Squatters' Rights?

It could potentially criminalise swathes of homeless people and cost over £700 million to implement. A controversial clause that will outlaw squatting in empty residential properties for the first time in England and Wales was given the green light in the House of Lords late last month. The government argues the change is essential to protect distressed property owners. Amid rising unemployment and the worst housing crisis in a generation, however, there are concerns that it might further marginalise some of society’s most vulnerable.

Under existing law, if squatters move in to an occupied home (for example when the residents are on holiday) police already have the powers to immediately remove them. The new law will broaden the scope of these powers, and will extend to residential properties that are empty and not being lived in. It will allow property owners to get police to, without applying for an eviction notice, arrest and remove squatters, who will be made to face a maximum one year jail sentence or £5000 fine.

“Ultimately the best way to end squatting will not be through fines and criminal sanction but by ensuring all homeless people, not just those deemed a ‘priority’, get the help they need,” says Duncan Shrubsole, director of policy and external affairs at homeless charity Crisis.

“We are obviously disappointed that the government is going ahead with its plans to criminalise squatting in residential buildings given the concerns that Crisis, with the support of Baroness Miller and other parliamentarians, have consistently raised as the likely impact on homeless people.”

The reform will represent a fundamental shift in how squatting is dealt with across the country, bringing an end to the long-held principles of “squatters’ rights”.

Historically in England and Wales, squatting in empty residential properties has been considered a civil dispute between the squatters and the landlord. As long as a squatter has not broken in and remains in the house, they can’t be forcibly removed and property owners have to get a court order to get people out. Within months that will no longer be the case.

“I have been contacted time and time again by MPs and constituents about the appalling impact that squatting can have on their homes, businesses and local communities,” said Conservative justice minister Crispin Blunt in a statement last year. “This is not media hype. It can and does really happen, and when it does it can be highly stressful for the owner or lawful occupier of the property concerned.

“It is not only the cost and length of time it takes to evict squatters that angers property owners, it is also the cost of the cleaning and repair bill which follows eviction. While the property owner might literally be left picking up the pieces, the squatters have gone on their way, possibly to squat in somebody else’s property.”

But a number of groups have expressed serious concerns about the ramifications of criminalising squatting, the provision for which is contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. A survey conducted by Crisis last year showed 39% of homeless people had resorted to squatting at some point, a factor that prompted organisations including the Law Society, The Criminal Bar Association and housing charity Shelter to argue against criminalisation.

“A new criminal offence of squatting is unnecessary,” says John Wotton, president of the Law Society of England and Wales. “Squatting is not a major problem and where it does occur, there are a range of laws both civil and criminal that are adequate to deal with it.”

While the Criminal Prosecution Service has backed the new law, opposition has come from a number of unexpected quarters. In a speech made before the House of Lords on 27 March, Lord Paul Strasburger – formerly the director of Safe Estates, a security firm tasked with keeping squatters out of empty properties – launched an attack on the part of the Bill dealing with squatting.

He said: “This clause is a blunt instrument because its unintended consequence – and I sincerely hope that it is an unintended consequence – is to protect unscrupulous property owners who keep properties vacant for years for purely speculative reasons and, in the process, prevent homeless people having somewhere to live.”

Though squatting is set to be criminalised in empty residential properties, campaigners have claimed a small victory in that the government is not pursing the criminalisation of squatting in commercial properties (such as, for instance, disused warehouses). Assurances have been given by ministers that those who occupy abandoned or dilapidated non-residential buildings will not be committing the new offence, and will be dealt with through the civil eviction-order process. The government has also pledged that students who occupy academic buildings or workers who stage sit-ins to protest against an employer will not be committing any crime.

“That was quite a big concession to win along the way,” says Joseph Blake, a spokesperson for squatters’ campaign group Squash. “But it was a struggle to get what is a serious piece of legislation heard properly – it was debated late at night and never properly scrutinised.

“I think it fundamentally comes to a lack of democracy in this country. Now what we may see is thousands of people becoming criminals at some point, in the middle of what is one of the worst housing crises this country has ever seen.”

There are currently over 700,000 empty homes in England, 279,000 of which have been vacant for over six months. In March new official statistics revealed that the number of people classed as homeless has jumped by 14%, with 48,510 households accepted as homeless by local authorities in 2011. The increase is the biggest in nine years and was described by Shelter as “a shocking reminder of the divide between the housing haves and have nots in this country."

The government has vowed to “tackle the root causes of homelessness, to provide affordable homes and to bring more empty homes back into use” to counteract any negative impact that there may be on homeless people through the implementation of the squatting crackdown. Until it meets its words with actions, however, the chances are squatting will continue unabated well into the future – regardless of the consequences.

