[bestbits] Surveillance: not just a US issue

[Pranesh Prakash]

A two-part piece I wrote in the NYT India blog on surveillance in India.

Part 1: How Surveillance Works in India
http://goo.gl/ahjDy4

Part 2: Can India Trust Its Government on Privacy?
http://goo.gl/ih4PLW

~ Pranesh

Anne Jellema [2013-10-04 09:21]:
> Hi all
> 
> Yet more evidence (this time from South Africa) that governments beyond the
> US are using technology to escalate surveillance of civilians, and for
> their own dubious reasons as well as to cooperate with the Americans.
> 
> Full disclosure: the author is my partner.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Anne
> 
> http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/10/04/surveillance-may-turn-many-of-us-into-enemies
> Surveillance may turn many of us into ‘enemies’
> BY ANTHONY BUTLER<http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/staffprofiles/2012/08/10/anthony-butler-profile>,
> 04 OCTOBER 2013, 05:51
> 
> SOUTH Africa’s intelligence operatives often appear hopelessly inept. But
> new technologies are empowering even the most incompetent spooks.
> Revelations by the WikiLeaks "Spy Files" project and whistle-blower Edward
> Snowden point to a large escalation in citizen surveillance.
> 
> In South Africa, crime intelligence and private investigators routinely
> circumvent the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act to access
> individual citizens’ e-mails and phone calls. Targets can simply be added
> to legitimate surveillance projects. Even more concerning is the likelihood
> that there is already systematic blanket surveillance by the state.
> 
> The Citizen Lab at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs recently
> revealed that FinSpy software is hosted by one or more South African
> computers, almost certainly within the government. FinSpy inserts "trojans"
> onto target computers and cellphones, allowing remote surveillance of
> keystrokes, passwords, text messages, e-mails and voice data. It can even
> turn a cellphone into a microphone to eavesdrop on private conversations
> (which explains some politicians’ unnerving habit of removing the batteries
> from their phones).
> 
> Huawei Technologies, the world’s second-biggest telecommunications company,
> is a recent investor in South Africa. According to one assessment in
> Foreign Affairs magazine, Huawei is a Chinese intelligence agency
> "masquerading as a tech business". Using software developed for domestic
> repression, it could allegedly supply passive surveillance capability to a
> friendly ruling party.
> 
> A much smaller local company, VASTech, has been a focus of WikiLeaks’
> attention. The Wall Street Journal revealed in 2011 that the
> Stellenbosch-based firm’s systems helped the Gadaffi regime monitor
> millions of mobile and landline calls. This technology was also reportedly
> sold to the Mubarak state.
> 
> WikiLeaks-hosted company documents show that VASTech’s Zebra system can
> monitor 20-million voice channels simultaneously. Such blanket interception
> is complemented by archiving power that allows agents to "backtrack and
> retrieve all the communications of suspects prior to an incident". Network
> analysis permits the identification of "key relationships between
> stakeholders" and lays bare "the structure and operation of syndicate
> networks".
> 
> Even anonymous cellphones are no defence against Zebra: it uses "speaker
> identification" technology to "reveal unknown numbers and new mobile
> devices used by targets".
> 
> VASTech describes surveillance targets as "criminals and enemies of the
> public". But it is officials in state agencies, and not software suppliers,
> who decide how technology is used. Given that the state’s national
> interception centre probably possesses such instruments, can citizens be
> confident that intrastate oversight mechanisms are effective?
> 
> Drug-smuggling, xenophobia, illicit commerce, and human trafficking, among
> many other matters, are routinely touted as "threats to national security".
> This could license the surveillance of a vast swathe of commercial entities
> and citizens.
> 
> Surveillance systems are excellent instruments for the mapping of internal
> political party factions. It is possible to take a player in national,
> provincial or local politics, reconstruct his "collaboration networks", and
> eavesdrop on his archived conversations. There is nothing to prevent such
> technology being used against recalcitrant trade unionists — especially
> when, as State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele has observed, so much
> industrial action is "illegal".
> 
> The KwaZulu-Natal police’s Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale made the insightful
> observation this week that service delivery protesters are also criminals.
> A protest, he noted, "stops being a protest when a crime is committed … if
> you are impeding the flow of traffic, then obviously you’ll be in conflict
> with the law".
> 
> South Africa is experiencing a rapid expansion in the reach and potential
> power of state surveillance. It is unclear how to prevent what may become
> an equally rapid rise in the number of citizens defined by state agencies
> as "enemies of the public".
> 
> • *Butler teaches politics at the University of Cape Town.*
> 

-- 
Pranesh Prakash
Policy Director
Centre for Internet and Society
T: +91 80 40926283 | W: http://cis-india.org
PGP ID: 0x1D5C5F07 | Twitter: @pranesh_prakash
-------------------+
Postgraduate Associate & Access to Knowledge Fellow
Information Society Project, Yale Law School
T: +1 520 314 7147 | W: http://yaleisp.org

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