Monday, 1. July 2013

European Patent Office grants Monsanto patent on natural broccoli seeds, florets


Monsanto's efforts to usher genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) into the European Union (EU) have been largely stagnant in recent years, so the multinational corporation and others in the industry are taking a new and more evil approach to gain more market control. According to a recent announcement put forth by the human rights advocacy group No Patents on Seeds!, the European Patent Office (EPO) is now granting biotechnology companies patents on all-natural crops such as broccoli, which was recently handed over as private property to Monsanto.

naturalnews.com

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NSA Code Names Revealed


The list below current NSA (and NSA-contractor) programs (as of March 13, 2012) involved in all aspects of signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, processing, analysis, dissemination, and storage. Some are purely administrative programs, some are tools and databases associated with social network analysis, metadata analysis, and target research. The current focus of NSA’s work seems to be the telecommunications infrastructure to include wireless, optical, electrical, and converged networks.

williamaarkin.wordpress.com

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Edward Snowden asking 15 countries for asylum, Russian official says


Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked U.S. security secrets and is now a fugitive, met Monday morning with Russian diplomatic officials and handed them an appeal to 15 countries for political asylum, a Russian Foreign Ministry official told The Times.

“It was a desperate measure on his part after Ecuador disavowed his political protection credentials,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”In the document Snowden reiterated once again that he is not a traitor and explained his actions only by a desire to open the world’s eyes on the flagrant violations by U.S. special services not only of American citizens but also citizens of European Union including their NATO allies.”

.latimes.com

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NSA Surveillance and the Failure of Intelligence Oversight


Recent disclosures of NSA collection of records of US telephone and email traffic have some unfortunate parallels and precedents in the early history of the Agency that were thought to have been repudiated forever.

“After World War II, the National Security Agency (NSA) established and directed three programs that deliberately targeted American citizens’ private communications,” wrote Army signals intelligence officer Major Dave Owen in a paper published late last year in an Army intelligence journal.

fas.org

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PRISM leaks: WTF, you don't spy on your friends, splutters EU


Berlin has accused Washington of treating it "like a Cold War enemy" after it emerged that US spooks spied on targets from friendly European countries.

Vice-president of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, told BBC:

Of course it is a shock and it's not acceptable at all. It's not acceptable because it is a friendly relationship... The member states should sit together and make up [our] minds how we are dealing with this. Of course, talking between friends, it should be clear first that it will never, ever happen again...

According to a report published in Der Spiegel over the weekend, American spies bugged the EU embassy in Washington and its offices at the UN in New York, as well as a key building in Brussels.

theregister.co.uk

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Parliamentary committee 'too busy' to question intelligence agencies


Intelligence and security committee postpones televised session with agencies to focus on GCHQ claims and Lee Rigby case

The parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) has postponed questioning the intelligence agencies in front of the television cameras this week, delaying the unprecedented event until after the summer recess, because they say they are too busy focusing on the murder of Lee Rigby and revelations about GCHQ's activities.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, appeared to have been unaware of the postponement as he revealed at his monthly press conference that the agencies were to give evidence to the cross-party committee on Thursday. He cited the event as a sign of the agencies' commitment to public accountability.

guardian.co.uk

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Spähskandal: Gabriel unterstellt Merkel Mitwisserschaft


SPD-Chef Sigmar Gabriel äußert einen schwerwiegenden Verdacht: Er hält der Kanzlerin vor, von den Spähaktionen amerikanischer und britischer Geheimdienste gewusst zu haben. In der "FAZ" fordert er Merkel auf, sich öffentlich zu erklären.

Berlin - Die neuen Enthüllungen über Spähaktionen des amerikanischen Geheimdienstes NSA erschüttern das politische Berlin. Hochrangige Politiker fordern Aufklärung; auch die Frage, wer wie viel über die Überwachung gewusst hat, wird heftig diskutiert.