“Squatting is a response to the housing crisis that we’re in – properties remain empty and our homelessness rates are rising,” Blake says, resolutely. “The two things go together. People will continue squatting if that’s the desperate last resort for them.”

Police Meetings and Trojan Surveillance

Infecting a computer with spyware in order to secretly siphon data is a tactic most commonly associated with criminals. But explosive new revelations in Germany suggest international law enforcement agencies are adopting similar methods as a form of intrusive suspect surveillance, raising fresh civil liberties concerns.

Information released last month by the German government shows that between 2008-2011, representatives from the FBI; the U.K.’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA); and France’s secret service, the DCRI, were among those to have held meetings with German federal police about deploying “monitoring software” used to covertly infiltrate computers.

The disclosure was made in response to a series of questions tabled by Left Party Member of Parliament Andrej Hunko and reported by German-language media. It comes on the heels of an exposé by the Chaos Computer Club, a Berlin-based hacker collective, which revealed in October that German police forces had been using a so-called "Bundestrojaner” (federal Trojan) to spy on suspects.

The Bundestrojaner technology could be sent disguised as a legitimate software update and was capable of recording Skype calls, monitoring Internet use, and logging messenger chats and keystrokes. It could also activate computer hardware such as microphones or webcams and secretly take snapshots or record audio before sending it back to the authorities.

German federal authorities initially denied deploying any Bundestrojaner, but it soon transpired that courts had in fact approved requests from officials to employ such Trojan horse programs more than 50 times. Following a public outcry over the use of the technology, which many believe breached the country’s strict privacy laws, further details have surfaced.

Inquiries by Green Party MP Konstantin von Notz revealed in January that, in addition to the Bundestrojaner discovered by the CCC, German authorities had also acquired a license in early 2011 to test a similar Trojan technology called “FinSpy,”manufactured by England-based firm Gamma Group. FinSpy enables clandestine access to a targeted computer, and was reportedly used for five months by Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian state security forces in 2010 to monitor personal Skype accounts and record voice and video conversations over the Internet.

But it is the German government’s response to a series of questions recently submitted by Hunko that is perhaps the most revealing to date. In a letter from Secretary of State Ole Schröder on March 6, which I have translated, Hunko was informed that German federal police force, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), met to discuss the use of monitoring software with counterparts from the U.S., Britain, Israel, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Austria. The meetings took place separately between Feb. 19, 2008, and Feb. 1, 2012. While this story has been covered in the German media, it hasn’t received the English-language attention it deserves.

Both the FBI and Britain’s SOCA are said to have discussed with the Germans the “basic legal requirements” of using computer-monitoring software. The meeting with SOCA also covered the “technical and tactical aspects” of deploying computer infiltration technology, according to Schröder’s letter. France’s secret service and police from Switzerland, Austria, Luxemburg, and Liechtenstein were separately briefed by the BKA on its experiences using Trojan computer infiltration.

Interestingly, at a meeting in October 2010 attended by police from Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, representatives from the Gamma Group were present and apparently showcased their shadowy products. It is possible that the Germans decided at this meeting to proceed with the FinSpy trial we now know took place in early 2011.

If nothing else, these revelations confirm that police internationally are increasingly looking to deploy ethically contentious computer intrusion techniques that exist in a legal gray area. The combination of the rapid development of Internet technologies and persistent fears about national security seem to have led to a paradigm shift in police tactics—one that appears, worryingly, to be taking place almost entirely behind closed doors and under cover of state secrecy.

The use of highly intrusive surveillance technologies in any context demands some level of democratic scrutiny. How many police and government agencies are sanctioned to use hacking and Trojans as a means to surveil their citizens, how frequently does it happen, on what grounds, and with what oversight? The fallout from Germany’s Bundestrojaner scandal may have shed some much-needed light on this murky world, but still we are left with many more questions than answers.

This article first appeared at: slate.com

Elected Mayors

It has been billed by some as the most significant constitutional change England has faced in generations. Next month, a referendum will be held in ten cities across the country to determine whether council leaders will replaced by elected mayors. It could mean that, rather than councils picking who is in charge, more people than ever before will have the chance to directly decide who their local leader is. Advocates of the reform say it will bring about greater democracy and more regional control – but not everyone is convinced.

Come 3 May voters in Leeds, Wakefield, Manchester, Sheffield and Bradford will be among those to go to the polls. Birmingham, Nottingham, Coventry, Bristol and Newcastle will also vote, while Liverpool and Leicester have already chosen to switch to the new system without holding a referendum. The government is keen for cities to adopt elected mayors, which it says will lead to more power devolved locally. However, critics claim they are being pressured into making a change that is not necessarily a good thing.

