"Why I secretly recorded Mitch McConnell"

Curtis Morrison speaks out...

"Earlier this year, I secretly made an audio recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican on the planet, at his campaign headquarters in Kentucky. The released portion of the recording clocks in at less than 12 minutes, but those few minutes changed my life.

I leaked the recording to Mother Jones, which published it with a transcript and analysis in April, and over the days that followed, blogs and cable news shows lit up with the revelations from that one meeting. At the time, McConnell was prepping for a race against the actress Ashley Judd — it was “the Whac-a-Mole stage of the campaign,” McConnell said smugly — and the recording captures his team in some Grade-A jackassery, including plans to use Judd’s history of depression against her.

But also up for debate was the the ethics of the audio recording itself. Here’s the latest... [long explanation]

[in a nutshell] Unlike Mitch McConnell, I will not paint myself as a victim... I’m a liberal activist in Kentucky. I’m also a citizen journalist... If given another chance to record him, I’d do it again." (more)

Background:
Campaign Headquarters Bugged - FBI Investigating 
McConnell's Suspected Bugger Has Hand Out
Sen. Mitch McConnell's "Bug" - Recorded Acoustical Leakage

Analysis
Eavesdropping occurs all the time. Only failed attempts become public knowledge. This is one of thoses tip of the iceberg stories. 

Like most of these stories, both sides failed. Morrison for getting caught. McConnell for not taking the proper security measures to assure privacy.

We see the same scenario in the private sector. Smart businesses employ information security measures. Others get their pockets picked, and occassionally, find embarrassing stories about them in the news. ~Kevin

The Return of the Invisible Anythings

"We propose a method for removing marked dynamic objects from videos captured with a free-moving camera, so long as the objects occlude parts of the scene with a static background." Max Planck Institute for Informatics (more)

Political propaganda videos will never look the same...

(Supplementary video. Takes time to load.)

Who's Watching Your Webcam

About this time last year I reported on hacking Internet-connected video security cameras. Now, let's watch another aspect of the problem, personal webcam spying...


Depending upon how old you are, you will recognize this is a reoccurring theme in works of fiction...

1998 - The Truman Show
The film chronicles the life of a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show, broadcast around the clock to billions of people across the globe.

1964 - Wendy and Me
George Burns as landlord would watch his attractive young tenant on what appears to the modern eye to be a surreptitious closed circuit television transmission with hidden cameras (he also accomplished this with his "TV in the den" in later episodes of The Burns and Allen Show). 

1949 - 1984 
George Orwell predicts a populace kept under constant surveillance by closed-circuit security cameras that transmit footage back to Big Brother.

1939 - Television Spy

Wiretapping Sweeps Over China

Now wiretapping is very popular in China's officialdom, from senior level to the grass-roots, spying equipment is being utilized widely.

Officials wiretap each other to find their opponent's secrets, then use it as a bargaining chip to achieve a promotion. In many situations, people can see that the officials embrace each other. In fact, it's an action to check whether the other has a wiretapping device or not.

Commentators thought the spy equipment has been a tool of siding with the bully in China, where it isn't ruled by law.

Qi Hong is an expert on detecting spying equipment in China. Recently he told media that he had helped more than one hundred officials remove more than 300 bugs in 2011. His job is locating the wiretap device and pinhole camera from officials' car, bedroom and office. In busiest times, he removed more than 40 devices in a week.

Qi Hong also exposed that wiretap devices are widely used among the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members. In some cases, the subordinates want to find some crimes of their superior, so that he can replace them. In some cases, competitors want to find the secrets of others which can be used to plot against them. In some cases, the superiors want to control the subordinates.

In addition, the wives and lovers want to grasp some insider information. Normally, the wiretap devices were installed in officials' cars, offices and bedrooms. (more) (video)

KGB: We Bugged Royals (We're shocked.)

Soviet secret agents bugged Princess Margaret’s telephone and ­listened in on the conversations of other senior royals. 

Listening devices were planted in the Princess’s bedroom during an official trip to Copenhagen in 1964. Until last week the Russians had always denied the ­covert operation... Colonel Vadim Goncharov, the KGB chief in charge of snooping operations on key western targets, installed listening devices in Princess Margaret’s lighter, cigarette case, ashtrays and telephones, eavesdropping on conversations that were “most interesting, even scandalous”... A book by the newspaper’s intelligence analyst, Gennady Sokolov, to be published next year, will provide new details about the operation against the Queen’s sister... Entitled The Kremlin v The Windsors – Palace Spies Of The Secret War, it will also reveal other attempts by Russian intelligence to spy on the Royal Family. (more)

Animal Abuse Covert Video Activism Leads to Politicians Being Prodded to Outlawing Cameras Instead of the Problem

Undercover investigations of animal abuse and unsanitary farm conditions would be outlawed in eight states... under an expanding effort by legislators who say the exposes malign livestock industries... backed by Monsanto Co. and other agriculture companies, (the new laws) would halt activists from using deceptive practices (covert video) to target producers in the $74 billion-a-year U.S. beef industry, or the $45 billion poultry business, as well as other businesses...

