Leadership of Google's Dragonfly Project

Earlier this week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made his first ever appearance in US Congress and faced criticism from lawmakers over the company's plan to launch as censored search engine in China. Pichai was evasive on several questions about the project, known as Dragonfly, and declined to answer when probed on the leadership personnel at the company involved in it.

While working on a series of stories about the search engine over the last few months, I pieced together a chart to map out the organisational structure of Dragonfly, which I am publishing here today to shine light on the key players behind the plan. The chart is a work in progress; it's not comprehensive and it is not based on any official Google documents. It is based on reliable information that multiple well-placed sources have shared with me.

In total, only approximately 300 Google employees -- 0.35% of the company's 88,000 total staff -- have worked on the censored search engine, which was designed to blacklist broad categories of information about human rights, democracy, and peaceful protest. The search platform would also link Chinese users’ search records to their cellphone numbers and share people’s search histories with a Chinese partner company — meaning that Chinese security agencies, which routinely target activists and critics, could obtain the data.

As I reported in late November, the secrecy that surrounded the China plan was unprecedented inside the company. The top executives at the internet giant went to extraordinary lengths to keep the project under wraps. But who are those executives and what are their roles within the company?

Board of directors
It is still unclear to me how much the directors -- with the exception of CEO Sundar Pichai -- knew about Dragonfly and when. The project has been underway inside Google since 2016, but co-founder Sergey Brin claimed that he knew nothing about it until we exposed the plan at The Intercept in August. Brin has in the past taken a strong anti-censorship stance, and Google sources have suggested to me that some executives (see Scott Beaumont, below) may have deliberately withheld information from him about Dragonfly. I know for sure that other members of the board were looped in on Google's general work in China (such as projects to push out a translate app for the Chinese market, and a $550 million investment in the online Chinese retailer JD.com). But the extent of their knowledge on Dragonfly, and how much of it they signed off on -- I am still trying to establish that.

Sundar Pichai, CEO:
Pichai took over at the helm of Google in 2015 and one of the items at the top of his agenda was -- and still is -- getting back into China. He publicly declared in 2016: "We want to be in China serving Chinese users.” Following the Dragonfly revelations, Pichai has faced a torrent of criticism over the censored search engine. He has defended the plan while making a series of misleading statements about how advanced the project was inside the company. Pichai appears to have delegated authority to Scott Beaumont, Google's chief in China, to manage the project.

Scott Beaumont, vice president of Google, Greater China & Korea
Beaumont is a British citizen who began his career working for an investment bank in England. He joined Google in 2009, working from London as director of the company’s partnerships in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In 2013, Beaumont relocated to China to head Google’s operations there. He is a leading force inside the company directing the Dragonfly project, viewing it as an integral step for the growth of the company and liaising directly with CEO Sundar Pichai on the progress of the plan. Beaumont's handling of Dragonfly has caused internal friction -- Yonatan Zunger, who was until last year one of Google's leading engineers, told me Beaumont did not take seriously human rights concerns that were repeatedly raised internally about the censored search engine. Beaumont “wanted the privacy review [of Dragonfly] to be pro forma and thought it should defer entirely to his views of what the product ought to be," said Zunger. "He did not feel that the security, privacy, and legal teams should be able to question his product decisions, and maintained an openly adversarial relationship with them — quite outside the Google norm.”

Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs
Walker oversees Google's policy, legal, trust and safety, and corporate philanthropy teams, and formely served as the company's general counsel. His day-to-day involvement in Dragonfly appears to have been fairly limited, but he has been involved in a number of high-level meetings about the project and its policy and legal status with other top executives, including Pichai and Beaumont. Following the public exposure of Dragonfly, Walker helped handle the backlash that ensued. In October, he wrote a letter to human rights groups defending Google's mission to provide "access to information to people around the world," while claiming the company remains committed to "protecting the rights to freedom of expression and privacy for our users globally."

