Details Leak From Inside Putin's 'Humourless And Draconian' Internet Troll Army

from the ministry-of-truth dept

With fifteen years under my belt writing about astroturf, think tanks, fauxcademics, and other dirty lobbying and policy tricks, I've always had a hobbyist's fascination with propaganda, especially online. When done "correctly," disinformation or guerrilla marketing is utterly invisible. When done poorly -- you get more comedic, ham-fisted attempts at information control, like Scientology's personal website's attacks on the new HBO documentary "Going Clear" or, well, ISP-paid sockpuppets who insist they fight net neutrality because they just love internet freedom so very much.

Of course, the one-two punch of violence and propaganda has for some time put Putin's Russia on another level of intellectual aggression. The Guardian recently penned a pretty fascinating interview with several members of Putin's internet troll army, paid to spam forums, websites, and social networks around the globe with pro-Putin propaganda. Working in twelve-hour shifts in a nondescript building marked "business center," hundreds of writers work in "humourless and draconian" teams dedicated toward supporting Putin's worldview for 45,000 rubles ($790) a month. And it often works:

"The scariest thing is when you talk to your friends and they are repeating the same things you saw in the technical tasks, and you realize that all this is having an effect,” the former worker said.

Marat, 40, worked in a different department, where employees went methodically through chat forums in various cities, leaving posts. "First thing in the morning, we’d come in, turn on a proxy server to hide our real location, and then read the technical tasks we had been sent,” he said. The trolls worked in teams of three. The first one would leave a complaint about some problem or other, or simply post a link, then the other two would wade in, using links to articles on Kremlin-friendly websites and “comedy” photographs lampooning western or Ukrainian leaders with abusive captions.

The staffers work around the clock creating and maintaining proxied, viable fake personas, sure to discuss their favorite music and recipes, peppered authentically with rants about the Kiev government being fascist. Hand in hand with tens of thousands of Twitter bots, they create a massive sound wall that makes Apple's reality distortion field look like a nineteenth century circus performance. The Guardian points to websites like this one set up with Internet memes to make mocking Putin opponents that much easier:

"Many of them have obvious racist or homophobic overtones. Barack Obama eating a banana or depicted as a monkey, or the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in drag, declaring: “We are preparing for European integration.” The trolls have to post the photographs together with information they can pull from a website marketed as a “patriotic Russian Wikipedia”, featuring ideologically acceptable versions of world events."

Of course, as Glyn noted earlier this week, the Russian government has moved to "clarify" existing law and is now declaring all internet memes illegal -- unless of course you're paid by the government to twist and distort the very fabric of online reality. It probably goes without saying that the United States certainly is no saint on this front (industry astroturfing or the media coverage of the Iraq war quickly leap to mind), but Putin's frontal-assault on the internet is starting to make Orwell's darkest predictions seem like playful childhood fiction.

Filed Under: internet trolls, memes, russia, troll army, vladimir putin

Vladimir Putin Restricting Naughty Language And 'Unregistered' Bloggers

from the a-personal-threat dept

I've always kind of known that Vladimir Putin was a bit of a bastard. Between his hypocrisy on government snooping, to his horrific record on matters of artistic and political speech, and his absolute willingness to destabilize his neighborhood in favor of having Russia pick up some territory that didn't belong to it in the form of Georgia and Ukraine. That said, two recent actions by Putin are starting to make me think this guy might just be as bad as everyone says.

The first is what appears to be an entirely childish attempt to stifle supposedly naughty language in the arts.

Any new film containing obscene language won't be granted a distribution certificate, so there's no chance of seeing it at the movie theater. And copies of books, CDs or films containing swearing can only be distributed in a sealed package labeled "Contains obscene language," a Kremlin statement said. According to state news agency ITAR-Tass, individuals caught using foul language face a fine of up to $70, while officials can be fined up to $40 and businesses nearly $1,400. They face a higher fine and a three-month suspension of business for repeated offenses.

