18/12/2025 – The Surveillance State in action ….. these posts were added over a seven year period as multiple examples of the spreading Surveillance State – something which I used to find aborrent and completely absurd, even dangerous.
But time has moved on. The widespread use of surveillance by official and unofficial bodies of all kinds with little if any legal control or authority has made the Surveillance State a reality. And it seems that many people see and welcome it as a means of improving their security, without realising that giving others the means to watch your every move directly jeopardises any real personal security. How much do you trust the people employed to watch the surveilance screens? Or are you afraid to think about it?
Regardless, time has moved on. And as sure as night follows day, improved surveillance has spread the wings of control. Once you can watch a person’s actions, you can see what happens in response to various external stimuli. And so, little by little, the Surveillance State has become the Control Culture, the original title of this mini-blog.
Forgive me, I made the mistake originally of thinking the link between the two was implicit. But in today’s world, few are able to distance themselves enough from the daily noise to recognise links that are implicit. We have to be explicit, or obvious. I will be moving on to a new mini-blog, still labelled the Control Culture, but with contents more explicit. Or as my old English teacher used to say, if you think you are being insultingly obvious, then that is probably about right.
Go to the Control Culture (new).
2022
- 30/08/2022. euobserver: NSO and Pegasus surveillance rival operating in the EU – Tykelab and RCS Lab
2021
- 04/09/2021. Guardian: ‘Panic made us vulnerable’ – how 9/11 made the US surveillance state – and the Americans who fought back
- 08/01/2021. Victory at UK High Court against government use of ‘general warrants’ for indiscrimate surveillance
2019
- 08/02/2019. This week an EU ‘Big Brother’ administration became almost inevitable
- 17/01/2019. Where is George? Identifying individuals in the crowd #eu_research, #SurveillanceState, #surveillance, #Orwell …
2018
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- 28/07/2018. How Israel silences Palestine in EU circles, and the rebuttal, which doesn’t appear to answer the central allegations.
- 23/07/2018. How governments around the world deploy troll armies to silence dissent
- 13/07/2018. The Surveillance Society in the EU is closer than you think – Statewatch opinion on the coming centralised EU Justice and Home Affairs database – “The Point of No Return”. #SurveillanceState #surveillance … but with increased levels of personal and social harassment – do I care?
- 23/04/2018 European Commission unveils draft whistleblower-protection directive
- 12/02/2018 Why USgov simply cannot be trusted when it comes to matters of privacy
- 30/01/2018 Guardian: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful
2017
- 08/11/2017 Intercept: European Court to decide whether UK Mass Surveillance revealed by Snowden violates human rights
- 18/06/2017 European Parliament Civil Liberties committee recommends end-to-end encryption for all electronic communications
- 14/06/2017 Top spies stonewall Congress about talks with Trump on James Comey and Russia – US stands for democracy and accountability? Not if you’re a spy it doesn’t.