Caesar Sengupta, vice president, Next Billion Users Team
Sengupta leads Google's effort to "engage the next billion internet users," and has had a leadership role on the Dragonfly project, collaborating closely with Scott Beaumont. One source who worked on Dragonfly told me: "Scott tends to treat Caesar like a lackey. Scott definitely considers himself in charge and Caesar is there to do his bidding." In November, after I reported that Google's privacy and security teams had been shut out of key meetings on Dragonfly and had felt sidelined by Beaumont, Sengupta claimed on Twitter that there was "no sidelining of privacy and security" and described Beaumont glowingly as "a person of very high integrity." Sengupta stated that he had experience "working on Dragonfly", but did not mention that he had a leading role on the project.

Andrew Bowers, senior director, project management
Bowers began his career at Google in 2006 as a marketing manager, based out of California. In 2016, he relocated to China as the company began to ramp up its operations in the country. His remit is to "reintroduce Google as a brand" to people in China, doing so through various products, such as a translate app and a WeChat game designed specifically for the Chinese market. Working out of Google offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing, Bowers is a key player on the Dragonfly project. He has helped manage the day-to-day operations of Dragonfly and has helped to develop strategy for the launch.

Ben Gomes, head of search
Gomes joined Google in 1999 and is one of the key engineers behind the company’s search engine. He took over the role as Google's head of search in April this year, succeeding John Giannandrea in that role. Giannandrea had helped develop the Dragonfly project before he left Google to take up a new job with Apple. Gomes inherited the blueprint for Dragonfly that Giannandrea had worked on. In July, Gomes told staff in a private meeting that the censored search engine project was "extremely important to the company," and said he hoped it could be launched between January and April 2019 or sooner. “We have to be focused on what we want to enable,” Gomes said. “And then when the opening happens, we are ready for it.”

Product managers
Have been looking at studies profiling the kinds of people that might use Google search in China.

Ranking teams
Working to finely tune the quality of the search results on the censored search engine.

One Box teams
These teams have been localising Google's search results to China, so that when people perform searches for certain phrases they will receive, for example, a separate box displaying information about weather, sports results, or news (see examples of 'one box' results here). Notably, sources have said that the weather results -- specifically, air quality data -- will be provided from a source in Beijing, meaning it could be distorted to downplay toxins in the air. (The Chinese government has a track record of manipulating air quality data.) News results will also be heavily censored and they will not include content from many western outlets -- for example, the BBC, New York Times, or Wall Street Journal.

Infrastructure teams
Developing the systems that will run the search engine, host and process the data.

User experience teams
Studying Chinese people's search behaviour and looking at how they might use Google.

Security, privacy, legal teams
Fairly self explanatory: these teams have focused on security, privacy, and legal issues around Dragonfly. But their work has not been straightforward, and sources said their efforts to carry out reviews of the censored search engine was hindered by Scott Beaumont, who handled the project in a "highly unusual" way and opposed the privacy review process (you can read more details on that here).

Designers
Developing the mobile apps for the censored search engine. There are two versions, named Longfei and Maotai. Sources say Google is working on designing the app for both Android and iOS devices.

Ads, Geo, and Identity
Teams working on advertising, Google maps, and identity, respectively. The identity team focuses on user sign-in and authentication issues. The Dragonfly search app will force people in China to log in to perform searches and will link their search records to their mobile phone number.

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If you know more about the leadership structure of Dragonfly, you can contact me securely using one of the methods detailed on this page.

Google China Censorship Project Named After Co-Founder Sergey Brin's Luxury Yacht?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is the owner of what is reportedly one of the world’s fastest motor yachts. The luxurious 240-foot boat (pictured below) is worth $80 million and has nine cabins and space for 18 guests and 16 crew. It has an open-air cinema, a bar, and a jacuzzi on the sundeck, which can be converted into a dance floor.

But that is all less interesting to me than the boat’s name: Dragonfly. As I reported for The Intercept earlier this month, Google has since spring 2017 been working on a secretive project to launch a censored search engine in China. And the internal code-name for the China project is… Dragonfly.

I’ll explain why this small detail is very curious.

