) provide prescribed information that permits the accurate correlation of all elements of intercepted communications; and

(d) enable simultaneous interceptions by authorized persons from multiple national security and law enforcement agencies of communications of multiple users, including enabling

(i) at least the minimum number of those interceptions, and

(ii) any greater number of those interceptions — up to the maximum number — for the period that an agency requests.

These requirements may be confusing, but in short, ISPs must be able to figure out who you are, all the information in you communications and be able to share that information with any security or law enforcement people whether inside the country or from abroad. They may share all information they have on you with people in authority in other countries. If this still doesn’t seem like much, the next sections help spell out why this is important.

8. A telecommunications service provider that meets, in whole or in part, an operational requirement in respect of transmission apparatus that the service provider operates shall continue to so meet that operational requirement.

In other words, they cannot degrade or otherwise change the service that would prevent interception from taking place. In addition to this:

9. A telecommunications service provider that meets, in whole or in part, an operational requirement in respect of transmission apparatus that the service provider operates in connection with any of the service provider’s telecommunications services shall meet that operational requirement to the same extent in respect of any new service that the service provider begins to provide using that apparatus.

So they can’t offer a new encryption method that has no master key. So an act of good will to protect their users would become illegal.

Considerations

(3) In deciding whether to make an order, the Minister shall take into account the public interest in national security and law enforcement and the commercial interests of the telecommunications service provider as well as any other matter that the Minister considers relevant.

It’s nice to know that our rights will be “considered” at the very least. Somehow, some might not feel so reassured.

14. (1) The Minister may, at the request of the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and if in the Minister’s opinion it is necessary to do so, order a telecommunications service provider

(a) to comply with any obligation under subsections 6(1) and (2) in a manner or within a time that the Minister specifies;

(b) to enable, in a manner or within a time that the Minister specifies, a number of simultaneous interceptions greater than any maximum or limit that would otherwise apply;

(c) to comply, in a manner or within a time that the Minister specifies, with any confidentiality or security measures respecting interceptions that the Minister specifies in addition to those referred to in subsection 6(2);

(d) to meet an operational requirement in respect of transmission apparatus operated by the service provider that the service provider would not otherwise be required to meet; or

(e) to meet an operational requirement in respect of transmission apparatus operated by the service provider in a manner or within a time that the Minister specifies.

So in other words, any member of the police or Canadian secret service can authorize surveillance measures. No need for a court order (unless they want to know the contents of the communications of course, though by the time they get that order, they can do those kinds of things covertly)

(3) The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as the case may be, shall pay the telecommunications service provider an amount that the Minister considers reasonable towards the expenses that the Minister considers are necessary for the service provider to incur initially to comply with an order made under this section.

This provision has some history to it. During Canada’s only file-sharing trial against a number of Jon Does, one of the concerns that came up during that trial was that ISPs would be required to use a certain number of man hours – thus costing the company money. What we see here is that tax-payers money would be used to carry out this activity of surveillance. The idea of using tax-payers money to sacrifice basic civil rights is not one that tends to go over very well in Canada.

(4) The Minister may provide the telecommunications service provider with any equipment or other thing that the Minister considers the service provider needs to comply with an order made under this section.

This may be the provision, if anything else, makes the surveillance legislation sound like, as others put it, a surveillance bailout. Our tax money, after reading this, appears to be going to fund surveillance technology which would then be forced onto Internet Service Providers and, at the very least, the providers would be pressured (probably forced) to use such technology. This only thing positive about this is the fact that some private tech companies will automatically receive a major windfall of extra cash as a result. This is at the expense of pretty much everything else related to this.

16. (1) Every telecommunications service provider shall provide a person designated under subsection (3), on his or her written request, with any information in the service provider’s possession or control respecting the name, address, telephone number and electronic mail address of any subscriber to any of the service provider’s telecommunications services and the Internet protocol address, mobile identification number, electronic serial number, local service provider identifier, international mobile equipment identity number, international mobile subscriber identity number and subscrib- er identity module card number that are associated with the subscriber’s service and equipment.

This was probably the provision touted by the government press releases which we touched on yesterday. This is what must be forfeited at the request without a court order. Content, on the other hand, requires a court order. The question is, what circumstances would satisfy a court to allow a search warrant that would allow officials to force content data over? Would it be little more than accessing, say, a German or a Russian website? Of course, such things aren’t really that clear.

