Report details widespread illegal extraction of smartphone data by US law enforcement

Kevin Reed

A report published in October by a nonprofit technology rights organization has revealed that thousands of smartphones are searched by law enforcement every day across the US, many of them without a warrant and in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In the report entitled, “Mass Extraction: The Widespread Power of U.S. Law Enforcement to Search Mobile Phones,” the group Upturn Toward Justice in Technology studied the use of mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs) by law enforcement that enable police to make a complete copy of the contents of a smartphone regardless of its security features.

Screen capture of the Cellebrite UFED user interface, where the user can select the categories of data they want to extract from the internal storage of a smartphone

The extensive and well-documented Upturn report—based on 110 public records requests to state and local police agencies across the country—shows that “more than 2,000 agencies have purchased these tools, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia” and that the agencies “have performed hundreds of thousands of cellphone extractions since 2015, often without a warrant.”

The report warns, “Every American is at risk of having their phone forensically searched by law enforcement.”

Police agencies use MDFTs to download smartphone data routinely during arrests, both those “involving major harm,” as well as those involving “graffiti, shoplifting, marijuana possession, prostitution, vandalism, car crashes, parole violations, petty theft, public intoxication, and the full gamut of drug-related offenses.”

The Upturn report reveals that individuals detained by police are often coerced into granting access to their smartphones without realizing the extent of the copying of their personal data and information that then takes place.

MDFTs are powerful tools that extract a full copy of a smartphone’s data contents. As the report explains, “By physically connecting a cellphone to a forensic tool, law enforcement can extract, analyze, and present data that’s stored on the phone.” This includes “all emails, texts, photos, locations, app data, and more.”

Upturn reveals that many of the police departments, district attorneys’ offices and sheriff departments have purchased the sophisticated phone extraction tools “through a variety of federal grant programs.” Meanwhile, departments that have been unable to purchase MDFTs themselves have access to the tools through partnerships and sharing agreements with larger law enforcement agencies and the FBI.

MDFTs have multiple capabilities, such as data extraction, data analysis and security circumvention. Once the entire contents of a smartphone—including contacts, photos, videos, saved passwords, GPS records, phone usage records—have been copied to law enforcement computer systems, law enforcement representatives then set about to use the MDFTs to sift through the data looking for specific information, such as “mapping where someone has been through GPS data, searching specific keywords, and searching images using image classification tools.”

They have the ability to circumvent smartphone security features and copy all the data from the device even that which is encrypted. Some of law enforcement extraction tools employ brute-force techniques to guess, for example, an iPhone passcode in “no more than 13 minutes for a 4-digit passcode, 22 hours for 6 digits, and 92 days for 8 digits. The default length prompted by iOS is 6 digits.”

In one case, an MDFT developer known as Cellebrite claims in marketing literature that it can “determine locks and perform a full file system extraction of all iPhone devices from iPhone 4S to the latest iPhone 11 / 11 Pro / Max running the latest iOS versions up to the latest 13.4.1.” With most advanced MDFT tools, a smartphone passcode can be guessed in under a day.

The Upturn report explains the important fact that not all data on an iPhone is encrypted. They wrote, “certain data is unencrypted upon startup, including some account information that is needed to receive notifications. For example, Cellebrite’s UFED Premium claims it can extract data even on locked iPhones. The data that appears ‘before first unlock’ (BFU) even includes parts of Apple’s password manager. Once the iPhone is unlocked after being powered on—‘after first unlock’ (AFU)—even more unencrypted data becomes available.”

There are other MDFT suppliers, including Oxygen Forensics and Grayshift, that promote their ability to find and extract the unencrypted data on an otherwise encrypted smartphone. In the case of Oxygen Forensics “Detective” software, the tool can extract data “before the first unlock,” including image detection that allows law enforcement officials to categorize pictures on an encrypted phone.

The Upturn report does a deep dive into the functionality of the Cellebrite MDFT software and goes step by step through the process deployed by the tool to extract and then analyze smartphone data.

Once a law enforcement investigator plugs the targeted phone into the Cellebrite system, “it will prompt the investigator to choose the kind of extraction to be performed, and, sometimes, the categories and time range of data to be extracted.”

Once the extraction is complete, the Cellebrite system moves on to analyze the data and, the Upturn report continues, “law enforcement can sort data by the time and date of its creation, by location, by file or media type, or by source application. They can also search for key terms across the entire phone, just like you might use Google to search the web. This means police can … view them together as a chronological series of events. It also means they can pull all pictures from the phone to view in one place, regardless of how they are organized on the phone.”

Other features include functionality that permits law enforcement to retrieve deleted files, as well as data from cloud accounts associated with an individual smartphone. The report says, “an MDFT may be able to pull a remote backup of the phone from Apple’s iCloud service by copying information it finds in the phone’s password management system and because many services allow users to download all of their data.”

The law enforcement tools can also recover log files “showing when applications were installed, used, and deleted, as well as how often someone used an application” and “when a device was locked or unlocked, when a message was viewed, when a Bluetooth device was connected, words added to a user’s dictionary, notification contents, as well as past ‘spotlight searches’ on iPhones, a search function that combines on-device and web results.”

The MDFTs also “trace a user’s actions on a map or chronological timeline using ‘patterns of life’ metadata; sort data by file type regardless of its location on the phone … or create network graphs … to infer social relationships using contact data.”

In short, the Upturn report has pulled back the curtain on the increasing use by law enforcement agencies of third-party software tools to extract and analyze enormous amounts of information contained on the smartphones of individuals in complete violation of basic constitutional rights.

Cellebrite is an Israeli digital intelligence company founded in 1999. The company came into public view in 2016 when the FBI clashed with Apple over two iPhones recovered from the scene of the San Bernardino mass shooting and attempted bombing. Following the killing of the two shooters by police, the FBI—under the direction of the Obama administration and then FBI Director James Comey—demanded Apple assist in breaking into the iPhones that were found at the scene.