“I’m sceptical about mayors,” says professor Alan Harding, director of the University of Manchester’s Institute for Political and Economic Governance. “I think it would be a complete and utter waste of time for Manchester, which has been run perfectly effectively for donkey’s years.

“There are certain places in the world which have directly elected mayors, and I don’t think you could say hand on heart it makes a decisive difference to how those places function. At the end of the day it’s not the position that makes the difference – it’s the quality of the people who occupy the position and how they make use of the opportunities that they’ve got.”

Since the Local Government Act was introduced by New Labour in 2000, 16 English towns have adopted elected mayors, ranging from London to Bedford, Middlesbrough and Watford. But the current government, as part of its 2011 Localism Act, wants to expand the system across all of the country’s major cities, with May’s mandatory referendums an integral part of that process.

“I’m really enthusiastic about this because I profoundly believe we should be moving our country to having more directly elected mayors in our big cities,” prime minister David Cameron said in a speech at 10 Downing Street last week. “I know it is a big cultural change for Britain, it is a big move for us, and it is absolutely going to be up to the people of those cities to make that decision, but I very much hope we will get some yes votes across our country.”

Thinktank the Institute for Government (IFG) has also backed the push towards having more elected mayors. It believes the change will lead to more funding and independence handed over to cities, with increased stability and better leadership.

“Mayors are likely to bring significant benefits – in terms of visibility, stability and responsiveness to the electorate,” says Tom Gash, programme director at the IFG. “Mayors are elected every four years by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of voters. Council leaders are chosen by other councillors and can be ousted at virtually any point if they can’t keep these councillors happy.”

Statistics produced by the IFG show that 38% of people questioned nationally want a directly elected mayor rather than a council leader. But a separate poll earlier in March revealed 62% were unaware of the May referendums, with 90% saying they had been given little or no information about it. As a likely result of this, during an elected mayors referendum in Salford in January, just 18.1% of the 171,000 eligible voters took part.

According to Steve Connor, chief executive of Manchester PR firm Creative Concern, there is little appetite for the change in his home city because it would not offer any tangible benefit. Connor recently authored a letter, published in the Manchester Evening News and signed by academics, artists and businessmen, calling elected mayors a “bad deal”.

“For Manchester it’s a really bad option,” Connor says, “because we’ve got ten local authorities, not one, and we’ve got Greater Manchester, which is the scale at which our city works.

“If it was one elected mayor for the whole of Manchester – that would be a different issue. But this referendum is about a mayor just for the Manchester city council area, and it’s crackers.”

In London Boris Johnson is mayor of Greater London, which puts him in charge of all 32 of the capital’s boroughs. But Manchester is being offered an elected mayor who would only be responsible for the City of Manchester (one borough), as opposed to Greater Manchester in its entirety (ten boroughs).

“Elected mayors should be for larger areas – like London – they shouldn’t be for smaller areas,” Connor says. “There’s no demand for it, we haven’t asked for it, and yet it’s been forced on us.”

Last week the BBC quoted an unnamed Downing Street adviser saying Manchester would be at a competitive disavantage if its citizens didn’t vote yes on 3 May. In Wakefield council leader Peter Box has accused central government of engaging in “Alice in Wonderland politics” for asking people to vote on something that they are not fully informed about. Meanwhile, an anti-mayors campaign group called “Vote No to a Power Freak” has been founded by politicians in Birmingham who claim elected mayors will lead to corruption and a form of dictatorship.

“Concentrating power into the hands of one individual makes it easy for them to do things that mean other people aren’t consulted – unless they are wealthy people or high up in the bureaucracy of the council,” says John Hemming MP, a Liberal Democrat involved with the Vote No to a Power Freak campaign. “It leads towards corruption, because power corrupts – the more power you give people the more corruption there is.

“If you think politics should be a celebrity contest once every four years and otherwise people do what they feel like, then great – vote for it. But if you think politics is about policies and trying to make a society where everybody is taken into account – then oppose it.”

In Liverpool the prevailing attitude is more positive. The city’s council decided to adopt an elected mayor without holding a referendum after being promised a £130m funding package from Whitehall in return, including a £75m economic development grant and a low tax enterprise zone in the north of the city.

“It’s time to embrace mayoral politics,” says Liam Fogarty, a former BBC journalist running as an independent candidate for Liverpool mayor. “It will be different to the sort of politics that we’re used to, I think and I hope. A mayoral figure provides clear visible leadership – there’s no hiding place for a mayor – and I think that makes for a stronger democracy.”