Also in this section:

(2) A designated person shall ensure that he or she makes a request under subsection (1) only in performing, as the case may be, a duty or function

(a) of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service under the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act;

(b) of a police service, including any related to the enforcement of any laws of Canada, of a province or of a foreign jurisdiction; or

(c) of the Commissioner of Competition under the Competition Act.

So, by law, we’ll happily hand the mentioned information over to, say, the United States without court oversight. Apparently, Canadian sovereignty is becoming a thing of the past and we are more likely to bow to foreign interests with this kind of legislation. Sounds very scary.

17. (1) A police officer may request a telecommunications service provider to provide the officer with the information referred to in subsection 16(1) in the following circumstances:

(a) the officer believes on reasonable grounds that the urgency of the situation is such that the request cannot, with reasonable diligence, be made under that subsection;

(b) the officer believes on reasonable grounds that the information requested is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm to any person or to property; and

(c) the information directly concerns either the person who would perform the act that is likely to cause the harm or is the victim, or intended victim, of the harm.

The police officer shall inform the telecommunications service provider of his or her name, rank, badge number and the agency in which he or she is employed and state that the request is being made in exceptional circumstances and under the authority of this subsection.

So, in other words, an “offence” doesn’t even have to occur in order for an officer to simply demand an ISP hand over all information about a given subscriber. Can simply anyone be subject to a seizure of personal information?

20. (1) The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Commissioner of Competition and any chief or head of a police service constituted under the laws of a province who makes a designation under subsection 16(3) shall cause internal audits to be regularly conducted of the practices of his or her agency to ensure compliance with sections 16 to 19 and the regulations made for the purposes of those sections and of the internal management and information systems and controls concerning requests made under sections 16 and 17.

Apparently, the Canadian government thinks that accountability is achieved merely by allowing ones own organization to investigate themselves. Canadians know full well how accountable police can be when they investigate themselves – especially when it comes to things like proper use of a taser at certain undisclosed Vancouver airports.

(4) The Privacy Commissioner may, on reasonable notice, conduct an audit of the practices of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Commissioner of Competition to ensure compliance with sections 16 to 19 and the regulations made for the purposes of those sections and of the internal management and information systems and controls concerning requests made under sections 16 and 17. The provisions of the Privacy Act apply, with any necessary modifications, in respect of the audit as if it were an investigation under that Act.

Miraculously, this bill isn’t entirely bad after all. There’s a shred of accountability apparently embedded in this, but not by much considering that section 16 has to do with demanding private information in the first place, is this provision really enough?

21. (1) A telecommunications service pro- vider that provides information to a person under section 16 or 17 is entitled to be paid the prescribed fee for providing the information.

(2) If the information is requested by a designated person under section 16, the fee is to be paid by the designating authority.

(3) If the information is requested by a police officer under section 17, the fee is to be paid by the chief or head of the police service that employs the police officer.

This provision seems to cover the same thing an earlier provision covers. Again, tax payers money will be used to erode privacy rights under this legislation.

All of section 24 seems to reinforce what the police are demanding (customer information such as addresses, etc.)

25. A telecommunications service provider shall, on the request of a police officer or of an employee of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, provide all reasonable assistance to permit the police officer or employee to assess or to test the service provider’s telecommunications facilities that may be used to intercept communications.

This seems to simply reinforce the fact that an ISP is forced to hand over the information. They have to comply with police demands without the need (in many instances) of a court order.

27. A telecommunications service provider shall notify the Minister when

(a) in respect of any particular transmission apparatus, the increased number of simultaneous interceptions that the service provider is required, as a result of a request referred to in subparagraph 7(d)(ii), to be capable of enabling is 75% or more of the maximum number that is applicable under that subparagraph; or

(b) the number of simultaneous interceptions that the service provider is required, under sections 8 to 11, to be capable of enabling is 75% or more of the global limit that is applicable under section 12.

We’re not entirely sure what a “global limit” means, but if that means up to 75% of all traffic going through the ISP, does that mean that this could be a general dragnet of intercepted data?

Section 28 suggests that if the information about the customer changes, then it’s required that RCMP be notified of any changes. Isn’t that like tracking people without a warrant?

36. (1) For the purpose of gaining entry to a place referred to in subsection 34(1), a designated person may enter private property and pass through it, and is not liable for doing so. For greater certainty, no person has a right to object to that use of the property and no warrant is required for entry onto the property unless the property is a dwelling-house.

(2) A person may, at the designated person’s request, accompany the designated person to assist them to gain entry to the place referred to in subsection 34(1) and is not liable for doing so.