“For politicians, it comes across looking like they’re trying to muzzle these groups,” said Wes Jamison, an associate communications professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida who studies interest-group activism, in an interview. “It’s putting restrictions on citizen ‘gotcha’ journalism.”

Media stories about animal welfare have a “significant, negative” effect on meat demand, especially poultry and pork, according to a 2010 study by economists at Kansas State University and Purdue University in Indiana on covert exposes and news articles. (more) (sample videos)

Let the Drone Wars Begin

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

"It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave."

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

"Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out," Hindi said in the release. "As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter." (more)

Cautionary Tale: Sabotage by Wiretap - What if it were your phone call?

Russia - Boris Nemtsov, one of Russia's main opposition leaders has accused Kremlin agents of illegally bugging his phone after a newspaper released embarrassing recordings of his private phone calls.

The material was potentially damaging for Mr Nemtsov, one of the principal organisers of a recent spate of anti-Kremlin protests, as he can be heard insulting his fellow opposition leaders in obscene terms and belittling his own supporters as "internet hamsters" and "scared penguins." 

A deputy prime minister in the 1990s and a founder of the opposition Solidarity movement, Mr Nemtsov claimed the release of the recordings was a cynical Kremlin attempt to sabotage a big opposition protest planned for Christmas Eve by triggering internal squabbling among its organisers.

"Parts of these conversations are really genuine," he wrote in his blog. (more)

Tip: Periodically check for bugs and taps. (more)

And on his farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O With a "moo-moo" here and a... You're under arrest!

Iowa is on the verge of becoming the first state to criminalize recording sights and sounds at farms without permission from owners.

The hot-button issue surfaced in the waning days of the legislative session and pits environment and animal rights groups against farmers and agribusiness.

On one side are activists who surreptitiously record how animals are raised or slaughtered. On the other, owners who don't want what they see as interference.

The activists maintain their actions are protected under the First Amendment. Farmers counter the acts represent an invasion of privacy intentionally designed to damage their industry. (more)

Turkey Acknowledges Eavesdropping Concerns... and evidence.

Turkey - There are dead-serious problems concerning the “privacy of personal life and communication” in Ankara at the moment. Video tapes are pouring in as records of private phone conversations, obtained through wiretapping, are making the rounds. Cyber attacks targeting politicians are continuing incessantly. There are as many records that have been obtained illegally as there are records that have been obtained legally and leaked.

Video or audio tapes have both become evidence in court cases and have been used for blackmail. Some of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, candidates have had to resign or withdraw due to sex tapes featuring them.

Since these are cyber attacks, everyone is trying to gain protection either through personal or corporate measures. While jammer-like equipment to stop the transfer of phone and video conversations are being used by political parties, parliamentary deputies are choosing similar equipment sold on the market.

There are concerns about being bugged even in top offices in the capital. (more)

Extortionography - Turkish Tacky Video Changes the Course of a Nation

Turkey - Just weeks before general elections in Turkey, six leading members of an opposition party were forced to resign from Parliament on Saturday after sexually explicit videos of one of them were posted on the Internet.

The Web site that posted the videos had threatened to release others that it said showed the five other members who resigned.

The resignations could severely weaken the Nationalist Movement Party, the second largest opposition group in Parliament, which is struggling to win the minimum of 10 percent of the vote required to be seated in Parliament.

Four members of Parliament from the same party resigned earlier this month after similar videos were posted on the same Web site.

The Web site, farkliulkuculer.com, has cast itself as part of a breakaway ultranationalist group aiming to cleanse and reform the nationalist movement in Turkey. The site’s administrators are anonymous. (more)

SpyCam Story #606 - The Power of One SpyCam

It's a hammer.

The price of cattle market futures seem to have dropped in response to last week’s release of a whistleblower video documenting severe abuse of dairy calves at E6 Cattle Company in Hart, Texas, according to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal...

The Wall Street Journal’s Lester Aldrich wrote, “The video, which has been posted to the internet, pressured live-cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Traders were concerned its graphic nature would cause a pullback in consumer demand for beef…  

The video helped to push June futures down 1.3% to $1.1565 a pound after the contract hit a two-week high earlier in the trading day.” (more) (disturbing video)

Eavesdropper Stung by Victim... who happens to be Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant is trending after he turned the tables on an eavesdropping tabloid. Grant, a victim of voice-mail hacking by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, secretly taped journalist Paul McMullan coming clean about the electronic snooping and then sent the recording to the New Statesman.

According to the transcript, McMullan admits tabloid reporters have listened in on stars, prominent politicians, even Prince Charles.

The News of the World has printed a public apology, but the paper is facing a number of civil claims from celebrity victims, including actress Sienna Miller. (more)

Hackers Retaliate Against Corporate Security Firm

WikiLeaks hackers and a California-based Internet security business has opened a window onto the secretive world of private companies that offer to help corporations investigate and discredit their critics.