Back in 2006, Google launched a censored search engine in China. But four years later, in March 2010, it pulled the service out of the country, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack Google’s computer systems.

At that time, Sergey Brin was one of the main forces inside Google arguing that the company should not be complicit in Chinese government censorship. As a child, he had spent six years with his family in the Soviet Union, and he was all too familiar with state repression.

After Google pulled its search engine out of China in 2010, Brin said of the Chinese government: “In some aspects of their policy, particularly with respect to censorship, with respect to surveillance of dissidents, I see the same earmarks of totalitarianism, and I find that personally quite troubling."

It’s clear Brin was at the time genuinely uncomfortable with the censorship – he didn't just say what he did for public relations reasons. I have heard this from several people inside the company who spent years working with him. He took a principled stand and had arguments with colleagues over the issue.

In recent years, Brin has taken a more hands-off role at Google. Since 2015, CEO Sundar Pichai has taken the helm, and he has steered the company’s policy on China. But Brin still serves on Google’s board of directors, and would surely have been briefed on the search engine plans, given their importance for Google both politically and strategically. So did Brin change his mind about the censorship? Was he simply outvoted by his colleagues on the issue?

More to the point at hand, why was the Chinese censorship project given the same name as Brin’s yacht? Is it possible somebody inside Google is trying to troll Brin, knowing that he has in the past spoken out against the Chinese government censorship? Or was Brin himself involved in giving the project this name, indicating that he has changed his views? Or is it all just some bizarre coincidence?

I’ll have to add this to my long list of questions for Google (which the company has still not answered, by the way).

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READ MORE:

• Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
• Google Struggles to Contain Employee Uproar Over China Censorship Plans
• Lawmakers Pressure Google Over “Deeply Troubling” China Censorship Project
• Inside Google’s Effort to Develop a Censored Search Engine in China
• Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is “Moral and Ethical” Crisis

How Google's China Censorship Would Likely Violate Its Human Rights Commitments

As I recently reported, Google is planning to launch a censored search engine in China. The search engine has been designed to remove content that China’s authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political opponents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. It would “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases.

Google’s development of the censored search engine has been condemned by US senators and human rights groups and triggered anger inside the company, with many Google employees feeling that the project is a betrayal of Google’s mission to be a force for good in the world and provide open access to information.

Significantly, Google’s development of the search engine calls into question the company’s adherence to ethical principles and human rights codes of conduct that it has previously committed to implement. Below, I've put together a short summary detailing some of the codes of practice and human rights standards that Google’s China censorship would likely violate. (I have asked Google to explain its censorship plans, but so far it has refused to comment.)

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Google is a member of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), an organization that seeks to defend digital rights across the world. Companies that join the GNI – like Google – commit to implementing its Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy. The principles make clear that member companies should not engage in the sort of broad censorship that is widespread in China, stating:

Participating companies will respect and work to protect the freedom of expression rights of users when confronted with government demands, laws and regulations to suppress freedom of expression, remove content or otherwise limit access to communications, ideas and information in a manner inconsistent with internationally recognized laws and standards.

Google's search engine plan also has privacy and surveillance implications, because companies providing internet services in China have to operate their servers and data centres in the country, which means user data is accessible to Chinese authorities, who have a track record of monitoring and harassing human rights activists and journalists critical of the ruling Communist Party regime. It is unclear how Google proposes moving its data centres to China while protecting the privacy of Chinese users. The GNI principles are clear on this issue:

Participating companies will employ protections with respect to personal information in all countries where they operate in order to work to protect the privacy rights of users.

And:

Participating companies will respect and work to protect the privacy rights of users when confronted with government demands, laws or regulations that compromise privacy in a manner inconsistent with internationally recognized laws and standards.

The GNI’s principles incorporate parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the pillars of international human rights law. Operating a censored search engine in accordance with Chinese government demands would seem to clearly contravene Article 19 of the declaration, which states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights advise (emphasis added):

Business enterprises should respect human rights. This means that they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved.

