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Welcome to 1984: Your Boss as Big Brother

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Amazingly, the corporate environment could pose a far greater privacy risk than methods currently being used by the authorities. Corporate surveillance is on the increase as businesses use a range of tactics and technology to monitor your activities, both in the work place and in your private life - and in some cases, even before you start a new job.

“There is no true privacy in this country any more, and that’s more true at the workplace than anywhere else,” says Sharon D. Nelson, who is president of Sensei Enterprises, a consulting firm that specializes in computer forensics.

“If you had an iPod or digital camera charging through the USB port, we could browse all the files that were stored onto the device.”

It has also been revealed that some Welsh companies are going to extraordinary lengths by hiring private detectives to snoop on employees outside the workplace.

Businesses have direct access to private information that authorities need a search warrant to examine.

A private investigator, Wayne Reynolds, claims that around 70 per cent of his work involves spying on company staff.

“Normally we’re called in when someone has been off work for a long time, maybe a few months, and the employer wants to check that they’re not having the wool pulled over their eyes.

“Tips-offs tend to come from people inside the company, and then we launch a full-scale surveillance operation and see if it’s actually happening,” he said.

In another case, private investigators in Stratford-upon-Avon admitted to monitoring a University student recently offered a job with a blue-chip firm.

Jay Brown, from R & G Investigations said: “Some bosses want to ensure that the people they are employing are trustworthy so that – if and when they get promoted – they know that they won’t jeopardise big deals.

“That way they can make sure that none of their staff are weak links and let the rest of the company down. Bosses basically want to know that employees are what they say they are, and that they are not being lied to.”

There is very little employees can do to protect themselves from corporate surveillance as the method is increasing on both sides of the Atlantic and growing in almost every industry. Companies will use hidden CCTV cameras, radios and spend tens of thousands of pounds tracking employees.

Laurence Weekley, from Covert Investigations & Surveillance said: “Sometimes we’re asked to pose as a mystery shopper to make sure the staff are selling things in the way they should be. We’re making sure that customers are being given the right information about certain products.”

Liberty, a civil rights charity said: “Employers need to have respect for their employee’s private lives. Unfortunately there is little to prevent the unscrupulous employer using potentially unlawful methods to snoop.

“Proper resourcing of the Information Commissioners office could allow action to be taken if an employee finds that evidence from detective work is being used against him or her.”

Last month in New York one employee was fired after bosses found he was leaving work early after tracking him for five months with a cell phone they supplied him carried a GPS antenna.

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War crime lawyers fight UN on top job

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

New secretary general is challenged over ’secret appointment’ to replace top tribunal prosecutor

Ed Vulliamy in The Hague
Sunday September 23, 2007
The Observer

The new leadership of the United Nations is facing a defiant challenge from within one of its few recent successes - the war crimes tribunal in The Hague - over who will steer the epic trials towards their close.Prosecution lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) - trying Europe’s bloodiest war criminals since the Nazis - fear a backstage deal has been struck between new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon over an appointment of a successor to chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who leaves in December. Senior Hague lawyers say they are ready to quit over the issue.

Accounts by tribunal and UN sources of how a former Belgian attorney-general petitioned for the job and has reportedly been guaranteed it affords a rare insight into the veiled sanctums of the UN.

Sources at the ICTY, at UN headquarters in New York and across the world of international law and human rights advocacy, say Del Ponte’s succession has been pledged in secret to Serge Brammertz, a Belgian criminologist who became deputy prosecutor at the new International Criminal Court and heads the UN commission into the murder of Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, which he wants to leave.

The entire senior prosecution staff at the tribunal have taken the unprecedented step of sending a joint letter to Ki-Moon, contesting a Brammertz appointment by proposing Del Ponte’s current deputy David Tolbert, who has worked for nine years at the tribunal, for the job.

‘The matter is not one of personalities nor Brammertz’s standing’, says one lawyer. ‘It’s the difference between someone who knows the history, understands every case and can deliver a completion strategy, or someone brought in by the Secretary General just to shut the tribunal down, with no experience of the cases, background or region.’

Ki-Moon’s office will not comment, citing confidentiality of the appointments procedure. But the lawyers’ view is backed unanimously by organisations with an interest in the tribunal’s work, including the George Soros Foundation, Human Rights Watch and campaigners within former Yugoslavia itself, all of whom have also petitioned Ki-Moon.