- 26/04/2017 EFF: Privacy concerns in US over students using latest in-class technology – No privacy a normal way of life? – rather than deeply twisted subversion of societal norms
- 24/04/2017 Spiegel: BND spied on Interpol and news organizations
- 09/04/2017 EU starts border checks on everyone A sad day for the dream that was personal privacy – the right to go about your lawful business in anonymity has gone
- 23/03/2017 US Senate repealing broadband privacy measures
- 23/03/2017 Guardian: Alleged police hacking shows how at risk we all are
- 07/03/2017 Wikileaks: Vault 7 – CIA hacking tools revealed
- 03/03/2017 Fake News and disinformation – Russia heats up its infowar with the West
- 03/03/2017 Germany’s BND has spied on foreign journalists for years
- 03/03/2017 Intercept: How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helped the NSA spy on the whole world
- 05/01/2017 Companies like Hacking Team et al sell cyberwarfare tools to anyone with the money
2016
- 28/12/2016 Spying after Snowden – what’s changed and what hasn’t
- 23/12/2016 Guardian: EU’s highest court rules indiscriminate retention of emails and electronic communications is illegal
- 08/12/2016 Intercept/Le Monde: British and US spy agencies target in-flight mobile-phone use
- 08/12/2016 Guardian: Rio Tinto’s plan to monitor workers’ private lives – perfect example of a total surveillance culture
- 06/12/2016 EP: Mandatory checks against databases for all crossing EU borders
- 23/11/2016 Intercept: UK parliament approves unprecedented new hacking and surveillance powers
- 21/11/2016 Free Trade v. Personal Privacy? The global battle for your personal data
- 18/11/2016 Britain’s Snoopers’ Charter becomes law – de facto ending any right to privacy
- 17/11/2016 Intercept: Titanpointe – the NSA’s spy hub in New York
- 05/11/2016 Intercept: Three new scandals show how pervasive and dangerous is mass surveillance in the West
- 20/10/2016 Intercept: UK mass-surveillance databases unlawful for 17 years
- 20/10/2016 Intercept: How Israel became a hub for surveillance techniques
- 20/10/2016 Intercept: Face-recognition technology threatens the fundamentals of society
- 14/09/2016 Intercept: Stingray manuals detail how police spy on mobile phones
- 07/09/2016 German spies violated law, must delete XKeyscore database—watchdog
- 26/08/2016 07/09/2016 Intercept: Inside Menwith Hill – the NSA’s British monitoring base
- 26/08/2016 Windows 10 – Microsoft blatantly disregarding user privacy
- 17/08/2016 Wired: VW back door for its wireless key fobs means a field day for car thieves
- 17/08/2016 The Intercept: NSA targets pro-democracy campaigner in bungled spying operation
- 12/08/2016 BBC: Your car is watching you – how connected-car tech is eroding personal privacy
- 04/06/2016 UK gov creating secret mega-database on citizens without consulting Parliament
- 02/06/2016 Research highlights the impact of the threat of surveillance on journalists and their sources
- 25/05/2016 Vindication for Edward Snowden from new player in NSA whistleblowing saga
- 02/05/2016 Guide to encryption debate timelines’
- 30/04/2016 Guardian: Supreme court grants FBI massive expansion of powers to hack computers
- 30/04/2016 Guardian: China passes law imposing security controls on foreign NGOs
- 29/04/2016 Intercept: Mass surveillance breeds fear and self-censorship – welcome back to the old East-Germany
- 19/04/2016 Guardian: Your mobile phone number is all a hacker needs – read texts, listen to calls and track you
- 09/04/2016 EU/US Privacy Shield – reform needed if it is to work
- 29/02/2016 Privacy Shield – proposed transatlantic data deal attacked by privacy advocates
- 03/01/2016 Observer: TTIP the key to freer trade, or corporate greed?
- 02/01/2016 Guardian: A generation of failed politicians has trapped the west in a tawdry nightmare
- 01/01/2016 2016! And private sector seems better defender of personal privacy than the state?