Companies should also, the Guiding Principles say (emphasis added):

Avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur; [and] seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.

The UN explains:

Companies can...be complicit in human rights abuses committed by others, including States – for example, if they collude with security forces in violently suppressing protests or provide information on their customers to States that then use it to track down and punish dissidents.

The Association of Computing Machinery is the world’s largest organisation for computing professionals. Many Google employees are ACM members. According to the ACM’s ethical code, goals of technology development should be (emphasis added):

[To] contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing. This principle, which concerns the quality of life of all people, affirms an obligation of computing professionals, both individually and collectively, to use their skills for the benefit of society, its members, and the environment surrounding them. This obligation includes promoting fundamental human rights and protecting each individual's right to autonomy.

The ACM's ethical code also says that (emphasis added):

Technologies and practices should be as inclusive and accessible as possible and computing professionals should take action to avoid creating systems or technologies that disenfranchise or oppress people. Failure to design for inclusiveness and accessibility may constitute unfair discrimination.

Earlier this year, there were protests inside Google over a project to help develop artificial intelligence for U.S. military drones. The protests caused Google to cancel the project and release a set of artificial intelligence ethical principles. One of the principles was that Google would not "design or deploy":

Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.

The artificial intelligence principles have a direct bearing on Google’s plans to launch a censored search engine, because Google’s search technology incorporates artificial intelligence to help provide people better search results. Operating a censored search engine in China in compliance with the Communist Party's censorship demands would self-evidently amount to a violation of — or at least complicity in violations of — "accepted principles of international law and human rights," such as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because it would restrict Chinese citizens' "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information."

Questions for Google on China Censorship

Last week, I revealed that Google has been working on a confidential plan to launch a censored search engine in China. Since then, several human rights groups have called on Google to cancel the project, and a bipartisan group of six US senators have condemned it as "deeply troubling." Only a a few hundred of Google's employees knew about the project -- code-named Dragonfly -- before we revealed its existence. And once the news spread through the company, a wave of anger spread through its offices across the world.

Despite this, Google has not yet issued any public statement and internally managers have refused to address employee concerns. Dozens of reporters have questioned Google about Dragonfly but have been met with a wall of silence. I have now published several stories about the project and have not received a single response to multiple inquiries I have sent Google's press office. I have worked on many stories involving top secret information from government spy agencies like the NSA and GCHQ, and I have found them to be more responsive to my questions than Google has been in regard to Dragonfly -- seriously.

It is not tenable for Google to continue to stay silent in the face of widespread concerns about the project, which would affect hundreds of millions of people in China and have implications for internet freedom globally. Google's leadership must come out and provide an explanation to the public.

Here are a number of questions that Google should answer. I have sent these to the company and in the unlikely event that I receive a response I will post it here.

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1) In 2010, Google pulled its search engine out of China, citing efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack Google computer systems as reasons why it “could no longer continue censoring our results.” Since 2010, according to analysts and human rights groups, internet censorship in China has become more pervasive. Can you explain why Google wants to now relaunch a censored version of its search engine in China? What has changed in the last eight years that has prompted this decision? Does Google leadership no longer have concerns about censorship in China, or the “forces of totalitarianism” in the country that co-founder Sergey Brin described in 2010?

2) A bipartisan group of six US senators has called Google’s censorship plans for China “deeply troubling.” Human rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Access Now, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights in China have each issued statements raising concerns about the project. Amnesty said: “It is impossible to see how such a move is compatible with Google’s ‘do the right thing’ motto, and we are calling on the company to change course.” What is Google’s response to this?

3) Before and during the planning and development of the censored search engine, did Google consult with any human rights experts familiar with the situation in China? If so, what did these experts advise and did Google accept their recommendations? Will Google publish any advice it received from China human rights experts? If Google did not consult any organisations specialising in Chinese human rights issues, why not?

