The Spy in Your Pocket

Published

9 months ago

February 28, 2024

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Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance St ate , by Byron Tau, Crown, 400 pages, $32

A cop pulled over Ivan Lopez in Somerton, Arizona, a small town near the Mexican border. The officer claimed that Lopez had a broken taillight and had been speeding. A drug-sniffing dog then indicated possible contraband; police searched his truck and found fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and meth. Lopez subsequently agreed to a plea deal where he would serve 84 months in prison for drug smuggling.

The traffic stop was in 2018. Lopez (and his lawyers) didn’t find out until 2020 that it was neither the traffic offenses nor the dog that led to Lopez’s downfall: It was location data from his phone, which revealed he was passing through the border at a place where there was no monitored crossing. A secret underground tunnel led from Mexico to a property he owned in the Arizona border town of San Luis.

A handful of small-town border cops hadn’t been actively monitoring Lopez’s phone location. They were purchasing the information from third-party brokers, who were collecting GPS data produced by the apps on Lopez’s phone.

Byron Tau, then a Wall Street Journal reporter, reported that year that the federal government, particularly immigration officials, had begun purchasing such data, which had typically been meant for use by advertising companies. (It was Tau who told Lopez’s lawyers about the data purchases, in the course of reporting his story.) In this way, both local and federal police were bypassing Fourth Amendment restrictions to get information that would typically require probable cause and a warrant.

Such stories animate Tau’s Means of Control , a book that documents how, across more than two decades, our government has turned to the private sector to keep tabs on us, all while both the authorities and the companies involved do everything they can to keep Americans in the dark.

***

Tau starts, as almost all modern tellings of the American surveillance state must, with the September 11 attacks. As the federal government realized there were holes in its intelligence operations, people in the private business of gathering and selling personal data realized their information may be of use.

In the days following 9/11, a data collection firm called Acxiom decided to run the terrorists’ names through its databases to see what it could find. It found information about 11 of them. Then the company expanded its search to cover people who shared addresses with the men, looking for connections to others within the U.S. who might be planning attacks. Meanwhile, a rival firm, Seisint, was doing something similar, trying to develop profiles of potential terrorists and searching through the company’s data to see who matched.

This was a fishing expeditiona broad search of information in the hopes of finding evidence of misconduct. Before police can collect or search our data, they are supposed to have a reasonable suspicion that the individuals involved are engaged in criminal activity; they aren’t supposed to gather people’s data first and then look it over to see if they’ve done anything wrong. But Axciom and Seisint aren’t law enforcement agencies, and that’s where the privacy protections start to break down.

The third-party doctrine, which dates back to Supreme Court rulings from the 1970s, holds that data that Americans voluntarily provide to banks, phone companies, and other third parties do not have the same Fourth Amendment protections as data we store for ourselves. In the wake of 9/11, interestingly, Defense Department lawyers actually warned Pentagon officials away from attempting to incorporate data from these firms into their intelligence.

Those warnings went unheeded. Tau’s book is an in-depth account of how the U.S. went from a place where federal lawyers cautioned against combing through privately gathered data to one where government agencies spend untold sums of taxpayer money purchasing the information.

People who follow data privacy issues may already be familiar with some of the stories in this book. In 2019, for example, a government contractor warned that the gay hook-up app Grindr’s data about its usersand their locationswas accessible to anybody with access to the exchanges that sell ads to apps. Since a Chinese company had purchased a majority stake in Grindr in 2016, this led to fears of national security risks. Eventually the foreign company was forced to sell its stake. This saga saw wide press coverage.

What wasn’t as widely covered is that many other apps have the same flaw. Tau shows that as phones increasingly became people’s personal data storage centers, so did the amount of private information citizens werewhether they realized it or notproviding to private firms. This produces a marketplace where secretive middleman companies collect data from these apps and ad exchanges and then quietly sell it to the government. When apps or platforms put privacy restrictions in place that say no data should be used for government tracking purposes, the middleman companies step in and allow the authorities to bypass those rules. As Lopez and his lawyers would discover, this secretive system can also make it impossible to challenge the source or legitimacy of information used against people in court.

“Both the user and the app developer cannot definitively say what the uses are after the data leaves their control,” Tau writes. “They cannot guarantee that the data will be used only for commerce or analytics. Once data is collected and sold, what happens with it cannot be guaranteed by anyone.”

***

Tau’s extensive research gives readers a detailed tour of the bafflingly complex ecosystem of brokers and buyers of this information. The cynical may be surprised to learn that there are people within the government who treat citizen privacy seriously and resist these surveillance methods. The cynical will not be surprised when other officials and their private-sector allies figure out ways to get around that resistance.

Even as Tau shows us how transparent our lives are, much of the process by which data is transferred into the hands of brokers and then to the government remains fairly opaque. This isn’t a critique of Tau’s writing or research: This book has a lot to teach about how this secret marketplace came into being and how it works. Nevertheless, as Tau acknowledges, even he was able to penetrate only so much of the system.

