Norway Used NSA Technology for Potentially Illegal Spying(theintercept.com)
theintercept.com
Norway Used NSA Technology for Potentially Illegal Spying
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/01/norway-nsa-victory-garden-surveillance/
75 comments
Dragnets is a huge problem for analysts. Traditional analysis is based on a certain amount of "degrees", 1. degree would persons/network directly associated with a target, then usually would never exceed 2. or 3. degree.
Now that everything is collected it causes problems with the amount of data which causes quality data to drown in the amount. You basically don't get to pick up anything of worth before it's too late.
This again (the perceived lack of finding "terrorists") is used to argue for more budgets and "tools". Some say this is on purpose and I wouldn't disagree.
My 2 cents.
Now that everything is collected it causes problems with the amount of data which causes quality data to drown in the amount. You basically don't get to pick up anything of worth before it's too late.
This again (the perceived lack of finding "terrorists") is used to argue for more budgets and "tools". Some say this is on purpose and I wouldn't disagree.
My 2 cents.
That argument is weak. It's equivalent to saying I should kill some people because my adversaries kill people. That's nonsense because the situation isn't symmetrical. It's not the adversaries who are getting killed.
I'm not sure I'm following, at least one of us is misunderstanding the other.
I'm not making a normative statement. I'm saying that [1] (for example), Russia will not deny itself a tool that China pocesses and [2] when it comes to dragnets, I have very little confidence in mechanisms to separate citizens from foreigners. Even if I'm wrong and it is possible to regulate dragnets in this way, you are then spied on by everyone but your own government (which is better than nothing, but not exactly inspiring).
I'm not making a normative statement. I'm saying that [1] (for example), Russia will not deny itself a tool that China pocesses and [2] when it comes to dragnets, I have very little confidence in mechanisms to separate citizens from foreigners. Even if I'm wrong and it is possible to regulate dragnets in this way, you are then spied on by everyone but your own government (which is better than nothing, but not exactly inspiring).
People making normative statements managed to get governments to agree to ban landmines, torture, and chemical and biological weapons. It seems like there's a whole lot of potential upside in also being willing to entertain normative statements about military tactics.
I have no problem with using dragnets to identify and disrupt activities that threaten national security.
I have a very big problem with the use of dragnets to get convictions in court by circumventing people's rights.
I don't see the need banning dragnets as a realistic option.
We need is a much stronger interpretation of fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
FWIW a metadata dragnet/haystack can be used to search for parallel construction needles the same way it's used to search for terrorist or insider trading needles, all three are just varying types people working together to get something done in secret. I'm not sure how to make incentives align so that actually works out in practice but it's technically feasible.
I have a very big problem with the use of dragnets to get convictions in court by circumventing people's rights.
I don't see the need banning dragnets as a realistic option.
We need is a much stronger interpretation of fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
FWIW a metadata dragnet/haystack can be used to search for parallel construction needles the same way it's used to search for terrorist or insider trading needles, all three are just varying types people working together to get something done in secret. I'm not sure how to make incentives align so that actually works out in practice but it's technically feasible.
But governments have shown they cannot be trusted to do this. One of the big arguments on favor of allowing mass surveillance was that it was only to be used for foreign intelligence purposes, which quickly got expanded to domestic terrorism purposes and today data gathered from dragnet programs is accessable and used in the investigation and sometimes even prosecution of normal domestic crimes in both the US and UK.
> "data gathered from dragnet programs is [...] used in the [...] prosecution of normal domestic crimes in both the US and UK."
I don't think this is true - sigint is not admissable in the UK (or US afaik).
I don't think this is true - sigint is not admissable in the UK (or US afaik).
The latest FISA law made FISA spying admissible in court. The FBI (and IRS, and SEC, and DHS, and other agencies) only needs to get a warrant after already seeing the data, at which point I'm not even sure what the purpose of the warrant is. The Fourth Amendment warrant was supposed to stop fishing expeditions.
In the US, there's the long-standing SOS program:[0]
> The unit of the DEA that distributes the information [from NSA] is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."
