Chinese High-Altitude Balloon Recovery

Behind the Bureau’s role as the lead governing agency for the forensic examination of the Chinese high-altitude balloon

FBI special agents assigned to the Evidence Response Team process material recovered from the high-altitude balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina. In a news briefing on Thursday, senior FBI officials detailed the Bureau’s role as the lead governing agency for the forensic examination of the Chinese high-altitude balloon identified and shot down February 5 by the U.S. military off the coast of South Carolina. The Operational Technology Division and the Laboratory Division are working closely with subject matter experts from the Department of Defense—including the Naval Criminal Investigative Service—and other government agencies. Additionally, personnel from the FBI’s Washington, Columbia, Charlotte, and Norfolk field offices have deployed personnel, including ERT- and USERT-trained agents, to assist with the logistics of the recovery and analysis of the debris. Michael Paul, assistant director of the Operational and Technology Division (OTD), and Eric Pokorak, assistant director of the Laboratory Division, said it is too early in the investigation to determine the intent and capabilities of the balloon. Pokorak said much of the evidence remains underwater and that the FBI is coordinating further searches with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Dive teams from the FBI and U.S. Navy are working together. “We were on-scene late Sunday, on February 5, and the first evidence that was received was transported to Quantico and received late Monday, February 6,” he explained. Pokorak described the search area as a “large-scale scene” and said weather concerns in the next few days “may impact” evidence collection and the transportation of recovered items.

Once the evidence is received at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, a team of experts engages in a decontamination process, Pokorak continued. “In simple terms, that is removing the salt water from the evidence itself. Rinsing and washing it so that it can be further processed.” The evidence recovered so far has been limited to surface findings, including the balloon (or canopy itself) some wiring, a tiny amount of electronics—but only a small portion of the payload. “We have not seen the payload where we expect to see the lion’s share of the electronics,” said Paul. “OTD deployed specialists to assist with screening and to specifically assess electronic components that might be recovered during the operation.”

He said this investigation marks the first time the FBI Laboratory and OTD have responded to a “hot air balloon of this nature” and the processing of the corresponding scene. Paul said no “energetic or offensive material” has been detected but emphasized much of the evidence has yet to be recovered. Asked about the manufacturer of the balloon or whether its design was based on stolen intelligence, Paul said the FBI is not in position “at this point to have that information.” He said both the FBI Laboratory and OTD are working to determine the source of the balloon components. Additionally, the FBI has no information or physical evidence at this time that contradicts previous statements made by other government agencies. The Laboratory Division leads the collection, transportation, and subsequent forensic examinations of evidentiary material. It is staffed with subject matter experts, including highly trained evidence response dive teams and hazardous evidence response teams, which contribute to the mission of collecting, analyzing, and sharing timely scientific and technical information within the FBI and with other government and law enforcement agencies. The OTD is the FBI’s provenance for applied technology enabling and enhancing investigations. OTD personnel have been deployed to assist with recovery efforts and initial assessments of technological evidence. Source-FBI

