It was almost 10 p.m. on a Thursday night, and Ali Watkins was walking around the capital following instructions texted by a stranger. One message instructed her to walk through an abandoned parking lot near Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle, and then wait at a laundromat. Then came a final cryptic instruction: She was to enter […]

The recent discovery of two informants within the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reveals one of the most nefarious dimensions of Islamophobic surveillance in the US: the informant industrial complex, writes Khaled A. Beydoun. This past September marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. It also marked two decades of state-sponsored surveillance that […]

Since he was a teen, Craig Monteilh has pretended to be someone he wasn’t – Russian, Muslim, a white supremacist. It was a skill he learned early, says Monteilh, a 47-year-old Irvine man who, according to court records, provided information to the FBI. He learned to gain people’s trust – even while pretending to be […]

In 2006, the FBI ordered an informant to pose as a Muslim convert and spy on the congregants of several large, diverse mosques in Orange County, California. The agent, Craig Monteilh, professed his conversion before hundreds of congregants during the month of Ramadan. Renaming himself “Farouk,” the informant quickly made friends and impressed members of […]

As the Supreme Court hears the case of three Muslim Americans suing the FBI for spying on them, the trio detail how the operation tore apart their community During the early 2000s, the Muslim community in Southern California was thriving. While the faith group as a whole was dealing with a deluge of Islamophobic attacks […]

Mohamed Bahe tries not to remember the overwhelming pain he felt the night he learned a volunteer with his organization, Muslims Giving Back, was a paid informant for the New York City Police Department. In 2011, Bahe, a Muslim American whose family came to the U.S. from Algeria, had spent months kickstarting his community volunteer […]

A police intelligence officer fabricated reports about a terrorism informant in a highly classified database after allegedly being instructed to by superiors, The Times has learnt. The rogue special branch unit, linked with MI5, that the detective constable worked for was disbanded after he retrospectively altered intelligence reports Phil Moran, a counterterrorism agent handler at […]

In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, U.S.-backed Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum’s forces murdered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners by jamming them into metal shipping containers and letting them suffocate. At the time, Dostum was on the CIA’s payroll and had been working with U.S. special forces […]

The scene was a familiar one as warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum jetted into northern Afghanistan this week — a promise of bloodshed and vengeance, and no apology for his vicious past. Despite a series of war crimes linked to his forces, the Afghan government is hoping Dostum’s military acumen and seething hatred of the Taliban […]

“We must be accountable to the crisis we helped create.” Four days after Taliban-controlled Kabul fell to the United States and its military allies in 2001, First Lady Laura Bush took over the mic for her husband’s customary weekly radio address. “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of […]

Afghan strike forces backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have committed abuses “amounting to war crimes”, according to a new report. Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleges the troops “committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability”. These include extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and attacks on healthcare facilities. Afghanistan’s government told the BBC […]

“This Is What Winning Looks Like” is a disturbing feature documentary about the ineptitude, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and corruption of the Afghan security forces, as well as the reduced role of US Marines due to the troop withdrawal. In February 2013, on his last day at the helm of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General […]

Last spring, the remains of 10 missing Afghan villagers were dug up outside a U.S. Special Forces base – was it a war crime or just another episode in a very dirty war? In the fall of 2012, a team of American Special Forces arrived in Nerkh, a district of Wardak province, Afghanistan, which lies […]

After a U.S.-backed warlord killed hundreds of Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan, the Bush administration quashed inquiries, say government officials and human rights advocates. After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts […]

Again, due to the treason of fundamentalist hangmen, our people have been caught in the claws of the monster of a vast war and destruction. America, by forming an international coalition against Osama and his Taliban-collaborators and in retaliation for the 11th September terrorist attacks, has launched a vast aggression on our country. Despite the […]

On September 11, 2001 the world was stunned with the horrific terrorist attacks on the United States. RAWA stands with the rest of the world in expressing our sorrow and condemnation for this barbaric act of violence and terror. RAWA had already warned that the United States should not support the most treacherous, most criminal, […]

In Egypt, arms giant Dassault, a subsidiary of Thales, and the company Nexa Technologies sold a mass surveillance system to the dictatorship of Field Marshal Sisi. With the blessing of the French state. “Happy birthday” greetings pour in on Ahmed Alaa’s phone. On October 1, 2017, sitting in the back of a taxi in the […]

The site continued to publish new secrets in what it called “Egypt Papers” (Mohamed Al-Shahed/AFP) The Egyptian authorities blocked the investigative website, Disclose, hours after it published an investigation into France’s involvement in intelligence assistance to Egypt, which led to the targeting of civilians on the Libyan border. On Wednesday, the website continued to publish […]

An investigation into the sale of surveillance technologies to Libya and Egypt has led to charges against leaders at one company. Senior executives at a French spyware firm have been indicted for the company’s sale of surveillance software to authoritarian regimes in Libya and Egypt that resulted in the torture and disappearance of dissidents. While […]

Current and former executives at two French technology companies have been charged with complicity in torture for selling surveillance equipment to Libya and Egypt that was used to track down opponents, who were then detained and tortured. Investigating magistrates in the war crimes unit of the Paris tribunal have charged the former chief of Amesys, […]