Which is aka "parallel construction".
Also, there's a great history of SOD online at the DEA Museum.[1]
0) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...
1) https://www.deamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/042215-...
> The unit of the DEA that distributes the information [from NSA] is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."
Which is aka "parallel construction".
Also, there's a great history of SOD online at the DEA Museum.[1]
0) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...
1) https://www.deamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/042215-...
I have a very big problem with the use of dragnets to get convictions in court by circumventing people's rights.
This is doable, I think. It's kind of the case now, and all it would take is a momentary parliamentary majority to enshrine it. But, it's honestly hard to see a consistent legal/theoretical justification for it, if all the data is sitting on a government server.
Are you saying that a court/prosecutor should not be able to demand someone's emails? What if they could be used to exonerate?
Somehow, I just think that once these datasets exist (they do) we will eventually get used to them.
This is doable, I think. It's kind of the case now, and all it would take is a momentary parliamentary majority to enshrine it. But, it's honestly hard to see a consistent legal/theoretical justification for it, if all the data is sitting on a government server.
Are you saying that a court/prosecutor should not be able to demand someone's emails? What if they could be used to exonerate?
Somehow, I just think that once these datasets exist (they do) we will eventually get used to them.
I think "parallel construction" is the issue at hand, they can illegally search your emails with no cause or warrant, and then pretend they didn't and came by the evidence through other means. They can do this to everyone, and if you're targeted there's very little (nothing?) you can do about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
>In August 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises DEA agents to practice parallel construction when creating criminal cases against Americans that are based on NSA warrantless surveillance. The use of illegally obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
>In August 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises DEA agents to practice parallel construction when creating criminal cases against Americans that are based on NSA warrantless surveillance. The use of illegally obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
I've been wondering for quite some time just how much of Bob Mueller's investigation into the President and Russian collusion is a meticulously produced example of parallel construction.
I'm not saying Trump and his people are innocent or that there's no Russian involvement, I just think it's highly unlikely that the set of evidence that we will see in these cases was obtained or produced with the publicized methods.
I'm not saying Trump and his people are innocent or that there's no Russian involvement, I just think it's highly unlikely that the set of evidence that we will see in these cases was obtained or produced with the publicized methods.
>Are you saying that a court/prosecutor should not be able to demand someone's emails
Not without a warrant.
>What if they could be used to exonerate?
Then the defense can present the evidence.
Not without a warrant.
>What if they could be used to exonerate?
Then the defense can present the evidence.
I meant, what if your emails would exonerate me. But, u guess that's sort of covered by warranty. I think it'd be very hard to prevent an internal security (FBI, in the states) and intelligence from accessing the data, but if courts are all you're worried about, I think that's doable. Isn't this the case now? Will a court accept unwarranted evidence?
> What if they could be used to exonerate?
As far as I understand the justice system (which, luckily, is not very well), the prosecution is not out to prove your innocence. It goes contrary to all their incentives, both the police and the actual prosecutor. All advice I've ever heard defense lawyers give on this topic points in the same direction: don't count on police or the prosecutor to seek the truth.
I may be wrong, of course. Thankfully, I haven't had the pleasure of finding this out for myself.
As far as I understand the justice system (which, luckily, is not very well), the prosecution is not out to prove your innocence. It goes contrary to all their incentives, both the police and the actual prosecutor. All advice I've ever heard defense lawyers give on this topic points in the same direction: don't count on police or the prosecutor to seek the truth.
I may be wrong, of course. Thankfully, I haven't had the pleasure of finding this out for myself.
[deleted]
I am disappointed beyond words. If they indeed surveiled Norwegian citizens I except all responsible will be severely punished and that examples are made. These days I feel examples are made of people that did much less to impact personal freedom and democracy. Obviously the Rechtsstaat has cumbled already... I believed Norway to be above such dystopian practices. </rage>
Why would you think that? It was a "public secret" in Norway for decades that the security services engaged in illegal surveillance mostly of the Norwegian left wing. E.g. I have personally talked to people who were the subject of surveillance well in excess of what the law allowed - one was a trade union organizer and member of the communist party that was followed to and from work every day for many years - his only explanation (after all they did not put every member of the communist party under surveillance) was that his route to work led past the Soviet embassy.