After Apple refused, a public campaign was launched by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) demanding that a law enforcement “back door” be built into the encryption of consumer mobile devices. Later, the FBI and DoJ announced that the iPhones of the San Bernardino shooters had been successfully accessed with the assistance of a third party. Although the FBI has denied it, there were reports at the time that access to the iPhones was made possible through the MDFT services of Cellebrite.

CNN, Spiegel double down on anti-Russia campaign over Navalny case

Clara Weiss

On Monday, CNN and the German news magazine Der Spiegel, working in conjunction with Bellingcat and the Russian outlet the Insider, published major feature stories on the alleged poisoning of right-wing Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. The outlets claim to have identified the members of the “FSB elite unit” that supposedly was tasked to kill Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok.

Navalny, the leader of the imperialist-backed liberal opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell ill on August 20 on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The stories in CNN and the Spiegel treat the poisoning of Navalny with Novichok at the behest of the head of the Russian state as a fact. In reality, however, to this day, not a shred of evidence has been produced to substantiate the claim that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, let alone that Putin had anything to do with it.

Alexey Navalny (Source: Wikimedia/alexy Yushenkov)

Evidence of Novichok was only found by a Munich laboratory of the German army (Bundeswehr) after Navalny had been transferred, through the direct involvement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to the Charité hospital in Berlin. From beginning to end the story of Navalny’s poisoning has been riddled with contradictions, none of which Spiegel or CNN bother to address. The most glaring contradiction of all is that not only did Navalny survive an attack with a poison that is designed to kill almost instantly, but not a single person in Navalny’s immediate surroundings showed even the slightest symptoms of poisoning. In the also highly dubious poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, Britain, one person unrelated to the Skripals died from coming in contact with just a tiny amount of Novichok. Entire buildings had to be evacuated.

Yet not only Navalny but also a water bottle which allegedly contained traces of Novichok were transported across half of Russia without a single person having even the slightest symptoms of any illness except for Navalny. Navalny later said in a bizarre Russian interview that he could only compare his supposed near-death experience to the effect “of a dementor in Harry Potter.”

The stories by Spiegel and CNN are an even more jarring continuation of this dubious case. The Spiegel story tries to convince its readers of the “serious” aftereffects of the poisoning with Novichok by quoting Navalny: “I recently went jogging and then I got muscle cramps.” Both CNN and the Spiegel suggest that an earlier attempt to “poison” Navalny or his wife may have occurred just before that in Kaliningrad. The evidence?—His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, experienced “sudden exhaustion and disorientation” one afternoon, and had to go to rest at the hotel. Unnamed “experts” told CNN that such “symptoms are consistent with a low dosage of poisoning.” According to the Spiegel, these “symptoms” barely lasted into the evening and she felt perfectly fine after a night of sleep.

CNN, Spiegel, Insider and Bellingcat claim to have identified the “FSB elite unit” which had allegedly followed Navalny on 30 trips since 2017. A piece published by Bellingcat explained that they had only needed “some creative Googling (or Yandexing) and a few hundred euros worth of cryptocurrency to be fed through an automated payment platform, not much different than Amazon or Lexis Nexis, to acquire telephone records with geolocation data, passenger manifests, and residential data.” In this way, they claim, they were able to obtain on the Russian black data market not just the names but also the addresses, car license plates, telephone numbers and records, birth dates and flight records of the “elite FSB unit” that had been charged with the murder of Russia’s most famous anti-Putin opposition figure. Even if one were to assume that these men were, in fact, working for the FSB and tasked with following Navalny, no evidence is presented at all to prove that there was any plot to kill him with Novichok, or otherwise, and that they had anything to do with it.

From the attempts to associate muscle cramps during jogging and a “vacation sickness” with the impact of highly poisonous substances to the story of “creative Googling” that uncovered an “elite FSB unit,” this “investigation” stands out above all for its utter disregard for even a minimum of logical coherence and basic journalistic standards.

The involvement of Bellingcat, in particular, speaks volumes about the character of this “investigation.” In 2016, the WSWS exposed the “citizen journalism” collective as a propaganda front for NATO’s provocations and war preparations against Russia. A Bellingcat employee, Christo Grozev, co-authored the Spiegel story on Navalny and all the other major features on the case that appeared in the magazine in recent months.

Bellingcat was founded in 2014 by Eliot Higgins, who from 2016 to 2019 was a fellow at the rabidly anti-Russian Atlantic Council. Bellingcat has been key to manufacturing the propaganda around the downing of the MH17 flight over Ukraine in 2014 and countless pieces alleging the use of “chemical weapons” by the Assad regime in Syria. Bellingcat also played a central role in the propaganda around the Skripal case, which formed the pretext for a whole series of anti-Russian sanctions in 2018–19.

This latest feature story on the Navalny case marks yet a further escalation of the anti-Russia campaign. However, unlike in recent months, when the German government and media clearly spearheaded this campaign, the involvement of CNN indicates that the American press is now also determined to exploit the case to further ramp up the anti-Russia propaganda. It comes just shortly after new unsubstantiated hacking allegations by Russia were again widely publicized in the American media.

On Tuesday, the New York Times warned that a Biden administration would face “a confrontational Russia” and that Russia would be an even greater “threat” now than it had been under Obama, when Washington instigated bombing of Libya, instigated civil war in Syria and financed the toppling of a pro-Russian government in Kiev—all aimed to a considerable extent at undermining Russian influence and further encircling the country. Now, the New York Times wrote, Russia is challenging US interests “not only in what Moscow calls its near-abroad but also in Western Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Arctic.”

The systematic propping up of Navalny, who is an extremely right-wing figure with ties to fascistic and separatist tendencies within the Russian elites, is aimed not least of all at furthering the already substantial divisions within the crisis-ridden Russian state apparatus and ruling class and thus destabilizing the Putin regime.

