Tag: Surveillance

Regime Change Continues: Thousands Rally in Georgia’s Tbilisi Against Government

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Source.

Thousands of opposition supporters rallied Sunday in the Georgian capital Tbilisi as the Black Sea nation’s government faces mounting accusations of backsliding on democracy.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Georgian parliament for a rally organized by the country’s main opposition force, the United National Movement (UNM), founded by jailed ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Protesters waved Georgian, Ukrainian and European Union flags and held a huge banner that read “For European future.”

Thousands Rally in Georgia’s Tbilisi Against Government

Related:

Regime change proceeds: State Departments sanctions Georgian judges, assassinations feared next

Russian Experts Began To Study The Filling Of The American Drone MQ-9 Reaper

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Russian military has managed to recover the wreckage of the American MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance drone from the bottom of the Black Sea. At the moment, specialists from JSC “Radio-electronic Technologies” and the Federal State Budget Institute “Central Research Institute of Aerospace Forces” of the Russian Defense Ministry are studying the electronic filling of the “Reaper”.

Russian Experts Began To Study The Filling Of The American Drone MQ-9 Reaper

A Front Company and a Fake Identity: How the U.S. Came to Use Spyware It Was Trying to Kill.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A Front Company and a Fake Identity: How the U.S. Came to Use Spyware It Was Trying to Kill.

The secret contract — which The New York Times is disclosing for the first time — violates the Biden administration’s public policy, and still appears to be active. The contract, reviewed by The Times, stated that the “United States government” would be the ultimate user of the tool, although it is unclear which government agency authorized the deal and might be using the spyware. It specifically allowed the government to test, evaluate, and even deploy the spyware against targets of its choice in Mexico.

…

The secret November 2021 contract used the same American company — designated as “Cleopatra Holdings” but actually a small New Jersey-based government contractor called Riva Networks — that the F.B.I. used two years earlier to purchase Pegasus. Riva’s chief executive used a fake name in signing the 2021 contract and at least one contract Riva executed on behalf of the F.B.I.

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The deal unfolded as the European private equity fund that owns NSO pursued a plan to get U.S. government business by establishing a holding company, Gideon Cyber Systems. The private equity fund’s ultimate goal was to find an American buyer for the company.

Related:

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Bill to Ban Tik Tok Would Give Government Sweeping Powers to Crackdown on Tech

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Bill to Ban Tik Tok Would Give Government Sweeping Powers to Crackdown on Tech

A person who violates the act could be fined up to $1 million or punished with up to 20 years in prison. The broad and vague definitions in the legislation caused many to wonder if people could be handed such harsh punishments for using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to get around future government censorship that could come as a result of the bill.

A spokesperson for Warner insisted that the legislation wasn’t designed to target individual users and pointed to the language that says someone “must be engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of American communications technology products and services, creating ‘catastrophic effects’ on US critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election, in order to be eligible for any kind of criminal penalty.”

But the bill will give the Commerce Secretary the authority to deem what is considered “sabotage or subversion” or any of the other threats listed above. The legislation has grave implications for civil liberties and could be used against any individuals or tech and media companies the Biden administration, or any future administration would want to target.

Previously:

Tik-Tok bills could dangerously expand national security state

US And EU Nations Request The Most User Data From Tech Companies, Obtain It More Than Two-Thirds Of The Time

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

from the may-as-well-just-be-government-contractors dept

Most tech companies handling data requests from governments now publish transparency reports. As everything moves towards always-online status (including, you know, your fridge), social media platforms and other online services have become the favored targets of government data requests. It just makes sense to look there first rather than out there in the real world, where people (and their communications) are that much more difficult to locate.

US And EU Nations Request The Most User Data From Tech Companies, Obtain It More Than Two-Thirds Of The Time

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022

In 2022, alongside the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US military placed great emphasis on military deterrence against China in the South China Sea, maintaining high-intensity activities including close-in reconnaissance operations, Taiwan Strait transits, forward presence operations, strategic deterrence, freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), military exercises and drills, and battlefield preparation.

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022 via SCSPI

Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

from the but-this-is-the-system-Congress-wants…. dept

The FBI has long enjoyed its close relationship with the NSA… or at least the NSA’s collections. Data and communications collected under the NSA’s Section 702 program contain plenty of “incidental” snooping on Americans. That’s because even though it’s a foreign-facing collection, Americans who communicate with people outside of the United States are swept up in the dragnet.

Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

“Well that’s unfortunate. If only he were part of some kind of body that had the power to change the law.” [1]

Depleted Uranium Ammunition and Crimea

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Source.

Depleted Uranium Ammunition and Crimea (archived)

Aside from armor-penetrating tank rounds, the US uses DU ammunition for its 30mm GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun on the A-10 Warthog ground attack jet fighter. The A-10s figured prominently in the Iraq wars and in Afghanistan.

Ukraine last winter requested 100 A-10 jets from the United States and have been secretly training to use the aircraft in combat. If a Crimea offensive takes place, the A-10 may be moved into Ukraine and flown by a combination of Ukrainian pilots and possibly by volunteer former US Air Force pilots.

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How will Russia answer these latest developments? Putin has already sent a warning to Britain about DU ammunition, although what he actually has in mind is not clear. If Russia is watching US activity in rushing the Abrams tanks to the battlefield, including the possibility of the A-10, the situation will get more heated.