Information Clearinghouse – by Conrad Jaeger
U.S. intelligence agencies will soon be able to trawl through all British government documents stored online including ministerial files, local authority records and public sector data thanks to an unchallenged amendment to a spy law in Washington.
Britain’s ambitious plans to store all government data on the so-called G-Cloud have led to warnings from the European Union that security will be compromised now that U.S. intelligence agencies have the legal right to survey all data held on U.S. owned Cloud services.
At least four U.S. companies are involved in the U.K. government’s G-Cloud project which Whitehall hopes will slash costs and “deliver fundamental changes in the way the public sector procures and operates.”
Eventually, it is hoped the G-Cloud will hold the bulk of State data in addition to that of schools, charities, the BBC and police, even the Bank of England.
While the recent amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have received scant attention in the British Press, there are a few Members of Parliament so concerned that they want Britain to think about ending all intelligence cooperation with the U.S.
“The Americans have got to remember who their allies are and who their enemies are,” Conservative MP David Davis told The Independent, warning of “a whole cascade of constitutional and privacy concerns for ordinary British people”.
Cloud storage is increasingly popular in the U.K. where around 35 per cent of businesses and an unknown number of private users employ some form of remote storage from U.S. based companies like Apple, Amazon and Google. The government wants to see even greater use of Cloud storage across all sectors in what it describes as a robust “public cloud first policy.”
The FISA amendments now give the CIA and NSA the right to access all this data not just in Britain or Europe, but anywhere in the world. U.S. citizens are excused this intrusion by the Fourth Amendment, but everybody else is included.
In the case of Britain, by putting all government data online – including health and criminal records – every facet of peoples’ lives will be open to scrutiny by intelligence analysts across the Atlantic.
Many warn that this will also lead to activists, journalists, politicians, Muslims and others being specifically targeted without the need to justify national security.
“In other words, it is lawful in the U.S. to conduct purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data accessible in U.S. Clouds,” warns the report for the European Parliament, Fighting Cyber Crime and Protecting Privacy in the Cloud by the Centre for the Study of Conflicts, Liberty and Security.
While most of the attention has been focused on Cloud storage and the effect FISA will have on Europe, the actual wording of the amendment speaks of “remote computing services” which could literally mean anything stored on a computer other than your own.
As it is, every financial transaction passes through U.S. intelligence channels. With the new extension, no stone need remain unturned. Every time you comment on a book, join a club, or do absolutely anything that passes through a computer owned by a U.S. company, you are open to scrutiny.
The Cloud, however, comes with other concerns. There is debate as to who legally owns what if it is stored or edited in the Cloud, and you can’t even bequest your online music collection to a loved one when you die.
NSA aside, hackers can easier access data en-route to the Cloud than they can on a local area network, and the Cloud administrators might one day be compromised. The companies themselves may go bust or be taken over. They might suffer some catastrophic event or decide to amended their terms and conditions.
The European Union is being urged to add a warning to all U.S. based Cloud services, with clear wording that anything stored in the Cloud will be under direct scrutiny by Federal authorities. The report also wants to see E.U. citizens given the same rights as Americans in U.S. courts.
“A lot of people wouldn’t realize where data is stored, and hence wouldn’t expect to be subject to U.S. law,” cautions another Member of Britain’s Parliament, Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats.
He wants to know if the government has received any guarantee from Washington that sensitive data will not be scrutinized as foreign intelligence fodder.
“If the U.S. will not give a clear assurance about government data,” he says. “Then we will have to stop using the Cloud, as we cannot allow that to happen.”
Why would this matter given that Britain is just another American puppet …
“U.S. citizens are excused this intrusion by the Fourth Amendment”
Hahaha, sure, I believe this.
Doesn’t this mean that the UK Govt are in contravention of the Data Protection Act and European privacy statutes?
It’s certainly time to arrest these criminals, isn’t it?
“U.S. citizens are excused this intrusion by the Fourth Amendment” – the Fourth Amendment is bypassed under the Patriot Act by declaring any target (domestic criminal/ whistleblower / whoever) to be a terrorist – google “Julia Davis case”.
“The Americans have got to remember who their allies are and who their enemies are,” Conservative MP David Davis told The Independent…
The rest of the world has got to wake up to the reality that the US is the ONLY corporation that matters any more. They have bases in almost every other country on the planet, and as they fall, so falls all of their “controlled corporations” with them.
“The European Union is being urged to add a warning to all U.S. based Cloud services, with clear wording that anything stored in the Cloud will be under direct scrutiny by Federal authorities.”
What they don’t tell you is that they’re been spying on all of that data from the very first second it became possible to do so anyway. They’re just writing “post-dated statutes” to make what they’ve been doing all along “legal”, since now that they’ve been doing it for a few years already, they know what sort of information they can use against the rest of the entire planet…but they can’t do that until they make it legal for themselves to commit the crimes needed to do so.
“The report also wants to see E.U. citizens given the same rights as Americans in U.S. courts.”
All they need to do is wait. Eventually, they’ll see the rights of US citizens dropping down to the rest of the world’s level. No need to “get more rights” or “restore your rights” or even “believe you HAVE any rights in the first place” when the entire planet is having ALL of their rights removed, bit by bit, at an ever-increasing pace. EVERYONE will be slaves again soon enough.
Gotta love bankers, huh?
There is a reason that toxic, GMO foods aren’t ALLOWED to be labelled in the states.
There is a reason that toxic chemical pharmaceuticals are the ONLY “legitimate medicines” allowed to be used.
There is a reason that they arrest people in the states for growing their own food, in their own gardens.
There is a reason they are disarming the entire population of the states. (Read your history, this plan has been used many times before, and ALWAYS ended up the same.)
There is a reason they are debasing the currency.
There is a reason they have debased ALL of the world’s currencies.
There is a reason they never teach anyone anything about the fraudulent monetary system.
There is a reason they keep reclassifying “foods” as “drugs”, and denying more people access to any form of natural food sources.
There is a reason that “natural medicines” (which work quite well, and without toxic chemical negative-effects) are increasingly “statutorily illegal” in every point on the planet.
There is a reason why “herbal medicine” is laughed at, derided, and ridiculed, but toxic laboratory-designed chemicals that are patented “for maximum profitability” are seen as “the cure for everything”, even as they kill ever greater numbers of people globally.
The states is collapsing, and the ridiculously greedy are trying to hold onto what they can, while stealing as much as they possibly can, until the collapse is detected by the masses and they FINALLY wake up and see that if they don’t protect themselves, “their employees” won’t either…because they haven’t for nearly a century already.
The rest of the world is in the same boat…start thinking, start fighting, or bend over and take it. It IS coming your way…and a lot sooner than you think!