As of the time of this writing, it's unclear exactly what will constitute "obscene" language, though the Russian government has helpfully noted that they'll be the ones judging such obscenities with an "independent examination," which is likely to be just as "independent" as you'd suppose. Given the fact that Russia has found the LGBT community in the past to be oh-so icky-icky, you'd have to imagine that language dealing with their community will be on the list, alongside some of the hallmark swear words, like religiously offensive language, f-bombs, and-

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

Er, thank you, Mr. President. My problem with this should be obvious: I love swearing. Seriously, I use the f-word as a verbal comma. But putting me aside, the idea that a developed nation's leader could think so little of his own people as to make it the state's responsibility to protect their delicate little ears is beyond silly. Restrictions on free speech are one thing, but when you're restricting the only speech that makes logical sense as a reaction to the very restriction on that speech, things have gone recursively wrong. Because if your first reaction to someone telling you that you can't swear any longer isn't "Well, shit," then you have a problem.

But if you thought that Putin was going to get blasted for this motherly move online, you may not know that he also signed into law the requirement for bloggers with even modest readership to register with the government and ban anonymity on their sites, which we were among the first to report about a few weeks back:

Russia has taken another major step toward restricting its once freewheeling Internet, as President Vladimir V. Putin quietly signed a new law requiring popular online voices to register with the government, a measure that lawyers, Internet pioneers and political activists said Tuesday would give the government a much wider ability to track who said what online.

Widely known as the “bloggers law,” the new Russian measure specifies that any site with more than 3,000 visitors daily will be considered a media outlet akin to a newspaper and be responsible for the accuracy of the information published. Besides registering, bloggers can no longer remain anonymous online, and organizations that provide platforms for their work such as search engines, social networks and other forums must maintain computer records on Russian soil of everything posted over the previous six months.

This is, of course, aimed at chilling speech critical of Putin's Russian government, which currently seems to be attempting to scale back the whole democracy thing and inch closer and closer to the days of the Soviet Union. I don't say that lightly. Russia's restrictions on speech, freedom, persecution of minorities, and a clear aim towards expansion of real territory and cultural influence are something right out of the post World War Two era. This might scare some people, but not me.

Why? Because, just like the recent revolution in Ukraine, this kind of thing doesn't work any longer. And, yes, I realize that there are nations out there that still restrict the internet, speech, and freedoms, but they don't go from democratically free back to repression any longer. That whole thing about the internet being the "Wild West" is true in some ways. Putin will never be able to plug all the holes. He'll never be able to tamp down all the critical speech. And, like the former Ukraine government found before him, he will end up finding that the tighter he grips the internet's throat, the stronger it will fight back. It may not be quick, but it will happen.

Filed Under: blogging, cursing, free speech, offensive language, russia, vladimir putin

Putin's 'Clapper' Moment: What He Said Vs. What Russian Intelligence Actually Does

from the did-anyone-expect-Putin-to-actually-confirm-this? dept

Snowden's puzzling single-question Q&A with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the topic of domestic surveillance prompted many to believe this was an indication that he was, at the very least, under control of Russian intelligence, if not actually acting in concert with it. Putin took the apparent softball and lined it right down the middle, responding with a series of statements and denials that made Russia appear to be the antithesis of the US government: tightly controlled intelligence built on respect for its citizens' privacy.

As Snowden later clarified, he was pulling a Wyden -- crafting a question about the mass collection and storage of communications that would either result in transparency or an easily-disproven denial. Putin delivered the latter.

"Mr Snowden you are a former agent, a spy, I used to work for a intelligence service, we are going to talk the same language."

He said Russia did not have a comparable programme, stating: "Our agents are controlled by law. You have to get court permission to put an individual under surveillance. We don't have mass permission, and our law makes it impossible for that kind of mass permission to exist."

Putin's response was laughable. After all, his nation's intelligence services originally put the "surveillance" in Surveillance State. In the USSR, along with the Eastern Bloc, citizens were very closely watched and routinely punished for not toeing the Party line.

