Censored 2012 (10 page)

In addition, Google Earth and Google Maps software were originally created by a company called Keyhole, Inc., which received financial backing from the CIA’s investment company, In-Q-Tel. Keyhole was acquired by Google in 2004—thus, Google owes some of its technology to funding from the CIA. Google and the CIA’s In-Q-Tel also have staff connections. In 2005, then the director of technology assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, became a senior manager for Google’s federal government division.

These close ties to Google suggest that the Obama administration has a conflict of interest in the handling of Google’s civil rights violations.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s predilection for policing the private sector has taken a new turn, as it is now poised to police military and civilian computer networks, including air-traffic control networks, subway systems, electricity grids, and nuclear power plants.

On May 21, 2010, “the world’s first comprehensive, multi-service military cyber command operation,” CYBERCOM, was launched. Based at Fort Meade, Maryland, home to the National Security Agency (NSA), CYBERCOM is, according to Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, “a milestone in the United States being able to conduct full-spectrum operations in a new domain.” Lynn added that the “cyber domain … is as important as the land, sea, air and space domains to the US military, and protecting military networks is crucial to the Defense Department’s success on the battlefield.”

According to the Pentagon, CYBERCOM will achieve “unprecedented
unity of effort and synchronization of Army forces operating within the cyber domain.” The US Air Force said that “it has transferred at least 30,000 troops from communications and electronics assignments to ‘the front lines of cyber warfare.’ ”
⁷

A significant thrust behind this military effort is the possibility of moving cyber war onto a physical battlefield. According to Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, the Pentagon would consider a military response to a cyber attack against the United States. “We need,” said Miller, “to think about the potential for responses that are not limited to the cyber domain.” And according to former North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, an attack on a civilian system, such as a nation’s energy supply, “can destroy the economic and social fabric of a country in a way that resembles a war—yet without a single shot being fired. It is therefore vital that NATO defines what added value it can bring, for example in terms of protecting critical infrastructure or securing choke points through which supply lines run.”

Consistent with the aims of CYBERCOM is an NSA initiative called Perfect Citizen, for which Massachusetts defense contractor Raytheon received a $100 million contract. Initial reports described this project as a cyber security system that would protect America’s infrastructure from cyber attacks through the installation of sensors in civilian and military networks that were vital to national security. Subsequently, amid criticisms that the program would inject “Big Brother” into the private sector, a spokesperson for the NSA claimed that the project was just for “research and engineering” purposes. The spokesperson declined to say whether the present project would culminate in guidelines or actual solutions to be implemented later, or whether further actions would need to be taken to implement Perfect Citizen.

In any event, the main goal of CYBERCOM and projects such as Perfect Citizen is clear—the militarization of cyberspace, including the civilian sector. Critics see this as symptomatic of an overreaching, intrusive trend of the US military. As Global Research writer Rick Rozoff explained, “placing computer security, including in the civilian sector, under a military command is yet another step in the direction of militarizing the treatment of what are properly criminal or even merely proprietary and commercial matters.”

The invasive cyber practices of military, government, private corporations, and employers are not the only threats posed to internet freedom and privacy. As the cyber age advances, there has also been a hike in identity theft over the web. Millions of Americans every year lose their identity to hackers. Previously, knowledge of computer and web programming was necessary in order to steal someone’s identity over the web. But now it has become as easy as downloading a program.

There are presently a variety of programs available that can track keystrokes, spoof wire transfers, and steal credit card information straight from hard drives. These programs cost anywhere from five hundred to seven thousand dollars, and offer large payoffs. A German gang, for example, intercepted nearly $6 million in banking transactions with the help of a program called ZeuS.

The prevalence and ease of obtaining such “crimeware” applications have allowed cyber thieves to access millions of confidential documents and steal billions of dollars. As regulations and government interventions attempt to reduce or stop these crimes, it has become an arms race between the two opposing sides. Whenever regulations are put into effect, cyber thieves manage to circumvent them. Consequently, the consumer bears the responsibility to stay informed and take precautions against identity and other forms of cyber theft.

While internet monitoring has increased exponentially in the past decade, there is still an unmonitored side of the internet. However mysterious and dark this “other” internet may be, Ian Clarke released his innovative idea of a “distributed, decentralized information storage and retrieval system,” with the hope of unlocking what he considered to be the true purpose of the internet—“freedom to communicate.” Clarke explained that, back in the late 1990s, “the internet could be monitored more quickly, comprehensively, and cheaply than dated versions of communication like the mail.”

Clarke named his software Freenet and allowed it to be downloaded free of charge so that people all over the world could gain anonymous access to a previously hidden internet. Once downloaded, the software prompts you to set the amount of security you think you need, acknowledging the fact that you may be violating laws in your country by accessing the information that you are looking for.

Although the majority of the “other” internet is said to contain an
immense amount of child pornography, virus sharing, media piracy, organized cyber crime, and incomprehensible acts of privacy invasion, there are still people using the veil of mystery and obscurity created by darknets and other forms of the “deep web” to communicate and share ideas and opinions about governments, politics, and conspiracy theories, as well as human and animal rights, some more radical than others. Clarke and others have openly defended the freedoms of the “hidden,” claiming they need to be defended absolutely. Clarke also admits that child pornography exists on Freenet and that a virus could, theoretically, be constructed to target and destroy any child pornography. This, however, will likely never be implemented because, according to Clarke, “To modify Freenet, would be to end Freenet.”

As both the government and private sector, often cooperatively, monitor the internet, including social media, the dark side of the internet may become its only bright side. This cluster of news stories shows that policing activities have increased exponentially over the past few years and that this dangerous trend can be expected to accelerate as new, even more formidable means of surveillance become available.
⁸
The implication is an Orwellian state where internet freedom and privacy have evaporated and been replaced with a police state that is capable of watching every activity of every citizen. This is not speculation. The seeds have been set and are sprouting luxuriantly. But the corporate media are still not covering the story!

1
. Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain, “Revealed: US Spy Operation that Manipulates Social Media,”
Guardian
, March 17, 2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
.

2
. Noah Shachtman, “Exclusive: US Spies Buy Stake in Firm that Monitors Blogs, Twitter,”
Wired
, October 19, 2009,
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/exclusive-us-spies-buy-stake-in-twitter-blog-monitoring-firm/
.

3
. Michael Isakof, “DOJ Gets Reporter’s Phone, Credit Card Records in Leak Probe,” NBC News, February 25, 2011,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41787944/ns/us_news-security/
.

4
. Murry Wardrop, “Facebook Could be Monitored by Government,”
Telegraph
, March 25, 2009,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/5046447/Facebook-could-be-monitored-by-the-government.html
.

5
. Alex Perez, “Your Boss is Likely Spying on You,” NBC Chicago, January 19, 2011,
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/tech/cyber-spying-empoyer-facebook-twitter-social-network-114235219.html#ixzz1OesK1KND
.

6
.
Jenna Wortham, “More Employers Use Social Networks to Check Out Applicants,”
New York Times
, August 20, 2009,
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/more-employers-use-social-networks-to-check-out-applicants/
.

7
. Rick Rozoff, “US Cyber Command: Waging War In The World’s Fifth Battlespace,” Global Research, May 27, 2010,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19360
.

8
. Elliot D. Cohen,
Mass Surveillance and State Control: The Total Information Awareness Project
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Source:

Student Researcher:
Aluna Soupholphakdy (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator:
Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Source:

Student Researcher:
Ashley Wood (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator:
Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Sources:

Student Researchers:
Joan Pedro and Luis Luján (Complutense University of Madrid)

Faculty Evaluator:
Dra. Ana I. Segovia (Complutense University of Madrid)