BITN 906_04,05 (News)

8/12/11

18:02

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N E W S

Technology allows mass surveillance of phone networks

Surveillance firms exposed by Wikileaks

Secretive spy technology manufactured by companies across England has been exposed by whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks. High-level snooping methods used by governments and police to intercept text messages, phone calls and emails are meticulously detailed in a large cache of previously unpublished documents. 17 firms, several based in the north, were among 160 around the world said to sell equipment that can be used for mass surveillance of entire populations. According to Cambridge University computer security researcher Steven Murdoch, the files present an alarming picture of wholesale monitoring that poses a threat to democracy and human rights. potential abuse of this technology is huge. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the release showed how an international corporatised mass surveillance industry had grown up in the years following the 9/11 attacks. intelligence agencies and owned by arms manufacturer BAE Systems, Detica was behind a controversial government interception modernisation programme, launched in 2008 to collect and store masses of UK citizens communications. Dorset-based firm Telesoft Technologies provides massive intercept technology that can record an entire network of phone users simultaneously, the documents reveal. A Telesoft brochure shows the company boasting it can offer targeted or mass capture of tens of thousands of simultaneous conversations from fixed or cellular networks.

RIPA allow phone calls and SMS messages to be intercepted in the interests of national security, to prevent and detect serious crime, or to safeguard the UKs economic wellbeing. But legislation in other nations particularly in the Middle East and North Africa is virtually non-existent, and technology provided by western firms has been used to target pro-democracy activists and political dissidents during the Arab Spring, as The Big Issue in the North reported in September (issue 893). Last month Baroness Wilcox, under-secretary for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, admitted surveillance exports from the UK were scantly regulated.

Export rules
Surveillance technology is not intrinsically controlled under the UK export control regime as there are a number of legitimate commercial applications for which it can be used, she said. The government keep the export control regime under review on this and other issues, with regard to whether the law should be changed to require permission to be sought in future. Earlier this year a group of MEPs called for a change in export rules to prevent surveillance equipment being sold to countries where they may be used to commit human rights abuses, though no reforms have yet been made. Eric King, human rights and technology adviser at campaign group Privacy International, said: The fact that these documents are now publicly available and that the surveillance industry has finally been exposed to general scrutiny is to be welcomed but this is only the beginning. The next task is to ensure that surveillance technology companies are prevented from selling their dangerous wares to countries like Syria, Iran and Bahrain, and that the development and use of this technology is properly regulated.
RYAN GALLAGHER

Leeds company
It sounds like something out of Hollywood but, as of today, mass interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, including for political opponents, are a reality, WikiLeaks said in a statement. Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to silently, and on mass [sic], and secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers. Among the companies listed by WikiLeaks is Leeds-based Datong, which manufactures technology used to gather information about millions of mobile phones by emitting a secret signal that can be operated out of a backpack. Datong is known to have supplied its technology to nearly 40 countries around the world, and has also sold to Londons Metropolitan Police. Another firm with a northern base is Detica, which recently relocated from Manchester to Leeds. Favoured by Britains

Strictly governed
Other companies exposed include Nottinghamshire-based Hidden Technology Systems, which makes covert tracking technology sold to 27 countries including Saudi Arabia, and Gamma International, an Andover-based company that offered computer hacking software to Hosni Mubaraks Egyptian security forces in 2010. The use of such technology is strictly governed in the UK by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which states that to intercept communications a warrant must be authorised by the home secretary and be both necessary and proportionate. The terms of

Potential abuse
How surveillance is presented to the public is targeted monitoring of individuals where there is strong suspicion of wrongdoing and some sort of judicial oversight to prevent abuses, he said. But what these files show is that surveillance is increasingly wholesale monitoring of entire populations where there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. Everyones communications are being harvested and stored in the hope that they might some other time be useful. The
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THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH XMAS SPECIAL