Total Information Awareness* is Here

Posted: February 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Middle East, Patriot Act, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Yesterday Joseph Cannon put up a disturbing post about the American company that made it possible for Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian government to shut down the internet in Egypt, making it much more difficult for Egyptians to communicate over social media like Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to read Cannon’s post and watch the Democracy Now video that he included.

The company is Narus, located in Sunnyvale, CA. The company was purchased by Boeing last summer.

I was intrigued enough to do a little more reading about Narus, and thought I’d add a bit to what Cannon had to say.

According to Wikipedia, Narus (emphasis added)

is notable for being the creator of NarusInsight, a supercomputer system which is allegedly used by the NSA and other bodies to perform mass surveillance and monitoring of citizens’ and corporations’ Internet communications in real-time, and whose installation in AT&T’s San Francisco Internet backbone gave rise to a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, Hepting v. AT&T.

That’s the NSA spying program that supposedly targeted only foreign communications, but actually spied on all of us.

At the Electronic Frontier Foundation site, I found this report by Brian Reid, who is described as a “telecommunications expert.” He is also a former electrical engineer professor at Stanford and computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University West. Reid was asked by the EFF to examine the technology used by AT&T in the spying program. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, MD

This infrastructure is capable of monitoring all traffic passing through the AT&T facility (some of it not even from AT&T customers), whether voice or data or fax, international or domestic. The most likely use of this infrastructure is wholesale, untargeted surveillance of ordinary Americans at the behest of the NSA. NSA involvement undermines arguments that the facility is intended for use by AT&T in protecting its own network operations.

This infrastructure is not limited to, nor would it be especially efficient for, targeted surveillance, or even untargeted surveillance aimed at communications where one of the ends is located outside the United States. It is also not reasonably aimed at supporting AT&T operations and security procedures.

Reid explains that the equipment he examined “is far more powerful and expensive than that needed to do targeted surveillance or surveillance aimed only at international or one-end foreign communications.” Furthermore:

The documents describe a secret, private backbone network separate from the public network where normal AT&T customer traffic is carried transmitted. A separate backbone network would not be required for transmission of the smaller amounts of data captured via targeted surveillance. You don’t need that magnitude of transport capacity if you are doing targeted surveillance.

The bottom line is that the equipment used to provide data to the NSA for Bush’s spying program was designed to spy on ordinary American citizens–not foreign terrorists.

Read the rest of this entry »

Breaking News: Forthcoming Mubarak Statement

Posted: February 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Live | Tags: , , , , , | 47 Comments

This is a developing post so it will change frequently.

Recent Tweet from
AJEnglish Al Jazeera English

Hosni Mubarak expected to speak to soon. Tune in to #AlJazeera to watch the coverage live: http://aje.me/ajelive#mubarak#tahrir#egypt

Al Jazeera continues to stream in English live.

A statement is also expected from the White House.
According to Diplomatic Sources via CNN:  Egypt crisis: Mubarak won’t run again; report says Obama pushed for decision

Update 9:38 p.m. Cairo, 2:38 p.m. ET] Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has decided not to seek re-election, according to a senior U.S. official involved in the Obama administration’s deliberations on Egypt. The official cited “reliable contacts in Cairo” for the news. The New York Times reported Obama pushed Mubarak into the decision via a message delivered by former Ambassador Frank Wisner, who paid a personal visit to Mubarak on Tuesday.

The LA Times is reporting that US Envoy Frank Wisner was sent to tell Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step aside.

Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt who has good relations with the Mubarak regime, traveled to Cairo at President Obama’s behest to talk to the Egyptian leader about the country’s future.

Wisner delivered a direct message that Mubarak should not be part of the “transition” that the U.S. had called for, according to Middle East experts who spoke on condition of anonymity.

One expert on the region said that in his regular conversations with the Obama administration about the unrest in Egypt, he learned that Wisner’s message to Mubarak was that “he was not going to be president in the future. And this message was plainly rebuffed.”

Obama’s Message to Mubarak: Neither You Nor Your Son Should Be On the Ballot This Fall

U.S. officials tells ABC News that on Saturday, President Obama made the final authorization to send former Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner to deliver – gently – the message to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that neither he nor his son should run for the presidency this September.

