TDB Top 5 International Stories: Monday 24th October 2016

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5: The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance

IT WAS A POWERFUL piece of technology created for an important customer. The Medusa system, named after the mythical Greek monster with snakes instead of hair, had one main purpose: to vacuum up vast quantities of internet data at an astonishing speed.

The technology was designed by Endace, a little-known New Zealand company. And the important customer was the British electronic eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

Dozens of internal documents and emails from Endace, obtained by The Intercept and reported in cooperation with Television New Zealand, reveal the firm’s key role helping governments across the world harvest vast amounts of information on people’s private emails, online chats, social media conversations, and internet browsing histories.

The leaked files, which were provided by a source through SecureDrop, show that Endace listed a Moroccan security agency implicated in torture as one of its customers. They also indicate that the company sold its surveillance gear to more than half a dozen other government agencies, including in the United States, Israel, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Spain, and India.

Some of Endace’s largest sales in recent years, however, were to the United Kingdom’s GCHQ, which purchased a variety of “data acquisition” systems and “probes” that it used to covertly monitor internet traffic.

Documents from the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, previously disclosed by The Intercept, have shown how GCHQ dramatically expanded its online surveillance between 2009 and 2012. The newly obtained Endace documents add to those revelations, shining light for the first time on the vital role played by the private sector in enabling the spying.

Stuart Wilson, Endace’s CEO, declined to answer questions for this story. Wilson said in a statement that Endace’s technology “generates significant export revenue for New Zealand and builds important technical capability for our country.” He added: “Our commercial technology is used by customers worldwide … who rely on network recording to protect their critical infrastructure and data from cybercriminals, terrorists, and state-sponsored cybersecurity threats.”

The Intercept

 

4:  New York Mayor Apologizes for Police Killing of Mentally Ill Woman, But Will Accountability Follow?

New Yorkers are protesting yet another fatal police shooting after 66-year-old African American Deborah Danner was killed by a New York Police Department sergeant Tuesday. Danner had mental health issues, including schizophrenia. Police say she was shot and killed in her own home in the Bronx, after a neighbor called 911. When police arrived, they found Danner naked in her bedroom holding a pair of scissors. Authorities say Sergeant Hugh Barry fatally shot her after she picked up a baseball bat. Mayor Bill de Blasio said her death “should never have happened.” We get response from Shaun King, senior justice writer for the New York Daily News. “It wasn’t just a mistake,” King says. “A woman who deserved treatment and compassion was shot and killed. We’re talking about a crime.”

Democracy Now

 

3:  Battle for Mosul: Turkey confirms military involvement

Turkey has confirmed its troops have fired at positions held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in a town near Mosul after receiving a request by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters for assistance.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildrim announced on Sunday Turkey’s involvement in the military offensive near Bashiqa, a town east of Mosul. He said that the Kurdish Peshmerga requested Turkey’s assistance.

A Peshmerga commander also confirmed to Al Jazeera that Turkey shelled ISIL positions using artillery at the request of the Peshmerga.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, took control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2014. A major drive to remove the hardline group from Mosul began last Monday.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are advancing on Bashiqa having launched a new operation on Sunday.

Aljazeera

 

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2:  There’s one massive problem with the latest attack ad against Donald Trump

The latest Democratic attack ad aimed at Donald Trump may have been right about some of his characteristics. But in comparing the Republican presidential candidate to controversial foreign strongmen, the Democrats made one big mistake.

Just a normal attack ad, right?

The advert in question was in Spanish, and its target audience was the growing and increasingly influential Latino community in the US – one that Donald Trump has consistently managed to offend and smear throughout the election campaign.

The Democratic National Committee (not the Clinton campaign) paid for the advert, which selectively edited comments by Trump that Clinton should be jailed and that he would sue media outlets responsible for spreading “purposely negative, horrible and false” articles. The aim was to portray the Republican candidate as an authoritarian figure. And Trump has indeed shown in the last year (through his words, actions, and suggested policies) that he has sexist, racist, and authoritarian tendencies.

But when the advert tried to compare Trump to strong leaders from abroad, it really missed the mark.

Trump? A socialist?

Comparing Trump with fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini may not be far off the mark. Some of his policies have already been likened to Hilter’s, after all, and Slate Magazine’s Jamelle Bouie outlined quite comprehensively in November 2015 why the best political label for him would be “fascist”.

The Canary

 

1:  Brexit: leading banks set to pull out of UK early next year

Britain’s biggest banks are preparing to relocate out of the UK in the first few months of 2017 amid growing fears over the impending Brexit negotiations, while smaller banks are making plans to get out before Christmas.

The dramatic claim is made in the Observer by the chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, Anthony Browne, who warns “the public and political debate at the moment is taking us in the wrong direction”.

A source close to the Brexit secretary, David Davis, said he and the chancellor, Philip Hammond, had last week sought to offer reassurance that they were determined to secure the status of the City of London.

However, the government’s stated intention to take control of the freedom of movement into the UK is widely recognised among officials to be a hammer blow to any chance of retaining the present terms of trade for banks, particularly given the bellicose rhetoric of major politicians on the continent.

The Guardian