Above all, however, the war preparations and provocations against Russia must be understood in the context of a staggering crisis of the capitalist system that is particularly sharp in the US. More than two people are dying from COVID-19 every minute, even as vaccines are becoming available. Food lines are growing across the country, millions have lost their jobs and many more have lost a substantial portion of their income. President Donald Trump still refuses to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden, has purged the upper echelons of the Pentagon and is staging one war provocation against Iran after another.

The Democrats, for their part, are doing everything in their power to downplay the ongoing efforts at a coup attempt by Trump, while assuring Wall Street that they will continue the policy of handouts to the super rich and the murderous policy of “herd immunity.” The increasingly aggressive anti-Russia and anti-China war propaganda is aimed at preparing the grounds for an escalation of imperialist interventions abroad to divert outwards the enormous building class tensions.

The Five Allegiances

Manuel Garcia Jr

 

“We be of one blood, ye and I”

— Mowgli, in The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling

The hierarchy of the five allegiances is: nepotism, tribalism, classism, nationalism, humanism.

Family connection is the emblem of conformity with nepotism.

Group identity is the emblem of conformity with tribalism. That emblem can be: race, religion, language, ethnicity, cult bondage.

Money wealth is the emblem of conformity with classism.

National identity is the emblem of conformity with nationalism.

Species-wide identification as homo sapiens is the emblem of conformity with humanism.

Each allegiance is a strategy to gain competitive advantage over other human beings. That competitiveness decreases from extremely intense with nepotism, to absent with pure humanism.

For each allegiance, those above it are barriers to its complete success. Humanism, being the least competitive relationship between humans, is also the most stymied by the combination of: nationalism, classism, tribalism and nepotism. We see this reflected in the inhumanity of homo sapiens world society, for which deprivation there is no compelling physical nor sociological reason.

Nationalism is stymied by the combination of classist greed, tribalist bigotry and family-linked corruption; and it is slightly diluted by expansive humanist cosmic consciousness. The managers of national governments, who are too often motivated by the three higher ranked allegiances, may at times try to unite a multicultural national population with the imagery of democracy, equality, inclusion and diversity. This is particularly so when armies have to be raised for wars of national defense and foreign conquest.

Nationalism is most successful when applied through a lush and expansive economy providing a high standard of living for all. In providing secure and fulfilling jobs with good pay, and which ease the existential anxieties of individuals and gives them roles they can adopt as emblems of self worth, economic nationalism in essence pays people off to relinquish their reliance on classism, tribalism and nepotism. As the equitable economics of any nation withers, so does its mass appeal to national allegiance, and deepens its fragmentation by classist greed, tribalist bigotry and nepotistic corruption.

Homo sapiens world society is devolving through a planetary sustainability crisis, of which global warming climate change is one compelling symptom. That crisis is driven by classism — economic greed — which is exacerbated by the other allegiances except humanism. The solution for overcoming that crisis is well-known: humanism applied with reverence for Nature and All Life, and in perpetuity.

Merely stating that solution illuminates all the barriers to its implementation. Besides being structural and non-personal in the sense of nationalistic competitions and economic exclusivities, such barriers are also weaves of egotistical personal attitudes and failures of moral character dominated by selfishness and bigotry.

It is clear, from looking at the aggregate of homo sapiens world society today, that the prospects for reversing that devolutionary planetary crisis are very dim indeed. For too many people, the idea of eliminating all the old socio-economic structures along with all their personal prejudices, and replacing them with a planetary humanism of species-wide solidarity to fashion a sustainable human-with-Nature world and truly radiant civilization, is just too fearful to even imagine let along seriously consider. Certain death inequitably distributed by relentless impoverishment is by far preferred, even though most people suffer from it. The tragedy of human existence is that most people prefer to live out their lives and die without changing their ideas even when those ideas are harmful to them.

Frustrated humanists can easily imagine a worldwide French Revolution breaking out in defiance of that tragedy, with the decapitation of the nepotistic, tribalist and classist national managements, and with the eruption of a liberating world socialist nirvana. This is like the aspirational dream of Christianity held by the millions of slaves in the Roman Empire.

But in the sad reality of our present world, could any violent outburst by the impoverished and oppressed be motivated by a globalist liberating humanism, instead of merely reactionary survivalism for family, tribe and class? What few revolutions of this type not quashed in their embryonic stages by the economic and national managers, would soon recycle the same poisonous exclusivities of former times but with a new cast of leading characters.

To transcend this pernicious eddy and actually evolve humanity out of its present decaying stagnation would require a universal enlightenment of human attitudes and consciousness. And that is an unrealistically utopian thought indeed. But incredibly, it is neither a logical nor physical impossibility, just an extreme improbability.

Is it possible for us as individuals to increase that probability? Based on a realistic view of the long arc of human history the clear answer is “no,” despite the numerous temporary blooms of localized enlightened society that have occurred during the lifetime of our homo sapiens species. But it is depressing and dispiriting to live with that “no” dominating one’s thinking. The mere fact of having been born entitles you and every other human being with the right to enjoy a fulfilling life with a liberated consciousness, the right to seek achieving your full human potential.

One can seek that fulfillment along the simultaneous parallel paths of supporting a family of whatever kind, caring for others through both personal and societal means, creative immersion in arts, sciences and craftsmanship, and championing global socialist humanism by both intellectual allegiance to it and personal engagement with it in the political and societal arenas you are a part of, at whatever level. Ultimately, the course and fate of humanity is the sum total of the courses and fates of the individual lives comprising it, and the greatest impact we each can have on helping to steer that great stream is made by the quality of the choices we each make regarding the conduct of our own personal lives.

Achieving a morally enlightened personal fulfillment in no way guarantees the morally enlightened success of any subgroup the homo sapiens species — your family, your tribe, your class, your nation — and least of all of humanity as a whole; but it helps! And living with that as personal experience is very satisfying indeed.