Another was the longtime editor of the communist newspaper Friheten ("Freedom"), Arne Jørgensen [1], who told me about how he for a period regularly had agents of the security services stop him in the streets to rattle him by e.g. commenting on details of private conversations he had the previous day with his wife at home.
This was reported regularly for years, but was laughed off as conspiracy theories, until it got a point where it could not be denied any more, and the Lund report[2] revealed extensive illegal surveillance.
Former prime minister Willoch defended the illegal surveillance against e.g. AKP-ML (Maoists ) with arguing they were an illegal organization. But no decision to outlaw them have ever been made.
During the writing of the Lund report, it became clear that one of the members, Berge Furre [3], a theologian and former Socialist Left (SV) politician, was still under illegal surveillance during his work on the report into the illegal surveillance.
None of the people involved were charged with anything. The security services changed name from POT to PST, and everything else remained largely unchanged.
Years later, when the first reports of Norwegian complicity in NSA surveillance was reported, the paper that reported it was pushed into a retraction after Grandhagen, the then leader of the notoriously tight-lipped military sercurity service uncharacteristically "took the blame" for reported surveillance that for every other country in the same document had turned out to be civilian surveillance of their own citizens, and claimed that Norway was somehow feeding the NSA metadata on phone conversations in Afghanistan of a volume that meant Norway somehow must be tapping every phoneline in the country.
Nobody in the press admitted to asking follow up questions about why military intelligence would suddenly gie out details like that, nor about why the US would be interested given reports that the US at the time themselves did not just capture meta data, but full voice recordings from Afghanistan.
Nobody reacted. Both Dagbladet and Aftenposten (major newspapers) deleted a slew of comments in their forums asking why nobody had asked questions about this of Grandhagen.
Like with the surveillance uncovered by the Lund report, any questions about this now gets met just with a shrug.
Then a couple of years ago, Aftenposten reported about a lot of unregistered IMSI catchers in Oslo. Again the intelligence services just insisted they were looking into it, after which the IMSI catchers "disappeared".
There's decades of history of this bullshit in Norway, and decades of experience showing that most people just refuse to question the official stories until things like the Lund report, and then go back to quietly accepting the official stories.
Part of it is probably that it has been relatively benign in Norway. No secret prisons, very little government interference in the press, etc. - it's mostly been just surveillance, so few people have been affected, and those who have been affected have been far out on the political fringes.
But I see no reason why that would change now.
[1] Norwegian wikipedia entry as I don't think he's covered in the English one: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_J%C3%B8rgensen_(redakt%C3...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berge_Furre
Another was the longtime editor of the communist newspaper Friheten ("Freedom"), Arne Jørgensen [1], who told me about how he for a period regularly had agents of the security services stop him in the streets to rattle him by e.g. commenting on details of private conversations he had the previous day with his wife at home.
This was reported regularly for years, but was laughed off as conspiracy theories, until it got a point where it could not be denied any more, and the Lund report[2] revealed extensive illegal surveillance.
Former prime minister Willoch defended the illegal surveillance against e.g. AKP-ML (Maoists ) with arguing they were an illegal organization. But no decision to outlaw them have ever been made.
During the writing of the Lund report, it became clear that one of the members, Berge Furre [3], a theologian and former Socialist Left (SV) politician, was still under illegal surveillance during his work on the report into the illegal surveillance.
None of the people involved were charged with anything. The security services changed name from POT to PST, and everything else remained largely unchanged.
Years later, when the first reports of Norwegian complicity in NSA surveillance was reported, the paper that reported it was pushed into a retraction after Grandhagen, the then leader of the notoriously tight-lipped military sercurity service uncharacteristically "took the blame" for reported surveillance that for every other country in the same document had turned out to be civilian surveillance of their own citizens, and claimed that Norway was somehow feeding the NSA metadata on phone conversations in Afghanistan of a volume that meant Norway somehow must be tapping every phoneline in the country.
