The Spy Files: Bureau of Investigative Journalism Analysis

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is one of Wikileaks' partners on the "Spy files" project, a database of materials used by worldwide companies promoting products that could be used for "mass surveillance" (>Map here).

Two New Zealand companies appear, Endace and Security Software International. Material from Endace has been uploaded to Wikileaks.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism's current reporting and analysis on the issue includes the following:

The State Of Surveillance

A secretive multi-billion dollar industry is offering cutting-edge systems that enable governments to identify, track and monitor people through their phones and computers, a cache of hundreds of surveillance brochures and other marketing materials reveals.

A German company offers the ability to track ‘political opponents’; an Italian company claims it can remotely seize control of smartphones and use them to listen into conversations and photograph the owners; a US company allows users to ‘see what they [the target] see’; and a South African company offers tools for recording billions of phone calls and storing them forever.

These brochures and other marketing material, known as the ‘Spy Files’, are released today by WikiLeaks and London-based human rights group Privacy International. More>>

The State Of Surveillance: The Data

The Bureau and London-based human rights group Privacy International have compiled a comprehensive database of companies that sell surveillance products.

Using the interface below, you can search by company, or by the country the company is headquartered in: for instance, you could search for the company ‘AGT’ to look at that single company, or for ‘Germany’ in order to view all of the companies located in that country. More>>

Surveillance Debunked: A Guide To The Jargon

Many of the technologies and ideas contained in the Spy Files are obscure and unfamiliar. Privacy International has compiled this glossary, in which experts explain what these technologies are, how they work, and the implications they carry for privacy and civil liberties. More>>

The ‘Spy Files’: How Safe Are Your Emails And Phone Calls?

The 21st-century surveillance industry is hi-tech, sophisticated and terrifyingly pervasive, it is revealed in more than 200 brochures, presentations and other marketing materials published today by WikiLeaks and Privacy International.

The gear on sale falls into four categories: location tracking of mobile phones and vehicles; hacking into computers and phones to monitor every keystroke; recording and storage of what’s being said on an entire telecommunication networks; and the analysis of vast swathes of data to track individual users. More>>

Analysis: The Slide Into A Surveillance State

Former MI5 spy Annie Machon explains why we need to care about the state of surveillance.

Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned of the ‘disastrous rise’ of the military-industrial complex. His fears proved all too accurate.

Now in the post-9/11 world, the threat goes even further: the military-industrial complex is evolving into the military-intelligence complex. It is a world, I fear, that is propelling us into a dystopian surveillance nightmare.More>>

Was Gaddafi ‘Cyber Spying’ On Opponents In The UK?

The operating manual for a spying system built for Colonel Gaddafi may have contained the email addresses of a British lawyer and the new Libyan ambassador to the UK, suggesting that the oppressive regime’s ability to electronically spy on opponents may have extended to Britain. More>>

Surveillance: A Thriving British Industry

The country that created James Bond also produces some of the best spying technology – and the capabilities of this technology exceeds anything Bond’s gadget master Q could dream up. More>>

British Surveillance Software Linked To Brutal Syrian Regime

A British company has been implicated in the sale of state-of-the-art spying technology to Syria, a joint investigation by the Bureau and Newsnight can reveal. More>>

UK’s Top Spies Approved Export Of Surveillance Technology To Iran

Top UK spies approved the sale of a software system to Iran that allows the geographic tracking of mobile phones. The system was developed by Surrey-based Creativity Software and sold to MTN Irancell. More>>

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