Why Hindutva is really about dominant vision of capitalism in India

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

After the rise of Mr Narendra Damodardas Modi led BJP, Indian media, capitalist classes and their liberal hunks have ostensively argued for him as the only alternative for a strong and developed India. Mr Narendra Modi was projected as a messiah of the masses. There is no alternative to the Modi’s model of development and economic growth. The Indian and global capitalist classes found their poster boy in India. For last seven years, Mr Modi enjoys absolute power within Indian parliamentary democracy. The BJP has won two general elections and many state elections under his undisputed leadership. The Indian billionaires continue to grow their wealth in massive scale which is not only unprecedented in India but also rare in world economy in past and present. The Hindutva crony capitalists are net beneficiaries of Modi led BJP regime even during COVID-19 lockdown period. Indian masses are suffering from the rising poverty, unemployment, hunger and homelessness. India is heading towards its worst recession, but it is an opportunity for crony capitalists to capture national resources with the help of Modi led BJP governments.

India under Modi is no more comfortable with its own constitution. The secular, liberal and democratic parliament in India is not comfortable with its democratic culture of debates and disagreements while dealing with big questions on the future of India and Indians. The deceptive street smartness of low-level criminal culture is replacing statecraft in defence of arbitrary power of unreason.  The winter session of the parliament is suspended in the name of Coronavirus outbreak. This is revealing the hollowness of digital India promised by Mr Narendra Modi. In reality, Modi government does not want to have any discussion on agricultural reform policies opposed by all farmers in India. The farmers are opposing the agricultural reforms by Modi government because these policies will dismantle agricultural economy in India. It will destroy the life and livelihoods of small and marginal farmers. The agricultural reform policies are going to ruin the food security of majority of Indians. The marketisation and corporatisation of agriculture is dangerous for India and Indian economy, but Modi government does not care for people and the country. The Modi led BJP government is committed to corporates. The agri-capitalism is going to help large corporations in India.

The dismantling of constitutionally mandate institutions of planning, implementation of reactionary economic policies, weakening of the state and government, alignment with socially and politically regressive forces are not arrogance of ignorance. These steps are methodical design of Hindutva shock therapy necessary for the acceleration of capitalist consolidation and establishment of unquestionable Brahminical social hegemony. Politically speaking, Hindutva is a grassroot movement of cultural manipulation to consolidate Brahminical social order.  It manipulates the masses in the name of Hindu religion, Ram temple and other bigoted campaigns like ‘cow protection’ and ‘love jihad’. It argues for Hindu nationalism but in intends to ensure higher caste and class consolidation in Indian society. Hindutva is an economic project of national and global capitalist classes. These projects are becoming clearer and successful as Modi continues to misgovern India in a disastrous direction.

The Hindutva forces and their capitalist cronies are seizing the moment of opportune to position themselves as sole caretakers of India and Indians under the conditions of mass miseries. The Modi led BJP government is guided by the RSS to implement its bigoted visions of social, political, cultural and economic governance in India that is concomitant with the requirements of global and national capitalist classes. The notion that Hindutva led Modi is an icon of economic growth and development, peddled consistently by the mainstream corporate media had largely exposed by realities of everyday life in India. The messiah called Modi is fading its colour as a strong and decisive leader. His half-baked policies and plans have yielded disastrous results. He is trying to hide all his failures with saffron ideological makeup and revealing himself as a Hindutva fascist and a true ideological warrior of the RSS.

Ultimately, the BJP and RSS are working in unison to take Hindu caste order and capitalism to its logical conclusion at any cost. Even the disintegration of the country or corporate occupation of India does not matter to these forces. The political, economic, cultural, religious and social crisis in India is an opportunity for these forces. Therefore, manufacturing of crisis is not accidental but a project of RSS and BJP to give shock therapy to Indian masses to normalise growing inequalities, exploitations and injustices. There is no point in expecting any articulation of creative politics and policies from diversionary forces. The Hindutva capitalism envisage an authoritarian social, political and economic order without democratic accountability. It can be seen the language of political discourses of Hindutva leadership of BJP and RSS. The suppression of individual freedom in social, political, economic and cultural life is central to Hindutva governance. From birth to death, Hindutva forces want to shape the life and narrative based on their bigoted whims devoid of science and progressive ideals. But the deceptive strategies of Hindutva politics are moving in supersonic speed by changing its narratives constantly. The diversionary strategies have destroyed peace and prosperity in India but worked well for BJP and RSS.

The big corporations are beginning to flex their muscles with both long term and short-term strategies to occupy and control national resources like their personal wallet. The internal corporate competition and rivalries are beginning to take shape but in a formative stage now. It is going to grow in a massive scale as capital consolidates its base. Unlike European capitalism, Indian capitalism is yet to develop internal collaborative mechanisms. The RSS and BJP are going to be the glue for capitalist collaboration in India for each other’s survival during this fourth industrial revolution. The modern capitalism and primitive Hindutva forces can work together. Ahmadabad, Bangalore and Mumbai are classic examples where modern capital and primitive Hindutva politics flourish together. It represents significant shift in Indian politics, society and economy in post-colonial India from democratic capitalism to authoritarian and fascist Hindutva capitalism. The consequences are disastrous for India and Indians both in short and long run.

In times of crisis and all unfavourable conditions, history comes to rescue and guide public imagination from desperation to alternative politics. The alternative politics can be only forged in resistance movements against caste and capitalism; the twin pillars of Hindutva politics. It is impossible to advance movement against Hindutva without fighting caste based social, religious and cultural order in India. The alternative politics need to ensure mechanisms to stand with the citizenship rights of religious minorities. Fear and freedom cannot move together. Therefore, the alternative politics needs to be free from fear and hierarchy. Solidarity, peace and prosperity can be three principles to fight Hindutva capitalism in India.