Nobody in the press admitted to asking follow up questions about why military intelligence would suddenly gie out details like that, nor about why the US would be interested given reports that the US at the time themselves did not just capture meta data, but full voice recordings from Afghanistan.
Nobody reacted. Both Dagbladet and Aftenposten (major newspapers) deleted a slew of comments in their forums asking why nobody had asked questions about this of Grandhagen.
Like with the surveillance uncovered by the Lund report, any questions about this now gets met just with a shrug.
Then a couple of years ago, Aftenposten reported about a lot of unregistered IMSI catchers in Oslo. Again the intelligence services just insisted they were looking into it, after which the IMSI catchers "disappeared".
There's decades of history of this bullshit in Norway, and decades of experience showing that most people just refuse to question the official stories until things like the Lund report, and then go back to quietly accepting the official stories.
Part of it is probably that it has been relatively benign in Norway. No secret prisons, very little government interference in the press, etc. - it's mostly been just surveillance, so few people have been affected, and those who have been affected have been far out on the political fringes.
But I see no reason why that would change now.
[1] Norwegian wikipedia entry as I don't think he's covered in the English one: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_J%C3%B8rgensen_(redakt%C3...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berge_Furre
> security services engaged in illegal surveillance mostly of the Norwegian left wing.
IMO how you put it is perhaps a bit misleading -
You should probably point out that it was the left wing surveilling each other. More specifically it was the Socialist Labour party (AP) which conducted surveillance of the communist AKP-ML (and NKP) for the reason of being in control of the left-wing agenda in Norway.
Considering that AKP-ML was part of the stay-behind groups, known as "Gladio" (something that ironically (?) sprung out of NATO [0]), armed and trained PLO and marxist revolutionaries in Israel, and had networking with other similar ideological extreme radical left groups such as Red Army Fraction (Germany, Japan, Italy), Black Panthers and Weather Underground in the US, as well as IRA in Ireland and close ties with Pol Pot[1] and other groups in Asia. And they were actually planning armed revolution in Norway - the surveillance was called for (ref. Willoch). However, the labour party's close ties with the IC and media in Norway was peculiar (at the time there were only a single national government owned TV/radio broadcaster, NRK, rooted in the labour party) and these three "fractions" held meetings frequently.
> No secret prisons
Partly correct - in Norway some people were thrown into mental hospitals instead. A famous case would the Kaare Torvholm [2] case which got arrested, together with the sheriff and a deputy (the equivalent of) and sent to mental institution which lead a local newspaper to raise the question if a "schizophrenic epidemic" had reached the shores (later picked up by VG, a national newspaper). This for reporting discrepancies with money (pension funds and more) in the fishing industry which was used as part of intelligence networks (at the time).
As the original thread topic:
Norwegian military has been conducting surveillance for a long time, illegally and including Norwegian citizens. The process right now is to push through laws which allows for this sort of surveillance (and let them keep the data they have, which is already shared with US and UK). These laws will just "harmonize" the Norwegian laws to those of the UK and partly US. These operations centers are located several places, not just in this region, but from the west of Norway (Haakonsvern) to Troms in the north (Setermoen) and involves what is called "svarte operasjoner" ("black ops" in English). One of these operations got public attention some years ago when it was revealed that they were spying on the King's email traffic [3].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
[1]: https://cambodiatokampuchea.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/norwegi...
[2]: https://www.fiskersiden.no/forum/index.php?/topic/22444-fisk...
[2]: http://detsomstatennorgeskjuler.origo.no/-/bulletin/show/548...
[3]: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/forsvaret/forsvaret-bekl...
IMO how you put it is perhaps a bit misleading -
You should probably point out that it was the left wing surveilling each other. More specifically it was the Socialist Labour party (AP) which conducted surveillance of the communist AKP-ML (and NKP) for the reason of being in control of the left-wing agenda in Norway.