Not much has changed, even if Russia is nominally a "free" country. The Russian Federal Service for Telecoms Supervision (Roskomnazdor) is continually expanding its internet censorship efforts and Russian intelligence services have made public announcements about their surveillance plans, like the collection of all foreign communications during the Sochi Olympics.

While Roskomnazdor mans the front door, Russian intelligence lets itself in the back, according to information gathered by Privacy International.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of the KGB’s regional branches became the security services of the newly independent states. But they didn’t stray far from the Kremlin’s lead. They modeled their governing laws after Moscow’s, and used similar technology, too. Namely, SORM — Russia’s nationwide system of automated and remote legal interception on all kinds of communications.

SORM’s tactical and technical foundations were developed by a KGB research institute in the mid-1980s. Initially SORM was installed on analogue telephone lines. As new technologies developed, SORM did, as well.

Today SORM-1 intercepts telephone traffic, including mobile networks, while SORM-2 is responsible for intercepting internet traffic, including VoIP. SORM-3 gathers information from all communication media, and offers long-term storage (three years), providing access to all data on subscribers. In addition, SORM enables the use of mobile control points, a laptop that can be plugged directly into communication hubs and immediately intercept and record the operator’s traffic.

SORM also proved essential to spy on social networks based in Russia. “We can use SORM to take stuff off their servers behind their backs,” an FSB official told us. According to figures published by Russia’s Supreme Court, over the last five years the number of legal telephone intercepts alone has almost doubled, from 265,937 intercepts and recordings of phone calls and e-mails to 466,152 in 2011.

Going back to Putin's statement, he claims that "court permission" is needed to put someone under surveillance. From the above paragraph, that statement would appear to be true. But further digging into SORM reveals that court orders and warrants are little more than surveillance blank checks.

In Russia, an FSB operative is also required to get an eavesdropping warrant, but he is not obliged to show it to anyone. Telecom providers have no right to demand that the FSB show them the warrant. The providers are required to pay for the SORM equipment and its installation, but they are denied access to the surveillance boxes.

Thus, the FSB does not need to contact the ISP’s staff; instead the security service calls on the special controller at the FSB HQ that is connected by a protected cable directly to the SORM device installed on the ISP network. This system is copied all over the country: In every Russian town there are protected underground cables, which connect the HQ of the local FSB department with all ISPs and telecom providers in the region.

If the FSB needs to add targets to its existing "tap," it doesn't need to notify the court. The agent in place simply updates the SORM control device. So, one controller and one court order can easily trap the communications of an unlimited number of citizens, all without anyone but SORM knowing who's being surveilled. This technology has made its way to the former Eastern Bloc (which hasn't made those countries happy) and has been deployed to intercept communications from political opponents. The more things change, the more Russian intelligence appears to be happy to return to its KGB heyday.

Beyond the fact that Putin's answer was simply (and knowingly) false, there's also the fact that his denials echo those delivered by NSA and GCHQ officials. Whenever a new leak surfaces, the routine denial is dispensed. Here's GCHQ's canned response:

[A]ll of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight…

Putin basically says the same thing while denying information that's already been made public. According to him, it's all legal and subject to oversight, something that clearly isn't the case. Certainly Snowden expected a canned answer, and he got one -- one in which Putin lied about his intelligence agency's capabilities and tactics. At one point, we in the US (and the UK) could have mocked such a clearly false denial, but after the events of the past nine months, we no longer have that luxury.

The problem isn't that we don't expect Russia's government to have made a sea change in its relationship with its citizens. The problem is that we didn't expect ours had. Putting this on Snowden's head because a softball question was handled with a PR-savvy answer doesn't make him complicit with the FSB's surveillance activities. But our politicians and government agencies have made us unwillingly complicit with our own. "Legality" and "oversight" are mere buzzwords in the hands of surveillance state defenders. The words don't mean what they used to… if they ever meant anything at all.