Covid hotspot London schools prevented from closing by Johnson government

Thomas Scripps

London’s Greenwich council has backed down from its decision to ask schools in the borough to close and move to online learning.

The retreat by the Labour Party-run council was what should have been expected in the face of legal action threatened by the Conservative government. It underscores the urgent need for an independent struggle of teachers, parents and pupils to combat the pandemic.

Greenwich council announced their plan Sunday evening and were followed on Monday by fellow Labour councils in the London boroughs of Islington and Waltham Forest. Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan then wrote an open letter calling on the government to close all secondary schools and colleges in the capital. Schools nationally are scheduled to close for the Christmas holidays at the end of this week, with the government giving headteachers the option to take the Friday off.

The dangers posed by keeping schools open worsen by the day.

London has been leading a renewed national surge of infections since the partial November national lockdown was ended. Education settings are one of the primary vectors of COVID-19 in the capital, particularly those with pupils aged 10 to 19. In the last week, already high infection rates in this age group increased by 75 percent. Case numbers are exploding just days before children return home for the Christmas holidays and multiple households are free to mix for a five-day period.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government continues to enforce a murderous “herd immunity” policy, keeping workplaces and schools open so that nothing interferes with the regular extraction of profits by the corporations. Schools act as vital holding pens for children, allowing parents to work and shop.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (credit: Wikimedia Commons-Kuhlmann/ MSC)

On Monday, schools minister Nick Gibb wrote to every school in Greenwich and Islington demanding they stay open. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson declared, “It is simply not in children's best interests for schools in Greenwich, Islington or elsewhere to close their doors.

“That's why I won't hesitate to do what is right for young people and have issued a direction to Greenwich Council setting out that they must withdraw the letter issued to head teachers on Sunday.”

Williamson, who could not possibly care less about children, issued his “temporary continuity direction” under the draconian provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020, passed with Labour support and without debate in March on the pretext of combatting COVID-19 and now used to order children and school workers into danger. Williamson threatened a court injunction if Greenwich council did not comply. Schools in Islington and Waltham Forest were sent a second letter yesterday by Gibb instructing them to stay open.

On Tuesday morning, Greenwich council leader Danny Thorpe released a statement reiterating that the council “cannot agree that this is the correct choice for our schools” but agreeing to “ask our schools to keep their doors open”. This, Thorpe said, was because he could not “justify the use of public funds to fight the decision in the courts.”

The next few paragraphs pointed to the deadly consequences of schools remaining open. Thorpe continued, “Officers advised me that new cases in Royal Greenwich ‘are significantly higher than we have recorded on previous weeks, an approximate 40-50% increase’. At that time, there were 3,670 children in self isolation and 314 teaching staff…

“That information continues to worsen.

“On Monday, an additional 498 children went into self-isolation and the latest data we have showed a further rise in numbers.”

These events confirm the Socialist Equality Party’s insistence that the coronavirus pandemic is not primarily a medical crisis, but a political one.

The resources exist to contain the virus and keep its impact on the health of the population to a tiny fraction of the damage it has been allowed to inflict—especially given the development of several vaccines to be rolled out in the weeks and months ahead.

But the social interests of the super-rich, who direct government policy and who demand that economic life continue as normal, mean not even the most minimal life-saving action—an additional three days of school closures in three boroughs —can be tolerated. The full might of the state is employed to prevent any step back from the Tories’ “herd immunity” policy which would raise questions about its deadly consequences.

The political struggle necessary for decisive action in schools against the pandemic requires, above all, breaking the suffocating grip of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy. It is not a question of a legal battle to convince Johnson’s viciously right-wing government of the error of its ways, but of organising the working class to save lives, in opposition to Labour and the education unions that function as Johnson’s partners in crime.

None of the councils seeking to close schools nor Sadiq Khan mentioned, let alone openly challenged, the Labour leadership’s support for schools being kept open. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wrote in the Daily Mail in August, “I don't just want all our children back in school, I expect it. No ifs, no buts”. He told LBC on Monday , “I’m very reluctant to close our schools” and called the government’s cynical offer to schools to close a day early “smart”. Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Rachel Reeves told Sky News, “Schools should be the last things to close.”

The education unions hold the power to close schools across the country, significantly reducing the rate of infection and saving tens of thousands of lives, including among their members and their families. But the National Association of Headteacher (NAHT), Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the National Education Union (NEU) have done everything possible to dragoon teachers and pupils into the classrooms.

Just days before Greenwich council made its initial closure announcement, the NEU called off the only case of strike action over COVID-19 safety fears that has succeeded in making its way through the union’s interminable “escalation” process. Kingsway Primary School in Wirral, Merseyside, was due to begin strike action last Thursday over, among other things, a lack of running water. This was halted by the NEU based on a pledge by a newly appointed headteacher to listen to complaints.

The NEU’s national executive committee voted on November 12 in a closed-doors meeting against a ballot of its over 450,000 members for country-wide industrial action over unsafe conditions.

Responding to Greenwich council’s initial decision, Joint General Secretary of the NEU Kevin Courtney said, “We strongly welcome the decision by Greenwich Council to urge all of its schools to close from Monday evening, to all except vulnerable children and the children of key workers. We urge other councils to take the same decision.

“The Government should have been planning for this weeks ago. They have now started to recognise the blindingly obvious fact that transmission is happening in schools and that this can spread to families. But the Government now needs to act.”

If it was “blindingly obvious” that the government should have done something “weeks ago”, why did the NEU not call on its members to strike? Why does it still not call on teachers to act, but only Labour councils and the government? The government has acted by insisting schools stay open. Yet still Mary Bousted, the NEU’s other joint general secretary, pleads that “ministers should be supporting heads to make professional judgements on the safety, or otherwise, of their schools remaining open.”

