Government Spying: Snowden Says Technology Companies Should Lead on Data Encryption - by Adam Satariano

Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents revealing the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency, said technology companies need to take a leadership role in improving encryption tools.

“There’s a technical response that needs to occur,” said Snowden, speaking through a video feed to a packed room of more than 3,000 people today at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Technology companies can add layers of security that make it harder for intelligence agencies to scour for data, and can do it faster than new surveillance-oversight laws can be implemented, he said.

Snowden is now a fugitive in Russia to avoid arrest following last year’s release of the documents, which disclosed how global spy agencies collect vast amounts of data about phone calls and online activities. The revelations frayed U.S. relationships with countries such as Brazil and Germany and set off a global debate about whether the government is overstepping its authority and violating privacy to bolster security.

The leaks from Snowden, a former NSA contractor, showed that the U.S. had been collecting phone records as well as data from companies such as Google Inc. (GOOG), Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. The disclosures made Snowden a hero to some people who want to see government activities reined in, while others, including U.S. President Barack Obama, say his actions compromised efforts to combat terrorism.

Security and privacy have been main themes of South by Southwest this year. Known as the conference that helped catapult Twitter Inc. to popularity, the gathering typically focuses on the discovery of new social-networking companies. Instead, this year’s event has focused more on the drawbacks and consequences of sharing personal information online.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke at the conference on March 8 and said the group would soon release a new trove of classified information. He didn’t disclose the timing or the topic of the material because he said he didn’t want to give the subjects a chance to prepare.

Other speakers, including Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, have discussed the impact of Snowden’s leaks. Schmidt said the material alerted his company to the fact the U.S. government was intercepting data from Google’s servers. Schmidt said the company has since enhanced its encryption and is “pretty sure” the government can’t access the data.

Still, he said the company must comply with court orders for information. Schmidt said there must be a balance between transparency and security, because the government data being disclosed could put lives at risk. Assange and Snowden’s release of classified information have made them “celebrities,” Schmidt said, and may spawn copycat efforts, increasing the risk for harm if the disclosures aren’t done carefully.

Read more: Snowden Says Technology Companies Should Lead on Data Encryption - Bloomberg

NSA created 'European bazaar' to spy on EU citizens, Snowden tells European Parliament - by Loek Essers

"Don't worry EU, we are your friend"

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has turned the European Union into a tapping “bazaar” in order to spy on as many EU citizens as possible, NSA leaker Edward Snowden said.

The NSA has been working with national security agencies in EU member states to get access to as much data of EU citizens as possible, Snowden said in a testimony sent to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) published Friday March 7.

The European Parliament had invited Snowden to provide testimony for an inquiry into the electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens. That surveillance, often instigated by the NSA but carried out with help of EU member states, is quite extensive, he wrote.

The NSA has been pressuring EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance, according to Snowden. This is done through NSA’s Foreign Affairs Division (FAD), he said, adding that lawyers from the NSA and GCHQ work very hard “to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers,” he said.

The deals between the NSA and foreign partners are set up in such a way as to provide the NSA with a means of monitoring a partner’s citizens without informing the partner, and to provide the partner with a means of plausible deniability, he said.

“The result is a European bazaar, where an EU member state like Denmark may give the NSA access to a tapping center on the (unenforceable) condition that NSA doesn’t search it for Danes, and Germany may give the NSA access to another on the condition that it doesn't search for Germans. Yet the two tapping sites may be two points on the same cable, so the NSA simply captures the communications of the German citizens as they transit Denmark, and the Danish citizens as they transit Germany, all the while considering it entirely in accordance with their agreements,” Snowden said.

Snowden, who said that he’s still seeking asylum in the EU, also provided solutions to solve the mass surveillance problem.

It is easy to make mass surveillance more expensive through changes in technical standards, he said. “Pervasive, end-to-end encryption can quickly make indiscriminate surveillance impossible on a cost effective basis,” he said, adding that the result is that governments are likely to fall back to traditional, targeted surveillance founded upon an individualized suspicion.