‘Just because people haven’t heard of the names remaining to stand trial doesn’t mean that they are not the most important cases,’ says Kelly Askin, senior legal officer at the Soros Foundation. ‘It’s crucial that there be continuity - and the fact is we have someone available who knows the institution and the people, and has followed every case and every detail for nine years. Several senior staff have told me they will leave the tribunal if David Tolbert is not appointed.’

The ICTY has had a bumpy journey since it was established under pressure from then President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, in 1994. It was seen at the time as an act of contrition after the UN’s catastrophic failure to intervene as hundreds of thousands died in three years of savage ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia, culminating with the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at the UN-protected ‘Safe Area’ of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The tribunal lost its biggest catch with the death in prison of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and is haunted by the failure to catch the two Bosnian Serb leaders accused of unleashing the genocide in Bosnia - General Ratko Mladic and former President Radovan Karadzic. Their capture would extend the tribunal’s mandate beyond 2010, and make for a climactic end-game; Del Ponte made what could be her final trip to Belgrade this week as a last-ditch attempt to secure, under her watch, the two leaders.

But for all the publicity over Karadzic and Mladic, the tribunal - the first of its kind since the Nuremberg trials - has seen remarkable successes. Even apart from the convictions secured, accounts of the slaughter have been told for the historical record in intimate language from the witness boxes. There have been dramatic moments as killers and leaders have been confronted by victims.

The tribunal won a guilty plea from Karadzic’s co-President Biljana Plavsic, for her role in the overall planning of war crimes. New laws of war have been written: the Serb siege of Sarajevo was deemed a war crime, as was the use of systematic mass rape as a means of persecution at Foca, in Eastern Bosnia.

But crucial trials are outstanding or still in process - the leadership of the Bosnian Croat war machine, which laid murderous siege to East Mostar and set up a gulag for Muslims, is currently standing trial; notorious paramilitary warlord Milan Lukic awaits trial, accused of locking scores of families in houses and burning them alive in Visegrad. Above all, Momcilo Peresic - Milosevic’s most senior general - is also due for trial. It is a critical case, because a conviction would establish Serbia’s direct involvement in the genocide, in stark counterpoint to a ruling by the International Court of Justice, which rejected a case by the Bosnian government against Serbia for its involvement in genocide.

The team that convicted Krstic, Krajsnik and those preparing the cases against Lukic and Peresic all are signatories to the letter to Ki-Moon.

An ICTY statement last week said del Ponte’s mandate had been extended until 31 December. ‘The successor to the current prosecutor has not yet been appointed yet,’ it said.

Mark Ellis, of the London-based International Bar Association, said: ‘It struck me as very odd that the UN would make a decision which would in essence put a newcomer in charge.’

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War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

By Kari Lydersen

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 — The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware.

“The wounded are coming home, and many of them have severe brain and spinal injuries, which will require round-the-clock care for the rest of their lives,” said Michael McConnell, Great Lakes regional director of the AFSC, a peace group affiliated with the Quaker church.

The $720 million figure breaks down into $280 million a day from Iraq war supplementary funding bills passed by Congress, plus $440 million daily in incurred, but unpaid, long-term costs.

But some supporters of the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq say that even if the war is costly, that fact is essentially immaterial.

“Either you think the war in Iraq supports America’s national security, or not,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “If you think national security won’t be harmed by withdrawing from Iraq, of course you would want to see that money spent elsewhere. I myself think that belief, on a certain level, is absurd, so the question of focusing on how much money we are spending there is irrelevant.”

The war’s unpaid long-term costs do not include “macro-economic consequences” described by Bilmes and Stiglitz, including higher oil prices, loss of trade because of anti-American sentiments and lost productivity of killed or injured U.S. soldiers.

In 2006, Bilmes, who was an assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton, and Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, placed the total cost of the Iraq war at more than $2.2 trillion, not counting interest. The American Friends group used cost breakdowns and interest projections from the Congressional Budget Office to calculate the daily cost of war emblazoned on the banners flown in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities.

The banners show what this could buy in terms of health care, Head Start programs, new elementary schools, free school lunches, renewable energy and hiring new teachers. Protest organizers say they hope to turn more people against the war by laying out its true financial impact.

“I think people are becoming more aware of these guns or butter questions,” said Gary Gillespie, director of the group’s Baltimore Urban Peace Program, which displayed the banners in the Baltimore suburb of Bel Air on Friday. “But when you talk about $720 million a day, even people who work on this issue are shocked by the number and shocked by what could have been done with that money. War has no return — you’re not producing a product.”

