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New Zealand judge foils FBI's attempt to seize Megaupload file-sharing website founder's decryption keys


RT
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
Kim Dotcom
© AFP Photo / Marty Melville
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom
Investigators in the United States won't be handed over the decryption keys necessary to access digital data seized from the home of internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom in early 2012, a New Zealand judge ruled this week.

Authorities raided Dotcom's mansion outside of Auckland, New Zealand, nearly two-and-a-half years ago as part of an operation conducted with the aid of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in response to felony copyright infringement and racketeer allegations brought in America against the German-born hacker-turned-businessman.

Computer hard drives seized from Dotcom's Coatesville, NZ home were cloned and given to the FBI after the incident. This past January, though, the New Zealand Court of Appeals ruled that the American feds should never have legally acquired the copied data.

Dotcom's attorneys have long sought the return of the largely encrypted hard drives, but Torrent Freak reports that the founder of the file-sharing site Megaupload was likely to only receive as much on the condition that in exchange he hand over to local authorities the keys necessary to decrypt the contents.

According to Radio New Zealand, Justice Helen Winkelmann of the nation's high court ruled Wednesday that federal officials there are formally barred from giving the password to the FBI if it's provided by Mr. Dotcom, because the FBI only acquired the encrypted data in the first place using flawed warrants.

On Twitter, however, Dotcom suggested that authorities in the US may have already been able to crack into the illegally seized hard drives.
      Read More...
Evil Rays

Google is yanking negative coverage of powerful people from its search results

Jack Mirkinson
Huffington Post
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
google
© DAMIEN MEYER via Getty Images
This picture taken on May 13, 2013 in the French western city of Rennes shows a woman choosing Google Search (or Google Web Search) web search engine front page on her tablet.
The implementation of the European Union's so-called "right to be forgotten" policy is already having a worrying impact on the media, with at least two outlets revealing on Wednesday that links to articles of theirs have been scrubbed from Google.

A European court ruled in May that Google must remove links to articles from its search engine if the subjects of the post asked it to. The court specified that links could be scrubbed if they were "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed."

When the ruling came down, some worried that it would place too much power in the hands of public figures who wished to have unflattering information - and, especially, press coverage - about themselves hidden.

On Wednesday, the Guardian and the BBC both disclosed that just such an occurrence seemed to have taken place with stories of theirs.
      Read More...
Cell Phone

LISTEN: Recording of kidnapped Israeli teen's distress call to police

Ben Hartman, Jpost.com staff, Lahav Harkov, Yaakov Lappin
Jerusalem Post
Tue, 01 Jul 2014 17:07 UTC
Gil-Ad Shaer
© Reuters
Gil-Ad Shaer (right), whose phone-call to police after being kidnapped has been released.
A voice quickly whispers, "They kidnapped me," then someone says, "Heads down," followed by what sounds like gunshots, in the emergency call Gil-Ad Shaer made to police on June 12.

The recording was leaked to the public on Tuesday. It was previously under a gag order, but after the recording began criss-crossing the country on WhatsApp and social media on Tuesday, the gag order was partially lifted.

In the beginning of the recording, Shaer can be heard saying, "They kidnapped me." Hebrew-language radio can be heard in the background as well as voices speaking in Hebrew telling the three youths to put their heads down followed by what sounds like a burst of gunfire.

Since they first learned of the kidnapping late on the night of June 12, the security forces have had a working assessment that the teenagers were murdered soon after being kidnapped, as they sat in the back seat of the vehicle they had entered at the hitchhiking post outside Alon Shvut. Although other possibilities continue to be weighed, according to this view, Shaer's phone call to the police triggered an immediate end to their lives.

The police have been heavily criticized for not responding quickly enough to the emergency call. An internal police probe led to the removal from their posts of four senior police officials.

The 2 minute, 9 second call, which was received at 10:25 p.m. on June 12, was not given the proper urgency or handed over to security services until around five hours later, when one of the boy's parents reported him missing to police.
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Question

Did Israeli police purposefully delay response to kidnapping?

