ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

 A new battle is brewing over privacy for mobile devices, after moves by Google and Apple to toughen the encryption of their mobile devices sparked complaints from law enforcement. The issue is part of a long-running debate over whether tech gadgets should have privacy-protecting encryption which makes it difficult for law enforcement to access in time-sensitive investigations. FBI director James Comey reignited the issue last week, criticizing Apple and Google for new measures that keep smartphones locked down - without even the company holding the keys to unlock the data. "What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law," the FBI chief said, warning that law enforcement may be denied timely access, even with a warrant, in cases ranging from child kidnapping to terrorism. Former FBI criminal division chief Ronald Hosko made a similar point in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, citing a case in

A formation of U.S. Navy F-18E Super Hornets leaves after receiving fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker over northern Iraq on September 23, 2014. (Reuters/Shawn Nickel/U.S. Air Force)  RT The purpose of the US campaign against the Islamic State is to provide grounds for the trillion dollar annual military budget Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, told RT. RT: The UK is also now on board the military operation against the Islamic State. Will a couple of strikes by Tornado jets make any difference? Paul Craig Roberts: That is right, it will make no difference. The prospect for Washington prevailing against the Islamic State is no better than the prospect of prevailing against the Taliban. The purpose of these wars is to provide a reason for the trillion dollar annual budget of the military security complex. It is very difficult to have such massive expenditure without a cause, without a reason. So restoring the war in the Middle

RT Reuters / Kim Hong-Ji Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz says she wants a greater military presence in Poland in light of events in Ukraine. The comment came as the US announced it is deploying 700 soldiers and 20 ‘Ironhorse’ tanks across the three Baltic States and Poland. The comments were made during Kopacz's inauguration speech to the lower house of the Polish parliament. “In the face of what is happening in Ukraine, closer relations with the United States become more important. That is why my government will make every effort to ensure that the United States increases its military presence in Poland,”she said. Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Ironhorse’ armed cavalry unit – consisting of 20 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and about 700 soldiers, along with Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles – is being sent from its base in Texas and marks a considerable increase in tensions between NATO and Russia. The Baltic countries and Poland have said they are nervous about an increasingly a

By Dan Froomkin New evidence of the intelligence community’s intentionally deceptive use of the English language was released today in the form of a Defense Intelligence Agency document that instructs analysts to use words that do not mean what they appear to mean. The section of the DIA’s “ intelligence law handbook ” on the “Collection of Information about United States Persons” opens like this: To begin the journey, it is necessary to stop first and adjust your vocabulary. The terms and words used in DoD 5240.1-R have very specific meanings, and it is often the case that one can be led astray by relying on the generic or commonly understood definitions of a particular word. DoD 5240.1-R — entitled “ Procedures Governing the Activities of DOD Intelligence Components that Affect United States Persons ” – is the Department of Defense document that implements Executive Order 12333, the unilateral presidential directive first signed by President Reagan that authorizes government agencies

AP The government wants to keep secret a hearing where a hunger-striking Guantanamo detainee is attempting to expose the painful force-feedings endured by prisoners protesting their indefinite detention. Abu Wa’el Dhiab is a 43-year-old Syrian who has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He has been on hunger strike for 18 months, and has asked a federal court to intervene to stop what he describes as brutal force-feedings conducted by the military at Guantanamo. The World Medical Association holds that force-feeding “is a degrading treatment, inhumane and may amount to torture.” Hearings in his case are set to begin in Washington next week. Justice Department lawyers are arguing that Dhiab’s case “includes inextricably intertwined classified, protected, and unclassified information.” They want the public to be satisfied with opening statements and a quickly released, redacted transcript of the proceedings. First Look Media, The Intercept’s parent company, is among the 16 news orga

by Neil Macdonald Back in July, Barack Obama signed an executive order punishing anyone responsible for some of the hideous excesses of the Congolese civil war. Hardly anyone noticed Obama's order. But for the record, the people it targets have reportedly committed: mass rape (of men and women, by rebels and government soldiers) often in front of communities and families, or forcing people to rape each other, as a weapon of war; inventive torture (forcing men to copulate with holes in the ground lined with razor blades, forcing women to eat excrement or flesh of relatives); casual and varied forms of murder (including firing weapons up women's vaginas); use of child soldiers; and ethnic cleansing. The list goes on. The Congo war has killed five million people, directly and indirectly, since 1998 — more than the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq put together, as one national newspaper here noted recently. Obama's punishment for the culprits? Financial discomfort. He bro

By Patrick Cockburn The Iraqi army, plagued by corruption, absenteeism and supply failures, has little chance against Islamist fanatics using suicide bombings and fluid tactics. And US air strikes are making little difference. US air strikes are failing to drive back Isis in Iraq where its forces are still within an hour’s drive of Baghdad. Three and a half months since the Iraqi army was spectacularly routed in northern Iraq by a far inferior force of Isis fighters, it is still seeing bases overrun because it fails to supply them with ammunition, food and water. The selection of a new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, to replace Nouri al-Maliki last month was supposed to introduce a more conciliatory government that would appeal to Iraq’s Sunni minority from which Isis draws its support. Mr Abadi promised to end the random bombardment of Sunni civilians, but Fallujah has been shelled for six out of seven days, with 28 killed and 117 injured. Despite the military crisis, the governmen

The Aral Sea in 1989 (left), and now (NASA Earth Observatory) Once the fourth-biggest lake in the world, the eastern basin of the Aral Sea in central Asia is now completely dry. It is the result of a Soviet-era project to divert rivers for agriculture and a lack of rainfall at its source. “This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times,” Philip Micklin, an Aral Sea expert from Western Michigan University told NASA’s Earth Observatory, which captured fresh satellite images of the lake. “And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since Medieval desiccation [drying out] associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea.” Children run past ruined ships abandoned in sand that once formed the bed of the Aral Sea near the village of Zhalanash, in southwestern Kazakhstan (Reuters / Shamil Zhumatov / Files) In a bid to drive up production of cotton in nearby steppes, Soviet engineers diverted the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the