Month: April 2016

CIA Funding Companies that Specialize in Social Media Spying

By: Deirdre Fulton, CommonDreams.org
April 15, 2016

Reflecting the CIA’s “increasing focus on monitoring social media,” the spy agency’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, has made investments in four social media mining and surveillance firms, The Intercept revealed Thursday.
According to a document obtained by journalist Lee Fang, In-Q-Tel is funding companies that monitor, collect, and analyze social media traffic and activities on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The investments were previously undisclosed.

For instance, Fang points to PATHAR, a social media intelligence company whose product, Dunami, is already being used by the FBI to “mine Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media to determine networks of association, centers of influence and potential signs of radicalization,” as confirmed last month by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Another firm in In-Q-Tel’s portfolio is Dataminr, which “directly licenses a stream of data from Twitter to visualize and quickly spot trends on behalf of law enforcement agencies and hedge funds, among other clients,” Fang writes.
Geofeedia, also on In-Q-Tel’s list, “promotes its research into Greenpeace activists, student demonstrations, minimum wage advocates, and other political movements,” Fang reports. “Police departments in Oakland, Chicago, Detroit, and other major municipalities have contracted with Geofeedia, as well as private firms such as the Mall of America and McDonald’s.” FBI and CIA scraping of the internet for social media users’ “digital dust” is hardly a new phenomenon.

In 2009, Wired reported that In-Q-Tel was “putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media,” as part of “a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ‘open source intelligence’—information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos, and radio reports generated every day.”
And in 2011, the Associated Press wrote about the CIA’s “Open Source Center, [where] a team known affectionately as the ‘vengeful librarians’ also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms—anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.”
However, Fang argues, “[t]he recent wave of investments in social media-related companies suggests the CIA has accelerated the drive to make collection of user-generated online data a priority. Alongside its investments in start-ups, In-Q-Tel has also developed a special technology laboratory in Silicon Valley, called Lab41, to provide tools for the intelligence community to connect the dots in large sets of data.”

Such blanket data collection and analysis is worrisome to privacy advocates like Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who told The Intercept: “When you have private companies deciding which algorithms get you a so-called threat score, or make you a person of interest, there’s obviously room for targeting people based on viewpoints or even unlawfully targeting people based on race or religion.”

Fang reported just last week on In-Q-Tel’s investments in Skincential Sciences, a cosmetic company that has “developed a patented technology that removes a thin outer layer of the skin, revealing unique biomarkers that can be used for a variety of diagnostic tests, including DNA collection.”

This article (CIA Funding Companies that Specialize in Social Media Spying) originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

Panama Papers Could Bring Down British Prime Minister David Cameron

By: Amando Flavio, AnonHQ.com

(ANONHQ) Thousands of people have marched through the streets of London demanding the resignation of the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, over his involvement in the Panama Papers scandal.
Mr. Cameron is amongst world leaders, celebrities, billionaires, and other influential people facing scrutiny since the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published reports, revealing the secret financial crimes being perpetrated by these powerful people, with the help of a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
The ICIJ accessed millions of documents hacked from Mossack Fonseca, in which the law firm illegally helped elected leaders and other top officials to set up secret shell companies and offshore accounts to evade tax. The scandal has already claimed the head of the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. Mr. Gunnlaugsson resigned last week after intense public pressure was mounted on him.

When Mr. Cameron was named in the papers, the mainstream media pretended as if they have not heard it. But pressure from anti-corruption bodies and other activists, such as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, started a social media campaign with the hashtag #ResignDavidCameron. 

#ResignDavidCameron went viral on many social media platforms, prompting Cameron to finally admit that he made about £30,000 ($42,375) from an offshore tax haven, set up by his late father. He admitted that between 1997 and 2010, he and his wife Samantha Cameron, owned shares in his father’s Blairmore Investment Trust, a multimillion-pound offshore trust fund managed by Mossack Fonseca.

However, Mr. Cameron also said he sold the £30,000 shares in 2010, four months before becoming Prime Minister, and that he has done nothing wrong.
But protesters on Saturday took their activism on the Internet to the streets of London, including Number 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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The protesters chanted “David Cameron must resign, tax evasion is a crime.” They also floated a giant pig with Cameron’s face on it, as they marched to the street of Whitehall.
Protesters said they are even appalled in the whole scandal, after another secret letter leaked revealed that Mr. Cameron urged European Union (EU) leaders in 2013, to shield offshore trusts from a crackdown by law enforcement agencies across Europe.

One of the key organizers of the protest, Abi Wilkinson, a freelance journalist based in London told International Business Times that Cameron’s alleged tax evasion was only one catalyst for the march. She said Mr Cameron’s request to EU leaders to shield offshore companies, and the fact that British oversea territories were deeply involved in the leak, means the Prime Minister can no longer be trusted.

“Though Cameron’s personal tax affairs expose his hypocrisy, the thing that made me feel I had to organize something was the revelation about Cameron personally intervening to block an EU crackdown on tax avoidance. Britain is the hub of the tax avoidance world. The fact that more than half of the 300,000 companies named in the Panama Papers operate through U.K. overseas territories and crown dependencies shows the extent of the problem, particularly given Mossack Fonseca isn’t a law firm with any special link to the U.K.,” Abi said.