EFF has grave concerns about the health of Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, who has now been on hunger strike for 57 days.  Sanad’s retrial was scheduled for October 13, but was postponed.  Sanad, who was sentenced in April by a military court to three years in prison on charges of insulting the military on […]

The Atlantic Council: “State cyber capabilities are increasingly abiding by the “pay-to-play” model—both US/NATO allies and adversaries can purchase interception and intrusion technologies from private firms for intelligence and surveillance purposes. NSO Group has repeatedly made headlines in 2021 for targeting government entities in cyberspace, but there are many more companies selling similar products that are just […]

State cyber capabilities are increasingly abiding by the “pay-to-play” model—both US/NATO allies and adversaries can purchase interception and intrusion technologies from private firms for intelligence and surveillance purposes. NSO Group has repeatedly made headlines in 2021 for targeting government entities in cyberspace, but there are many more companies selling similar products that are just as detrimental. These […]

The controversial Swedish forensic technology company MSAB receives harsh criticism in a new research report published by the American think tank Atlantic Council. The reason is that the company has marketed its cutting-edge products in the authoritarian countries of China and Russia. – It is surprising that they market themselves so aggressively in Russia, says […]

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and other tech firms are spending more than €97m on lobbying the EU each year, a new report has revealed. The amount being spent by the tech sector on lobbying the EU is far greater than that spent by the pharma, fossil fuels and finance sectors, according to the report by […]

As Big Tech’s market power grew, so did its political clout. Now, as the EU tries to rein in the most problematic aspects of Big Tech – from disinformation, targeted advertising to unfair competition practices – the digital giants are lobbying hard to shape new regulations. In ‘The Lobby Network’, Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobbycontrol […]

Big tech companies spend more than €97 million annually lobbying the European Union. Why does the tech sector spend a hefty amount lobbying the EU?) Firms’ lobbying efforts in the EU show the tech sector spends more than any other in trying to influence policies and legislation on the continent A dozen of companies including […]

Swansea activist Lowri Davies recorded call from officer in ‘frightening and distressing’ attempted recruitment A secret recording has revealed how a covert police unit in Wales tried to recruit a Black Lives Matter activist to be an informant. The anti-racism campaigner Lowri Davies shared the recording with the Guardian to raise awareness of what she […]

A Black Lives Matter activist said her trust was “destroyed” when police tried to recruit her as an informant. Swansea University law student Lowri Davies said she was called in March by a covert officer. The anti-racism campaigner said she was confused to be asked to give details of far-right activists protesting at Black Lives […]

A shocking story of how a special squad of Britain’s Metropolitan Police, in collusion with MI5 – the domestic ‘security’ service – secretly infiltrated hundreds of UK political and campaign groups, and the question of whether the spying continues. As told by Asa Winstanley, who has personal experience. “The man we’d thought had been our […]

Op dinsdag 14 september 2021, had ik tussen half 2 en 2 uur twee gemiste oproepen, 7 minuten van elkaar van een mij onbekend mobiel nummer (06XXX64615). Normaal bel ik niet terug als er geen bericht wordt achtergelaten, maar ik was die dag aan het werk en ging ervan uit dat iemand dringend iets werkgerelateerds van mij […]

A former police officer who is now a prominent climate crisis campaigner has accused the Metropolitan police of attempting to recruit him to spy on Extinction Rebellion. Former detective sergeant Paul Stephens, who joined XR after he retired from the London force in 2018, claims he was approached by an officer he knew near Parliament […]

How seven men in Miami were indicted for the biggest alleged Al Qaeda plot since 9/11. From the director of Leaving Neverland, the bizarre story of an FBI sting that led to a terror prosecution, though the men had no weapons or connection to Al Qaeda. In 2006, in what was touted by the government […]

The NYPD sent a paid informant to surveil, befriend and ultimately drive a Black Lives Matter protester to attack a police van last month, according to a new federal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The civilian informant — identified in the filing as the NYPD’s “confidential source” — was involved in the arrest of Jeremy Trapp, a […]

Throughout its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has viewed Black activism as a potential national security threat. It has used its ample investigative powers not to suppress violence, but to inhibit the speech and association rights of Black activists. And its reaction to the protests following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George […]

Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that the FBI surveilled Black Lives Matter activists — and that the Department of Homeland Security drafted a mysterious “race paper.” At the height of 2014’s Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri, FBI agents tracked the movements of an activist flying in from New York, and appear to […]

Newly released documents show that the FBI’s surveillance of the Black Lives Matter movement extends far beyond social media, according to The Intercept. The documents were acquired by two civil rights groups, Color of Change and The Center for Constitutional Rights, through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents reveal that the […]

Members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force tracked the time and location of a Black Lives Matter protest last December at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, email obtained by The Intercept shows. The email from David S. Langfellow, a St. Paul police officer and member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, informs a […]

Spinwatch can reveal that the Skripal affair has resulted in the issuing of not one but two ‘D-Notices’ to the British media, which are marked private and confidential. We can also disclose the contents of both notices, which have been obtained from a reliable source. That two notices were issued has been confirmed by the […]

When a former Russian spy and his daughter were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury, it wasn’t long before investigators started looking at the Kremlin with suspicion. The pair were identified as Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The British government said they had been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent called […]