Scottish government and unions refuse to extend holiday break despite teachers' demands

Steve James

On December 3, the Scottish government announced that proposals for an extended Christmas break, beginning December 18 and running until January 11, had been rejected. In response, Flanagan called for "lateral flow tests" to be made available to school staff. Lateral flow tests, trialed in Liverpool and other areas with a high concentration of COVID-19 cases, generate quick results, but are viewed as less accurate than swab tests.

Only on December 10, one day before the Level 4 restrictions were due to end, did the local EIS association in Glasgow finally open a ballot of its members. But this was not a ballot to immediately close the schools. According to the EIS website, a 'Yes' vote would give the union a mandate to, in due course, "declare a dispute" with SNP-run Glasgow City Council. Sometime thereafter the EIS might consider a "further consultative ballot" on industrial action.

In other words, nothing will be done. Another six local branches announced they were holding similar ballots.

The EIS, using a tried tactic of every union bureaucracy, are attempting to drag matters out as long as possible before conceding any further steps, which they will then seek to negate, regardless of the cost in COVID-19 cases and lives.

The EIS also launched a #NotAtAllCosts social media campaign. The purpose of this is to restrict educators to a tactic of waiting for moral pressure on the SNP government. Launching the campaign Flanagan issued a letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon concluding with no demands at all. Rather, he hoped that "moving forward your Government does more to acknowledge, and address, the real fear and anxieties which exist in schools, than has been the case to date, especially when we have areas operating at Level 4."

Ballot results from three areas were announced December 15. Fully 91 percent of teachers supported declaring a dispute in West Dunbartonshire. 93 percent in Glasgow and 90 percent supported the move in Fife. Turnouts were between 53 and 75 percent. The figures prove there is immense willingness to take up a struggle among teachers.

Closing schools and universities while providing sufficient resources to avoid unnecessary disruption of young people's education is a matter of life and death. Teachers, educators, parents and school students in Scotland, Britain and internationally can place no confidence whatsoever in the trade unions. Taking up a struggle on these vital issues depends on the development of a movement independent of the trade unions and seeking the broadest mobilisation in the working class.

Germany’s “hard lockdown” protects corporations at expense of lives

Gregor Link

On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s federal states announced a joint resolution that the media unanimously called a “hard lockdown.” But the measures do not go anywhere near what is needed to bring the pandemic under control. The focus is not on protecting lives but corporate profits.

For example, large factories can remain open without exception, even if they produce nonessential goods. According to the resolution, corporate bosses are merely “asked to consider whether plants can be closed from December 16 to January 10 either through company vacations or substantial work-at-home solutions.” The “operation of canteens” would “remain possible.”

Only parts of the retail sector and businesses in the personal care sector will be closed and even these only from Wednesday. This means that in the days before, there will be even more crowds and the big chains can cash in on their sales at the same time.

Central train station in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

For schools, winter vacations are only being brought forward and extended by a few days. At the same time, parents who do not get time off from work will still be able to send their children to school, exposing the affected families to a double risk of infection.

All other measures relate exclusively to the personal sphere, where only a small proportion of infections occur, given the already high level of caution exercised by the majority of the population.

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, Economics Minister Peter Altmeier made it unambiguously clear that the measures are primarily about protecting the economy. He said he expected “that we will succeed in preventing a complete economic standstill in this second wave. After all, wasn’t that what was decided yesterday?” Since the pandemic began, he said, the government had “kept almost all other sectors of the economy open, except restaurants, hotels and close-contact personal services.”

In the spring, the government had done everything it could to ensure that the profit interests of industry could be pursued, Altmeier said. “The vast majority of factories and businesses continued to work. In the spring, they had to stand still because there were no replacement deliveries from China, from Asia, from other European countries.” At the time, German industry faced a temporary collapse in supply chains following the closure of major container ports on the east coast in China and mass spontaneous work stoppages in the supply industry in Italy.

Meanwhile, the economy minister said, even that business risk had been eliminated by the government. “This time, we have protected supply chains and managed to prevent a complete industrial shutdown.” He said German industry had overcome the “biggest recession in postwar history” and showed “growth of 8.5 percent in the third quarter, compared with the previous quarter.” He was “certain we will not experience a recession like the one in the spring this time” and assumed that “the economic figures will not have to be corrected very significantly.” To that end, however, Altmeier threatened that the government must now “proceed wisely” and ensure that “the lockdown is not repeatedly extended indefinitely.”

The same contemptuous profit interests are at stake when it comes to keeping schools open. If it were about the well-being of children, there would have been billions invested in digital education and ensuring the participation of socially disadvantaged layers. Instead, schools are now becoming mere child-minding institutions so that parents can work in unsafe businesses.

The government’s resolution does not envisage any nationwide school closures at all. At schools, contacts are merely to be “significantly restricted.” According to the resolution, this can be done through some school closures or by suspending compulsory attendance. In any case, emergency care is to be offered not only to children of parents working in essential industries but to all children whose parents cannot get time off from their employers.

Berlin is even keeping its schools open over Christmas. As Education Senator (state minister) Sandra Scheeres (Social Democratic Party, SPD) announced on Monday, emergency care for younger children is to be offered at Berlin schools throughout the “shutdown.” The offer was to apply to all those students whose parents work in “essential” professions, including health care and transportation.

In Austria, the government had issued resolutions regarding schools last month like those now being issued by the German government. This had resulted in about one in four children in the state of Lower Austria, for example, attending school in person. At 49,000 students, this is more than 10 times as many as at the time of the first shutdown measures in the spring. At many elementary schools, nearly half of students showed up for class. Beginning December 7, students in the first eight grades and graduating classes were sent back to school in Austria. The day was marked by a relatively low level of new infections, but since then, the previous downward trend has reversed.

The same policy is being followed in Germany. As news weekly Der Spiegel reported yesterday, the chancellor’s office “has pledged that schools and day-care centres will be among the first to resume operations after the shutdown ends.” On the part of the state, these child-care institutions were “the last thing we close and the first thing we open,” Chancellery Minister Helge Braun affirmed to broadcasters RTL and n-tv.