Among the other candidates who will be running for mayor of Liverpool are Herbert Howe, a celebrity hairdresser, and Tony Mulhearn, the former Militant leader who has pledged to reverse all council cuts should he get elected. Phil Redmond, the creator of TV series Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks, finally ruled himself out of the race last week, after much speculation that he would stand.

“At the moment we have this whole kind of alphabet soup of people taking important decisions that are not visible or held to account – quangos, joint boards, partnerships, multi agency agreements,” Fogarty says. “If the price of accountability is the odd eccentric, I think that’s a fair price to pay.”

Academies and Free Schools

At schools across England, there is a rising tide of anger and concern among parents and teachers. Amid accusations of government bullying, as a result of the 2010 Academies Act, hundreds of schools are being transformed into independent academies that operate outside the control of local authorities. The government says the change, a historic shift away from the comprehensive education system, is for the better. But critics argue it is more about creeping privatisation than improving standards.

Chorlton High School in Greater Manchester is one of many where there is active resistance to the process. Unlike some low ranking schools, which are being forced to become an academy by the Department for Education (DfE), the governors at high achieving Chorlton want to voluntarily convert. They believe that because of the current financial climate, becoming an academy would “best protect the nature and ethos” of the school.

However, parents and community activists have formed a campaign group to oppose the move, which they argue would leave the school unaccountable to local people and could open it up to for-profit providers in the future.

“We’ve got a very good school, why change it for the Tories?” says 55-year-old Mark Krantz, a former teacher whose son studied at Chorlton High. “Without having a ballot of the community which the school serves, they don’t have the right to give our school away and turn it into an academy forever. The school’s been there for over 50 years; how can it be right that a small group of governors decide that they believe this is what should happen?”

As part of its “education revolution”, the coalition wants all schools to have the chance to become academies. Of the 3127 maintained secondary schools in England, as of 1 February, around half – 1580 – had converted to academy status.

Receiving funding directly from central government and not local authorities like comprehensive schools, academies have greater freedom and control over their finances and do not have to follow the national curriculum. Some can be sponsored by charities or businesses, which can choose the headmaster of the school and have a say over what is taught.

Controversial so-called “free schools” can also be set up by groups of parents, teachers, charities, trusts or religious groups, which then become academies and receive central government funding. 24 free schools opened in 2011 and a further 72 are planned to open in September 2012 and beyond.

One, the Phoenix Free School, is set to be established in Oldham next year. Run entirely by ex-military servicemen and women, it will attempt to instil “martial values" in children, using a mix of unqualified and qualified teachers who the school’s ex-army cofounder says will be told to discard “every liberal idea taught in teacher-training courses.”

“Putting troops onto our streets may control the symptoms of social breakdown. But putting troops into our schools would do far more to address the underlying problems,” says Tim Knox, director of right-wing think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies, which is backing the Phoenix school. “In particular, ex-servicemen and women can provide the role models and sense of discipline that is so often lacking in inner city schools.”

But teachers groups are staunchly against the introduction of free schools and academies, questioning the merit of allowing untrained educators and companies with vested interests to exert influence over children.

“For a young person to develop fully, they need to have a really broad rounded curriculum – not something that’s narrow and aimed at one particular job or industry, which is what we’re seeing,” says Avis Gilmore, north west secretary of the National Union of Teachers. “We are opposed to the whole process because we see it is dismantling the state education system.”

There is widespread anxiety that the Academies Act is leading to what is in effect privatisation. Although the coalition has given assurances that it will not open up schools to for-profit companies, it refuses to rule out doing so in the future. Already, firms such as Barclays Bank have sponsored schools – raising questions about what they as businesses stand to benefit.

“It’s anything but privatisation through the back door – they’re parking the tanks on the lawn,” says Alasdair Smith, spokesman for the Anti-Academies Alliance. “They’re blowing local authorities away so lots of schools feel that they have no choice but to become self governing academies or to join chains.

“It’s exactly the same as what’s being done to the NHS. There’s no mandate for this. What you’re seeing are corporate raiders lining up to take over our schools – that’s the bottom line. If you want to improve schools you’ve got to focus on the quality of teaching and learning. It’s not about changing structures and governance.”

The rapid boom in school conversions has proved costly for some councils. In Yorkshire, at least 16 schools tied to private finance initiative deals are applying or have become academies, according to the Yorkshire Post. This could mean the region’s councils are forced to pay millions for schools they no longer run or own.

Last month, governors of Coleraine Park Primary in Tottenham, north London, became the latest in a line of schools forced to become an academy by the DfE following a poor Ofsted report. Coleraine was made to accept sponsorship by the Harris Federation, a charity chaired by Tory peer Lord Harris, which runs a chain of academy schools. The charity is not-for-profit, though notably one of its directors was paid over £240,000 in 2010.