Filed Under: ed snowden, fsb, russia, surveillance, vladimir putin

Snowden Calls BS On Putin's Answer: Says He Was Playing The Role Of Ron Wyden

from the your-move dept

Yesterday we, like many, were perplexed by Ed Snowden's decision to go on a Russian television program, and to ask Vladimir Putin a question about whether or not the Russians do mass surveillance like the NSA does (which was, of course, exposed by Ed Snowden). It was clearly playing into Putin's propaganda efforts, because Putin immediately took the opportunity to insist that no, Russia does not do mass surveillance like that. Of course, Putin's answer was not true. Many of Snowden's detractors immediately jumped on this as an example of how he was working for the Putin propaganda machine -- and many (including us), wondered if he was, at the very least, pressured to play a role in order to keep his temporary asylum. Others thought he was just being naive. Some Snowden supporters, however, insisted that we should hear him out, and see if there was some more specific motive behind his question.

Apparently, we didn't have to wait long. Snowden himself has now directly called Putin out for lying about Russian surveillance, and said that his question was designed to act similar to Senator Ron Wyden's now famous question to James Clapper, leading to Clapper's lie, which (in part) sparked Snowden's decision to finally release the files he'd been collecting. Snowden, writing in the Guardian, explained:

On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: "Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?"

I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.

The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion. (See a side-by-side comparison of Wyden's question and mine here.)

Clapper's lie – to the Senate and to the public – was a major motivating force behind my decision to go public, and a historic example of the importance of official accountability.

From there, he explains why he thinks Putin was lying, and how he expects this to now be exposed in Russia, as it was in the US:

In his response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial – and we'll get to them soon – but it was not the president's suspiciously narrow answer that was criticised by many pundits. It was that I had chosen to ask a question at all.

I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticise the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question – and Putin's evasive response – in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it.

The investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, perhaps the single most prominent critic of Russia's surveillance apparatus (and someone who has repeatedly criticised me in the past year), described my question as "extremely important for Russia". It could, he said, "lift a de facto ban on public conversations about state eavesdropping."

Snowden also pointed out the remarkably similar response from Putin and Obama when asked about their domestic surveillance programs, and noted that he expects the Russian press to finally start challenging Putin on this assertion.

When this event comes around next year, I hope we'll see more questions on surveillance programs and other controversial policies. But we don't have to wait until then. For example, journalists might ask for clarification as to how millions of individuals' communications are not being intercepted, analysed or stored, when, at least on a technical level, the systems that are in place must do precisely that in order to function. They might ask whether the social media companies reporting that they have received bulk collection requests from the Russian government are telling the truth.

Finally, he notes that his position continues to remain entirely consistent:

I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them.

Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded "will make our nation stronger". I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then.

I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims.

I don't think many people -- other than perhaps the most diehard Snowden supporters -- expected something quite like this. For months, many Snowden detractors have repeatedly criticized Snowden for not speaking out against Russian authoritarianism and surveillance. Many of us have felt that those criticisms were significantly off-base, in part because that wasn't Snowden's particular fight (nor did he have any unique knowledge of Russian surveillance, as he did with the US). It seemed like a stupid false equivalency to try to make Snowden look bad. And when he asked his question to Putin, some people argued that this showed he was actually "questioning" Russian surveillance. Except that the TV question felt like such a softball, so designed to allow Putin to spin some propaganda that this didn't really seem like Snowden challenging anything.

However, this latest response suggests that Snowden is (once again) playing a game where he's several moves ahead of many folks. The question may have set up a propaganda answer, but it appears there was a bigger strategy behind it -- and one that remains entirely consistent with what Snowden has claimed his position has been since the beginning. Frankly, while this possibility was raised about his original question to Putin, many people (myself included) thought it was unlikely that Snowden would so directly go after his current hosts (who only became his hosts thanks to the US pulling his passport). Putin is not known for gracefully handling those who directly challenge him, and I don't think it would be surprise anyone if Snowden had continued to stay out of the question of Russian surveillance, simply out of basic necessity.

