The US State Department notes that the United States’ stance on human rights in Sri Lanka has not changed nor has it softened.
The statement was made by US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki.
Question: There is a report that I have seen from a Sri Lankan newspaper suggesting that when Secretary Kerry met with the Sri Lankan President, I think it was during UNGA, that he had – that Secretary Kerry had, indicated or suggested a softening in the U.S. position on Sri Lanka. The piece I saw didn’t specify what, but I think the inference was that it was a softening on human rights concerns in Sri Lanka. Is there any truth to that? Did he signal that he would take human rights less seriously there?
MS. Psaki: Absolutely not. I saw the same story. The only thing that was right was that the Secretary did speak with the Sri Lankan President on the margins of the UN General Assembly. He did so with the express purpose of conveying that U.S. policy with regard to Sri Lanka has not changed and it certainly has not softened. We would, of course, like our relationship with Sri Lanka to achieve its full potential, but that will only happen if Sri Lanka builds enduring peace and prosperity for all of its diverse ethnic and religious communities. And that’s why the Secretary, in no uncertain terms, made clear to the President that Sri Lanka needed to take meaningful steps to act like a country that is no longer at war and instead is now building a future that includes all of its citizens. So, certainly, it had the opposite purpose.
A political commentator Bruce Gagnon has stated that America might use the terrorist organizations like ISIS to weaken their enemies.
Gagnon, the coordinator of the network against space weapons and nuclear weapons has stated that Saudi Arabia and America sponsored ISIS for a long time.
He has stated that the target of American team is to use this organization against Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia.
He has further stated that as America is a declining state, they do everything possible to protect them
He has stated that due to these reasons, American cannot be trusted and the next plan is to make ISIS to pay their attention to the Russian gas resources.
Yahoo attempted to refuse user data to the NSA and filed suit in the secretive Fisa court.Photograph: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS
The US government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day if it refused to hand over user data to the National Security Agency, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
In a blogpost, the company said the 1,500 pages of once-secret documents shine further light on Yahoo’s previously disclosed clash with the NSA over access to its users’ data.
The papers outline Yahoo’s secret and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to resist the government’s demands for the tech firm to cooperate with the NSA’s controversial Prism surveillance program, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden last year.
“The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US government’s surveillance efforts,” said company general counsel Ron Bell in a Tumblr post.
The US government amended a key law to demand user information from online services in 2007. When Yahoo was asked to hand over user data the company objected arguing the request was “unconstitutional and overbroad”.
Yahoo took its case to the foreign intelligence surveillance court, also known as the Fisa court, which oversees requests for surveillance orders in national security investigations. The secretive Fisa court provides the legal authorities that underpin the US government’s controversial surveillance programs. Yahoo lost its case, and an appeal.
Federal judge William Bryson, presiding judge of the foreign intelligence surveillance court of review, which reviews denials of applications for electronic surveillance warrants, unsealed the documents on Thursday.
Disclosures in the Guardian and the Washington Post about the Prism program, which was discontinued in 2011, prompted an international backlash over allegations of overreach in government surveillance and against the tech companies which cooperated with it.
“Despite the declassification and release, portions of the documents remain sealed and classified to this day, unknown even to our team. The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US government’s surveillance efforts. At one point, the US government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply,” wrote Bell.
“Our fight continues. We are still pushing for the FISC [Fisa court] to release materials from the 2007-2008 case in the lower court. The FISC indicated previously that it was waiting on the FISC-R ruling in relation to the 2008 appeal before moving forward. Now that the FISC-R [court of review] matter is resolved, we will work hard to make the materials from the FISC case public, as well.”
Almost all the major US tech firms including AOL, Apple, Google and Microsoft were listed by the NSA as participants in the program, which was run in conjunction with the NSA’s British equivalent, GCHQ.
Begun under the Bush administration the program collected information from the major tech companies under Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act. The NSA’s slides obtained by Snowden contained a briefing presentation which said Prism granted access to records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more.
Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project, said he had not yet reviewed all the documents but that it appeared Yahoo “had challenged the warrantless wiretapping program more than any other of its competitors”.
DETROIT (Reuters) -- Toyota Motor Corp is recalling 130,000 2014 Tundra pickup trucks to correct a problem with side air bags, the automaker's U.S. sales arm said today.
An incorrectly installed piece of trim on the vehicle's center pillar could interfere with the deployment of the side airbags in a crash, according to Toyota Motor Sales USA.
Toyota said it is not aware of any injuries or fatalities related to the condition.
Navy divers confirmed Monday that a wrecked vessel in southeast Asia is the World War II heavy cruiser Houston, a ship sunk by the Japanese that serves as the final resting place for about 700 sailors and Marines. The Houston, nicknamed “The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast,” sank in the Java Sea during the Battle of Sunda Strait on Feb. 28, 1942. It carried 1,068 crewmen, but only 291 sailors and Marines survived both the attack and subsequent imprisonment by the enemy. The survival of those men came as a shocking, though welcome, surprise in August 1945, the month the war in Asia ended with the surrender of the Japanese. In a wire story published in the Los Angeles Times under the headline "Men of U.S.S. Houston Come Back From Dead," a military official said that five men had escaped from a prisoner of war camp in Thailand and confirmed there were about 300 other survivors. By then 42 months had passed since all aboard the cruiser had been presumed dead. lRelated Navy conducts first series of drone and manned fighter jet operations NATION NOW Navy conducts first series of drone and manned fighter jet operations SEE ALL RELATED 8 In recent months Navy archaeologists worked with Indonesian Navy divers to survey the wreck over the course of 19 underwater searches, said U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Harry Harris. The Navy History and Heritage Command confirmed that the recorded data is consistent with the identification of the former Houston. Documented evidence shows the gravesite was disturbed, noting that hull rivets and a metal plate were removed from the ship. Both U.S. and Indonesia officials are working to coordinate protection of the historic site, which is also a popular recreational dive location. The report voices public safety and security concerns, citing "active seepage of oil from the hull." cComments Interesting article. Why did the ship have so many portholes? Would those windows not just speed up a sinking? SIX GENERATION ANGELENO AT 2:15 PM AUGUST 19, 2014 ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS 8 A final report will be completed in the fall as underwater archeologists continue to collect data from the dives. The Navy estimates more than 17,000 sunken ships and aircraft rest on the ocean floor.
