Surveillance and technology round-up

CNN reports that the US Deparment of Homeland Security is funding a new project called Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST. Instead of focusing on whether you have hidden explosives or whether you’re carrying a weapon, sensors and cameras located at security checkpoints would measure the natural signals coming from your body — your heart rate, breathing, eye movement, body temperature and fidgeting. More on behavioral screening here.

Washington area police using mobile print reader, but critics worry about privacy.The fingerprint system, based on technology developed for the military, has helped police in Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland solve countless cases as officers use the devices on the street and during traffic stops. With a simple upgrade, for example, the fingerprint readers can take a picture of a suspect’s eyes and use the pattern of the iris for identification. Police say they hope the iris scanners will hit the streets in the next several years, a development civil rights activists say could lead to a troubling and unwanted surveillance of the general public.

Computerworld has an opinion by George Tillman on ‘the case against biometric identity theft protection’

The Daily Telegraph reports that ore than one in 10 people in the UK are now stored on the DNA database, as concerns grow over the scale of the surveillance state. 79 per cent of the public believe freedoms are being eroded by a Big Brother state while 86 per cent said the Government cannot be trusted to keep personal data safe.

In October the UK Border Agency announced its Human Provenance Project ‘to help identify a person’s true country of origin’ from their DNA. The Project was heavily criticised by a number of scientists.

NRC handelsblad reports that the law in the Netherlands says that intercepted phone calls between attorneys and their clients must be destroyed. But the Dutch government has been keeping under wraps for years that no one has the foggiest clue how to delete them. Now, an email (PDF) from the National Police Services Agency (KLPD) has surfaced, revealing that the working of the technology in question is a NetApp trade secret. The Dutch police are now trying to get their Israeli supplier Verint to tell them how to delete tapped calls and comply with the law. Meanwhile, attorneys in the Netherlands remain afraid to use their phones.

Detecter blog has a comment on the edition of ‘This Week’ which discussed the surveillance state.

Case Western Reserve University School of Law has posted a webcast of “Somebody’s Watching Me: Surveillance and Privacy in an Age of National Insecurity,” a two-day national security symposium that was presented by the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy on Oct. 23, 2009.

India’s intelligence services have asked the Government to consider banning Skype.

New ideas for the Afghanistan strategy

In Washington, the debate over Afghanistan seems to center around two broad ideas: counterinsurgency versus counterterrorism. Should the United States add troops for a more population-centric strategy, as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal advocates? Or should it use a less ground-heavy approach, disrupting Al Qaeda with Special Operation Forces and unmanned drones, as Vice President Joseph Biden argues? There is, of course, no shortage of other ideas. A 45-page paper, “One Tribe at a Time” by Maj. Jim Gant, is gaining more and more attention now. Gant argues that one way to undermine the insurgency is to return, in part, to the strategy that ousted the Taliban to begin with: Embed small, highly skilled and almost completely autonomous units with tribes across Afghanistan. Much like the Green Berets who worked with the Northern Alliance to drive out the Taliban in 2001 and 2002, the units, which Major Gant calls Tribal Engagement Teams, would wear Afghan garb and live in Afghan villages for extended periods, training, equipping and fighting alongside tribal militias.

RUSI has a new article which states that newly uncovered archival evidence suggests the Durand Line was never intended to be an international boundary. This article examines the consequences for Afghanistan/Pakistan policy-makers, concluding that serious attention should be paid to reconceptualising the frontier zone in the current crisis.

RUSI also has an article on the Pakistani Taliban.

New version of DOJ letter attaching FBI analysis of Guantánamo interrogation tactics released

Read it here.

Azerbaijan court sentences 26 attackers of Abu Bakr Mosque

Those convicted said they were members of an organisation called Forest Brothers and among them were 23 Azeris, one Russian and two Turkish nationals. A court spokesman said the men were convicted of various offences including terrorism, murder, formation of an illegal group and arms possession.

Human Rights Committee and Security Council Reports to the GA

The Report of the Human Rights Committee to the 64th session of the General Assembly is now available (A/64/40 Vol.I). The report covers the Committee’s 94th, 95th and 96th sessions which were held in Geneva from 13-31 Oct. 2008, 16 Mar.-3 Apr. 2009 and 13-31 July 2009 respectively.

The Report of the Security Council to the 64th session of the General Assembly is now available (A/64/2). The report covers the work of the Security Council from 1 August 2008 to 31 July 2009.

US removes Vinck and Barakaat international from domestic terrorist list, but not Kadi and Sayadi

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed Patricia Rosa Vinck, Barakaat International, and Barakaat International Foundation from its Specially Designated Nationals List on November 3, having found that Vinck and the two entities no longer present a significant threat of supporting terrorism.  Today’s action was taken in conjunction with a removal of the three names from the United Nations’ 1267 Sanctions Committee (U.N. 1267 Committee) Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to U.N. sanctions measures.

Lithuania probe into secret detention sites to be expected on 22 December

Lithuania’s parliament voted Thursday to probe into allegations of the existence of a secret CIA prison on Lithuanian soil in 2005, RIA Novosti reports. The investigation findings are to be presented by December 22.

The launch of the parliamentary enquiry into the matter was initiated by the National Security and Defense Committee’s chairman, Arvydas Anusauskas. The committee will investigate whether suspected terrorists were transferred through Lithuania and whether they were kept under arrest there. Investigators will also try to discover if Lithuanian officials have ever discussed any issues concerning the activities of CIA secret centers.

UK All party parliamentary group recommends criminalising the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights

The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on extraordinary rendition recommends criminalising various acts, including the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights and the failure to prevent extraordinary rendition flights using those facilities. The proposals will also ban so-called “circuit flights” – using UK airports for flights passing through the country to enable a rendition but without a detainee on board at the time.

UK Child support investigators get spying powers designed to combat terrorism to track down absent fathers who do not pay for child support

The agency responsible for tracing absent parents is to be given access to phone and email records for the first time, under Home Office rules The Daily Telegraph reports. The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), which has taken over the heavily criticised Child Support Agency, said the surveillance powers will allow it to find a hard core of 5,000 missing parents who are refusing to pay towards their children. The move came as the Home Office announced plans to stop local authorities from using covert spying techniques for “trivial” offences such as dog fouling or putting a bin out on the wrong day.

Investigators for the CMEC will now be given access to communications data stored by phone companies and internet service providers in cases where other methods of investigation have failed. These powers designed to combat terrorism and serious crimeChris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said:

“Only this Government could claim to be curtailing Ripa powers while extending them to a new body for the investigation of a different offence.”

Deep Impact: The Effect of Drone Attacks on British Counter-Terrorism

The use of drones against targets along the Pakistani border has been a controversial tactic in the prolonged war in Afghanistan, though one that looks set to be a key part of Obama’s future strategy. But drone strikes are part of a complex chain of events, providing fuel for the jihad fire; for the UK in particular, the strikes have a significant domestic impact upon its large Pakistani minority that should not be ignored. More at RUSI.

GQ has an interview with Scott Horton on the subject as well. Horton discusses Mayer’s article here.

The production of unmanned aerial vehicles by the Pakistani defense firm Integrated Dynamics is described in a new publication (pdf) from the DNI Open Source Center (OSC).

The Times reports here about thenewly formed International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), that are campaigning for limits to be put on the military use of robot planes — unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — and other robotic devices.