Tau never loses sight of the fact that government is the driving force behind this marketplace. Any potential solution that actually works would likely involve either legislative action or court decisions restricting what data the government can collect. Some of this, though not enough, has already happened: In 2018’s Carpenter v. United States , the Supreme Court ruled that police need warrants to access cellphone tracking data.

The bipartisan Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act would forbid the government from buying Americans’ device data from third-party brokers and instead make the authorities seek a court order before they can gather data from the original app or platform. As Tau notes, the bill garnered unanimous support from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee this past July, which would seem like a positive sign. But an attempt to fold the legislation into a larger surveillance reform bill failed, and the measure’s future is unclear.

Thus, it is still unfortunately useful that Means of Control includes an appendix offering “An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Digital Privacy”a how-to guide for people who want to protect their own data. As Tau says, “Nobody ever went bankrupt betting on Congress doing nothing.”

Politics

UK to scrap warships, military helicopters and fleet of drones to save money despite threats abroad

Published

30 mins ago

November 20, 2024

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UK to scrap warships, military helicopters and fleet of drones to save money despite threats abroad

The UK will scrap five warships, dozens of military helicopters and a fleet of drones to save money despite growing threats from Russia and a war raging in Europe.

John Healey, the defence secretary, announced the dramatic move in parliament on Wednesday, saying it would save up to half a billion pounds over the next five years.

The defence secretary described the equipment being axed as “outdated” and said the “common sense” decision to retire them was long overdue.

Ukraine war latest: Follow live

He signalled the decision was part of a plan to restructure and modernise the armed forces, which have already been significantly reduced in size following decades of cost-saving cuts, with new capabilities due to come online to replace the gaps.

“We face increasing global threats,” Mr Healey said in a written statement that was released at the same time as he addressed MPs.

“War in Europe, growing Russian aggression, conflict in the Middle East and technology changing the nature of warfare. As a result, defence needs increased resilience and readiness for the future.”

At the same time, though, he said the defence budget faced “serious financial pressures”.

He repeated a pledge that the government would set out a course to lift the defence budget to 2.5% of national income – but yet again without giving a date.

The defence secretary then spelt out what “difficult decisions” meant in reality.

“To ensure that Britain is kept secure at home and strong abroad in a changing world, defence needs to make changes too. Difficult decisions are required,” he said.

The weapons systems on the chopping block are:

• The Royal Navy’s two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. They will be taken out of service at the end of the year – around a decade early in a blow to the ability of the Royal Marines to launch land assaults from the sea.
• A fleet of 17 Royal Air Force Puma helicopters, as well as 14 of the military’s oldest Chinook helicopters
• A fleet of 46 Watchkeeper drones – each worth about £5m – barely six years since they entered into service
• HMS Northumberland, a Type 23 frigate, which is in need of costly repairs and has already operated well beyond an 18-year out-of-service date
• Two large Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler – vessels which carry fuel and supplies to enable the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers to operate around the world.

Mr Healey also hinted that further cuts would follow.

“These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to make, to fix the defence inheritance that we were left with,” he told MPs.

The announcement, while uncomfortable, is designed to be the least damaging way to reduce costs while retaining capability.

It comes ahead of a plan by the government to publish a sweeping new review of defence in the spring, which is being drawn up by an external team and is expected to recommend extensive changes across the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

The Ministry of Defence says that the equipment that is being axed – the term used is “accelerated retirement” – was selected because it is outdated and military chiefs need to focus finite money and personnel instead on the weapons systems most suited to modern warfare.

However, Russia’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated that old, outdated weapons are better than no weapons at all.

‘Wars of national survival’

Sean Bell

Military analyst

@BellusUK

Sky News’ military analyst offered his opinion on the announcement from the defence secretary.

Speaking on Sky News Today with Kamali Melbourne, he said: “There’s two things that jump out.

“There’s a reconfiguration going on in defence, it’s become a more dangerous world.

“For like 30 years defence has been about wars of choice, expeditionary wars, going out.

“So we’ve needed transport, we’ve needed landing ships to take people away.

“While the purists would say you need to wait for the Defence Review to conclude, it’s common sense that the direction of travel is less about wars of choice and more about wars of national survival, then you need to make every pound you spend focus on that.

“Therefore, if you’ve got some ships and equipment that’s just moribund and waiting, it costs you to keep that in dry dock and keep it maintained.

“[There’s] one thing that’s not being talked about… if you look at it from a grand strategic perspective, 6% of the defence budget is largely spent on the deterrent, the nuclear capability. We’re in the middle of a period where we’re changing and upgrading the capability and in broad handfuls, we’re spending another 6% to replace it.

“In addition, £3bn is coming out to go to Ukraine… so rather than 6% of the defence budget, it’s something like 18% that’s not available for conventional military capability in other words a significant cut.

“Somehow you’ve got to square the books.”