Wisner, a well-regarded Egypt hand with a longtime relationship with Mubarak, was “in the orbit,” an official says, “because he’s been talked about as a potential Holbrooke replacement” to be a Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The White House gave Wisner his talking points, the official said, and Wisner flew to Cairo Sunday to tell Mubarak that he should not run for re-election — and that his son Gamal should not run either.

Omar Suleiman and the U.S. Rendition and Torture Program

Posted: January 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics, Wikileaks | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Omar Suleiman

Omar Suleiman was recently appointed Vice President of Egypt by desperate dictator Hosni Mubarak. There has also been talk that Suleiman could become Mubarak’s successor now that Mubarak’s son Gamal is seemingly out of the picture.

It will be interesting to see how the Obama administration responds to this appointment, since the U.S. has had very close relations with Suleiman. Some basic background on Suleiman from Reuters:

* He has been the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services (EGIS) since 1993, a role in which he has played a prominent public role in diplomacy, including in Egypt’s relations with Israel and with key aid donor the United States.

* He was born on July 2, 1936 in Qena, in southern Egypt. He later enrolled in Egypt’s premier Military Academy in 1954, after which he received additional military training in the then Soviet Union at Moscow’s Frunze Military Academy.

* He also studied political science at Cairo University and Ain Shams University. In 1992 he headed the General Operations Authority in the Armed Forces and then became the director of the military intelligence unit before taking over EGIS.

* Suleiman took part in the war in Yemen in 1962 and the 1967 and 1973 wars against Israel.

* As Egypt’s intelligence chief, Suleiman was in charge of the country’s most important political security files, and was the mastermind behind the fragmentation of Islamist groups who led the uprising against the state in the 1990s.

Here is another profile from the BBC.

While he has shown little political ambition, General Suleiman has often been mentioned as a possible successor to the 82-year-old Mr Mubarak.

He would continue in the trend of military strongmen who have led Egypt since the 1952 revolution.

And perhaps more ominously, based on what you’re about to read about Suleiman’s activities,

Even if he is not the next president, even in a transitional capacity, some experts believe that Omar Suleiman is likely to be a kingmaker.

Read the rest of this entry »

“This is the Arab World’s Berlin Moment”

Posted: January 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs | Tags: , , , | 27 Comments

From the Egypt Live Blog at the UK Guardian:

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at the London School of Economics

This is the Arab world’s Berlin moment. The authoritarian wall has fallen – and that’s regardless of whether Mubarak survives or not. It goes beyond Mubarak. The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the region. The introduction of the military speaks volumes about the failure of the police to suppress the protesters. The military has stepped in and will likely seal any vacuum of authority in the next few weeks. Mubarak is deeply wounded. He is bleeding terribly. We are witnessing the beginning of a new era.

From Al Jazeera:

11:06pm Cairo neighborhoods are being policed by local residents wielding kitchen knives and hunting rifles, after the military called for civilians to protect their own property.

From their main story:

The looting has prompted residents in some neighbourhoods, including the upscale Zamalek district in central Cairo, to set up vigilante groups to protect private property. Outside some apartment blocks, guards armed with machine guns had taken up posts.

In the Maadi area south of Cairo, neighbourhood mosques called on young men over loudspeakers to come down to the entrances of building and homes to ward off looters.

Naglaa Mahmoud, a Maadi resident, told the Associated Press that thugs were breaking cars and threatening to get into homes. She said even the ambulance service in the neighbourhood had abandoned their offices and accused the regime of planning the chaos by pulling out all of its police forces.

“All this seems to be prearranged. They are punishing us for asking for this change,” she said.

“What a shame he [Mubarak] doesn’t care for the people or anything. This is a corrupt regime.”

The military also urged local residents throughout the country to defend themselves from looters.

The Lede Blog at the NYT has more on ElBaradei’s early call for Mubarak to resign including a video of his interview. There are also some interesting quotes from Egyptian bloggers.  This particular outcry to CNN changed their frame of the protests and the protesters.  Propaganda any one?

