Facebook Facial Recognition Draws EPIC Privacy Concern
By: Clint Boulton
2011-06-16

EPIC and Congressman Edward Markey complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Facebook abused users’ privacy rights with its new facial recognition feature for tagging photos.

Facebook is facing pressure from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, other consumer advocates and Congress members over its use of facial recognition software for its tag suggestions feature in its photo application.

When users upload new photos, Facebook scans them with facial recognition software to match new photos to other photos a user is tagged in. Similar photos are then grouped together, with Facebook suggesting the name of the friend in photos.

Facebook revealed plans to use facial recognition in its tag suggestions feature last December. The original launch was contained to the United States, but the company recently changed its privacy settings to enable the tag suggestions feature more broadly — without explicitly warning users of its intentions.

However, tag suggestions are only made to people when they add new photos to the site, and only friends are suggested. Moreover, all suggestions can be ignored and if someone doesn’t want their name to be suggested to their friends, they can disable the feature in their privacy settings. …more

WSJ and Al-Jazeera Lure Whistleblowers With False Promises of Anonymity
Legal Analysis by Hanni Fakhoury – EFF
June 7th, 2011

The success of Wikileaks in obtaining and releasing information has inspired mainstream media outlets to develop proprietary copycat sites. Al-Jazeera got into the act first, launching the Al-Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU), an initiative meant to “allow Al-Jazeera’s supporters to shine light on notable and noteworthy government and corporate activities which might otherwise go unreported.” AJTU assures users that “files will be uploaded and stored on our secure servers” and that materials “are encrypted while they are transmitted to us, and they remain encrypted on our servers.”

On May 5, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co., Inc., launched its own site, SafeHouse. That same day, the Atlantic published a story describing SafeHouse as a “secure uploading system” with “separate servers,” two layers of encryption, and a policy of discarding information about uploaders “as quickly as possible.” You can “keep yourself anonymous or confidential, as needed,” the SafeHouse site promises, as you “securely share documents with the Wall Street Journal.”

Immediately after its launch, however, online security experts ripped SafeHouse apart. The Atlantic published its story online at noon on May 5 and by 5 p.m., the page was updated with a link directing readers to the Twitter feed of Jacob Appelbaum, a security researcher and Wikileaks volunteer, who had already exposed an embarrassing number of security problems with SafeHouse.

EFF’s review of the legal side of these websites doesn’t fare any better. While some of the more egregious technical problems with SafeHouse have been fixed since its launch, its terms of use haven’t changed. We read through the Terms of Service for both SafeHouse and AJTU (pdf). Don’t fall for the false promises of anonymity offered by these sites. Here’s what you should know.

They Reserve the Right to Sell You Out

Despite promising anonymity, security and confidentiality, AJTU can “share personally identifiable information in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary.” SafeHouse’s terms of service reserve the right “to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities” without notice, then goes even further, reserving the right to disclose information to any “requesting third party,” not only to comply with the law but also to “protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies” or to “safeguard the interests of others.” As one commentator put it bluntly, this is “insanely broad.” Neither SafeHouse or AJTU bother telling users how they determine when they’ll disclose information, or who’s in charge of the decision. …more

The Proxy Battle in Bahrain
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: March 19, 2011

CAIRO — King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has demonstrated one lesson learned from the course of pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East: The world may cheer when autocrats resign, but it picks carefully which autocrats to punish for opening fire on their citizens.

That cynical bit of realpolitik seems to have led the king to send troops last week over the causeway from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, where they backed up a violent crackdown on unarmed protesters by Bahrain’s own security forces.

The move had immediate consequences for Middle East politics, and for American policy: It transformed Bahrain into the latest proxy battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional dominance. And it called into question which model of stability and governance will prevail in the Middle East, and which Washington will help build: one based on consensus and hopes for democracy, or continued reliance on strongmen who intimidate opponents, sow fear and co-opt reformist forces while protecting American interests like ensuring access to oil and opposing Iran.