Considering that AKP-ML was part of the stay-behind groups, known as "Gladio" (something that ironically (?) sprung out of NATO [0]), armed and trained PLO and marxist revolutionaries in Israel, and had networking with other similar ideological extreme radical left groups such as Red Army Fraction (Germany, Japan, Italy), Black Panthers and Weather Underground in the US, as well as IRA in Ireland and close ties with Pol Pot[1] and other groups in Asia. And they were actually planning armed revolution in Norway - the surveillance was called for (ref. Willoch). However, the labour party's close ties with the IC and media in Norway was peculiar (at the time there were only a single national government owned TV/radio broadcaster, NRK, rooted in the labour party) and these three "fractions" held meetings frequently.
> No secret prisons
Partly correct - in Norway some people were thrown into mental hospitals instead. A famous case would the Kaare Torvholm [2] case which got arrested, together with the sheriff and a deputy (the equivalent of) and sent to mental institution which lead a local newspaper to raise the question if a "schizophrenic epidemic" had reached the shores (later picked up by VG, a national newspaper). This for reporting discrepancies with money (pension funds and more) in the fishing industry which was used as part of intelligence networks (at the time).
As the original thread topic:
Norwegian military has been conducting surveillance for a long time, illegally and including Norwegian citizens. The process right now is to push through laws which allows for this sort of surveillance (and let them keep the data they have, which is already shared with US and UK). These laws will just "harmonize" the Norwegian laws to those of the UK and partly US. These operations centers are located several places, not just in this region, but from the west of Norway (Haakonsvern) to Troms in the north (Setermoen) and involves what is called "svarte operasjoner" ("black ops" in English). One of these operations got public attention some years ago when it was revealed that they were spying on the King's email traffic [3].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
[1]: https://cambodiatokampuchea.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/norwegi...
[2]: https://www.fiskersiden.no/forum/index.php?/topic/22444-fisk...
[2]: http://detsomstatennorgeskjuler.origo.no/-/bulletin/show/548...
[3]: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/forsvaret/forsvaret-bekl...
> You should probably point out that it was the left wing surveilling each other. More specifically it was the Socialist Labour party (AP) which conducted surveillance of the communist AKP-ML (and NKP) for the reason of being in control of the left-wing agenda in Norway.
AP is centrist social democrats, and while an AP government started the surveillance, it continued through governments that included every single one of the right wing and centre-right parties. It's misleading to suggest it was "just" one left wing party keeping an eye on the others.
> Considering that AKP-ML
... notably the security services never managed to prove that they constituted a threat in any way - if they had, they'd had justification under the law to carry out legal surveillance of them. Their "training" consisted pretty much of running around in the forest with toy weapons - you get much more relevant training as part of the compulsory conscription (at least back then when most men did serve).
It was right to keep an eye on them given the company they kept, but there was never any legitimate basis for more, as the total lack of evidence of anything criminal even despite the invasive illegal surveillance they were subject to found.
But focusing on AKP is also misleading in that they were by far the smallest of the groups subject to illegal surveillance. By the early 90's - when they were still subject to various surveillance - they were (as were NKP) down to a membership of about ~500 or so (for AKP my knowledge of that is indirect; for NKP I saw their data first hand at the time).. SF/SV surpassed both of them in size very early on (the different trajectories was one reason why the attempt at merging SF and NKP failed - NKP pushed for too much influence relative to their declining membership base, and the trends continued on both sides.
Both AKP and NKP merited surveillance at various points, and SF probably did too for a short while, but the important point is that we know from the illegal surveillance that the illegal surveillance never uncovered evidence that they actually posed any risks, and we know that it uncovered nothing of note that wouldn't have been uncovered with legal surveillance. That is the big problem - they kept up invasive surveillance for decades even after their own results showed it served no purpose, and escalated it to the point of openly harassing people.
If anything, the evidence is clear that the Soviets for example focused on people with ties to AP, because they were the ones with power, and much more useful.
As for AKPs various sympathies, they certainly had "contact" with lots of nasty groups, but having met people that were centrally involved in AKP at the time, it's pretty clear most of their "contact" with various groups was severely exaggerated - they were much less prominent than they wanted people to think. But the security services would have known this given the level of surveillance they were under. They'd have known with just legal surveillance too.