“Coleraine’s governors feel that the Secretary of State has disempowered them without due regard for their role and has in fact bullied them into a decision in a way that nobody wants,” the governors wrote in a disgruntled statement. “We believe that handing it over to the Harris Federation will not necessarily improve standards more than they would have done on the current trajectory.”

Downhills Primary, also in Tottenham, is faced with a similar predicament. Because it has been placed in special measures by schools inspectorate Ofsted, which means it is underperforming, the DfE is able to compel it to become an academy under the powers granted by the Academies Act. The school’s head, Leslie Church, recently resigned after coming into conflict with education secretary Michael Gove – but parents are vowing to fight the conversion in his absence.

“At our school the children are happy, the children are learning and I don’t have concerns,” says Wendy Sugarman, 44, whose eight-year-old son attends Downhills. “There is some really good teaching going on. The Ofsted report was very, very harsh.

“I just think that the whole thing stinks. When you look into the academy chains, it’s all about money. As parents we chose to send our children to the school because it had certain qualities, and I worry that the ethos of the school will be destroyed by an academy chain. I feel that they have no grounding or experience working with Haringey, our borough.”

Fears about the degree to which academy status can improve schools were confounded in February after Birkdale High School in Southport was deemed “inadequate with special measures”, the lowest ranking, four months into its academy status.

“Progress is inadequate and students do not achieve as well as they should,” Ofsted wrote in its report. “The failure of senior leaders to improve teaching quality and tackle inappropriate behaviour has contributed to a far less favourable picture of provision and outcomes than at the time of the previous inspection.”

The Sabu Revelation

To most observers he seemed unpredictable, dangerous and so highly skilled that he could evade the long arm of the law. But in an astonishing revelation, last week it emerged that Sabu, the notorious figurehead of hacking group LulzSec, had for almost nine months been working secretly as an informant for the FBI.

The identity of 28-year-old Hector Xavier Monsegur, who led a rampage against government websites and multi-national corporations, had been uncovered when he failed to mask his computer's IP address using an internet chat room on just one fateful occasion.

Soon after, FBI agents appeared at the door of his apartment on the sixth floor of a 14-story housing project in Manhattan. The agents reportedly played "good cop bad cop", convincing the infamous hacker - almost immediately, according to court documents - that his only way out was to cooperate with an international investigation into his former comrades.

Monsegur, under his Sabu guise, proceeded to continue operating aggressively online - in some cases encouraging fellow hackers to commit crimes - all while under apparent instruction of the FBI.

Some suspected he had been "turned" - but the hacker world is rife with conspiracy theories and there was no hard evidence to prove it. "Sabu was identified, apprehended by the FBI and turned to an informant," one perceptive group wrote in November last year. Yet the claim never gained substantial traction.

From the perspective of the authorities, it was a tactical masterstroke. They had managed to flip the most notorious, the most feared, and the most accomplished of the LulzSec members. Due to his close ties and wide respect among hacker collective Anonymous and other splinter groups such as AntiSec, Sabu was a goldmine to the FBI. With his help, they were able to level charges against five accused hackers based in Britain, Ireland and America.

There are concerns, however, about how far the Bureau went to pursue its goals.

On 19 June, just 12 days after Sabu had been arrested, LulzSec, the group he commanded, issued a public call to arms. "Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation," it wrote in a manifesto.

Sabu was quick to proudly point out the manifesto to his 30,000 Twitter followers. "The biggest, unified operation amongst hackers in history," he wrote, possibly from an FBI computer. "All factions welcome. We are one."

Two months later, on 17 August, Sabu disappeared offline for 30 days. We now know that just two days prior, on 15 August, he had secretly pleaded guilty to twelve counts of hacking in a closed hearing at Southern District court, between Manhattan Bridge and Broadway, New York. When he returned, though he reportedly helped call off some attacks, he maintained a hostile front, claiming, "I wasn't owned, arrested, hacked or any of the other rumors [sic]."

In December, he encouraged an offensive against companies manufacturing surveillance technology; he called on hackers to target "with impunity" anyone supporting legislation that would restrict internet freedoms; and played what sources close to him say was a central role in hacking intelligence and security thinktank Stratfor. The attack on Stratfor resulted in 75,000 credit card numbers being posted online, with 5.5m of the thinktank's confidential emails subsequently passed to WikiLeaks.

This trend continued almost right up until 6 March, the day he was "outed" in an exclusive published by Fox News. As recently as two weeks ago Sabu had publicly instructed hackers to "infiltrate" international crime organisation Interpol and to "expose" arms companies. "Hack their servers," he tweeted on 28 February. "Scour their user email/passes. Grab mailspoolz. Grab docs... Leak. Rinse. Repeat."