So after the obtain all the information on where you live, you can hear a knock on the door by police and they’ll be allowed to enter your private property if you run a telecommunications service. This is with a warrant from the looks of things.

37. In executing a warrant to enter a dwelling-house, a designated person shall not use force unless they are accompanied by a peace officer and the use of force has been specifically authorized in the warrant.

So you cannot resist them and section 38 appears to suggest that you cannot mislead any authority during the situation in question.

Sections 56 and 57 suggest that if an ISP resists any of this, they can be liable for a maximum fine of anywhere between $15,000 to $500,000.

Conclusions

After reading this huge piece of legislation, one can only wonder, where did our liberties go? Is this little more than thought police given that an offence doesn’t even have to occur before a certain amount of surveillance can be issued on you. Things, of course, get worse when a warrant is issued, but what can be allowed to happen without a warrant is disturbing in and of itself. What about proxies or anonymous services being offered in Canada? Are they legally rendered useless thanks this this legislation? Clearly, this legislation is aimed at getting everyone on the business end of a telecommunication to rat you out on merely suspicion. Meanwhile, provisions in the Charter will only be a “consideration” rather than, say, the law.

Combined with Bill C-46, the packaged legislation is little more than a cocktail for a disaster in civil rights given the unprecedented amount of powers police will be getting with this. All-in-all, after you read this eye burning package, it’s not hard to realize what a horrible idea a number of these provisions really are.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Never one to let its interests anywhere in the world go unprotected, the United States govt and the MPAA have teamed up with the Swedish govt to create an elite corps of Swedish anti-piracy police.

In an effort to help stamp out pesky Swedish pirates, FBI agent Andrew Myers and the MPAA have given a group of six Swedish police officers extensive training on how to effectively combat piracy and catch people who engage in illegal downloading from the internet.

For those of you who are unaware of whom Agent Myers is, as was I, he is noted for having spoken on a E3 Panel back on May 11th oflast year. The topic was “Game Piracy: Protecting Your Product.”

Gamasutra writes:

Andrew Myers, FBI, agreed that with things like BitTorrent files released to the net, it’s often ripped before it’s leaked, by employees with a little money dangled in front of their faces. “You can’t stop piracy, but you can go after some of the sources, then report to the company about the nature of their leak, and how they can do better in the future.”

Just the kind of govt. agent the MPAA was lookign for I’m sure.

Together, Agent Myers and the MPAA’s instruction to this new Swedish anti-piracy unit ranged from rules and regulations governing copyright enforcement and piracy, to examples of anti-piracy initiatives in other countries that have already proven effective. The most shocking revelation is a report of a lecture given by the MPAA in which officers were shown the ins and outs of movie camcording, or “CAM-ing.”

When the police were asked about possible conflict of interest by having a private interest group such as the MPAA involved in the training of enforcement personnel, they apparently saw none.

“I have full confidence in the organizer of the course,” noted the head of studies at the Swedish National Police Academy, Marianne Hilton. “We have contacts with organizations outside the police. If we have made the judgment that if a group has competence that we can use, then we invite them in.”

Interestingly enough, when asked if there were other cases in which an industry group was invited to give training on how to enforce their agenda she was unable to provide one.

Sweden’s Pirate Party, which campaigns for copyrighted material to be free for everyone, noted that the MPAA should not be able to get involved in its country’s justice system, ”just to protect their old, lucrative monopoly.”

The Pirate Party was not invited to provide a counterbalance at the training seminar.

These new “super 6″ will soon deal will the majority of the Swedish police’s investigations about copyright rules and piracy and are expected to hit the internet “streets” at any time.

What strikes me as odd however is why this training is needed all of a sudden and why is the US govt and a US based lobbying organization involved in the training of a foreign governments police force at all?

Is piracy so difficult to determine in Sweden that it requires so embody else to tell them it what it is and where it can be found?

The last time I checked it was right in front of their noses at a place called The Pirate Bay, so does this mean they don’t care about this site and are focusing elsewhere like on the small-time Direct Connect guys who swap an album every now and then?

Once again we see the US doing everything in its power to back up the demands of Big Business, it happened before with the WTO talks in Russia, and it looks as though it’s happening once again.

I bet the Swedish people are going to love to find out that the US govt and a US-based corporate interest lobbying group now have a hand in training their police personnel. So much for the notion of national sovereignty.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/FBI_and_the_MPAA_train_new_ELITE_Swedish_anti_piracy_police_force’;

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