They were academics that talked a lot and did little, and were idealists with wildly unrealistic ideas about how the rest of the world worked. A story that illustrates just how naive they were involves when they sent a delegation to Albania, which under Enver Hoxha was the "shining light" of Europe for the Maoists. But the problem was most of them at the time were hippies and had long hair, and Albania did not tolerate long hair on men at the time. So they had to cut it at the airport. But then the border guards refused to let them in as their passport photos no longer matched their appearance, so the delegation was not allowed entry and had to return. That's the type of thing that happens to unwanted groupies, not well respected guests.. I have no reason to doubt that story, as I heard it told in front of one of the people that was part of said delegation, and he did not correct any of it.
The worst part given this that for all the security services obsession with the small left wing groups, the vast majority of political violence in Norway during the entire period was from the far right directed at the left (the exception being some violence directed at neo nazis predominantly by anarchist groups tied to Blitz). AKP in particular was the victim of multiple terror incidents, and e.g. the security services have in retrospect admitted they for example made use of the firebombing of one of AKPs book stores as an excuse to go through AKP documents under the guise of investigating it, rather than focus on solving the crime. When AKP claimed that documents had gone missing at the time, they were ridiculed for it in the media, because "everyone" blindly accepted the police claims that nobody would that.
What we've seen is that the illegal surveillance has validated strongly that the laws were flexible enough as they were: The illegal surveillance uncovered no risks that there's any indication would not have been known if they had stuck to the legal surveillance. Meanwhile the far right went basically unchecked in the 70's and 80's until the level of violence escalated too far to be possible to ignore. It took years to establish the same kind of overview of the neo nazi groups that were actually violent as they had on a continuous basis for irrelevant pretend-revolutionaries who never posed a threat.
But if they'd stuck to the law they'd have been unable to e.g. harass people in public by telling them to their face how they'd taken all privacy away from them.
AP is centrist social democrats, and while an AP government started the surveillance, it continued through governments that included every single one of the right wing and centre-right parties. It's misleading to suggest it was "just" one left wing party keeping an eye on the others.
> Considering that AKP-ML
... notably the security services never managed to prove that they constituted a threat in any way - if they had, they'd had justification under the law to carry out legal surveillance of them. Their "training" consisted pretty much of running around in the forest with toy weapons - you get much more relevant training as part of the compulsory conscription (at least back then when most men did serve).
It was right to keep an eye on them given the company they kept, but there was never any legitimate basis for more, as the total lack of evidence of anything criminal even despite the invasive illegal surveillance they were subject to found.
But focusing on AKP is also misleading in that they were by far the smallest of the groups subject to illegal surveillance. By the early 90's - when they were still subject to various surveillance - they were (as were NKP) down to a membership of about ~500 or so (for AKP my knowledge of that is indirect; for NKP I saw their data first hand at the time).. SF/SV surpassed both of them in size very early on (the different trajectories was one reason why the attempt at merging SF and NKP failed - NKP pushed for too much influence relative to their declining membership base, and the trends continued on both sides.
Both AKP and NKP merited surveillance at various points, and SF probably did too for a short while, but the important point is that we know from the illegal surveillance that the illegal surveillance never uncovered evidence that they actually posed any risks, and we know that it uncovered nothing of note that wouldn't have been uncovered with legal surveillance. That is the big problem - they kept up invasive surveillance for decades even after their own results showed it served no purpose, and escalated it to the point of openly harassing people.
If anything, the evidence is clear that the Soviets for example focused on people with ties to AP, because they were the ones with power, and much more useful.
As for AKPs various sympathies, they certainly had "contact" with lots of nasty groups, but having met people that were centrally involved in AKP at the time, it's pretty clear most of their "contact" with various groups was severely exaggerated - they were much less prominent than they wanted people to think. But the security services would have known this given the level of surveillance they were under. They'd have known with just legal surveillance too.