Sabu's activities while working out of FBI offices, and then later his home under 24-hour surveillance, raise significant legal and ethical questions. Most notably: by encouraging people to commit crimes in such a brazen fashion, did he cross the thin line from informant to agent provocateur?

It has been suggested that the attack on Stratfor and the subsequent dealing with WikiLeaks was allowed - perhaps encouraged - by the FBI, not only to strengthen the US government's case against the hackers, but also to assist in the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (This does not seem beyond the realms of possibility, particularly given America's well-documented desire to prosecute Assange for his role in publishing US government secrets.)

It could have been the case, of course, that Sabu on occasion went "rogue" while under FBI direction. But given that he was the most notorious hacker in the world and having his every move monitored, it is doubtful the authorities would have let him out of their sight long enough for him to have the opportunity - repeatedly and over a period of several months - to incite others to commit criminal acts. What appears more likely is that the FBI decided, like the hackers, they too could play dirty.

These are issues that will no doubt be addressed In the months ahead, as the FBI's tactics fall under scrutiny in the courts and elsewhere. The impact of the Sabu revelation, meantime, has unsurprisingly reverberated like an atomic bomb within the Anonymous community.

"I feel for the ones who worked with him and who trusted him with leaks/data," one hacker told New Statesman. "They could never have known."

This sentiment is one shared across online chat rooms frequented by Anonymous, where there are varying degrees of anger, paranoia, fear and sadness.

For many, the large void left by Sabu will provide a defining moment of sobering reality. His silent Twitter page, once a ceaseless stream of anti-establishment rage, is now nothing but a ghostly relic - a symbolic reminder that in the shadowy virtual world hackers inhabit, no one is untouchable, and everyone, no matter who they profess to be, is potentially an informant.

This article first appeared at: http://www.newstatesman.com/the-staggers/2012/03/sabu-fbi-hackers-informant

Hackers Wage War on 'Profiteering Gluttons'

In secretive online chat rooms, away from the glare of police, small groups of elite hackers plot attacks against multi-national corporations and governments. But in a quest to expose what they see as a conspiracy of high-level corruption, the hackers – affiliated to cyber-activist network Anonymous – have in recent months expanded their targets, becoming increasingly unpredictable and callous in the process.

2011 was a significant year for Anonymous, both in terms of activity and evolution. The chaotic collective, born out of online messageboard 4Chan in 2003, continued to grow, partly fuelled by the social unrest that has gripped the world.

Its members helped revolutionaries in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria counter government censorship, and temporarily disabled the websites of powerful financial institutions for refusing to process WikiLeaks donations. They have taken part in traditional protests as part of the worldwide Occupy movement and led a challenge against new laws that they say would stifle internet freedom .

At the same time, however, an aggressive and volatile faction within Anonymous has also flourished – and that is causing a degree of internal division.

Made up of a small highly skilled hacker team which carries out attacks under the name Operation Anti-Security – or AntiSec – it includes some of those previously involved with the group LulzSec, which for two months last year attacked a series of major targets including Sony and the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Unlike the majority of mainstream Anonymous participants, AntiSec's core members – numbering up to 10, with around three or four key hackers, according to sources close to the group – do not often participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that flood websites with traffic and force them offline for a temporary period.

Announced by LulzSec in June 2011 as part of an offensive against government agencies and what it called profiteering gluttons, AntiSec's elite – like a clandestine special-forces wing of Anonymous – devote themselves to far more precarious and controversial activity.

The group breaks into servers, exposing security vulnerabilities while mining data – often including passwords and credit card numbers – that it ultimately dumps onto the web for anyone to download.

Partly inspired by a 13-year-old hacking movement of the same name, since December 2011 AntiSec has embarked on a seemingly unstoppable rampage.

It has intercepted an FBI/Scotland Yard phone call, and attacked a well-known thinktank, a number of US police forces, a law firm and even US consumer watchdog the Federal Trade Commission. Almost nothing, it seems, is off limits.

"Generally we target government systems, police systems and evil corporations," says an AntiSec hacker, who asks not to be named ("I don't need the heat"). "But law firms do usually contain a wealth of private information, and when they are representing people who are already in our crosshairs, it's fair game."

On 24 December, AntiSec broke into the website of Stratfor, a US security and intelligence thinktank that specialises in geopolitical analysis.

Aiming to expose "rich and powerful oppressors", it stole a huge 200GB cache of data from Statfor's servers, including 5m emails and 75,000 credit card numbers belonging to the thinktank's subscribers. The emails were handed to WikiLeaks, which on Monday began publishing selections of them.