In other words, as far as the federal and state governments are concerned, schools are to reopen just a few days after the official end of the Christmas vacations. “For the week beginning January 11, Scheeres plans for schools to reopen and begin face-to-face classes,” rbb wrote about the plans of the Berlin state executive, a coalition of the Social Democrats, Left Party and Greens.

The federal and state governments are thus continuing their policy of putting profits before lives. For months, they have kept schools and businesses open, already sacrificing over 20,000 lives. Even now, when the daily death toll averages over 500 and hospitals are on the verge of collapse, they are refusing to close nonessential businesses, including schools and day-care centres.

Australian intelligence review paves way for expanded political surveillance

Mike Head

Another sweeping enlargement of the political spying powers of Australia’s intelligence agencies is about to be undertaken, following the heavily-redacted release of what the Liberal-National government and the corporate media have described as the biggest overhaul of the country’s national security laws in four decades.

After an unexplained year-long delay, a 1,300-page declassified version of the 1,600-page report by former spy chief Dennis Richardson was made available for public consumption on December 4. The government said it had accepted 199 of the review’s 203 recommendations, either in full or “in principle.”

Many recommendations remain “classified”—that is, hidden from the population. Of those made public, some of the most far-reaching proposals include the expansion and consolidation of all the agencies’ secret electronic surveillance, data collection and physical tracking powers in one piece of legislation.

Former ASIO chief Dennis Richardson in 2017 (Credit: University of Sydney US Studies Centre)

Buried away in the mammoth document, and either not reported or barely mentioned in the corporate media, is an array of further anti-democratic powers. One is to officially authorise activities, or the handover of information, to a foreign partner agency that could cause death, serious harm or torture to an Australian person.

Recommendation 62 states: “ASIO should be required to seek authorisation from the Attorney-General for unilateral activities undertaken offshore, and when communicating intelligence to a foreign partner, where it is reasonably foreseeable that undertaking the activities will result in:

•  the death of, or serious harm to, the Australian person
  
  
•  the Australian person being detained, arrested, charged with or convicted of an offence punishable by the death penalty, or
  
  
•  the Australian person being subject to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Another key feature is the “streamlining” of the procedures for the intelligence agencies to obtain ministerial surveillance warrants, or to issue their own “internal warrants,” all without judicial scrutiny. Another is the strengthening of powers to compel telephone and internet service providers to enable the cracking of the end-to-end encryption platforms that millions of people now use for privacy.

By the end of 2019, Richardson said, Australia’s parliament has passed 124 “national security” bills, containing more than 14,500 amendments to previous laws, since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States triggered the “war on terrorism.” This is the greatest volume of such laws in the world.

Richardson’s complaint was that the legal framework had become “unnecessarily complex, leading to unclear and confusing laws.” This complexity, he claimed, had made it difficult for intelligence agencies to interpret and act on legislation. Hence, the powers had to be clarified and, in many cases, amplified.

Attorney-General Christian Porter declared that more than 1,000 pages of laws, currently contained in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Act, will be replaced by a single statute.

Significantly, the review was prepared in cooperation with partner agencies in the US-led “Five Eyes” global mass surveillance network—which also includes the UK, Canada and New Zealand—as well as France and the Netherlands. Richardson travelled to each of these countries for consultations.

As revealed by WikiLeaks—published by Julian Assange, and US National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden—the Five Eyes apparatus conducts electronic spying and data collection on millions of people worldwide. It also plays a critical role in conducting its members’ wars and war crimes, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Richardson’s report was initiated as a result of an earlier “intelligence review,” published in 2017, which unveiled the most far-reaching revamp of the country’s “security” apparatus since the political convulsions of the 1960s and 1970s.

That review featured expedited measures to call out the military to suppress any outbreaks of “domestic violence,” and plans for a Home Affairs super-ministry to take command of seven surveillance and enforcement agencies. It also led to the creation of a new US-style Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in the prime minister’s office, to establish centralised control over the “National Intelligence Community.”

The 2017 report identified both the global and domestic concerns wracking the ruling elite. It warned that Australia’s “national security environment” was being re-shaped by the decline in the global influence of the US, intensifying conflicts between the major powers, and the rise of economic and political disaffection. It said “heightened tensions and instabilities” were generating “a growing sense of insecurity and alienation.”

The report further noted the immense political damage done to the public reputation of the intelligence apparatuses by the revelations of Assange and Snowden. “Following the WikiLeaks and Snowden unauthorized disclosures,” it was “critically important” to provide public reassurance and “build trust” with the population.

Richardson’s report will further boost the “Australian Intelligence Community (AIC).” The report acknowledges its vast growth already: “Thirty years ago the AIC consisted of the Office of National Assessments, Defence Signals Directorate, Defence Intelligence Organisation, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service [ASIS]. A separate geospatial intelligence agency was formed in 1999, now the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation.

“The 2017 Independent Intelligence Review conceptualised the NIC [National Intelligence Community], consisting of the six members of the AIC plus the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission [ACIC] and the intelligence functions of the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, and the Department of Home Affairs.”

Richard’s 190 declassified recommendations cover a huge field. They also feature expanded powers to collect intelligence on Australians overseas, including to assist military operations, greater use of public service postings as “cover” for intelligence officers, and extension of secret data collection to a wider range of federal and state agencies, including AUSTRAC, which monitors financial transactions.

Richardson proposed several restrictions on powers or proposed cosmetic oversight measures, saying these were necessary to prevent the public again losing “confidence” in the agencies. In several key instances, however, the government rejected such recommendations.

In particular, the government insisted that ASIS, the primary overseas agency, must have new powers to assist ASIO, both offshore and domestically, “without needing to obtain a ministerial authorisation for the production of intelligence on an Australian person.”