They were academics that talked a lot and did little, and were idealists with wildly unrealistic ideas about how the rest of the world worked. A story that illustrates just how naive they were involves when they sent a delegation to Albania, which under Enver Hoxha was the "shining light" of Europe for the Maoists. But the problem was most of them at the time were hippies and had long hair, and Albania did not tolerate long hair on men at the time. So they had to cut it at the airport. But then the border guards refused to let them in as their passport photos no longer matched their appearance, so the delegation was not allowed entry and had to return. That's the type of thing that happens to unwanted groupies, not well respected guests.. I have no reason to doubt that story, as I heard it told in front of one of the people that was part of said delegation, and he did not correct any of it.
The worst part given this that for all the security services obsession with the small left wing groups, the vast majority of political violence in Norway during the entire period was from the far right directed at the left (the exception being some violence directed at neo nazis predominantly by anarchist groups tied to Blitz). AKP in particular was the victim of multiple terror incidents, and e.g. the security services have in retrospect admitted they for example made use of the firebombing of one of AKPs book stores as an excuse to go through AKP documents under the guise of investigating it, rather than focus on solving the crime. When AKP claimed that documents had gone missing at the time, they were ridiculed for it in the media, because "everyone" blindly accepted the police claims that nobody would that.
What we've seen is that the illegal surveillance has validated strongly that the laws were flexible enough as they were: The illegal surveillance uncovered no risks that there's any indication would not have been known if they had stuck to the legal surveillance. Meanwhile the far right went basically unchecked in the 70's and 80's until the level of violence escalated too far to be possible to ignore. It took years to establish the same kind of overview of the neo nazi groups that were actually violent as they had on a continuous basis for irrelevant pretend-revolutionaries who never posed a threat.
But if they'd stuck to the law they'd have been unable to e.g. harass people in public by telling them to their face how they'd taken all privacy away from them.
cjcfjrf(2)
> "Despite a hefty price tag of more than $33 million paid by Norwegian taxpayers, the Norwegian Intelligence Service has kept the operations at the site beyond public scrutiny"
They wouldn't be much of an intelligence agency if they didn't.
They wouldn't be much of an intelligence agency if they didn't.
Also, is 30 million really a hefty price tag? I know I shouldn't judge based on American intelligence spending, but 30 million is what it cost to build my counties vocational tech school.
To put it into perspective, Norwegian parliament has spent ~300 million USD (and counting) on its renovation project..
And every major road in Oslo has been tunneled to keep the city pleasant for pedestrians.
Disregarding your gross exaggeration, road infrastructure costs are funded by taxing roads, automobile purchase and fuel.
I don't think they're earmarked in Norway (they're not in most countries). Taxing autos and fuel generates revenue which is general tax revenue, and what goes to road infrastructure is up to political decisions.
This has nothing to do with the scandalous waste of money this project is. Building a municipal garage shouldn't cost like 3 F-35 fighters.
We just spent $250 million on a garage for our members of parliament so I don't think another $33 millions is such a big issue.
So you're saying intelligence agencies should be run outside of all scrutiny and oversight?
Nope. And you know I wasn't saying that. The bit I quoted says "public scrutiny".
Why must intelligence be secret?
Why doesn't Apple release their internal roadmap? Because others would take advantage of that information.
Same thing with intelligence. People don't know your gaps in intelligence gathering if it's all secret. If they do, they'd take advantage of of that information and just work around them.
Same thing with intelligence. People don't know your gaps in intelligence gathering if it's all secret. If they do, they'd take advantage of of that information and just work around them.
Because if it's not secret, it's public information and not intelligence anymore?
Why must secrets be kept secret?
This may not be illegal at all.
Like all other countries, we have foreigners living in Norway. A small subset of these are bad actors. Most notable we have a history of Russian agents and ISIS members in the country. Intercepting all communications filtering for these non-Norwegian citizens/terrorists is not illegal.
According to this well-known lawyer it is not only illegal but in breach of the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev...
You forgot mossad assassins.
That doesn't mean this is legal; much like in other countries military intelligence have no jurisdiction over citizens - there are separate domestic agencies for that (the FBI/CIA, MI5/MI6 distinction).