Snowden, however, has said from the beginning, that this story has never been about him, and he accepts that the end result of his starting the process may not be good for himself. He's made it clear that he was willing to effectively sacrifice himself to get this debate going -- and having done it once, he apparently has decided he can do it again in another context. While I was confused by this move 24 hours ago, I'll admit it was because I never thought Snowden would go this far (and so quickly) to criticize Russia while he was there. Already, given what Snowden did in releasing the NSA documents, he's shown that he's much braver (and in many ways, patriotic to the public) than just about anyone. In now questioning -- and then calling BS on Putin's answer -- he's shown that bravery was not a one-time thing, but a position he intends to live by going forward.

Snowden likely made a lot more powerful enemies today -- including more who could make life very uncomfortable for him very soon. But he also showed why the public, around the globe, owes him an incredibly large debt of gratitude, one which it's unclear we'll ever be able to pay off.

Filed Under: ed snowden, ron wyden, russia, surveillance, vladimir putin

Recently Departed Founder Of Russia's Facebook Says Gov't Demanded Data On Ukrainian Protestors

from the surveillance-made-simple dept

While we're still puzzled by Ed Snowden's question to Vladimir Putin concerning Russian surveillance, it's pretty well accepted that the Russians have significant surveillance powers, and they're not afraid to use them. Now the outspoken ousted founder of "Russia's Facebook," VKontakte, Pavel Durov, has said that Russian intelligence service FSB had demanded info on Ukrainian protestors -- and that VKontakte had refused to provide it. As Mashable explains:

"On December 13, 2013 the FSB demanded from us to turn over the personal data of organizers of the Euromaidan protesters," Pavel Durov wrote in a post (English translation) on his VKontakte page on Wednesday.

"Our response has been and remains a categorical refusal — Russian jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users VKontakte," he wrote. "Giving personal details Ukrainians Russian authorities would not only be against the law, but also a betrayal of all those millions of people in Ukraine who have trusted us."

This actually provides some more background details on what happened with VKontakte and Durov in the past few months. In January, Durov "sold" his stake in the site to the CEO of a Russian mobile operator. Many people noted at the time that this was unlikely to have been a wholly voluntary transaction. Having known some folks working for startups/tech companies in Russia, stories of being "forced" to sell are not exactly uncommon.

Durov himself had been outspoken for a while about the importance of secure communications, and had criticized both the NSA and the FSB for mass surveillance. He's also been working for a while on a secure messaging app (separate from VKontakte).

Then, just a few weeks ago, despite promises that when he sold his shares, nothing would change about his management role, he abruptly resigned. It was noted at the time that he had been under pressure to shut down pages related to Alexei Navalny, an opposition candidate to the current government, whose web presence was broadly censored by the Russian government last month. However, it was also hinted at that Durov had been asked to give up info on Ukrainian protestors. His latest comments appear to confirm those rumors.

Also, given that he's no longer there, and this appears to be part of the reason, it seems reasonable to believe that the FSB now does likely have access to such information via VKontakte. For whatever Putin thought he was proving with his answer to Snowden's question, it's pretty clear that Russian surveillance reaches far and wide. And, of course, the NSA's activities allow him to play it off as less intrusive than the NSA (even if that's not true). Either way, all of this seems to highlight why we all need much more secure communications systems.

Filed Under: fsb, pavel durov, privacy, surveillance, ukraine, vladimir putin
Companies: vk, vkontakte

Snowden Asks Putin Live On TV If Russia Carries Out Mass Surveillance; But Why?

from the what-on-earth-was-he-thinking? dept

Edward Snowden has generally been staying out of the limelight so that the NSA story is about the surveillance not the whistleblower. He's given occasional interviews and delivered a few short speeches via videolink, but usually of a fairly low-key nature. That makes his unexpected appearance today on a marathon televised question-and-answer session with Vladimir Putin -- again by videolink -- extremely odd. Here's his question, as reported by The Guardian:

Snowden asked: "Does Russia intercept or store or analyse the communication of millions of individuals?" He went on to ask whether increasing the effectiveness of internal security systems could ever justify such actions.