Less than an hour after Mona Eltahway, an Egyptian blogger and journalist, appealed to CNN to stop focusing on looting and security problems in Egypt following the government’s decision to withdraw the police from the streets, the broadcaster has changed its onscreen headline from “CHAOS IN EGYPT” to “UPRISING IN EGYPT.”

Less happily for Egyptians who want to oust the Mubarak regime, and are tired of the argument that his government is a necessary bulwark against Islamist extremism, the network just aired a report that asked the question “What Happens if Mubrak falls?” that featured video of Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian militant who is now Al Qaeda’s second in command.

You’re beginning to see this icon next to many names on twitter in response to the obvious framing of the Egyptian situation by the network.

Mohamed ElBaradei writes A Manifesto for Change in Egypt at The Daily Beast.

Then, as protests built in the streets of Egypt following the overthrow of Tunisia’s Idictator, I heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assessment that the government in Egypt is “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”. I was flabbergasted—and I was puzzled. What did she mean by stable, and at what price? Is it the stability of 29 years of “emergency” laws, a president with imperial power for 30 years, a parliament that is almost a mockery, a judiciary that is not independent? Is that what you call stability? I am sure not. And I am positive that it is not the standard you apply to other countries. What we see in Egypt is pseudo-stability, because real stability only comes with a democratically elected government.
f you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, that is precisely the answer. People were absolutely disappointed in the way you reacted to Egypt’s last election. You reaffirmed their belief that you are applying a double standard for your friends, and siding with an authoritarian regime just because you think it represents your interests. We are staring at social disintegration, economic stagnation, political repression, and we do not hear anything from you, the Americans, or for that matter from the Europeans.

So when you say the Egyptian government is looking for ways to respond to the needs of the Egyptian people, I feel like saying, “Well, it’s too late!” This isn’t even good realpolitik. We have seen what happened in Tunisia, and before that in Iran. That should teach people there is no stability except when you have government freely chosen by its own people.

Breaking news: 19 private planes have just arrived in Dubai. These are businessmen fleeing Egypt. (4:30 pm cst) These are tycoons that have played an important role propping up Mubarak and his party and have profited from his iron fist rule. This might be another sign that the ruling class is seeing the end.

SultanAlQassemi

Al Jazeera: Amongst the business tycoons who have fled are Hussein Salem, a huge NDP thug industrial investor in Sharm El Sheikh (corrected)

SultanAlQassemi

Al Jazeera: Also reports that (now) former NDP part thug & Gamal Mubarak confidant Ahmed Ezz has fled Egypt in a private jet.

This is kewl … do you suppose we can get Jeffrey Immelt out of the country to Dubai, some how too?

NPR has put up ‘A primer on Following Egyptian Protests on Twitter’. The relevant hash tags are #egypt and #jan25.

Also, to get the Department’s latest take follow PJCrowley. He hasn’t sent out tweets for about 8 hours so maybe things are shifting again.
Notable tweets

Under the category ask me why I hate the MSM:

weeddude Weed Dude
by teddysanfran

MT @OmarWaraich: Wolf Blitzer’s first Q: to Peter Bergen: “Where does al-Qaeda fit in all of this?” Bergen replied, “Not at all.” #Egypt

No wonder every one was so easily suckered on Iraq.

Mohamed ElBaradei Speaks to the Egypt (live updates)

Posted: January 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Live | Tags: , , , | 63 Comments

This thread is going to contain live updates on Egypt coming on Al Jazeera English and from Twitter updates. Al Jazeera is clearly the go to place for information.

The protests were the top story on every major news outlet in the Middle East, but the day belonged to Al Jazeera. The station was the first to report that the governing party’s headquarters were set on fire. Breathless phone reports came in from Jazeera correspondents in towns across Egypt. Live footage from Cairo alternated with action shots that played again and again. Orchestral music played, conveying the sense of a long-awaited drama.

Al Jazeera kept up its coverage despite serious obstacles. The broadcaster’s separate live channel was removed from its satellite platform by the Egyptian government on Friday morning, its Cairo bureau had its telephones cut and its main news channel also faced signal interference, according to a statement released by the station. The director of the live channel issued an appeal to the Egyptian government to allow it to broadcast freely.

Other broadcasters, including CNN, said their reporters had been attacked and their cameras smashed by security forces.