Hezki Ezra, Ari Yashar
Israel National News
Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:55 UTC
Yitzhak Aharonovich
© flash 90
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich on Wednesday visited the Makor Chaim Yeshiva high school in Kfar Etzion, the school of two of the three teenagers kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last Thursday. Speaking at the school he admitted that there had been some failures on the part of Israeli police in handling the case.

It was revealed Sunday that the kidnapped teens made an emergency call to police minutes after the kidnapping, only to be dismissed as pranksters. Just one day before, it surfaced that the police acted slowly in alerting the military, resulting in a significant and potentially crucial time lapse between when parents reported the kidnapping to the police, and the notification of security sources and the IDF by police over the issue.

Aharonovich acknowledged that the criticism being heard against the police is justified, saying "we need to check things. I heard a recording of the (emergency call phone) conversation, and in the coming days it will be published for the public."

The minister's words follow statements by two top-ranking police officers on Monday, both of whom reiterated the commitment to launch an investigation over the issue, but stated that the priority now is focusing on the search for the missing boys.
      Read More...
Binoculars

Mossad chief 'predicted' teen kidnappings


Haaretz
Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:29 UTC
Tamir Pardo
© Moti Milrod
Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo.
Ten days ago, at a security cabinet meeting, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo outlined a scenario spookily similar to the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens missing since Thursday night.

The meeting dealt with the report of the Shamgar Committee on prisoner exchanges and on the Habayit Hayehudi bill that prohibits granting pardons to terrorists.

Pardo, along with other defense establishment officials present, tried to convince the ministers not to advance the bill. He was against it because it would limit the government's room for maneuver in future abduction cases, would keep its hands tied, and prevent it from considering other solutions for dealing with a potential crisis.

Pardo gave as an example the kidnapping of the 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria by the militant group Boko Haram. He addressed Economy Minister Nafatali Bennett, whose party promoted the bill, and used it to draw a comparison of something that could happen in Israel in the future.

"What will you do if in a week three 14-year-old girls will be kidnapped from one of the settlements?," he asked. "Will you say there is a law, and we don't release terrorists?"

Pardo did not convince the ministers, however. At the cabinet meeting three days later, the appeal of Science and Technology Minister Jacob Perry was rejected and the bill passed to a Knesset vote. By Wednesday, the bill passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset.
      Read More...
Chess

Ultimate twist of irony: U.S. military forces have joined with Iranian forces to confront ISIS in Iraq

Corey Charlton
Mail Online
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 16:09 UTC
Iranian fighter jets
© Mail Online
The serial numbers on the aircraft pictured correspond to numbers on known Iranian fighter jets
  • Expert believes Iraq's latest aircraft delivery is from Iran, not Russia
  • Jets will be deployed alongside U.S. forces in unlikely military alliance
  • Aircraft likely delivered by Iranian pilots but it is unclear who will crew them
  • Follows deployment of Russian military aircraft and extra U.S. troops
    • The U.S. and Iran are now fighting alongside one another in a bid to counter the growing threat ISIS poses in the Middle East.

    Military expert Joseph Dempsey believes the latest set of aircraft to be delivered to Iraq is Iranian, despite steps being taken to mask its origin.

    Comment: See related articles below on making sense of the geopolitical manoeuvrings engulging the whole region:
    Fear and loathing at Hotel Babylon
    US in Iraq: Geopolitical arsonists seek to burn the whole region
    VIDEO: U.S. fighting alongside ISIS, playing both sides of the conflict
    Creating fake 'enemies' in order to dominate the planet: U.S. trained ISIS at secret Jordan base

          Read More...
    Eye 1

    NATO Puppet Kiev Government Orders Bombing of East Ukraine Village - Civilians Blown to Pieces


    RT.com
    Thu, 03 Jul 2014 16:02 UTC

    The village of Kondrashovka in eastern Ukraine lies devastated after shelling by Kiev troops which killed seven people. Bodies torn to pieces are strewn across the settlement and those who survived are asking: why did Kiev kill their families?