To which Putin replied:

"Mr Snowden you are a former agent, a spy, I used to work for a intelligence service, we are going to talk the same language."

He said Russia did not have a comparable programme, stating: "Our agents are controlled by law. You have to get court permission to put an individual under surveillance. We don't have mass permission, and our law makes it impossible for that kind of mass permission to exist."

He said he was aware that "criminals and terrorists" relied on this kind of [technology], and that their actions demanded a response from the security services. "We have to use technical means to respond to their crimes, including those of a terrorist nature, we do have some efforts like that. We don't have a mass control. I hope we [w]on't do that," he said.

It's really hard to know why Snowden asked this question. Perhaps he wanted to emphasize the disproportionate nature of NSA spying by contrasting it with Russia's approach; perhaps he thought his appearance would jolt a jaded public and focus renewed attention on the key issues. But surely he must have guessed that Putin would answer as he did -- whether or not it is true -- that Russia uses surveillance strictly according to the law, that there is no massive, disproportionate spying of the kind practiced by the NSA, etc. etc. He must have known that Putin would easily turn Snowden's question into a wonderful opportunity to score points against the US.

Inevitably, then, this appearance will be leapt on by those who have maintained that Snowden is some kind of Russian spy, and that he has been working for Putin all along. As Techdirt has noted, that story doesn't stand up, but this unexpected intervention by Snowden certainly doesn't do anything to dispel it. For someone who until now has judged when and how to make public statements so skilfully and effectively, this seems like an incredible misstep. It really makes you wonder what might lie behind it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: ed snowden, fsb, mass surveillance, nsa, russia, surveillance, vladimir putin

Russia Admits Its Strict Anti-Piracy Laws Aren't Working... So They'll Just Try Some More

from the definition-of-insanity dept

For years, we've pointed out the ridiculousness of how copyright maximalists are always screaming about the need for "anti-piracy" laws to stop infringement, which they insist is killing them. In the US, new anti-piracy laws are proposed (and often passed) every couple of years -- and the end result is always the same: infringement continues unabated. But rather than learn from that, and realize that a different approach is needed, maximalists always assume the answer is MOAR ENFORCEMENT!. Despite basically all of human history showing that enforcement is no real solution, including some rather detailed modern evidence, maximalists see enforcement/anti-piracy laws as the only hammer to deal with the infringement nail.

The latest example of this is in Russia, a country that the US attacked for years for its supposedly lax approach to dealing with copyright infringement. However, in the last year or so, Russia has massively ratcheted up its "anti-piracy" laws, giving the government incredible powers to censor sites that it deems infringing. And it's been using that law, demanding sites be blocked entirely by ISPs. Yet, it appears that both providers of authorized services and government officials (all the way up to Vladimir Putin) are admitting that the law simply hasn't been "working" to stop infringement or drive people to legitimate services.

But, rather than recognize that perhaps a different approach is needed, the Russians have apparently decided to double-down on the failed policy:

“It is necessary to consider additional steps to protect intellectual property rights,” Putin concluded.

Of course, it should be noted that there is also an ulterior motive in Russia. Putin and others long ago realized that copyright laws are an incredibly effective tool for attacking government critics, stifling dissent and censoring political opponents. And, even better, Russia knows that it can do this with US approval, because the US stupidly keeps demanding Russia do more to fight copyright infringement. So, they keep ratcheting up those laws... and then use them to stifle dissent and censor critics. But... none of it actually drives people to buy legitimate content. But I doubt the Russian government really cares, as that will just give them another excuse to ratchet up those censorship laws for other purposes.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, enforcement, free speech, russia, vladimir putin

Now That The NSA Has Made It The Norm, Total Surveillance During The Sochi Olympic Games Is No Longer Noteworthy

from the welcome-to-the-(permanent)-olympics dept

In addition to being an opportunity to stretch copyright and trademark rules way beyond the law, over the years, the Olympics has also become an occasion when the feeble "because terrorism" excuse is deployed to justify all kinds of additional restrictions on personal freedoms. It will come as no surprise to learn that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Vladimir Putin's pet project, will continue the tradition:

every phone call, every email, every social media message in Sochi will be accessible, traceable by Russia's Federal Security Service -- the FSB -- the organization in charge of securing the Olympics.