China: Tech giants’ pivot out of China can usher in a human rights reset

Written by Michael Caster, Asia Digital Programme Manager at ARTICLE 19. In late November, protests erupted in a factory manufacturing Apple products in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou amid workers’ discontent about pay. Footage and images from the site showed police beating protesters and arresting them. The turmoil in Zhengzhou was the latest in a series of challenges that have delayed the manufacturing of Apple products in China and led to the company accelerating its plans to move its production elsewhere. Other tech giants are seeking to do the same, concerned about tensions between the US and China and COVID-19-related shutdowns imposed by the Chinese authorities. As these companies start to relocate their operations, they have the chance to account for their human rights record in the communist country. For years, they have bowed to state policies that restrict the fundamental freedoms of Chinese citizens. These companies have to review their human rights records in authoritarian states and commit not to make the same mistakes in the countries where they will relocate their production or grow their markets. It is time for tech companies to undertake a human rights reset. Compliance with censorship Apple, the world’s richest company, has made a significant profit in China, which has also left it vulnerable to pressure from the local authorities to act against its stated human rights commitments. While the size of its production has been politically and economically important to the Chinese government, which in theory would have given the company leverage to oppose such rights abuses, Apple has been seemingly unwilling to push back in meaningful ways. The company has complied with repressive legislation, such as the Cybersecurity Law and others, which require tech companies, among others, to monitor and report politically sensitive content, store Chinese users’ data in China and provide the authorities with access to it. Apple has also engaged in censorship, deleting tens of thousands of apps from its Chinese App Store, including encryption and circumvention tools, such as VPNs needed to hop over the Great Firewall of China. Most recently, in November, Apple limited the parameters for wireless filesharing on its app AirDrop after its use by anti-government protesters in China. The changes allow the option “share with everyone” to be active for just 10 minutes before it switches back to “contacts only”, effectively eliminating its utility during protests. Apple is not alone. Microsoft, another US-based tech giant, has also been compliant with the repressive policies of the Chinese government. Following the implementation of the Cybersecurity Law, the company partnered with the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group to develop a version of its Windows operating system specifically for Chinese government users. This has raised concerns about the company giving backdoor access to its software to the Chinese government. Microsoft is also a member of the Internet Society of China and as such has made a pledge to block websites that offend the Chinese censors. After most services offered by Google were blocked in China in 2010, Microsoft’s Bing has been the only major foreign search engine that works without a VPN. Surely, compliance with Beijing’s censorship demands helps keep it that way. Similarly, LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired in 2016, was the only big foreign social networking site available in China, after Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were blocked in 2009. In late 2021, LinkedIn had over 57 million users, making China its third largest market after the United States and India. In exchange for access to this sizeable userbase, LinkedIn too was expected to play the censorship game. The platform geoblocked content belonging to high-profile human rights defenders, such as Zhou Fengsuo, journalists like Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, and corporate investigator Peter Humphrey, along with the posts of millions of Chinese users deemed “sensitive”. Despite its record of compliance, in March 2021 the Cyberspace Administration of China rebuked LinkedIn for not censoring enough. Finally, in October 2021, Microsoft announced it was shutting down LinkedIn services in China due to a “significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements”. Clearly, the cost of tech companies doing business in China’s enormous market, whether producing or selling products and services, has long been to abandon their responsibilities to respect human rights. But it shouldn’t be this way. A human rights reset As big tech companies prepare to reduce their reliance on production in China, they have an opportunity to set new standards for human rights. Apple is looking to shift its supply chain to India and Vietnam. But both of these countries are known to engage in severe censorship as well. India leads the world in internet shutdowns, responsible for 106 of 182 shutdowns documented last year by the #KeepItOn Coalition. In recent years, the Indian authorities have enacted legislation that pressures tech companies to over-censor and retain user data to hand over to the government. It now looks to threaten end-to-end encryption. India has ordered platforms to take down content it didn’t want and warned of severe penalties for noncompliance, including threatening Twitter staff with up to seven years imprisonment. Earlier this year, Twitter sued the government for such “overbroad and arbitrary” regulations. It is also concerning that Apple is expanding into Vietnam, which ranks among the five worst internet freedom abusers in the world, according to US-based pro-democracy organisation Freedom House. Like China, Vietnam’s Cybersecurity Law requires tech companies to comply with data localisation, actively censor content, and make user data available to the authorities. In November, its government announced plans for new rules that would require platforms to remove offending content within 24 hours. Vietnam has also shown that it will hold tech companies financially hostage until they comply with its digital diktats. In 2020, following months of government-backed bandwidth throttling to drastically slow down its services, Facebook, which makes about $1bn a year in the country, agreed to increase censorship of “anti-state” content on its platform. With such repressive policies in place in both India and Vietnam, Apple faces the risk of repeating the same mistakes it made in China unless it changes its approach to dealing with government pressure. The company and other tech giants doing business with repressive states should heed their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) to address any adverse human rights impacts their activities may have, including on the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and access to information online. They should resist government orders to arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression and implement labour protections in their supply chains. They should be fully transparent about how they negotiate market access and licensing agreements with governments and make such documents publicly available to empower independent oversight. Companies should have a robust policy on how they will adhere to their human rights responsibilities in the face of government pressure and hold open consultations with civil society to establish clear benchmarks and red lines. Companies must commit to independent human rights impact assessments, which should be revised as conditions change, and be publicly available. Shareholder groups in these companies should also impress upon corporate leadership the importance of compliance with their human rights responsibilities. Tech companies can and should do business without hurting human rights. Having a positive human rights record could be just as profitable as bowing down to repressive state policies. Source-Article 19

Leadership : Between China and Nigeria

Mao Zedong popularly known as Chairman Mao, was successful with his noble goals for China through despotic means.

His leadership was severe, dictatorial and personalized.

For as long as Chairman Mao's  cultural revolution lasted, thousands of Chinese died of starvation and inhuman labour.

Mao and his co-travelers argued that same was the price their people had to pay  for re-education.

This brand of governance ensured the extermination of the heroes of the civil war and the old party chieftains by the President's armed squad.

Chairman Mao is perhaps the role model of those who hold sway in Nigeria today.

Indeed, the Kaduna state Governor, Mallam Nasir El Rufai is among several other political office holders, who adore President Muhammadu Buhari.

Those in support of this argument insist that on a number of occasions, the Kaduna state Governor had knelt down to greet and/or consult with the President. They maintain that this is only a sign of respect in the traditional African setting.

However, those against this order of things, stress that the underlying factors revolve on hypocrisy and boot licking.

Nigerians are yet to stop complaining of constitutional breaches and the unabated trampling of the rule of law in the dust, without noticeable changes by the powers that be.

From recent events in the country, the economic reform programmes of the All Progressives  Congress(APC) led government at the centre and  in the states, are modeled along the thinking of a free market economy.

It is doubtful, if government, in the last three years, has managed the economy for the benefit of Nigerians.

Recently, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo launched the ''Trader Money'' in Abuja.
The target beneficiaries are petty traders in the country and the collateral free loans for them, ranges from N10,000 to N15,000.

But the fundamental questions Nigerians  are asking include, Why are the interest free loans coming at this time ?, five months to the general elections. Is this not  a modified form of vote buying ? Considering the fact that a day after the launch, the Vice President was in Osogbo, Osun state to campaign for the APC Governorship candidate in the 22 September Governorship elections in the state.

This is irrespective of the fact that the state government has just resumed payment of full salaries to its impoverished workforce, after paying them half salaries for over three years.

Of worry is the state of manufacturing industries, which could be said to be epileptic, even as food security is a  mirage, insecurity is the chorus everywhere, while crude oil remains the major hope of the present administration.

Interestingly, the future growth of the Nigerian economy  rests comfortably on diversification and focus on  visionary and creative people friendly economic policies, although government still over-rely and over-depends on crude oil to fund its programmes.

Can the present administration turn around the troubled economy in less than eight months ? Nobody knows.