    Shells devastate entire streets in eastern Ukrainian town (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

    At least five shells hit the settlement, destroying an entire street in the peaceful Lugansk region community, 25km from the city of Lugansk.

    Dramatic RT footage shows the ravaged village, including a local resident's backyard which was literally transformed into a grave.

    "They killed my mother, and my father is injured. I took him to hospital," Aleksandr Mironenko told RT's Marina Finoshina, one of the few journalists to report from the scene.

    Comment: This is evidence of the standard operating procedure of psychopaths in power: they conclude that the local population in an area where a resistance movement exists are, effectively, one and the same with the resistance and therefore subject to summary execution.

          Read More...
    Eye 1

    British MPs calling for investigation into 1980s dossier on Westminster pedophiles


    RT
    Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:59 UTC
    big ben
    © Reuters / Eddie Keogh
    Den of pedophiles.
    An alleged network of pedophile politicians active in the 1980s must be investigated say MPs as the Home Office is blasted over 'lost' dossier.

    MPs are calling for an alleged network of pedophile politicians active in the 1980s to be investigated.

    Those calling for an inquiry believe individuals close to 10 Downing Street helped cover up the sexual abuse of children by politicians and other public figures three decades ago.

    Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale, who recently published a book about a former Rochdale MP and abuser of young boys Cyril Smith, claims a missing dossier of allegations about pedophiles was presented to then-Conservative Home Secretary Leon Brittan, who served in Margaret Thatcher's government in the role from 1983-85.

    Danczuk wants an inquiry into the historical allegations to help identify perpetrators other than Smith. At a home affair select committee hearing this week, he called politics "the last refuge of child sex abuse deniers".

    Comment: Good luck! Pedophile rings at this level tend to get away with child rape. Blackmail, fall guys, 'suicides', and corrupt and complicit moles all help, of course.

          Read More...
    Bomb

    Unexploded cluster bomb found in Donetsk, Ukraine


    Voice of Russia
    Thu, 03 Jul 2014 15:36 UTC
    Donetsk
    © RIA Novosti/Andrey Stenin
    Archive photo.
    Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) Aleksandr Boroday has claimed that the militia has found an unexploded cluster bomb near Donetsk.

    An international convention forbids using cluster bombs. The militia has repeatedly claimed that Ukrainian forces use cluster bombs. "Ukrainian forces have used the BM-21 launch vehicles, uncontrolled missiles with cluster heads and other types of heavy armament," the Russian Investigative Committee says.

    "An unexploded cluster bomb was found between the cities of Shakhtyorsk and Tores in the Donetsk People's Republic. We are thinking of how to disarm it," Boroday said.

    Comment: Kiev will never be a true U.S.-inspired 'democracy' until it violates every international convention and law on the books. Thankfully, it's well on its way!

          Read More...
    Whistle

    Bundestag inquiry: NSA whistleblowers testify, disclose 'totalitarian' surveillance


    RT
    Thu, 03 Jul 2014 16:19 UTC
    Image
    © AFP/Paul J. Richards
    Former NSA agents-turned-whistleblowers are testifying before a German parliamentary committee as the Bundestag investigates America's wiretapping methods with one of them branding the NSA approach "totalitarian."

    It is hoped that evidence from the two US citizens, William Binney and Thomas Drake, will shed light on the methods of surveillance used by the American National Security Agency (NSA), which eavesdropped on the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leading German and European politicians.

    Binney and Drake broke their silence long before ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden leaked revelations about American intelligence agencies' practices last year.
    Entering Hall in Bundestag now. #NSA # PUA Mr. Bill #Binney in the house. Palpable tension in the room. #Snowdenpic.twitter.com/fPBggVjGeP
    - Diani Barreto (@deCespedes) July 3, 2014
    At the hearing in Berlin on Thursday, Binney was first to answer questions and share what he know about the NSA's spying practices. Speaking at length about the NSA's technical refinements, structures and procedures, he denounced the surveillance practices of his former employer.
          Read More...
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