The CBC News report quoted above goes on:

it's the extent of all the surveillance the FSB is planning that has deepened much of the disquiet, at home and abroad, over the coming games.

For Russia, surveillance measures may be something of a force of habit.

If this piece had been written a year ago, those paragraphs could have been read unironically. But today, in the post-Snowden world, it is impossible not to replace "FSB" with "NSA" or "GCHQ". Since we now know that practically "every phone call, every email, every social media message" in the world -- not just in Sochi -- is accessible to the US authorities, it's as if we find ourselves in a global Olympics lockdown. But unlike the quadrennial Olympics, this particular circus shows no sign of moving on.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: olympics, russia, sochi, surveillance, vladimir putin

When Vladimir Putin Is Envious Of Your Surveillance State, You've Gone Too Far

from the that's-quite-a-statement dept

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a big press conference on Thursday, and spent some time talking about President Obama, Ed Snowden and the various US surveillance programs that have been revealed. Putin appeared to be quite supportive of the surveillance programs, saying that he believes that the US's surveillance programs are a "necessity" and "mainly directed at fighting terrorism," so there's not a real problem with them. He even defended collecting data on everyone "because you have to monitor not only a specific terrorist suspect, but rather his whole network of relationships." That Vladimir Putin would appreciate vast spying power is hardly a surprise. But this claim is raising some eyebrows:

"How do I feel about Obama after Snowden's revelations? I envy him because he can do this without incurring any consequences."

Did you catch that? Putin, the former head of the KGB, and very well known for using Russian intelligence services to his strong advantage is envious that President Obama has all this surveillance capabilities at his fingertips and that all of this can be revealed "without incurring any consequences." It seems like there should be a general rule of thumb: when Vladimir Putin is envious of your surveillance state, you've gone too far.

Filed Under: barack obama, nsa, surveillance, surveillance state, vladimir putin

US Hypocrisy Exposed: Has A Long History Of Rejecting Extradition Requests

from the dear-obama:-get-over-yourself dept

We've already discussed the general immaturity and petty nature of President Obama's decision to cancel his planned summit with Vladimir Putin over granting Ed Snowden asylum. Glenn Greenwald is now pointing out that beyond just being petty, it also shows astounding hypocrisy by the Obama administration. Various members of the administration (along with Congress) have been acting like it's the worst offense in the world that Russia -- with whom we do not have an extradition treaty -- turned down the request for extradition. Yet, as Greenwald highlights, the US quite frequently turns down these requests, and they don't turn into massive international incidents that top the headlines like this story.

New York Times, February 28, 2007: Washington Post, July 19, 2013: The Guardian, September 9, 2012: [US refuses Bolivia's request to extradite its former CIA-supported president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, to stand trial on charges of genocide and other war crimes after de Lozada hires Democratic lobbyists to represent him]

El Paso Times, December 30, 2010:

The US constantly refuses requests to extradite - even where (unlike Russia) they have an extradition treaty with the requesting country and even where (unlike Snowden) the request involves actual, serious crimes, such as genocide, kidnapping, and terrorism. Maybe those facts should be part of whatever media commentary there is on Putin's refusal to extradite Snowden and Obama's rather extreme reaction to it.

There may, in fact, be legitimate reasons for refusing extradition requests. But for the US government to act like Russia's decision to give Snowden temporary asylum is some major slap in the face just seems pretty ridiculous in the face of its own actions.

Filed Under: barack obama, extradition, hypocrisy, vladimir putin