This week, hackers said they had penetrated the computers of HBGary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to corporations, and posted tens of thousands of what appear to be its internal company e-mails on the Internet.

The documents appear to include pitches for unseemly ways to undermine adversaries of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, like doing background research on their critics and then distributing fake documents to embarrass them. (more)

Shirley he jests. But wait! There's more...

MA - Fired Shirley Town Administrator Kyle Keady pleaded innocent in Middlesex Superior Court Tuesday to a bevy of illegal-recording charges in the wake of lurid video and wiretapping allegations against him that have shocked the small town.

Keady, 46, of Shirley, was released on $2,500 cash bail after pleading innocent to four counts of breaking and entering, five counts of wiretap violations, and 10 counts of video recording a person in a state of nudity...

Prosecutors allege that between 2006 and 2010, Keady recorded numerous conversations in the Shirley Town Hall, including using special spy pens equipped with cameras in the potted plant to record his female assistant. He is also accused by investigators of hiding a baby monitor in the ceiling in the town accountant's office to record her.

Perhaps most shocking of the allegations is that Keady is accused of using pens with cameras to record video of the ladies' room in Town Hall.

He also allegedly broke into his assistant's home to photograph her undergarments, as well as used photo-editing software to put her photo on top of nude bodies, according to investigators. (more)

SpyCam Story #583 - Veal

A hidden-camera video that shows severe confinement and other abuses of calves has caused Bob Barker to ask consumers to stop buying veal and dairy products.

The Emmy Award-winning former host of The Price is Right and a longtime animal advocate, Barker narrated the Mercy for Animals (MFA) video and joins the group in asking Americans nationwide to boycott the products that he says sentence animals to “a life of extreme deprivation and suffering.” (more)

When correctly viewed, Everything is lewd. (I could tell you things about Peter Pan, And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

CA - An Orange County man is expected to enter pleas in federal court to charges he hacked into hundreds of computers to extort sexually explicit videos from women and teenage girls. 

Prosecutors say 31-year-old Luis Mijangos of Santa Ana is due in a Los Angeles courtroom today. A 16-count indictment charges him with conspiracy, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, extortion, wiretapping and other charges.

Mijangos allegedly tricked about 230 people into downloading a virus that allowed him to take over their personal computers.

Prosecutors say Mijangos looked into computers for sexually explicit pictures, then threatened to e-mail the files to victims' mailing lists to coerce them into sending him videos of them engaged in sex acts. (more) (Smut)

Answer - "You lacked a counterespionage plan."

A cautionary tale...

CA - The leaders of the California Nurses Association had barely wrapped up a news conference recently slamming GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman when they learned Whitman's campaign had been watching them the whole time.

A volunteer for the Republican had sneaked into the event held at the union's downtown Oakland headquarters and sent live streaming video back to the campaign nearly 50 miles away in Cupertino. Within hours, Whitman aides were blasting to supporters an e-mail response to the event that featured clandestine video snippets.

"I wonder who it was," union Co-President Deborah Anne Burger said after learning about the Whitman spy. "How did they get in?" (more)

SpyCam Story #577 - Turkish Delights

Mission Impossible? 

You decide.

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party has resigned after the release of grainy video footage purporting to show him having an affair with one of his MPs.

The nine minutes and 23 seconds of silent footage, seemingly shot with a hidden camera, allegedly shows Deniz Baykal, 71, veteran leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nesrin Baytok, 50, his former private secretary and now a CHP deputy, speaking in the presence of another man in one clip, and getting dressed alone in a bedroom in another.

Mr Baykal claimed he was a victim of a government-orchestrated plot...

"This is not a sex tape, this is a conspiracy," he said. "If this has a price, and that price is the resignation from CHP leadership, I am ready to pay it. My resignation does not mean running away, or giving in. On the contrary, it means that I'm fighting it." (huh?) (more) (more)

Trend: Executive and high profile clients are requesting us to inspect hotel rooms and private aircraft more often these days. Calls from politicians might be next.

Snitch Culture Rule Switch

MD - A Maryland delegate is proposing changes to state wiretap law after he was inspired by two filmmakers who claimed to be a pimp and prostitute seeking tax advice while surreptitiously taping ACORN staffers in Baltimore.

Delegate Richard Sossi, an Eastern Shore Republican, wants to provide immunity for people who intercept a wire, oral or electronic communication that provides evidence of the commission of a felony.

Right now in Maryland, it is illegal to record private conversations unless both parties consent to the taping. (more)

This is one way to deter James O'Keefe from showing up at your political headquarters with a team of fake telephone technicians with hidden cameras.

Pssst... (BARTNICKI v. VOPPER (99-1687) 200 F.3d 109) already accomplished this in a 2001 Supreme Court ruling. 
 "Privacy of communication is an important interest. However, in this suit, privacy concerns give way when balanced against the interest in publishing matters of public importance. One of the costs associated with participation in public affairs is an attendant loss of privacy."  
See Extortionography.