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Zaev realeases bomb #4 - new surveillence tapes show evidence of more media meddling and survellance of 100 journalists [Updated]

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The newest batch of the alleged warantless surveillance tapes were released today. The tapes reveal more abuse of power by the leading figures in the Macedonian government including the prime minister Nikola Gruevski. One of the tapes show money being redirected form the Agency for electronic communication (btw, that is the same agency that should serve as a watchdog for telecom operator to make sure that there is not any unlawful bridge of consumers privacy) to be used for movie-making.

The new files give a clearer picture of the dismal situation with Macedonian media and their close connections with the ruling people of the government. Government ministers are heard ordering news stories and media editors accepting the requests.

However, the biggest revelation are the journalists' files. Over 100 journalists, including the late Nikola Mladenov, have been targeted for periods longer than any legal time frame allowed under Macedonian law. Mr. Zaev said the files will be given to each of the journalists that were under surveillance.

Update:

Following the 2pm press conference of opposition leader Zoran Zaev, Macedonian prime minister takes the podium at a press conference at 3:45 pm.

He repeats most of the things that he already said in his original statement: that recordings are made by foreign intelligence agencies and that are fake/edited. Also he says that the video recordings leaked to Youtube of his meeting with Mr. Zaev are lawful and done after filed criminal charges.

Almost simultaneously with the press conference major pro-government news outlets report a sentencing of a man that plead guilty in the 'coup d'etat' case in which Mr. Zaev is one of the suspects too. Mr. Gruevski cites this information in his speech, says people have already admitted to the crimes of espionage against the state.

Then the PM goes on to talk about new jobs, investments, roads and so on and that he says he will restore order.

Related:
New leaks presented by Mr. Zaev - Media controlled by secret services

Telecom operators trying to plead innocence over wiretapping accusations; claim their actions to be consistent with a law that didn't exist in 2011

Macedonian opposition reveals evidence of mass spying

Surveillance and abuse of power - Macedonian chapter

New leaks presented by Mr. Zaev - Media controlled by secret services

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In a press conference on Friday, February 20th 2015, opposition leader Mr. Zaev revealed a third batch of leaks form the alleged 1.6 million files of warantless surveillance of over 20.000 Macedonian citizens.

The audio recordings provide the most shocking and most disturbing conversations between senior government officials and newspaper and TV editors so far. Aside from the language, the recordings reveal conspiracies, staged arrest, and plans for torture of political opponents and retaliation towards citizens who did not vote for the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party. Part of the audio is transcribed with analysis in Macedonian and published on OKNO.mk.

The recordings also reveal the close ties between Macedonia's leading news outlets and top ranking officials from the government, this time specifically with the chief of the secret police.

Over the past 5-6 years, Macedonia has fallen in media freedom rankings, only to go up 7 places from 123 on this year's RSF rating. The current media coverage of the leaks gives more proof to the point: only a handful of media outlets, most of which are on-line, provide information and analysis. The rest of about 25-30 TV and Radio stations, including the national broadcaster MRT, and newspapers remain in line with the government story that the recordings distributed to the public by the opposition party are montages made by hostile foreign government intelligence agencies made to destabilize the country.

Related:

Telecom operators trying to plead innocence over wiretapping accusations; claim their actions to be consistent with a law that didn't exist in 2011

Macedonian opposition reveals evidence of mass spying

Surveillance and abuse of power - Macedonian chapter

Telecom operators trying to plead innocence over wiretapping accusations; claim their actions to be consistent with a law that didn't exist in 2011 [Updated]

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After a few days of silence, the telecom operators in Macedonia issued statements (NovaTV link in Macedonian), claiming that they have not broken the law, and that they are in full compliance of article 175 of the Macedonian law for electronic communications i.e. the article that governs procedures for lawful interception of telephone calls, despite allegations made by Mr. Zaev on Monday.

However, as NovaTV already established (link also in Macedonian), at least one of the recorded, and now made public, conversations took place in 2011. At that time the law that was in use didn't even have 175 articles.

In fact, the Law on electronic communications which was in use up until February 2014 had an article 115 which clearly stated that telecom operators must keep a permanent record of any lawful interception taking place and that they must protect this information as a secret according to law. However, for a short period of 6 months - from June 2010 to December 2010, when the Constitutional court stroke it down, that article was amended in a way that allowed unsupervised wiretapping.

Mr. Zaev so far claimed that at least two people have been wiretapped four years or more - himself, and Dragan Pavlovikj - Latas - a prominent pro-government TV editor. If this is true then the telecom operators must have records dating back to 2010 according to article 115 of the law as described above, or at least, to have the knowledge that lawful wiretapping took place. Claiming that they couldn't know anything is at least misinterpretation of the facts.

The law was completely rewritten and passed in February 2014 and this obligation was removed in the new text (link to ALL laws on electronic communications - in Macedonian).

This article was updated to correct the dates of the laws.

Macedonian opposition reveals evidence of mass spying

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In a press conference covered by just a few twitter users tweeting live from opposition headquarters in Skopje, opposition leader Zoran Zaev revealed what is to be named 'the first part of the bomb' -- evidence for mass abuse of power by the current government.

There was no other live media coverage which gives you a sense of the type of country Macedonia has became under the rule of Mr. Nikola Gruevski's government. Macedonia has plummeted at 123 place on media freedom rankings.

Mr. Zaev claims that a whistleblower form Macedonia's secret police have provided recordings that prove that about 20.000 people including cabinet members and aides of Mr. Gruevski, businessmen, NGOs, Macedonian Academy of science and arts and judges. Part of the recordings were played at the press conference.

TV Telma, a local news outlet, reported that mobile phone operators have participated in the mass surveillance.

Tweeting live in English from the press conference was @tanjatania.