But the credit card details were simply dumped online for anyone to download, leaving thousands of Statfor's customers – among them ordinary citizens who paid to receive updates on world affairs – open to exploitation by fraudsters.

There had been more unwitting victims on 3 February, when AntiSec attacked law firm Puckett and Faraj, which represented Frank Wuterich, a US soldier convicted for involvement in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005.

The hackers were outraged when Wuterich, who admitted issuing an order to shoot first and ask questions later, avoided a jail sentence for his role in the incident, winning leniency through a plea bargain that carried no punishment beyond a reduction in rank and a pay cut.

AntiSec broke into Puckett and Faraj's servers, obtained nearly 3GB of emails (numbering tens of thousands of messages and dating back two years), and posted them onto the internet "to expose the corruption of the court systems and the brutality of US imperialism".

The trove included emails showing how Wuterich's lawyer, Mark Zaid, planned to meet Republican congressman Duncan Hunter about "making this whole case go away". But it also contained a mass of highly sensitive information from an array of cases unrelated to the Wuterich incident, such as witness statements from victims of sexual assault.

This caused unease among some members of Anonymous, with a statement published online purportedly from a disenchanted group saying that a “silent majority” were “growing uncomfortable with this new and inaccurate meaning for Anonymous.” AntiSec, however, has remained unapologetic.

"When justice cannot be found in the courts, it will be found in the streets – or in this case, the internet," says a hacker involved in the attack on Puckett and Faraj, adding that the group still has access to a private email account used by Neal Puckett, the firm's founder.

"Generally, we do work to redact information on bystanders – for example, in all of our police attacks, we have carefully redacted prisoner/parolee information. [But] it is the firm's responsibility to protect the information of their clients."

Will there be more attacks on law firms in the future? "If law firms stick their necks out in defence of notoriously corrupt corporations – especially if it is shown that wrongdoing was involved – then yes, I'd say that could be possible."

Adopting such an increasingly militant approach has gained AntiSec a number of vocal critics, most notably among organisations that in the past may have sympathised with the wider aims of the Anonymous movement.

Alex Hanff, managing director at consultancy firm Think Privacy and former communications project leader at civil liberties watchdog Privacy International, denounced the group earlier in February after it posted the source code of popular Symantec anti-virus software online, rendering it potentially unsafe. Hanff, who keeps in regular contact with those involved in Anonymous actions, was asked to endorse the Symantec release by AntiSec. When he refused, saying it could make thousands of computer users vulnerable to criminals, a Privacy International affiliated website came under attack.

"People who hold Anonymous's cause close to heart are incredibly aggravated by the actions of AntiSec," Hanff says. "There is a very significant lack of social responsibility, morals and ethics – they seem to be a group that are bent on only pursing their own course, for their own purposes, without any awareness or even any care for what the consequences of that may be."

Some believe the increasingly erratic attacks, perpetrated by small cells of hackers such as AntiSec, only serve to give governments justification for asserting greater control over the internet.

At present, though, it seems even the introduction of punitive legislation would prove futile, because the most skilled hackers – as volatile as they may be – are able to outsmart and outstep the authorities at almost every turn, and, perhaps most crucially, are committed to stop at nothing.

"I don't want come off as someone who's saying that our particular grievance is going to be the thing that ruins America – that finishes it off – but that's what it's looking like from our standpoint," says Barrett Brown, an activist who works closely with AntiSec.

"This is going to turn into an actual shooting war. It just looks to me like things are accelerating ... if you're mad at us now, just wait a couple of years. No one's burning down villages; no one's dropping bombs – yet."

This article first appeared at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/27/anonymous-splinter-group-antisec-waging-war

Spies and their Masters

They slept with women under false pretences, used fake passports, and each cost the taxpayer an estimated £250,000 a year. In the last twelve months, police spies used to infiltrate and monitor protest groups have come under intense scrutiny after a series of exposés. Now, a new government review has recommended that undercover officers should be subject to greater independent oversight. Serious concerns remain, however, that the proposed changes do not go far enough.

The controversial spy tactics used by the police began to unfold in late 2010, when Mark Kennedy, a covert Metropolitan officer, was unmasked. Kennedy, who was known to activists as Mark ‘Flash’ Stone, had operated for years alongside protesters as a secret police intelligence gatherer. Tattooed and with long hair, he presented himself as a “freelance climber” and quickly became a key figure in the environmental movement with his easy access to money and transport.