The European Parliament is set to vote on a draft resolution on Wednesday March 12 that seeks to keep data protection out of EU-U.S. trade talks. The MEPs want the EU to suspend two deals with the U.S., one on exchanging banking data and the other on the Safe Harbor privacy principles for U.S. firms holding European data, as, they say, the fight against terrorism can never justify secret and illegal mass surveillance.

The MEPs will also vote on a proposal for stronger safeguards for data transfers to non-EU countries.

Wednesday’s vote could result in the updating of 19-year-old data-protection laws. Under MEPs’ amendments, companies breaking the rules would face fines of up to €100 million (about $139 million), or up to 5 percent of their annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater, according to the Parliament

Read more: NSA created 'European bazaar' to spy on EU citizens, Snowden tells European Parliament | PCWorld

Netherlands clamps down on marijuana as the US liberalizes it - by Mike Corder

"Weed Pass" needed to get into a Dutch coffee shop"

A young man at a bus stop hisses at a passerby: "What you looking for ... marijuana?" It's a scene of street peddling that the Netherlands hoped to stamp out in the 1970s when it launched a policy of tolerating "coffee shops" where people could buy and smoke pot freely.

But Maastricht's street dealers are back, local residents complain. And the reason is a crackdown on coffee shops triggered by another problem: Pot tourists who crossed the border to visit the cafés and made a nuisance of themselves by snarling traffic, dumping litter and even urinating in the streets.This exchange of one drug problem for another has become a headache for Maastricht - and may give reason for pause in the U.S. states of Washington and Colorado that recently allowed the sale of marijuana for the first time. The Netherlands, the world pioneer in pot liberalization, has recently taken a harder line toward marijuana, with mixed results seen particularly in border towns such as Maastricht.

The central government clampdown has involved barring people who live outside the Netherlands from coffee shops, and shuttering shops that are deemed to be too close to schools. There was even a short-lived policy that said smokers had to apply for a "Weed Pass" to get into a coffee shop. The new rules were rolled out across the country between the middle of 2012 and the beginning of last year.

Amsterdam, with about 200 licensed coffee shops, one-third of the nationwide total, still lets foreigners visit them, although it is closing coffee shops that are near schools.

One city that has embraced the crackdown wholeheartedly is Maastricht, in the southern province of Limburg close to the Dutch borders with Belgium and Germany.

Its mayor, Onno Hoes, says he enforced the legislation to halt a daily influx of thousands of foreigners who crossed the borders to stock up on pot at its 14 coffee shops. That effort to end so-called "drug tourism" has been successful, local residents say, but the flip side has been a rise in street dealers.

Read more: Netherlands clamps down on marijuana

Ukraine: Obama and Putin Playing Chess With New Cold War At Stake - by RM

It's amazing to hear US Senator McCaine calling for force to solve the Ukraine crises while President Obama and President Putin are playing a complicated game of chess in trying  to solve the problem without militarily involvement.

How can President Obama and his European allies counter Putin's opening gambit of this chess game? And how can the United States and the EU roll back what Putin has pulled off so far?

The US Obama Administration and the EU can-not and must-not confront Russia militarily -- it would be suicide in today's nuclear age.

At this point it looks like actions from the West against Russia, over the long term, will come in a form where it will hurt Russia and President Putin's popularity at home the most - economics.

But not everyone agrees that this scenario is the best course of action - certainly not the Republicans in the US, or for that matter, the conservative right-wingers in Britain.

US Republican Sen. John McCain - presently one of the the least popular senators in the US of those surveyed by the Public Policy Polling, with low marks from members of his own party, independents and Democrats, is among the Republican's loudest critics of the Obama Administration foreign policy.

He directly blamed President Obama's "incompetent" foreign policy for inviting the crisis in Ukraine and  recently told a pro-Israel group that the president has repeatedly failed to demonstrate American strength in the face of adversaries.

McCain was not the only Republican to criticize the Administration's handling of the crisis.Many other GOP critics just about tripped over each others feet to attack Obama.

On Sunday March 2, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., even went as far as to tell CNN in an interview, "we have a weak and indecisive president whom invites aggression.".