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Blackwater denies making illegal weapons exports

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

By James Vicini and Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Private U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA denied on Saturday it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.

The statement by the company, whose contractors were accused by the Iraqi government of killing 11 people in Baghdad this week, came after a newspaper report that federal officials were investigating whether Blackwater exported unlicensed military hardware into Iraq.

“Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless. The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons,” the company said in a statement.

“This issue is completely unrelated” to Blackwater’s U.S. government programs in Iraq, said the company, based in Moyock, North Carolina. It employs about 1,000 contractors to protect the U.S. mission in Iraq and its diplomats from attack.

The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, reported that two former Blackwater employees had pleaded guilty in Greenville, North Carolina, to weapons charges and were cooperating with the federal investigation.

Court records showed Kenneth Wayne Cashwell and William Ellsworth Grumiaux pleaded guilty earlier in the year to possessing, receiving and concealing between May 2003 and August 2005 stolen firearms that had been “shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”

The records, which showed both men agreed to cooperate with authorities and testify about any crimes they knew of in plea deals filed last November, did not name Blackwater or Iraq.

The newspaper also quoted two unidentified sources as saying federal officials were probing whether Blackwater was shipping weapons, night-vision scopes, armor, gun kits and other military goods to Iraq without the required permits.

A U.S. Justice Department spokesman declined comment on the investigation.

SMUGGLING ALLEGATIONS

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has suggested the U.S. Embassy stop using Blackwater after what Iraq called a flagrant assault by the firm’s contractors in which 11 people were killed last Sunday while the firm was escorting an embassy convoy through Baghdad.

The Washington Post reported in Saturday’s edition the Iraqi government’s investigation into the shootings had expanded to include allegations about Blackwater’s involvement in six other violent incidents this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.

Asked at a news conference at the United Nations on Saturday about whether Iraqi investigators had videotape of Blackwater security men firing unprovoked on Iraqi civilians, Maliki said, “We’ve asked the Americans to deal with the investigation through an investigation committee to see whether there is a video about this (Baghdad) incident.”

The issue of suspected weapons smuggling by a U.S. contractor in Iraq surfaced earlier in the week in a letter from a congressional committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, to Howard Krongard, the State Department’s inspector general.

“You impeded efforts by your investigators to cooperate with a Justice Department probe into allegations that a large private security contractor was smuggling weapons into Iraq,” Waxman told Krongard in a letter dated September 18.

Waxman’s letter did not name Blackwater.

Waxman has asked the head of Blackwater USA, Erik Prince, to testify before his committee on October 2 on its work in Iraq.

The State Department said on Friday it would thoroughly examine the use of private security contractors to protect American diplomats in Iraq.

In its statement, Blackwater said that when it was uncovered internally that two employees were stealing from the company, it immediately fired them and invited the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to conduct a thorough investigation.

“The employees, who were former Marines and law enforcement, have been convicted and are currently negotiating sentencing in Raleigh with federal prosecutors,” the company said.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations)

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Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Sarah Baxter

THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.

Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.

It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.

Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.

It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz” Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare.

The failure of United Nations sanctions to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran claims are peaceful, is giving rise to an intense debate about the likelihood of military strikes.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said last week that it was “necessary to prepare for the worst . . . and the worst is war”. He later qualified his remarks, saying he wanted to avoid that outcome.

France has joined America in pushing for a tough third sanctions resolution against Iran at the UN security council but is meeting strong resistance from China and Russia. Britain has been doing its best to bridge the gap, but it is increasingly likely that new sanctions will be implemented by a US-led “coalition of the willing”.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who arrives in New York for the United Nations general assembly today, has been forced to abandon plans to visit ground zero, where the World Trade Center stood until the September 11 attacks of 2001. Politicians from President George W Bush to Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 race for the White House, were outraged by the prospect of a visit to New York’s most venerated site by a “state sponsor” of terrorism.

Bush still hopes to isolate Iran diplomatically, but believes the regime is moving steadily closer to obtaining nuclear weapons while the security council bickers.

The US president faces strong opposition to military action, however, within his own joint chiefs of staff. “None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,” said a senior defence source.

General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney of the Iran policy committee.