For Saudi Arabia, the issue in Bahrain is less whether Bahrain will attain popular rule than whether Iranian and Shiite influence will grow.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have sparred on many fronts since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 — a Shiite Muslim theocracy in Tehran versus a deeply conservative Sunni Muslim monarchy in Riyadh — in a struggle for supremacy in the world’s most oil-rich region. The animosity was evident in Saudi Arabia’s support for Iraq during its war with Iran, and it still shows in Iran’s backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Now, after a decade that seemed to tilt the regional balance toward Iran, Saudi Arabia decided that Bahrain was the place to put its thumb more heavily on the scale. It sent troops under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council to help crush pro-democracy demonstrations because most of the protesters were Shiites challenging a Sunni king. …source

Noam Chomsky (2011.03.13) – Amsterdam Westerkerk – NOAM TALKS about EGYPT, TUNISIA, SAUDI, BAHRAIN, IRAN, US IMPERIALISM & FAKE DEMOCRACY with his usual intelligence and diamond-cutter precision AN ABSOLUTE MUST… Heard on one of his talks recently when the US government invades it is called stabilization. If a “rogue” sate invades it is interference or even invasion.

Bahrain’s dialogue with opposition groups met with skepticism
June 17, 2011 02:49 AM
By Brian Murphy
Associated Press

DUBAI: Bahrain’s ruler has canceled all vacations for top officials next month and a special center and mediator have been named for talks with opposition groups, proposed to open on July 1.Now the question is whether anyone will show up.

The Shiite groups that speak on behalf of protesters – who took to the streets four months ago to demand greater rights – have shown no rush to embrace the appeals for dialogue by the Sunni monarchs they accuse of creating a two-tier society in the Gulf kingdom.

The possible failure to open talks could be interpreted as far more significant than simply a payback snub by Bahrain’s Shiite majority after unrest that’s claimed at least 31 lives and left hundreds of people detained or expelled from jobs and studies.

It would serve as clear recognition that the complexities on the tiny island – drawing in heavyweight issues such as U.S. military interests and Arab worries over Iran – are too vast to solve over cups of tea between the rulers and the opposition.

“Events seem to have gone too far and too fast for some kind of quick fix through talks,” said Toby Jones, a Bahrain expert at Rutgers University.

Bahrain’s choice of mediator for the proposed talks is under question. The government appointed the Parliament speaker to head the dialogue, but opposition groups consider it a downgrade from the first pointman, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa. …source

U.S. to probe Bahrain labor rights concerns – AFL-CIO
WASHINGTON, June 16 | Thu Jun 16, 2011 4:22pm EDT

(Reuters) – The Obama administration has agreed to investigate concerns raised by the AFL-CIO labor federation that Bahrain has failed to live up to its obligations to protect workers rights under a free trade pact with the United States, the labor group said on Thursday.

“The egregious attacks on workers must end, and the Bahraini government’s systematic discrimination against and dismantling of unions must be reversed. These actions directly violate the letter and the spirit of the trade agreement,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Anthony Boadle) …source

Aiming to Preserve Autocratic Mideast Rule, Saudi Arabia Helps Crush Uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen

While the United States remains heavily involved in the Libya conflict, it has been noticeably silent on the violent suppression of popular uprisings against autocratic regimes in Bahrain and Yemen, both of which are close allies of Saudi Arabia. In March, Bahrain called in Saudi troops to help crush massive pro-democracy protests. We discuss the role of Saudi Arabia in recent regional uprisings with Toby Jones, assistant professor of history at Rutgers University and a former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group. …source

Bahrain: an open letter
Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, 15 June 2011
A lawyer for Bahrainis detained in Guantánamo is now excluded from a country where he was once welcome. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan tells the story.

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan is a consultant to Human Rights Watch

The Bahraini government effectively barred me from entering the country in early May 2011. What makes this of more than personal interest is that I have a longstanding relationship with the country, as a lawyer who from 2004-07 represented the Bahrainis detained at Guantánamo Bay.

