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British Companies Are Selling Advanced Spy Tech To Authoritarian Regimes (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Since early 2015, over a dozen UK companies have been granted licenses to export powerful telecommunications interception technology to countries around the world, Motherboard has learned. Many of these exports include IMSI-catchers, devices which can monitor large numbers of mobile phones over broad areas. Some of the UK companies were given permission to export their products to authoritarian states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt; countries with poor human rights records that have been well-documented to abuse surveillance technology. In 2015, the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) started publishing basic data about the exportation of telecommunications interception devices. Through the Freedom of Information Act, Motherboard obtained the names of companies that have applied for exportation licenses, as well as details on the technologies being shipped, including, in some cases, individual product names. The companies include a subsidiary of defense giant BAE Systems, as well as Pro-Solve International, ComsTrac, CellXion, Cobham, and Domo Tactical Communications (DTC). Many of these companies sell IMSI-catchers. IMSI-catchers, sometimes known as "Stingrays" after a particularly popular brand, are fake cell phone towers which force devices in their proximity to connect. In the data obtained by Motherboard, 33 licenses are explicitly marked as being for IMSI-catchers, including for export to Turkey and Indonesia. Other listings heavily suggest the export of IMSI-catchers too: one granted application to export to Iraq is for a "Wideband Passive GSM Monitoring System," which is a more technical description of what many IMSI-catchers do. In all, Motherboard received entries for 148 export license applications, from February 2015 to April 2016. A small number of the named companies do not provide interception capabilities, but defensive measures, for example to monitor the radio spectrum.
And probably most of "advanced" countries.
Accountability ? Close to zero.
Look for Amesys and Qosmos here : https://reflets.info/ (French)
Totof
So British companies are selling advanced spy tech to authoritarian regimes, like their own governemnt? and the americans?
Western governments are using this technology, often illegally. I doubt that they care what other countries do with it as long as it pads the bottom line of the home grown corporations that sell it abroad.
Like cluster-bombs and daisy-cutters
Because all world governments are a lot more authoritarian than they let on. Just stop and think about the list of things you can't do. Ever thought you could try and reason your way out of punishment because you really didn't harm anyone?
This is why I use a flip-phone with a removable battery and hardware power button. I've also removed the microphone and camera, and only attach an external headset to make a call. This makes it more difficult for the NSA to spy on me or listen in to my position because I only power up the phone and attach the headset to make brief calls, than I remove it and move to another location.
In fact, the armored car bodies and basic weapons platforms are sold by Canada to them.
Not just the spy stuff.
Human rights?
Hah.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
MOVE! There's always some place for you bleading heart tree huggers to go, so just GO ALREADY!
yeah, it's all o' 'em.
A better headline is that the UK Government authorized the companies to sell to authoritarian regimes.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
And the U.S. is trying to sell arms to Saudia Arabia, what else is new?
Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. There are human rights issues, but "authoritarian" is strong a word.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Too bad Hitler is gone. I am sure he'd be a great customer for these folks.
This is Standard Operating Procedure for the English oligarchy/monarchy.
England is not a democracy...it has exactly as much democracy as will keep the subjects from rising up.
If you understand the truth of the statement above, a lot of history makes sense, and this move in TFA is completely predictable.
Thank you Dave Raggett
this is completely false, your link is bullshit nonsense and not credible
English monarchy are selling this tech to other monarchies so they can manage their human capital (aka the populace of the country)
Thank you Dave Raggett
Disney's parent owns Vice Media. Domestic propaganda is legal in the USA again. The rich and powerful people are spending time and money manufacturing consent on sites just like this. Meanwhile, the US government is literally sending supplies to ISIS under our noses. I wonder why this piece is coming out of vice right now.
"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
- David Rockefeller's[p]urported remarks at a Bilderberg Group meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany in June 1991, The remarks are said to have been printed in several right-wing French publications shortly thereafter; as quoted in Programming, Pitfalls and Puppy-Dog Tales (1993) by Gyeorgos C. Hatonn, p. 65. Skepticism is in order for the accuracy or attribution of alleged remarks from these exclusive meetings, particularly those which could be manifestations of either satire, sarcasm — or outright fraudulence.
Believe nothing of it.
In other news, water wet, grass green.