2015
- 24/12/2015 Politico: The encryption delusion
- 10/11/2015 PGP encryption still a problem
- 09/11/2015 Guardian: This snooper’s charter makes Orwell look lacking in vision
- 09/11/2015 UK has amassed its citizens’ communications data since 2001
- 05/11/2015 Guardian: UK surveillance bill as big a threat to state security as to individual liberty
- 05/11/2015 Guardian: New UK surveillance powers enable tracking of every citizen’s use of internet
- 28/10/2015 Wired: Your mobile service keeps downgrading to 2G? Stingrays at work
- 28/10/2015 Guardian: Another major blow to civil liberties in the US – passed by the Senate
- 26/10/2015 Intercept: Drones – a tool for tyranny
- 06/10/2015 Safe Harbour must be suspended and replaced – European Parliament civil liberties committee
- 28/09/2015 New PNR bill for the EU unjustified, says EU data chief
- 27/09/2015 Intercept: From radio to porn – GCHQ tracks targeted web users everywhere – Moral? Behave as if you’re living under the Stasi
- 24/09/2015 Bloomberg: US/EU data-sharing deal not trustworthy and Safe Harbour should be scrapped – says EU official
- 24/09/2015 Guardian: It’s the British establishment that has a problem with democracy
- 24/09/2015 Intercept: After a century of US surveillance, it’s time for limits
- 28/08/2015 Stealth Headers – 15% of wireless users now tracked by their carriers using ‘zombie cookies’ – culprits include AT&T, Telefonica de España and Vodafone
- 16/08/2015 Guardian: AT&T has ‘extraordinary, decades-long’ relationship with NSA
- 12/08/2015 Intercept: GCHQ provides employment for British psychologists
- 12/08/2015 Intercept: NSA provides employment for failed writers
- 05/08/2015 Blue Moon – Duncan Campbell versus GCHQ – an investigative journalist’s story
- 31/07/2015 Blue Moon – Drone warfare: How private sector profits from incessant demand for drone intelligence
- 15/07/201 – Intercept: How to really chat securely while online
- 13/07/2015 – Guardian: Hacking Team hack casts spotlight on murky world of state surveillance
- 09/07/2015 – Encryption backdoors? Why governments cannot be trusted with personal-data security
- 09/07/2015 – NYTimes: We need encryption – government back-doors open way for criminals
- 04/07/2015 – Intercept: XKEYSCORE – NSA’s system for Googling private communications globally
- 22/06/2015 – Intercept: Dirty tricks and psychological warfare? GCHQ again
- 22/06/2015 – Intercept: GCHQ’s reverse engineering activities
- 03/06/2015 – Intercept: US finally calls time on 14 years of NSA bulk collection of domestic phone records
- 03/06/2015 – Intercept: UN says states should promote strong encryption and anonymity of communications
- 02/06/2015 – AP: Low-flying aerial surveillance across the US
- 22/05/2015 – Politico (Welcome! You have now gained your Control Culture credentials): As US moves to privacy reform, EU states enact sweeping spying powers
- 22/05/2015 – COPS (UK): We are all targets now
- 22/05/2015 – Guardian: GCHQ and other UK intelligence hacking into your PC or phone? Now it’s legal
- 19/05/2015 – Intercept: The Control Culture emerging into open day – UK government threatens freedom of speech
- 19/05/2015 – Intercept: GCHQ shrugs on a rainbow-coloured coat
- 08/05/2015 – Guardian: German BND foreign intelligence service reduces cooperation with NSA
- 08/05/2015 – Guardian: NSA mass phone surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden ruled illegal
- 02/05/2015 – NYTimes: German BND accused of helping NSA spy on European companies. Airbus filing complaint
- 29/04/2015 – OpenDemocracy: Mass surveillance in France – legalising the ISP ‘Black Box’
- 28/04/2015 – Facebook’s login system is being hijacked by China’s Great Firewall
- 24/04/2015 – Wired:Dutch IT professionals find way to detect state-security agency attacks that use Quantum Insert technique on browsers
- 01/04/2015 – Guardian: Facebook ‘tracks all visitors, breaching EU law
- 30/03/2015 – Guardian: Surveillance should worry journalists and the public – whatever politicians say
- 29/03/2015 – Safe Harbour better suited to pirates than protecting EU citizens’ data
- 28/03/2015 – UKgov scientist contracts have new clause – all media contact requires Ministerial approval
- 25/03/2015 – Snowden leak investigation a state secret, says the Met
- 19/03/2015 – The wolf is guarding the henhouse: the government’s war on cyberterrorism
- 19/03/2015 – Intercept: US threatened Germany over Snowden, Vice Chancellor says
- 17/03/2015 – PC World: Dutch court scraps telecommunications data retention law
- 16/03/2015 – European governments working in Brussels to undermine EU data-privacy safeguards
- 16/03/2015 – StingRay: I’ve often wondered about that box at the top of the local telephone pole
- 16/03/2015 – Hertz puts cameras in rental cars (but no plans to use them!)