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After the protest, on Saturday evening, Mr. Cameron issued a statement that the week was terrible for him and that he has learned his lessons regarding his involvement in the leaked papers.

BBC later published a story claiming that Mr. Cameron had fulfilled his income tax obligations dating back from 2009 when he was the leader of opposition.

But Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition said Mr. Cameron should publish his full tax returns, dating back to before he became prime minister in 2010. He said the public wants to know why Mr. Cameron put his investment money outside the country in the first place.

“I want to see the papers. We need to know what he’s actually returned as a tax return. We need to know why he put this money overseas in the first place, and whether he made anything out of it or not before 2010 when he became prime minister. These are questions that he must answer,” Mr. Corbyn said.

This Article (Panama Papers Could Bring Down British Prime Minister David Cameron) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author.

Panama Papers leave world leaders in suspense

By: Corey Savard

The biggest leak of sensitive data ever unfolded yesterday when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released telling documents of world leaders and influential figures stashing their cash in overseas tax havens through Panama City, Pan.-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.


Members of Russian PM Vladimir Putin’s inner circle as well as Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, whom’s revelation has sparked protests in his country’s capital are implicated in what Edward Snowden is calling the“biggest leak in the history of data journalism.” Other notable names in initial documents included are actor Jackie Chan, soccer star Lionel Messi, African dictators, and drug lords with many more soon to follow in the coming days and perhaps months as part of 11.5 million leaked documents that dwarf both Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden leaks combined.

It started a little over a year ago when a “John Doe” contacted German newspaper Süeddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and offered them a plethora of internal documents formerly held secret by Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in selling offshore property in Panama, a well-known tax haven, which world leaders have utillized to escape paying taxes in their own country that should have gone to schools, hospitals and public services. All while  wilfully deceiving their own citizens. The anonymous source who leaked the 2.2 terrabytes of emails, documents and pdfs said his motive was to “make these crimes public.”

However, offshore companies are not illegal as they work through loopholes created by trade deals, for Mossack Fonseca specifically, the free trade deal passed by the U.S. with Panama in 2011, which Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders warned of the country’s bank secrecy laws and unwillingness to work with foreign investigations that would lead to the international event we see developing.

 

Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $1 Million To Conservation Efforts In Africa

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American actor Leonardo DiCaprio (photo via Siebbi/ippernity.com
By: Briana Blaschke, Anti-Media

Actor and renowned philanthropist Leonardo DiCaprio has made waves with a sizable donation to another environmental project. Following his January donation of $3.4 million to the indigenous groups of Ecuador to help them stand against oil and timber tycoons, DiCaprio has announced a donation of $1 million to ocean conservation efforts in the small African nation of Seychelles. DiCaprio has long been an advocate for environmental efforts, and has consistently used his influential media platform as means to call attention to injustices and demand for change; while many other important media figures have touted this same message, DiCaprio sets himself apart through his actions, consistently donating millions to research and conservation projects.

His foundation’s generous allowance to Seychelles constitutes as the world’s first debt swap that specifically targets climate resiliency and ocean conservation. The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works to conserve oceans and lands around the world, and DiCaprio’s foundation are working together to tackle conservation efforts and research in Seychelles. The deal is intended to protect more than 400,000 square kilometers of habitat, effectively increasing the Nature Conservancy’s protective reach from less than 1 percent to more than 30 percent. The funding will also go towards the creation of the second largest marine protected area in the West Indian Ocean.

The total amount of debt to be restructured is $21.4 million, according to the Seychelles government. A low interest loan, in combination with donations from private organizations such as the Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation, has allowed for the country to commit to protecting its waters. Given that its economy is a “blue economy” centered around ocean-based tourism and lucrative fisheries, as well as the beauty of its coral reefs and beaches, the government is determined to help protect the future of the ocean.

His foundation’s generous allowance to Seychelles constitutes as the world’s first debt swap that specifically targets climate resiliency and ocean conservation. The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works to conserve oceans and lands around the world, and DiCaprio’s foundation are working together to tackle conservation efforts and research in Seychelles. The deal is intended to protect more than 400,000 square kilometers of habitat, effectively increasing the Nature Conservancy’s protective reach from less than 1 percent to more than 30 percent. The funding will also go towards the creation of the second largest marine protected area in the West Indian Ocean.
The total amount of debt to be restructured is $21.4 million, according to the Seychelles government. A low interest loan, in combination with donations from private organizations such as the Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation, has allowed for the country to commit to protecting its waters. Given that its economy is a “blue economy” centered around ocean-based tourism and lucrative fisheries, as well as the beauty of its coral reefs and beaches, the government is determined to help protect the future of the ocean.

Nature Conservancy’s director Matt Brown stated that the Seychellois government is committed to protecting and properly managing its marine resources in upcoming years, serving as an important model for similar agreements in other regions of the world. The culminated effort between the government, environmental organizations, and funds from private donors has created enough financial clout to sustain conservation efforts throughout this region.
Read More: http://www.trueactivist.com/leonardo-dicaprio-donates-1-million-to-conservation-efforts-in-africa/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=antimedia

 This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Briana Blaschke and theAntiMedia.org.