Likewise, the government rejected Richardson’s finding that the federal police did not need new powers to “disrupt online offending” and his suggestion that ACIC should remain subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows members of the public to obtain (very limited) information about its highly-secretive activities.

Between them, the intelligence agencies have more than 7,000 personnel and an annual budget exceeding $2 billion. Many, such as ASIO, have more than trebled in size since the “war on terrorism” was declared in 2001. They are now to be handed new powers that go far beyond terrorism, in particular to monitor the political activities of Australians both at home and overseas.

As revealed by the 2017 report, this build-up is driven by ruling class alarm over the decline in the hegemony of the United States—to which the fortunes of Australian capitalism have been tied since World War II—and the rise of discontent in every country, including Australia, under conditions of deepening economic crisis, ever-greater social inequality and the intensifying danger of war.

France ends coronavirus lockdown, as thousands of cases reported each day

Will Morrow

Yesterday was the end of the second, partial coronavirus lockdown announced by the Macron government at the end of October. The end to travel restrictions means people can move freely around the country in the leadup to the holidays. While there are still more than 10,000 new cases being reported each day, millions are expected to hold Christmas and New Year celebrations with their families.

A nationwide 8:00 p.m.-6:00 a.m. curfew will continue to be in place throughout the holiday period. While gatherings can continue to take place, the population will be forced to remain indoors after 8:00 p.m. except to go to work.

Prime Minister Jean Castex announced the end to the limited lockdown last Thursday. He did so despite admitting that even the government’s extremely high threshold of less than 5,000 daily coronavirus cases, which it had declared would be necessary for any loosening of restrictions, was not close to being met.

A nurse holds a phone while a COVID-19 patient speaks with his family from the intensive care unit at the Joseph Imbert Hospital Center in Arles, southern France, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Hundreds of people are continuing to die each day across the country and thousands throughout Europe. On Sunday, another 371 deaths were reported in France, 481 in Germany, 491 in Italy, 450 in Russia, and 232 in the UK. Across Europe, the total number of people infected with the virus surpassed 20 million yesterday.

In France, the limited lockdown enacted from the end of October, which did not include most workplaces or schools, reduced the spread of the virus, but there are signs that its impact had already peaked earlier this month and is now beginning to reverse.

The total number of cases per day is no longer decreasing. Except for Sunday, where the tally is suppressed due to the closure of testing centers, the daily case count has not dropped below 10,000 per day and is often closer to 15,000. The number of hospitalisations has actually increased for three successive days, with an additional 242 hospitalisations and 35 new admittances to ICU yesterday.

The travel of millions of people for the holiday season will ensure a further acceleration in the spread of the pandemic. This is exacerbated by the completely insufficient testing system. Last week, the Macron government advised that anyone who is asymptomatic should not get tested even before going to visit their families, because this would overwhelm the testing capabilities of the country. Since many young people carrying the virus are likely to be asymptomatic, this only ensures that more will contaminate their family members.

Yesterday, Castex gave an interview with Europe1 radio in which he declared that prior to the holiday period, anyone visiting with vulnerable family members should isolate themselves for a week beforehand if possible. He did not explain how this would be possible for millions of families, given that the government has maintained obligatory school attendance for students and kept workplaces open.

“If you can do it … isolate yourself before the eight days before Christmas. If you can—it’s not possible [for everyone]. In every case where it’s possible, above all, if you are receiving someone who is vulnerable…”

Castex added that on the coming Thursday and Friday only, parents were encouraged not to send their children to school, if they were able to. This only underscores the criminality and class contempt of the Macron government’s entire policy. The official lying justification for maintaining schools open has been that children are less likely to propagate the virus than adults. This has already been refuted by numerous scientific studies on the virus. The recommendation that parents “who are able to” will simply apply to those who are not compelled to be at work.

Following the holiday period, schools are to reopen as normal on January 4, and currently the government is aiming to reopen even restaurants and bars by late January.

The Macron government’s response to the pandemic has not been determined by the scientific requirement to combat the virus and save lives. It has been conditioned by the need to protect the profits of the major French banks and corporations and the wealth of its superrich.

Unlike the first eight-week lockdown in March, the lockdown in October did not restrict production. Keeping schools open, despite warnings that they would be transmission vectors for the virus, is aimed at keeping parents at work and preventing any impact on profits of an economic shutdown. Tens of thousands of people have unnecessarily died as a direct result of these policies.

The same policy has been pursued by governments across Europe and in the United States. In Britain, the Johnson government ended similar limited national lockdowns on December 3, and additionally permitted all stores to open 24 hours a day throughout December and January. In Germany, which has been presented internationally as a model for its response to the virus, there are now more than 500 deaths occurring every day, and the government has refused to close nonessential workplaces or schools.

The fact that these policies are being pursued even as a vaccine is beginning to be distributed, and could save countless lives within a few months’ time, only underscores the criminality of this policy.

The class interests that underlie it can be seen in the evolution of share markets across Europe. In France, the main CAC-40 stock market index fell sharply from late February to early March, as the virus spread rapidly across Europe. It stabilized after President Macron’s March 12 announcement of a lockdown, accompanied by a pledge to bail out the rich to the tune of hundreds of billions of euros. The CAC-40 has risen continuously since, climbing 20 percent since the end of October alone. It has almost regained its peak from the beginning of the year.

The Socialist Equality Party has advanced the following demands as the only means for countering the homicidal policy of the capitalist elite:

The immediate shutdown of all production at nonessential workplaces and schools.

The provision of a monthly income to all families to guarantee a decent standard of living until a return to work is possible.

The provision of relief to small businesses at an amount sufficient to maintain the economic viability of the enterprises and the wages and salaries of its employees until their operations can be resumed.

The allocation of trillions of dollars to accelerate the production and distribution of vaccines, free of charge and to expand the public health infrastructure, including for testing and contact tracing.