“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”

Checkmate’s freethinking mission is “to provide planning inputs to warfighters that are strategically, operationally and tactically sound, logistically supportable and politically feasible”. Its remit is not specific to one country, according to defence sources, but its forward planning is thought relevant to any future air war against Iranian nuclear and military sites. It is also looking at possible threats from China and North Korea.

Checkmate was formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet threats but fell into disuse in the 1980s. It was revived under Colonel John Warden and was responsible for drawing up plans for the crushing air blitz against Saddam Hussein at the opening of the first Gulf war.

Warden told The Sunday Times: “When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we had access to unlimited numbers of people with expertise, including all the intelligence agencies, and were able to be significantly more agile than Centcom.”

He believes that Checkmate’s role is to develop the necessary expertise so that “if somebody says Iran, it says: ‘here is what you need to think about’. Here are the objectives, here are the risks, here is what it will cost, here are the numbers of planes we will lose, here is how the war is going to end and here is what the peace will look like”.

Warden added: “The Centcoms of this world are executional – they don’t have the staff, the expertise or the responsibility to do the thinking that is needed before a country makes the decision to go to war. War planning is not just about bombs, airplanes and sailing boats.”

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Child ID program draws hundreds

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

By Daarel Burnette II
dburnette@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Seeing her aunt go missing for three days was all too frightening for Keisha Boog.

She was eventually found and was OK, but Boog said she would do all that’s necessary to prevent a similar disappearance.

Yesterday she took her sons, 1-year-old William and 7-year-old Austin, to Byerly Ford-Nissan off Dixie Highway where police were filing fingerprints and handing out identification cards to children.

“We hope this will help if anything happens to them,” Boog said. “We don’t want another” fright.

Close to 300 children had their fingerprints scanned and photos taken. The children’s fingerprints and photos, along with their weight and height, were also logged onto an encrypted disk that only the FBI can read.

Parents were also given kits that contained DNA vials that would keep DNA for up to 100 years and information on child safety regarding lead and ink poisoning.

Around 500 people showed up for the event, which lasted throughout the afternoon. It was the fourth year that the dealership had served as the host, said sales manager Bob Copas.

“If a child goes missing, this allows the police to get their information out to the media in a timely manner,” Copas said.

Six-year-old Pia Cuesta and her brother, Pidion Cuesta, 8, said they spoke with the police officers about not talking with strangers and staying safe.

“I learned to stay close to my parents,” Pia said.

Shively training officer Eric Brooke said when children are missing, stressed parents often can’t remember simple things about them.

“This information becomes very helpful,” he said.

Tracy Frost brought her 5-year-old daughter, Abigail Booth, to have her fingerprints scanned for the first time.

“I’m always worried something will happen to her,” Frost said. “This makes me feel a little safer.”

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Fingerprinting, ID cards part of Kids Day

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

By NICOLE GERRINGMARINE CITY- Children had their faces painted, ate free pizza and cookies and tried their skills on a rock climbing wall at Belle River Elementary School on Saturday afternoon.

But their parents didn’t bring them to the school just to have fun - they had their children fingerprinted and checked out for cavities and spinal problems as part of Kids Day America.

The event, initiated by the World Wellness Foundation, has been taking place for more than a decade in cities around the world and arrived in Marine City for the first time this year. Zimmer Chiropractic of Marine City and other local agencies and businesses pitched in to educate families about health and safety issues.

Children were given an emergency child identification card with a dental record form; space for a photo; questions such as address, height, weight and blood type; and boxes for each fingerprint.

Lt. Tim Donnellon of the St. Clair County Sheriff Department, which conducted the fingerprinting with Marine City Mayor George Bukowski, said the fingerprints and the ID books are useful in an emergency situation.

“It’s for (the families) education and prevention and it will aid us,” he said, if a child is lost or kidnapped.

Charlotte Schwartz brought her 5-year-old twins, Lynn and Wilfred Schwartz, to the event because she heard about the fingerprinting session through their school.

“We thought it would be a good idea to get at least the fingerprints done and on file,” she said. She said she also liked having her children be seen by a dentist and chiropractor without having to make and pay for medical appointments.

Randy Allor of Marine City said he brought his son, Ryan Allor, 9, and his friends and cousin to the event for the fingerprinting and to spend time as a family.

“It gives us time to share,” he said.

When they had completed the check-ups and ID books, families were fed pizza, hot dogs and cookies and had a chance to play in an inflatable obstacle course and house and climb a synthetic rock wall.

All events were free, but donations were collected for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants wishes to terminally and severely ill children.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Editor, Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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