That doesn't mean this is legal; much like in other countries military intelligence have no jurisdiction over citizens - there are separate domestic agencies for that (the FBI/CIA, MI5/MI6 distinction).
Good point. While I'm grateful for the information, and I don't think that they meant any harm, but the OP does us a disservice by dropping the word "Potential" from the title.
How do you know they only "filter for non-Norwegians"? According to some people in this thread, the intelligence agencies should operate in complete secrecy.
I don't think OP made that claim - merely that if that is how they were operating with the dragnet, it would not be illegal.
This article is about aiming ground based satellite dishes at foreign satellites and decoding the signals they see.
That's one controversial interpretation that claims collecting citizen data doesn't count if you don't really mean it.
They are legally obligated to monitor all communications from and to a foreign country originated by a foreigner in Norway. The dragnet approach, monitoring all in order to filter down, seems reasonable as long as they only store the filtered data and not full stream.
Why do you think they only store the filtered data?
They don't, and they've been lobbying for changing the law. They've said so on record (that they grab and store everything, and deletion is based on intelligence value, not following laws governing surveillance and storage of personal (citizen) data).
[deleted]
Can anyone with better knowledge of satellite tech explain why exactly this article mentions use against Norwegians and draws a parallel with illegal spying?
The source documents they provide seem to be about targeting satellite traffic (Inmarsat, RU civ/mil traffic, etc) from certain foreign satellites.
The source documents they provide seem to be about targeting satellite traffic (Inmarsat, RU civ/mil traffic, etc) from certain foreign satellites.
If i know my fellow countrymen, most people in Norway will shrug this off. That is if the news reach them at all -- I haven't seen this reported in any Norwegian mainstream media so far. We live in discouraging times.
NRK (government-owned broadcasting corp. - about as "mainstream" as it gets) covered it yesterday [0], and has published comments [1-2] today.
[0]: https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/antennene-som-samler-inn-da...
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/sviket-mot-grunnloven-1.13940422
[2]: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/e-tjenesten-folger-norsk-lov-1.139...
[0]: https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/antennene-som-samler-inn-da...
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/sviket-mot-grunnloven-1.13940422
[2]: https://www.nrk.no/ytring/e-tjenesten-folger-norsk-lov-1.139...
To be fair, neither VG, Dagbladet or TV2 have covered this, at all. These are all major news agencies.
From the article: "In partnership with NRK" (Norwegian public broadcaster).
[deleted]
"Potentially" from the headline was was dropped from the title.
And not "Norway Potentially Used NSA Tech..." but "Norway Used NSA Tech for Potentially Illegal Spying".
The intercept is known for previously having some sensationalist in an anti-surveillance and anti-US way
As for the title here being edited by mods to further be more sensational, Ycombinator has interesting backers. See previous discussion about ycombinator and other tech companies having funding from Russian oligarchs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084
As for the title here being edited by mods to further be more sensational, Ycombinator has interesting backers. See previous discussion about ycombinator and other tech companies having funding from Russian oligarchs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631084
Thanks, we've reverted the title to that of the article.
There is no illegal spying. There cannot by definition be illegal spying, as if you are caught, it is retroactively made legal. Go back to sleep.
So I can go into the president's bushes and spy on him. If I'm caught surely he would understand that by definition I was doing something legal.
Yeah this irony always gets me. Like yeah Cointelpro was "illegal" but also they did it and got away with it regardless. You can say it's illegal but that doesn't change that the intelligence agencies don't care.
They’re, well… indiscriminate. Since intelligence operates in secret, I think it’s fairly disingenuous to consider their use governed by guidelines about who can be spied on. You don’t even know who the person is, until you’ve already spied. All oversight will be conducted in secrecy, and we already know that in the US, the NSA they made a mockery of the concept.
We could ban the dragnets entirely, but I can’t see many militaries agreeing to handicap themselves relative to adversaries who will continue to use them. The very best a Norwegian could hope for at a long shot is that Norway won't spy on them, but Norway's allies will and share the intelligence. Also, every other country in the world (and private companies) will be spying on them.
I think this may be a lost fight.