Related: Surveillance and abuse of power - Macedonian chapter.

Note: This article was corrected. The correct number stated by Mr. Zaev was 20.000 not 26.000.

Update: An audio recording published by SDSM (youtube link) contains 9 conversations: Mr. Zaev speaking with a reporter from Radio Free Europe, Mr. Zaev speaking with party colleague Mrs. Radmila Sekerinska, Mr. Zaev speaking with his daughter, Interior minister Mrs. Gordana Jankulovska speaking with Finance minister Mr. Zoran Stavrevski, Former PM Mr. Ljubco Georgievski speaking with an unknown person 2 times, DUI president Mr. Ali Ahmeti speaking with an unknown person, DPA president Mr. Menduh Tachi speaking with an unknown person and NDP president Mr. Rufi Osmani speaking with an unknown person.

Surveillance and abuse of power - Macedonian chapter

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The political struggle between the Government and the opposition in Macedonia had a minor climax yesterday, Saturday 31 of January, when the PM announced that the police and other Government agencies prevented a coup d'etat.

Both the PM Nikola Gruevski and the opposition leader Zoran Zaev claim that at the crux of the allegations are data gathered without warrant by intelligence agencies. The PM claims that these data are provided to Mr. Zaev the by a foreign agency, that they mostly target Government officials, and that some of them are not genuine. The opposition leader claims that the data target thousands of ordinary citizens, and are leaked to Mr. Zaev's party by a whistleblower from within the Macedonian agencies that conducted the surveillance. (Both link are to statements which are in Macedonian.)

As we wait to learn the truth, here is what we know:

1. A government led by VMRO-DPMNE in 2001 was accused of warrantless surveillance in 2001. News articles in Macedonian from that period are available on Time.mk.

2. According to Citizen Lab there is a FinFisher Command & Control server in Macedonia since 2013. There has been no denial of this report by any Government institution so far.

3. According to reports based on Snowden's leaks, Macedonia is an European partner country for the NSA surveillance dragnet. Mr. Gruevski has a statement on record that he does not know anything about the agreement between his administration and the US Government.

4. So far there have not been any reports that there is a third foreign government with the ability or capacity to carry out large scale surveillance in Macedonia.

If the above reports are true, then is possible to imagine that the Macedonian Government used Gamma's and NSA's technology to spy on it's citizens, and that someone from the government agencies thought that they went too far - which would make Mr. Zaev story plausible.

It is also possible and less controversial to imagine that the US Government spied on Macedonian government officials (like they spied German Chancellor Merkel). However, in that case it would be very difficult to imagine what did they hear that they thought it is important to be shared with the opposition party.

In any event the ongoing nondisclosure of said data raises much more questions. We don't know, for example, why the opposition party is holding the data for more than 3 months, or why they didn't opt for a Snowden/Wikileaks solution - sharing the data with a trusted media organization, that needn't be Macedonian, to publish the information for most impact.

News of NSA parter countries reaches Macedonia and the Prime Minister says he does not know anything about it

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News of Internet surveillance finally reached the Macedonian mainstream media.

The news outlet 24Vesti reported twice (Македонија вклучена во американската шпионажа на интернетот, Груевски не знаел за договорот со кој Македонија е вклучена во шпионска афера) about the documents made available in Glen Greenwald's new book that show a list European partner countries (How Secret Partners Expand NSA’s Surveillance Dragnet).

The second report includes a statement form Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski saying that he is not familiar with the case, and he couldn't comment because he doesn't know the details.

Maybe this would be big news somewhere else, but it's difficult to expect a media storm in Macedonia which has seen declining media freedom rankings in the recent years with the latest Freedom of the Press report stating that: "Most private media outlets are tied to political or business interests that influence their content, and state-owned media tend to support government positions. The government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and its media allies have shown growing hostility toward critical news outlets."

Questions about the use of NSA technology by the Macedonian government for the purpose of surveillance of Macedonian citizens remain to be answered, even though there might be no one to ask them.

Talking at Day of the Imprisoned Writer and "Stanica Studentska"

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With a delay which is not unusual for Macedonia, the Macedonian PEN observed the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on December 3rd at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje.

The event welcomed speakers and poets. I had about 5 minutes to talk on the given topic: "Digital freedom and the writer". I spent my time talking about surveillance and the inability to read and write in privacy and anonymity with the usual computer system people use - making a case for free software and encryption. I hope that that was useful for the audience which I think was mostly with a non-technical background.

The full text [in Macedonian and probably in English] will be published on Diversity's site in the coming days. Update 21.12.2013: here is a link to the text [in Macedonian].

The preparations for the event took a lot of time and I'm glad to say it was time well spend. Working with Valentina Bozinovska on our rhetoric skills was useful. I got to see my text and speech evolving. Looking back on it I now think that 2-3 weeks of writing and practice are needed to be ready for speaking on events with strict time slots.

***

Two days later, on December 5th, I partnered with Damjan for yet another presentation / workshop [and received help from Ana]. The annual event organized by YEF [MOF] is called "Stanica Studentska" and is a forum for meetings and discussions among university and high-school students.

2s.mk had another presentation about 3D printing earlier the same day, and we talked about regulation on the Internet. I think we did a good job. We spent the least possible time to talk in general on the topic and then tried to engage everybody.

We had a group of about 20 people. I was standing at one end of the room representing total regulation, and Damjan was at the other end. We asked everybody to stand up and make a line positioning themselves according to their preferences for regulation. Then we asked them to explain why do they stand in a particular position and to move around if what they hear from the others influences their views in any way. Maybe, at some point it was chaotic, but it looked like fun most of the time.

The views of the people present were interesting. Almost everyone talked about regulation as something conducted by governments. Nobody really discussed the role of big Internet companies. I think that is something we need to work on in the future.

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