Discussions on allowing Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen area of border-free travel may have been postponed until December, but the EU’s law enforcement authorities will soon start benefitting from easier access to fingerprint and vehicle registration data from the two countries as they move towards fully implementing the Prüm Decisions. The Prüm Decisions […]

‘De EU bouwt aan een ruimte van vrijheid, veiligheid en recht. Eenmaal voltooid, zullen onder deze noemer zaken als het EU-burgerschap, de mobiliteit van personen, asiel en immigratie, het visumbeleid en het beheer van de buitengrenzen worden geregeld. Ze zal ook nauwe samenwerking bevorderen tussen de politie-, justitie- en douanediensten van de EU-landen. De ruimte […]

In late January, Conservative MP and Minister for Security James Brokenshire led a delegation of nearly 25 “homeland security” firms to India on a trip which, in sharp contrast to the trade mission to India undertaken by David Cameron in February, received no coverage in the press whatsoever. From 20 to 25 January multinational giants […]

G4S chief executive Nick Buckles paid £1.19m, up £170,000 on last year Company lost £88m in Olympics fiasco when they failed to provide security The chief executive of the company behind the security-scandal at the London Olympics last summer received a record pay packet in 2012, following million pound losses during the Games. G4S boss […]

OTTAWA – Secret RCMP files on Tommy Douglas will remain secret, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday. The Court dismissed a request by Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill to force Library and Archives Canada to release a large part of the file on the former Saskatchewan premier and founding leader of the federal […]

The Supreme Court said it won’t hear an appeal by a Canadian Press reporter who wants a 1,149-page RCMP file on Tommy Douglas made public. The Supreme Court of Canada has ended an effort by The Canadian Press to lift the shroud of secrecy over an intelligence dossier compiled on socialist trailblazer Tommy Douglas. The […]

The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to settle a seven-year battle to lift the shroud of secrecy over a decades-old intelligence dossier on former NDP leader Tommy Douglas. The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to settle a seven-year battle to lift the shroud of secrecy over a decades-old intelligence dossier on […]

RCMP spies shadowed Prairie politician Tommy Douglas for more than three decades, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Press. A newly declassified file on Douglas shows the Mounties attended his speeches, dissected his published articles and, during one Parliament Hill demonstration, eavesdropped on a private conversation. The RCMP’s file on Tommy Douglas, shown after […]

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his Prince George’s County home in the 1960s that he’d make important calls from his neighbor’s house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts. Not until nearly 45 years later did the son […]

Former detective Christian Plowman writes book claiming that unit targeted low-level criminals rather than criminals at top of chain Christian Plowman claims that he often found himself targeting crack addicts instead of dealers and spying on ordinary people. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA Heroin and crack cocaine bought with taxpayers’ money was routinely given to drug dealers […]

Dating drug dealers, harassing ex-boyfriends with naked pictures, and pointing guns at pet dogs: these were just a few of the offences committed recently by serving FBI agents, according to internal documents. Disciplinary files from the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility record an extraordinary range of transgressions that reveal the chaotic personal lives of some […]

After agents arrest a drug cartel chieftain named Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela, he becomes one of the bureau’s most valuable sources of information, according to confidential interview reports. WASHINGTON — Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not startled at […]

Technology helps police respond to crimes, violations, but broad use, lack of regulations raise privacy worries CHELSEA — The high-speed cameras mounted on Sergeant Robert Griffin’s cruiser trigger a beeping alarm every time they read another license plate, automatically checking to see if each car is unregistered, uninsured, or stolen. In a single hour of […]

ANALYSE – Uw kenteken wordt straks vier weken bewaard als u langs een ANPR-camera rijdt. De Tweede Kamer is in grote lijnen akkoord met een wetsvoorstel dat dat regelt. Hoeveel van dit soort camera’s zijn er eigenlijk? En waar staan ze? In het politieke debat over de opslag van kentekengegevens en de bijbehorende rapporten en […]

Als het aan de politie ligt, wordt uw kenteken straks overal gescand. Niet alleen kijkt de politie of u iets op uw kerfstok heeft, maar ook of u op basis van uw reisprofiel van plan bent om rottigheid uit te halen: een soort Minority Report op de weg dus. Daarbij worden kentekenscans mogelijk centraal opgeslagen […]

The burly American was escorted by Pakistani policemen into a crowded interrogation room. Amid a clatter of ringing mobile phones and cross talk among the cops speaking a mishmash of Urdu, Punjabi and English, the investigator tried to decipher the facts of the case. “America, you from America?” “Yes.” “You’re from America, and you belong […]

Even as its civilian leaders publicly decried U.S. drone attacks as breaches of sovereignty and international law, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency secretly worked for years with the CIA on strikes that killed Pakistani insurgent leaders and scores of suspected lower-level fighters, according to classified U.S. intelligence reports. Dozens of civilians also reportedly died in the […]

Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show. The administration has said that […]

Members of Grandmothers Against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, the Raging Grannies, and other groups hoist a model of a drone in the air as they protest the U.S. military’s use of drones during an “April Days of Action” demonstration, April 3, 2013, in New York. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images According to a new […]

The US government was accused of hiding the truth about its drone programme after leaked intelligence files revealed that it was targeting unidentified militants who posed no immediate threat to the United States. Despite President Barack Obama’s public promise that the CIA’s armed Predators and Reapers were only firing on those suspected of plotting against […]