- 12/03/2015 – Guardian: UK surveillance laws need total overhaul, says Parliamentary report
- 03/03/2015 – EFF: 2015 – the year of encryption?/
- 03/03/2015 – Schneier:Insecure technology can be used by anti-democratic governments too
- 20/02/2015 – Wired: Espionage agencies will always oppose greater online security – too much spent undermining
- 20/02/2015 – Intercept: GSM SIM cards from Europe likely hacked at manufacturer
- 16/02/2015 – Telegraph: Britain ‘threatens to stop sharing intelligence’ with Germany if parliamentary inquiry into UK and US spying goes ahead
- 06/02/2015 – Guardian: GCHQ mass internet surveillance was unlawful, court rules
- 27/01/2015 – Guardian: Argentinian government moves to dissolve domestic intelligence agency
- 27/01/2015 – Guardian: Millions of US cars tracked in ‘massive’ real-time spying programme
- 26/01/2015 – Guardian: Mass surveillance a fundamental threat to human rights, says European report
- 23/01/2015 – Spiegel: NSA training staff how to destroy online computers
- 23/01/2015 – Communications surveillance/destruction software – Chaos Computer Club addresses European Parliament
2014 and earlier
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- 01/12/2014 – Intercept: US and UK agencies used Regin malware to target EU institutions and Belgian telco “In the coming weeks, The Intercept will publish more details about Regin and the infiltration of Belgacom as part of an investigation in partnership with Belgian and Dutch newspapers De Standaard and NRC Handelsblad”
- 01/12/2014 – Regin: Symantec brief
01/12/2014 – Intercept: US and UK agencies used Regin malware to target EU institutions and Belgian telco
“In the coming weeks, The Intercept will publish more details about Regin and the infiltration of Belgacom as part of an investigation in partnership with Belgian and Dutch newspapers De Standaard and NRC Handelsblad”
01/12/2014 – Regin: Symantec brief
01/12/2014 – System designed to trawl vast quantities of biometric data
05/11/2014 – How Bahrain spies on British soil
03/11/2014 – Intercept: Italian spyware sold worldwide shows just how easy it is to monitor people
29/10/2014 – GCHQ views data without a warrant, government admits
27/10/2014 – Your smartphone is a security liability
23/09/2014 – BIJ (UK) challenges UK government in European court over surveillance of journalists’ communications
23/09/2014 – Australia offers master class in exploiting terrorism fears to increase population control
26/08/2014 – NSA communications-analysis engine – NSA playing God with European private lives still
18/07/2014 – Edward Snowden says journalists must encrypt communications
05/07/2014 – Das Erste: NSA targets the privacy-conscious
05/07/2014 – Mexico: Everybody needs net neutrality
05/07/2014 – EU national Parliaments want final say over any EU/US trade deals
19/06/2014 – Intercept: More European governments involved in NSA’s surveillance dragnet
19/06/2014 – Reuters: EU countries need stricter controls to protect citizens from spying
18/06/2014 – US tech giants concerned about loss of trust in their customers’ privacy
18/06/2014 – Why GCHQ can monitor anyone using a Gmail address
14/06/2014 – Inside Edward Snowden’s life as a robot
09/06/2014 – Noam Chomsky – A surveillance state beyond imagination is being created
09/06/2014 – Guardian: Vodafone reveals existence of fixed wiretaps enabling state surveillance
09/06/2014 – NY Times: Google, Yahoo, MS, FB et al start to improve email encryption for customers
28/01/2014 – NBC – on British spying on YouTube and Facebook
27/01/2014 – European court asks UK gov to justify GCHQ spying activities
27/01/2014 – UK gov blocking potential EU/US no-spy pact
27/01/2014 – NSA has radio-based access into offline PCs