4) The Association of Computing Machinery is the world’s largest organisation for computing professionals. Many Google employees are ACM members. According to the ACM’s ethical code, goals of technology development should be “to contribute to society and to human well-being” and “promoting human rights and protecting each individual’s right to autonomy.” The code also states that, “computing professionals should take action to avoid creating systems or technologies that disenfranchise or oppress people.” Does Google believe that its censored search platform for China is consistent with the ACM’s ethical code?

5) Earlier this year, there were protests inside Google over a project to help develop artificial intelligence for U.S. military drones. The protests caused Google to cancel the project and release a set of artificial intelligence ethical principles. One of the principles was that Google should not help build “technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.” Does Google only hold this value in relation to artificial intelligence work? If this principle applies more broadly to all of Google’s work, can Google explain how its planned censored search engine in China does not contravene “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights”?

6) According to Google documents I have seen, the censored search engine will operate as part of a “joint venture” with another company, which will presumably be based out of China, because internet companies providing services in China are required by law to operate their servers and data centers in the country. My understanding is that Google will supply the third-party company with an “application programming interface,” or API, which will potentially allow it to add blacklisted words or phrases to the search engine without Google’s approval. Is this correct? How will the relationship with the partner company work in practice, and how will Google have oversight of the phrases and websites and other information that is censored?

7) Will Google publicly release, outside of China, the list of blacklisted websites and "sensitive search queries" that will be censored? If not, why not?

8) Who at Google approves particular websites or search terms to be censored? Is this a decision made by legal and policy teams, or can blacklists be created by programmers and engineers? Is there a single person with ultimate authority over this duty, or is control delegated to a particular department?

9) Google employees were told not to discuss the project with colleagues. Only a few hundred of the company's 88,000 staff knew about it. Why did Google feel the need to keep the project so secret inside the company?

10) Google employees say the company's leadership has issued no internal statement yet about Dragonfly since the news broke, despite widespread concern about it within the company. Why? Does Google plan to issue a statement to employees?

11) Companies operating in China are required by law to turn over data to security agencies upon request. How will Google safeguard its Chinese users’ data from the Communist Party regime, which routinely targets people – including human rights activists and journalists – who express criticism of its orthodoxies? How will Google ensure that information about people's search queries are not monitored by the Chinese state?

12) Google’s stated central mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The company’s informal motto is “don’t be evil.” Google has since its early years maintained a list of “10 things” that represent foundational values for the company. One of these values is: “You can make money without doing evil.” Another is: “Democracy on the web works.” Can Google explain how these values are consistent with its plan to launch a censored search engine in China, which will limit people’s access to information about subjects such as human rights, democracy and peaceful protest?

**

READ MORE:

• Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
• Google Struggles to Contain Employee Uproar Over China Censorship Plans
• Lawmakers Pressure Google Over “Deeply Troubling” China Censorship Project
• Inside Google’s Effort to Develop a Censored Search Engine in China

Rights Groups on Snowden

Edward Snowden is the NSA whistleblower whose document leaks have in recent weeks cracked open the US and UK governments' secret surveillance programs to an unprecedented level of public scrutiny. The former Hawaii-based NSA contractor, 30, is currently holed up in Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Russia, as he attempts to seek asylum in a number of countries — fearing persecution if he returns to the United States.

But Snowden's options are limited. The US government has revoked his passport while exerting extraordinary pressure on countries across the world in order to prevent the whistleblower from gaining asylum. This has raised questions about the US government's commitment to international law and has led a number of human rights groups to weigh in with criticism of US officials' actions. Today, Snowden is said to have set up a meeting with groups including Amnesty International in order to discuss his next steps.

Below, I've compiled a quick list for my own reference of the various rights groups that have issued a statement on the Snowden case so far. There may be others that I've missed. If so, add a comment at the bottom or send me a link via Twitter and I'll update this post.

American Civil Liberties Union

"In addition to infringing on Mr. Snowden's right to asylum, [the US government's] actions also create the risk of providing cover for other countries to crack down on whistleblowers and deny asylum to individuals who have exposed illegal activity or human rights violations." (Statement, 11 July.)