As an independent congressman remarked afterwards, "this kind of rhetoric by the Republicans can basically be qualified as that of five year old's playing with marbles and one suddenly throwing a tantrum."

To put some perspective as to the causes of what is happening in Ukraine, and why Obama and Putin are now having to negotiate and play a game of chess,  requires us to turn back the clock to when the Soviet Union (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. 

From that date onward,  the United States has relentlessly pursued a strategy of encircling Russia, just as it has with other perceived enemies like China and Iran.

At the same time, the US also increased its military capability in Europe after it brought an additional 12 countries from central Europe, all of them formerly allied with Moscow, into the already existing NATO alliance. This in fact has now brought US military power and might directly on Russia’s borders.

Apart from facing the issue of encirclement President Putin probably also had a few other sleepless nights after he compared US military spending, which is 40% of the worlds total military spending,  to that of his own country, which is only 5.5% of the total global military spending.

Let's face it and be realistic, Russia is now basically between "a rock and a hard place" and  that is not a good place for them or anyone else to be in.

Obviously there are no angels on either side -  but for this issue is to be resolved everyone has to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, calm down and reach a negotiated diplomatic solution.

EU-Digest

Netherlands freezes hundreds of millions in Ukrainian assets: by Anthony Deutsch

The Netherlands has frozen hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in Ukrainian assets, Dutch media reported Thursday night, citing the finance minister.

Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told the ANP news agency the assets were suspect.

The Dutch media reports did not provide any details.

A Finance Ministry official could not immediately be reached for comment.

Read more: Netherlands freezes hundreds of millions in Ukrainian assets: report | Reuters

Dutch EU elections: 'Are you for or against Europe?' - for say a large majority

On a recent Saturday afternoon in January, volunteers in the Dutch city of Utrecht were handing out soup and hot chocolate on behalf of the ruling coalition’s centre-left Labour Party. There was an open air event, with speeches and music, to mark the beginning of its electoral campaign.

This does not mean that Dutch voters are already thinking about the May elections to the European Parliament, however.

Labour held the Utrecht event because there are local elections on 19 March: The EU elections are barely on the public's radar.

While over half of respondents to a recent poll knew there will be another election this year, only a quarter knew that it will be for the EU parliament. Just three percent were able to pinpoint the date: 22 May.Interior minister Ronald Plasterk, a Labour member, expects the campaigns for the two elections to be “very distinct” from each other.

“The campaign for the European elections will be about the question 'are you for or against Europe’,” he told this website, referring to the prevailing issue on people's minds.

He added that the question "doesn't make sense."

But at the same time, the “are you in or are you out” of the EU framework, which British Prime Minister David Cameron has put on the agenda in Britain, is popular in the Netherlands too.

Three days after the Labour event, a group of eurosceptics gathered in the Dutch parliament in The Hague.

Some 63,000 people signed a citizens’ initiative to “stop the creeping transfer of powers to the EU” and to demand a referendum if more powers are transferred to Brussels. The spokesperson for the initiative was invited to speak to parliament on the issue.

A majority of MPs (112 to 38) voted No to a proposed referendum for the next potential transfer of powers, however. 

A Cameron-style referendum on leaving the EU altogether received even less support. Only the Socialist Party (15 seats), the Party for Freedom (14 seats), and an MP who recently left the Freedom party, voted in favour. 

Note EU-Digest: "the  eurosceptics are living in a dream world and need to do a reality check - only a United Europe makes any sense in today's world if Europe wants to benefit economically by having a voice in the Global Power structure ", said a Dutch Parliamentarian.

Read more: EUobserver / Dutch EU elections: 'Are you for or against Europe?'

Turks, Azerbaijans and friends of Azerbaijan commemorate Armenian Khojaly genocide victims in Fort Lauderdale - by RM

The Florida Turkish Center in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday evening, March 1, 2014 commemorated the cruel Armenian genocide of innocent Azerbaijan civilians at Khojaly..