In an unprecedented, three-year cyber espionage campaign, Iranian hackers created false social networking accounts and a fake news website to spy on military and political leaders in the United States, Israel and other countries, a cyber intelligence firm said on Thursday.
ISight Partners, which uncovered the operation, said the hackers' targets include a four-star U.S. Navy admiral, U.S. lawmakers and ambassadors, members of the U.S.-Israeli lobby, and personnel from Britain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The firm declined to identify the victims and said it could not say what data had been stolen by the hackers, who were seeking credentials to access government and corporate networks, as well as infect machines with malicious software. "If it's been going on for so long, clearly they have had success," iSight Executive Vice President Tiffany Jones told Reuters. The privately held company is based in Dallas, Texas and provides intelligence on cyber threats.
ISight dubbed the operation "Newscaster" because it said the Iranian hackers created six "personas" who appeared to work for a fake news site, NewsOnAir.org, which used content from the Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and other media outlets. The hackers created another eight personas who purported to work for defense contractors and other organizations, iSight said.
The hackers set up false accounts on Facebook and other online social networks for these 14 personas, populated their profiles with fictitious personal content, and then tried to befriend target victims, according to iSight.
The operation has been active since at least 2011, iSight said, noting that it was the most elaborate cyber espionage campaign using "social engineering" that has been uncovered to date from any nation.
To build credibility, the hackers would approach high-value targets by first establishing ties with the victims' friends, classmates, colleagues, relatives and other connections over social networks run by Facebook Inc, Google Inc and its YouTube, LinkedIn Corp and Twitter Inc.
The hackers would initially send the targets content that was not malicious, such as links to news articles on NewsOnAir.org, in a bid to establish trust. Then they would send links that infected PCs with malicious software, or direct targets to web portals that ask for network log-in credentials, iSight said.
The hackers used the 14 personas to make connections with more than 2,000 people, the firm said, adding that it believed the group ultimately targeted several hundred individuals.
"This campaign is not loud. It is low and slow," said Jones. "They want to be stealth. They want to be under the radar."
ISight said it had alerted some victims and social networking sites as well as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and overseas authorities. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.
Facebook Inc spokesman Jay Nancarrow said his company had discovered the hacking group while investigating suspicious friend requests and other activity on its website.
"We removed all of the offending profiles we found to be associated with the fake NewsOnAir organization and we have used this case to further refine our systems that catch fake accounts at various points of interaction on the site and block malware from spreading," Nancarrow said.
LinkedIn spokesman Doug Madey said the site was investigating the report, though none of the 14 fake profiles uncovered by iSight were currently active.
Twitter declined to comment and Google could not immediately be reached for comment.
POST-STUXNET ERA
ISight disclosed its findings as evidence emerges that Iranian hacking groups are becoming increasingly aggressive.
Cybersecurity company FireEye Inc reported earlier this month that a group known as the Ajax Security Team has become the first Iranian hacking group to use custom-built malicious software for espionage.
Iranian hackers stepped up their activity in the wake of the Stuxnet attack on Tehran's nuclear program in 2010. The Stuxnet computer virus is widely believed to have been launched by the United States and Israel.
ISight said it could not ascertain whether the hackers were tied to the government in Tehran, though it believed they were supported by a nation state because of the complexity of the operation.
The firm said NewsOnAir.org was registered in Tehran and likely hosted by an Iranian provider. The Persian term "Parastoo" was used as a password for malware associated with the group, which appeared to work during business hours in Tehran, according to iSight.
Among the 14 false personas were reporters for NewsOnAir, including one with the same name as a Reuters journalist in Washington; six employees who purportedly worked for defense contractors; a systems administrator with the U.S. Navy; and an accountant working for a payment processor.
A spokesman for Thomson Reuters Corp, which owns Reuters, declined to comment.
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, held for nearly five years by the Taliban after being captured in Afghanistan, has been released and is now in U.S. custody after years of on and off negotiations, U.S. officials said on Saturday
As part of Bergdahl's release, the United States is turning over five Taliban detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of Qatar, the officials said.
Bergdahl's freedom followed a renewed round of indirect U.S.-Taliban talks in recent months, with Qatar acting as intermediary, the officials said.
President Barack Obama announced the release, saying he had called Bergdahl's parents to let them know.
U.S. special operations forces took custody of Bergdahl in a non-violent exchange with Taliban members in eastern Afghanistan, the officials said, adding that he was believed to be in good condition. He was now undergoing a medical examination in Afghanistan.
.gif){kind=small}
.gif){kind=small}
.jpg)
.jpg)