Civil liberties activists in Germany and elsewhere are taking a novel, and militant, approach to CCTV culture. A new game dubbed ‘Camover’ is taking the country’s cities and the internet by storm. The premise? Get a crew, a catchy name, then black-block up and decommission street cameras in whatever inventively destructive fashion you like, from […]

Amersfoort wil minstens acht toezichtcamera’s weghalen uit de stad. Onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat cameratoezicht veel geld kost, maar geen merkbaar effect heeft op de beoogde daling van het aantal geweldsmisdrijven. Zelden herkenning De politie vraagt vaak beelden op voor opsporingsdoeleinden na incidenten op straat, maar volgens de onderzoekers leiden de camerabeelden hoogst zelden tot herkenning […]

The “Kissinger Cables,” a collection of U.S. diplomatic cables released on Monday by WikiLeaks, contain some fascinating revelations about the political scenario in India in the 1970s. Here are the five great insights about India in the WikiLeaks release: India’s first nuclear test was possibly motivated by political considerations: According to this cable, sent from […]

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has just published “the Kissinger Cables,” 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic and intelligence documents from 1973 to 1976 that include many once-secret memos written by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. While the documents have been available to the public at the National Archives, WikiLeaks has created a searchable online database to […]

‘Investigative journalism has never been this effective!’ – Publico The Kissinger Cables are part of today’s launch of the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), which holds the world’s largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications. As of its launch on April 8, 2013 it holds 2 million records […]

US court rules that CIA must give fuller response to ACLU’s lawsuit seeking access to records on drone attacks Reuters The civil liberties group brought its suit under the 1966 Freedom of Information Act. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP In a rebuke of government secrecy, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the CIA must give […]

Even the most loyal establishment Democrats are now harshly denouncing the president for his war on transparency During Sunshine Week, Democratic loyalists attack president Obama over his excessive secrecy Photograph: Bbc When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, his pledges of openness and transparency were not ancillary to his campaign but central to it. […]

On May 1, 2011, CIA Director Leon Panetta was in command of the single most important U.S. military operation since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: the Navy SEAL Team 6 assault on a mysterious compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was suspected to be hiding. The SEALs were sneaking into Pakistan without […]

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the global justice activist and author Arundhati Roy joins us to discuss the war’s legacy. Roy is the author of many books, including “The God of Small Things,” “Walking with the Comrades,” and “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.” Roy argues […]

As John Brennan moved into the CIA director’s office this month, another high-level transition was taking place down the hall. A week earlier, a woman had been placed in charge of the CIA’s clandestine service for the first time in the agency’s history. She is a veteran officer with broad support inside the agency. But […]

During the George W. Bush years, two of the most controversial elements of what was then called the Global War on Terror were the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation (RDI) program and the creation of the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. The RDI program included waterboarding and other forms of torture, as well as so-called […]

Claims over Patrice Lumumba’s 1961 assassination made by Labour peer in letter to London Review of Books Ben Quinn Congo premier Patrice Lumumba waves in New York in July 1960 after his arrival from Europe. Photograph: AP Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister was abducted and killed in a cold war operation run by British […]

British spies admitted helping to organise the detention and execution of the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1960s, a peer has claimed. British spies admitted helping to organise the detention and execution of Patrice Lumumba the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1960s, a […]

Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Congo AFP/Getty Images MI6 should open its archives to reveal the truth behind Britain’s alleged involvement in the assassination of African leader Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s, the author of a new book on intelligence said yesterday. … Michael Evans, Francis Elliott and Charles Bremner […]

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lumumba’s pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed. The […]

It’s pretty obvious why British governments have been anxious to keep the history of their secret service secret for so long. In the case of decolonisation, which is the subject of Calder Walton’s book, revelations about dirty tricks even after fifty years might do irreparable damage to the myth carefully cultivated at the time: which […]

Beate Zschäpe fand im Urlaub schnell Freunde, verabredete sich zum Sport und erzählte von ihren Katzen. Da lebte sie schon im Untergrund. Jetzt steht sie wegen der zehn Morde des NSU vor Gericht. Ein Blick in das Leben einer mutmaßlichen Neonazi-Terroristin. Beate Zschäpe schweigt – und alle fragen sich: Wie ist aus der “Diddlemaus” eine […]

BERLIN — A neo-Nazi group suspected of committing a string of murders and bank robberies across Germany likely had more assistance than currently known, a German lawmaker with access to still-classified material on the case said Wednesday. Sebastian Edathy, who heads a parliamentary inquiry into why security services failed to stop the group for more […]

Die Liste der V-Leute und Helfer rund um die Terrorzelle NSU beläuft sich derzeit auf über 100 Beteiligte. Für den Kopf des Untersuchungsausschusses Edathy war das noch nicht das Ende. Ausschussvorsitzender Edathy geht davon aus, dass das NSU-Netzwerk größer ist als bislang bekannt © Rainer Jensen/DPA Der Vorsitzende des NSU-Untersuchungsausschusses im Bundestag, Sebastian Edathy (SPD), […]

Das Netzwerk der Zwickauer Terrorzelle ist offenbar viel größer als bislang bekannt. Einer geheimen Fahnder-Liste zufolge gehörten 129 Personen aus der rechtsextremen Szene zum engeren und weiteren Umfeld des Untergrund-Trios. Womöglich sind auch V-Leute darunter. Die rechtsextreme Zwickauer Terrorzelle hatte nach einem Zeitungsbericht mehr Helfer als bislang bekannt. Nach einer geheimen Liste der Sicherheitsbehörden gehörten […]