Following an introduction by Mrs Tohfa Eminova,  President of the Florida Azerbaijan Association, Mr Samir Bejanov, Political Officer of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan  in Washington DC, provided the audience with a comprehensive report illustrated with slides and a video presentation of the actual sequence of events surrounding the Khojaly genocide. 

Mrs. Tohfa Eminova - (photo MB)

On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian occupation forces together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops stationed in Khankendi committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly.

Some 613 people were killed, 487 people were injured. Some 1275 residents were taken hostages. Most of them did not return from captivity. Their fate still remains unknown.

The Khojaly genocide is considered a crime not only against Azerbaijani people, but also against humanity, since it is fully consistent with the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted on December 9, 1948.

According to this Convention, any crime against people based on their ethnicity is called genocide. And in Khojaly people were killed just because they were Azerbaijanis.

Mr. Samir Bejanov (photo MB)

Following the establishment of the Soviet rule in Armenia in late 1920, the Armenians were presented with a real opportunity to fulfill their age-old dream of creating an Armenian State on the territories of other nations. 

During the 70-years of Soviet rule, the Armenians succeeded in expanding their territory at the expense of Azerbaijan and using every possible means to expel the Azerbaijanis from their lands. 

Also during this period, the policy to expel the Azerbaijanis from their lands was implemented systematically and methodically. 

In 1920 the Armenians declared Zangezur and a number of other Azerbaijani lands to be part of the territory of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1923 they managed to secure the status of an autonomous province for the mountainous part of Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Consequently this created an artificial entity within the territory of Azerbaijan, while the Azerbaijani population living in the territory of Armenia at that time were not given similar rights. 

The current stage of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan may be regarded as having formally begun on 20 February 1988, when the Soviet of the People’s Deputies of the Nagorny Karabakh Autonomous Province adopted a decision to petition the Supreme Soviets of the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR for the transfer of the province from the former to the latter.

 Florida Turkish American Association members (photo MB)

Before the adoption of this decision, basically at the end of 1987, the Azerbaijanis became subject of attacks in Khankendi (during the Soviet/Russian  period ) and this
resulted in a flood of Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons.

On 22 February 1988 near the settlement of Askeran on the Khankendi-Aghdam highway, the Armenians opened fire on a peaceful demonstration by the Azerbaijanis protesting against the above-mentioned decision of the Soviet People’s Deputies of the Nagorny Karabakh Autonomous Province. As a consequence two Azerbaijani youths lost their lives, becoming the first victims of the conflict.

In 1991 central law-enforcement agencies of the then USSR apprehended dozens of the Armenian armed groups that operated outside Nagorny Karabakh. As a result, the Chaykend village of the Khanlar district of Azerbaijan was turned by the Armenian armed groups into a criminal hub from which they bombed and shelled surrounding villages and roads, terrorizing the local Azerbaijani population. From 1989 to 1991, in Chaykend and adjacent areas 54 people fell victim to the Armenian armed groups. In 1992 Azerbaijan regained its control over the Goranboy district.

At the end of 1991 and the beginning of 1992 the conflict turned into a military phase. Taking advantage of the political instability as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and internal squabbles in Azerbaijan, Armenia initiated by giving external military assistance to combat operations in Nagorny Karabakh.

In February 1992, an unprecedented massacre was committed against the Azerbaijani population in the town of Khojaly. This bloody tragedy, which became known as the Khojaly genocide, involved the extermination or capture of thousands of Azerbaijanis as their town was razed to the ground.

During that fatal night of 25 to 26 February 1992 the Armenian armed forces, with the help of the infantry guards regiment No. 366 from the former USSR implemented the seizure of Khojaly - a small town situated in the small Nagorny Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan with a population  of 23,757, and cruelly decimated them. 

The large number of question from the audience during the question and answer period, following Mr. Bejanov's presentation, showed how much much the talk had impressed the audience. 

Given the present invasion of Russian troops into the Crimea area of Ukraine, the Fort Lauderdale Turkish Center presentation also provided  an actual insight as to Russian historical political strategies concerning their former territories. and spheres of influence    

The informative event at the Florida Turkish Center in Fort Lauderdale was concluded with Azerbaijan food and refreshments.

EU-Digest

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