Der SPD-Vorsitzende Sigmar Gabriel wirft Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel jetzt vor, über die Überwachung deutscher Bürger durch amerikanische und britische Dienste informiert gewesen zu sein. In einem Gastbeitrag für die "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", der am Dienstag erscheint, schreibt er: "Die Reaktion der Kanzlerin lässt den Verdacht zu, dass ihr die Ausspähung … zumindest dem Grunde nach durchaus bekannt" war. In dem Text verlangt Gabriel von Merkel, "zu sagen, ob sie davon gewusst und es geduldet hat".

spiegel.de

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Germans Loved Obama. Now We Don’t Trust Him


IN May 2010, I received a brown envelope. In it was a CD with an encrypted file containing six months of my life. Six months of metadata, stored by my cellphone provider, T-Mobile. This list of metadata contained 35,830 records. That’s 35,830 times my phone company knew if, where and when I was surfing the Web, calling or texting.

The truth is that phone companies have this data on every customer. I got mine because, in 2009, I filed a suit against T-Mobile for the release of all the data on me that had been gathered and stored. The reason this information had been preserved for six months was because of Germany’s implementation of a 2006 European Union directive.

nytimes.com

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EU-Kommission lässt Büros auf Wanzen durchsuchen


Die EU-Kommission ordnet eine Sicherheitskontrolle aller Einrichtungen an, in denen die amerikanische NSA Wanzen installiert haben soll. Die betroffenen Vertretungen würden umfassend durchsucht.

Nach den Enthüllungen über die Bespitzelung von EU-Gebäuden durch US-Geheimdienste führt die EU-Kommission eine sofortige Sicherheitskontrolle durch. "Im Licht der jüngsten Vorwürfe hat (Präsident José Manuel) Barroso die Kommissionsdienste aufgefordert, die Gebäude umfassend zu durchsuchen und Sicherheitschecks zu machen", sagte seine Sprecherin am Montag. Sie fügte hinzu, dass dies regelmäßig geschehe und Büros, Telefonanlagen und Computernetze auf Spionage und Abhöraktionen überprüft werden. Die Berichte über Lauschangriffe auf die EU-Büros in Washington und New York seien jedoch "verstörend" und verlangten "volle Aufklärung".

Die EU-Kommission hatte am Vortag von der US-Regierung Aufklärung verlangt. "Wir erwarten schnelle eine Klarstellung von unseren amerikanischen Partnern." Sie räumte ein: "Natürlich sind wir besorgt, denn wenn das wahr wäre, würde das sehr viel Unruhe stiften." Auf die Frage nach möglichen Auswirkungen der Enthüllungen auf die Gespräche über ein Freihandelsabkommen zwischen den USA und der EU wollte sie sich nicht äußern.

spiegel.de

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NSA spying row: bugging friends is unacceptable, warn Germans


The leaders of Germany and France have rounded angrily on Washington for the first time, signalling that ambitious EU-US trade talks scheduled to open in Washington next week could become an early casualty of the burgeoning transatlantic espionage dispute.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande described the disclosures of massive US spying and snooping in Europe as "unacceptable", with the Germans suggesting there had to be mutual trust if the trade talks were to go ahead on Monday.

guardian.co.uk

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Ecuador president: Snowden can't leave Moscow


Edward Snowden is "under the care of the Russian authorities" and can't leave Moscow's international airport without their consent, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa told The Associated Press Sunday in an interview telegraphing the slim and diminishing possibility that the National Security Agency leaker will end up in Ecuador.

Correa portrayed Russia as entirely the master of Snowden's fate and said Ecuador is still awaiting an asylum request from Snowden before deciding its next moves.

ap.org

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Die großen Brüder - chaosradio


Details der Telekommunikationsüberwachung

Mittlerweile dürfte es wirklich jeder mitbekommen haben: Wir werden überwacht. Also nicht nur so ein bisschen, manchmal wenn keiner guckt, sondern so richtig. Alle. Während sich immer mehr Berichterstattung auf den – je nach Lesart – Helden, Verräter, (un)fähigen Typen konzentriert, der uns davon erzählt hat, wollen sich Andy Müller-Maguhn, Erdgeist und Linus Neumann mit den Details von Prism, Tempora und weiteren Überwachungsprojekten beschäftigen.

Aufnahme vom: 27.06.2013 Sendungsdatum: 27.06.2013, 22:00 Uhr Dauer: 02:01:39h

chaosradio.ccc.de

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