The Russian armed forces have relied heavily on old tanks, artillery guns and helicopters to fight after the weapons they used in the first weeks and months of the war were destroyed.

It takes years to build warships and helicopters.

Sir Keir Starmer will face uncomfortable challenges at the sight of amphibious assault vessels and Chinook transport helicopters being sold off or scrapped regardless of how old they are.

Yet it costs money to keep equipment in storage just in case it is needed.

Limited funds allocated to defence mean that military chiefs appear to have decided that scrapping weapons early is the least worst option.

The decision to scrap the British Army’s Mark 1 version of the Watchkeeper drone at a time when drones are such a dominant asset on the battlefield may also be tricky to defend.

However, the programme has been beset by delays, cost overruns and flaws.

The first Watchkeeper drones only started operating around 2018 – some eight years late.

They also struggle to operate in poor weather conditions – limiting their utility.

The rapid pace of evolving technology in drone warfare – where the development cycle is a mere six to eight weeks – means that the technology inside Watchkeeper, which was conceived of more than 14 years ago, may well be easily defeated in a fight.

It is understood that scrapping the aircraft means that the army will be able to focus money on developing new innovative drone capabilities.

Politics

Ukraine fires UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia

Published

30 mins ago

November 20, 2024

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Ukraine fires UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia

Ukraine has fired British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles into Russia, a source has told Sky News.

The UK and Ukraine have not yet confirmed the use of the long-range weapons in Russia but their deployment has been widely reported in British media.

Footage has been posted on Telegram reportedly showing wreckage from one of the missiles in Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine.

Ukraine war: Follow latest updates

The UK had previously said that British tanks, anti-tank missiles and other military equipment could be used inside Russia as part of Ukraine’s defence – but had kept restrictions on the use of long-range missiles.

It comes just days after US President Joe Biden authorised the same policy shift.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that Ukraine had fired six US-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in the Bryansk region.

A Russian state news agency cited the ministry as saying the missiles caused no casualties.

Missiles will have a ‘marginal effect’

Sky News’ security and defence editor Deborah Haynes says Ukraine’s allies have been pursuing a strategy of ambiguity and “it remains to be seen whether we get official confirmation on this from the UK or from Ukraine”.

“There is also the uncomfortable reality that Ukraine’s stockpile of Storm Shadow missiles is severely limited, so their use will only have a marginal effect.”

Embassies shut over air attack fears

Meanwhile, Sky’s military analyst Sean Bell says he would be amazed if this attack really marks the first time such a missile has been used by Ukraine to hit inside Russia.

“I would be quite surprised if they haven’t been used for selected targets further on [into Russia] because they are… very, very effective at striking Russian logistics hubs, headquarters, ammunition dumps,” he said.

Earlier, the US and some other Western embassies in Kyiv closed amid fears Russia was preparing a major air attack on the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been asking Kyiv’s allies to give his troops the capability to strike deeper behind Russian lines for over a year.

Mr Biden’s change of policy is linked to changing tactics by the Russians, which began deploying North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces.

The White House is set to announce more military aid for Ukraine worth up to $275m (£217m), the US defence secretary has said.

Lloyd Austin said the support would “meet critical battlefield needs” and would include munitions for rocket systems, artillery and tank weapons, along with anti-personnel landmines.

Russian politician Maria Butina and the son of Donald Trump, the US president-elect, both warned the move could spark the start of a third world war.

Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold required for the use of nuclear weapons after America’s decision on long-range missiles for Ukraine, adding to fears the conflict could escalate.

World

Spain to legalise about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year

Published

30 mins ago

November 20, 2024

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Spain to legalise about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year

Spain is to legalise about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year – at a time that many European countries are seeking to limit or deter migration.

The policy, approved on Tuesday by Spain’s left-wing minority coalition government, aims to tackle the country’s ageing workforce and low birthrate.

Around 250,000 registered foreign workers a year are needed to maintain the country’s welfare state, according to migration minister Elma Saiz.

The scheme, due to run from May next year until 2027, will allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency.

The exact number of foreigners living in Spain without documentation is unclear.

However, around 54,000 undocumented migrants reached Spain so far this year by sea or land, according to government figures.

Many arrive via the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located off the coast of northwestern Africa.

The figure compares to the 30,000 people who have arrived in the UK via small boats across the Channel so far in 2024.

The UK, as well as other European nations, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands, have in recent years taken tougher stances on migration.

However, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has often described his government’s migration policies as a way to combat the country’s low birthrate.

The government’s new policy simplifies the administrative processes for short and long-term visas and provides migrants with additional workplace protections.

It also extends a visa offered previously to job-seekers for three months to one year.

Many migrants make a living in Spain’s underground economy as fruit pickers, caretakers, delivery drivers, or other low-paid jobs.

Migration minister Ms Saiz said the government’s new policy would help prevent abuse and “serve to combat mafias, fraud and the violation of rights”.