Kennedy’s cover was eventually blown when the girlfriend he was seeing in his guise as an eco-warrior found his real passport. Shocked, she told her friends. Kennedy confessed, and it soon emerged he had infiltrated major environmental protests dating back to 2003, travelling to eleven countries across Europe meeting and befriending activists. Unbeknown to them, he had a tracking device fitted inside his mobile phone – and was constantly feeding information back to his police superiors in London.

Following the revelations about Kennedy, government police watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) reviewed the use of undercover officers by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), the specialist “domestic extremism” outfit he worked for.

Authored by HMIC chief Sir Denis O'Connor, the review, published earlier this month, criticised the lack of oversight of Kennedy’s activities, noting that “the full extent of his activity remains unknown.” O’Connor recommended that future long-term deployments of undercover police officers should be "pre-authorised" by independent body the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, which oversees MI5 and other state agencies that use clandestine surveillance techniques.

But according to campaign group The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), the HMIC review has failed to address fundamental issues.

“On the basis of this report, undercover police officers can continue to target a range of political and protest groups,” says Val Swain, spokesperson for Netpol. “The report is not even able to deliver an agreed definition of the term ‘domestic extremism’, meaning there are still no real limits on how the targets of undercover policing are decided upon.”

Swain points to the case of an 87-year-old artist, John Catt, who launched a legal challenge against police in 2011 after he was branded a domestic extremist and put under surveillance during a number of anti-arms trade demonstrations.

“Mr Catt had no criminal record, and spent his time at protests sketching, but the police have been adamant in asserting their right to hold details of his vehicle, his family, his appearance and his movements... There is no justification for the invasive surveillance of this kind of political activity, either through undercover officers or other means.

“The domestic extremism unit lacks any real accountability or transparency, and ultimately lacks any credibility. It is a shadowy unit that has been allowed to set its own rules for spying on legitimate political activity and dissent, and has no place within British society, or British policing.”

In recent months, a further eight undercover officers, whose secretive operations date back to the 1980s, have been exposed. Of these, six are believed to have had sexual relationships with women they were spying on – despite this being considered "grossly unprofessional" under existing police rules. On two occasions, the covert officers even secretly fathered children with activists before vanishing from their lives.

A catalogue of serious misconduct allegations involving the officers – including claims that they gave false testimony in a court case – is now being investigated by twelve separate inquires, set up by police chiefs and prosecutors. But all are being held behind closed doors, prompting calls for a full and open public inquiry.

“The reason you need public scrutiny is that more and more we see examples of the police unjustifiably criminalising peaceful protest,” says Katherine Craig, a solicitor at law firm Christian Khan. “When the state has been left to regulate itself it has failed. Absolutely the presumption should be for maximum transparency and accountability.”

Craig expresses concern that there has been a “cultural shift” in the way protests are policed, with authorities increasingly targeting activist groups. The revelations around the conduct of undercover officers, she believes, show the failures of a system that has for decades been allowed to function behind a veil of intense official secrecy.

“You can’t simply rely on individual officers or even on police forces as a whole to act responsibility and that’s really been borne out in these cases that have come to light,” Craig says. “The fact that there isn’t a proper system [of regulation] is obscene.”

Though the HMIC review recommended that a new structure of independent regulation is put in place for undercover officers, critics say this is insufficient. Human rights group Liberty has called for judicial oversight to be introduced, which would mean a judge would have to authorise the use of covert police officers.

“If a judge has to sign off a warrant to search your premises, why on earth should the police be able to self-authorise the far greater intrusion of putting a mole amongst your colleagues and friends?” says Rachel Robinson, policy officer for Liberty. “The report says that judicial sign off would compromise independence without any proper reasoning for this assertion. Only legislation will prevent more Kennedys playing James Bond and abusing our trust."

The Association of Chief Police Officers, a private company which leads the development of policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has backed the idea of introducing judicial oversight of undercover operations. However, in the short term this looks an unlikely proposition. The home secretary, Theresa May, has remained non committal, saying only that the government would “consider carefully the recommendations [made by HMIC] to ensure enhanced control of these undercover police officers in the future.”

Meanwhile, after a year of disclosures about undercover police infiltrating protest groups, concern has heightened in activist communities. Protesters at the Occupy London encampment at St Paul’s Cathedral have spoken openly about how they believe police officers are living among them, and at an Occupy demonstration in December a number of men were accused of being agent provocateurs.

The protesters’ fears are well founded. In an interview with the Daily Mail last year, Kennedy claimed he knew of at least 15 other officers who had infiltrated activist groups – four of whom remained undercover.

“The world of undercover policing is grey and murky – there is some bad stuff going on,” he said. “I wasn't the only undercover police officer doing this kind of work and I'm quite sure that there may be operations still running.”