Two major news items right now. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has called for Hosni Mubarak to step down and says that Egyptian state is in collapse.  He’s asking for a unity government.

Egypt is reaching a “tipping point,” opposition campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview with Monocle.

“People are desperate and anxious for change to happen overnight,” ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in the London-based monthly’s February edition. “I see that approaching. People say Egyptians are patient, but you go around the streets of Cairo and you’ll see that the tipping point coming.”

The West is “losing every ounce of credibility when it comes to convincing people here that it is serious about their basic values: democracy, freedom, justice, rule of law,” said ElBaradei, 68. “That fuels extremism. The West doesn’t realize that stability is not based on shortsighted security measures; stability will only come when people are empowered, when people are able to participate.”

There is looting by thugs on motorcycles and it appears to be thugs from the Mubarak’s political party. The Department of Interior’s police force appears to have melted away. There’s no visible presence of the police, only the military.  There are reports that the National Museum with its incredible collection of antiquities has experienced looting and damage.

The museum in central Cairo, which has the world’s biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday.

“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night,” Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday.

“Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies,” he said.

AJ also continues to update it’s live blog for the day. Here are three entries:

7:38pm Ayman Mohyeldin reports that eyewitnesses have said “party thugs” associated with the Egyptian regime’s Central Security Services – in plainclothes but bearing government-issued weapons – have been looting in Cairo. Ayman says the reports started off as isolated accounts but are now growing in number.

…

6:50pm As protesters continue to defy curfew, a bystander in Cairo tells Al Jazeera that there are no police left in the capital. Formerly omnipresent traffic police are nowhere to be found. Reports suggest that private property is being seized in locations throughout Egypt.

6:43pm Some of the rarest antiquities in the world are found damaged by looters at famed Cairo musuem.

There are marches on the street. People are dying and being hurt. At least 25 people have been killed in Cairo.  Suez reports 38 deaths.  Alexandria reports 36 killed.  Women are being threatened with sexual assault.   The Children’s Cancer Hospital has also been the target of looting.  Again, it appears that may of the looters are the party police in plain clothes.  AJ has been reporting that some were caught trying to loot richer areas and were found to be carrying ID cards from the State Security forces.   People are still ignoring the curfew.

Probably the most disturbing announcement is that Egypt’s Head Spy is now the VP of the country.  This is the man that has handled torture of US detainees.

In December, the Wall Street Journal’s Jerusalem correspondent pronounced Suleiman “the most likely successor … President Mubarak’s closest aide, charged with handling the country’s most sensitive issues.

“He also has close working relations with the U.S. and a lifetime of experience inside Egypt’s military and intelligence apparatus,” Charles Levinson wrote.

Likewise, the Voice of America said Friday, “Suleiman is seen by some analysts as a possible successor to the president.” “He earned international respect for his role as a mediator in Middle East affairs and for curbing Islamic extremism.”

An editorialist at Pakistan’s “International News” predicted Thursday that “Suleiman will probably scupper his boss’s plans [to install his son], even if the aspiring intelligence guru himself is as young as 75.”

Suleiman graduated from Egypt’s prestigious Military Academy but also received training in the Soviet Union. Under his guidance, Egyptian intelligence has worked hand-in-glove with the CIA’s counterterrorism programs, most notably in the 2003 rendition of an al-Qaeda suspect known as Abu Omar from Italy.

This thread will continue to update during the day.

Notable Tweets:

Category of  I know how they feel:

SultanAlQassemi Sultan Al Qassemi

Zuwail “There has been a shrinking in the middle class in Egypt while an elite group has become excessively wealthy” cc Ahmed Ezz/Gamal

SultanAlQassemi Sultan Al Qassemi

Zuwail “Education has been the issue in every household in Egypt. Science & research has reached the lowest levels, Egypt deserves better”

GREAT UPDATE!!!

What you are seeing here is very interesting.  These are Egyptian Muslims praying.  Behind them are Egyptian Christians Guarding the neighborhood so they can pray safely.

You may remember that Wonk the Vote wrote a post with a similar theme in Egypt a few weeks ago when Egyptian Muslims surrounded Christian Churches who could celebrate Christmas with out fear of suicide bombers..


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