This involved over 3,200 hours’ work on my clients’ behalf, including twelve trips to Guantánamo – often despite great efforts made by the United States to keep me and other lawyers from going there. I saw clients through suicide-attempts and hunger-strikes. When my clients were sure Bahrain had forgotten them, I promised this was not true and remained committed to advocating for the “Bay Bahrainis”, as they were called.

My clients had strong allies inside Bahrain. During a visit to Manama in 2005, Sheik Adel al-Maawda invited us to parliament and delivered there an impassioned speech about my clients’ rights to due process and humane treatment. He said that my law firm had done more for his compatriots than anyone else, and led the other parliamentarians in a standing ovation. …more

Special Report: In Bahrain, a symbol at the heart of revolt
By Frederik Richter and Martin de Sa’Pinto

MANAMA/ZURICH, Jun | Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:25am EDT

MANAMA/ZURICH, Jun (Reuters)- Until a few months ago, the twin towers of the Bahrain Financial Harbour development — clad in green glass and shaped like over-sized toy sea-horses — were symbols of the island state’s role as a regional financial hub.

Today the towers have taken on a different significance: concrete expressions of the way business and politics so often merge in the Gulf and, as a result, targets in the unrest that has roiled Bahrain and the wider Middle East since the beginning of the year.

Built by Gulf Finance House, a listed investment company run by Bahraini businessman Esam Janahi, the towers have also come to embody the ruling al-Khalifa family’s fight to preserve its power and protect the vast wealth of the country’s economic elite.

Land in the Gulf Arab region is largely controlled by a small number of ruling families who use it as a kind of currency, doling out plots to favored families and developers to forge political relationships and make money. For it to work, the system depends on businessmen like Janahi, merchants who ostensibly operate independently from the state but whose success rests, at least in part, on political connections.

Janahi, whose net worth local bankers estimate was several hundred million dollars before the global financial crisis, used his close ties to the al-Khalifas to build the centerpiece of the Bahrain Financial Harbour. He could then point to the development as a model to help secure further land deals from rulers and governments across the Middle East and as far away as India, convincing investors to put up billions of dollars for property projects, most of which have never been built.

GFH was far from the only firm to turn sand into money. The basic game plan was played out dozens of times by various companies across the Gulf in the past decade or so. But Janahi and his firm were among the biggest. …more

Bahrain: A prominent lawyer is punished for defending political and human rights activists, demonstrators and exposing the torture of the prisoners.
June 16th, 2011 – BYSHR

Mr.Mohammed Al-Tajer a prominent lawyer was arrested from his home on the 15th of April 2011.

Mr. Al-Tajer appeared in front of the Military Court on Thursday the 16th of June 2011, where he was charged with the following accusations: Inciting hatred towards the regime, spreading propaganda, tendentious news and the public incitement to kidnap and harm security men.

The third court hearing for Al-Tajer is on the 23th June 2011.

Mr.Mohammed Al-Tajer contributed in the defence of human rights activists, political activists and demonstrators since the year 2008.

Mr. Al-Tajer was a primary information source in relation to the ill-treatments in custody.

On the 13th of October 2009, Mr.Al-Tajer was the head of a body defending political and human rights activists from the village of Karzakan, whom were accused of killing a policeman. The court acquitted the defendants after their ill-treatment in custody was proven.

On the 16th of December 2009, Mr.Al-Tajer participated in a seminar held by the British House of Lords regarding the human rights violations in Bahrain, where Al-Tajer confirmed the ill-treatment of the detainees.

In February 2010, Mr.Al-Tajer was granted the “Person of the Year” award, that Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society – An Islamic opposition society – presents annually to public figures whom accomplished achievements in Bahrain.

In December 2010, Mr.Al-Tajer was able to prove the innocence of the defendants accused of assaulting the chief editor of Al-Wattan Bahraini Newspaper (a pro-government newspaper) after proving the falsehood of their statements that were forcefully taken, and the pro-government newspaper launched a media campaign against the defendants.

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) expresses its deep concern regarding Mr.Mohammed Al-Tajer’s health condition, and believes that Al-Tajer’s arrest and trial were due to his role in revealing the torture and ill-treatment in custody, and the BYSHR demands from the international organisations and the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to take immediate action. …more