Amnesty International

"The US authorities’ relentless campaign to hunt down and block whistleblower Edward Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum is deplorable and amounts to a gross violation of his human rights." (Statement, 2 July.)

Article 19

“The manhunt for Edward Snowden must be stopped. More energy is being spent on arresting one whistleblower that exposed human rights violations than has been spent on finding and arresting perpetrators of war crimes or crimes against humanity." (Statement, 5 July.)

Government Accountability Project (US)

"Snowden disclosed information about a secret program that he reasonably believed to be illegal. Consequently, he meets the legal definition of a whistleblower, despite statements to the contrary made by numerous government officials and security pundits." (Statement, 14 June.)

Human Rights Watch

"[The US government] should not apply a double standard by working against other governments that might extend asylum in this case." (Statement, 3 July.)

“Edward Snowden has a serious asylum claim that should be considered fairly by Russia or any other country where he may apply. He should be allowed at least to make that claim and have it heard... Washington’s actions appear to be aimed at preventing Snowden from gaining an opportunity to claim refuge, in violation of his right to seek asylum under international law.” (Statement, 12 July.)

Index on Censorship

"The mass surveillance of citizens’ private communications is unacceptable – it both invades privacy and threatens freedom of expression. The US government cannot use the excuse of national security to justify either surveillance on this scale or the extradition of Snowden for revealing it." (Statement, 24 June.)

Norwegian PEN

"The threat of criminal prosecution against whistleblower Edward Snowden on the charge of espionage is an allegation against an individual who has used his right to free speech in order to uncover serious abuse, not worthy of a country that abides by the rule of law. By going out with this information, Edward Snowden has questioned the democratic openness of US counter-terrorism strategy. The practice uncovered in the United States is in clear conflict with the principles of a democratic constitutional state." (Statement, 3 July.)

Reporters Without Borders

"Now that Edward Snowden, the young American who revealed the global monitoring system known as Prism, has requested asylum from 20 countries, the EU nations should extend a welcome, under whatever law or status seems most appropriate... [European Union] countries owe Snowden a debt of gratitude for his revelations, which were clearly in the public interest... American leaders should realize the glaring contradiction between their soaring odes to freedom and the realities of official actions, which damage the image of their country." (Statement, 3 July.)

Jack Straw, MI6, and Extraordinary Rendition

There was a very interesting interview aired this evening on Channel 4 News with former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, which touched on the British government's role in the Iraq War and alleged complicity in kidnappings and torture.

First, some important context.

In 2004, a Libyan Islamist militant anti-Gaddafi fighter Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his pregnant wife were abducted at a Bangkok airport and "rendered" to Libya by American agents. Belhadj was taken to one of Gaddafi's prisons and says he was subjected to torture.

At the time, British government officials were publicly denying any role in so-called "extraordinary rendition" — the practice used frequently by the United States under the George W. Bush administration involving kidnapping terror suspects and taking them to secret locations in third countries where they were sometimes brutally interrogated. But amid the revolution in Libya in 2011, a trove of classifed documents were found during the raid of a government office revealing British spy agency MI6 had in fact played a role in rendition — providing crucial intelligence that resulted in Belhadj being handed over to Gaddafi.

MI6 did not deny involvement when the documents were discovered: instead, UK government sources insisted the agency's actions were part of "ministerially authorised government policy." Then, in April last year, the Sunday Times reported that Jack Straw — foreign secretary between 2001 and 2006 — had been forced by MI6 to admit he had signed off on the secret rendition of Belhadj.

A few days after the Sunday Times report, Belhadj, who is now a military commander in the new Libya, launched legal action against Straw for alleged complicity in illegal rendition and torture.

Now, to the interview.

Tonight, on Channel 4 News, Straw made some eyebrow-raising statements to reporter Alex Thomson in light of the above. Previously he has declined to comment on the Belhadj case, and he told Channel 4 that he wouldn't discuss specifics. But he did make several short remarks that seem significant:

Thomson: It seems extraordinary to have to ask this question... but is the kidnapping and torturing of people by nation states wrong?

Straw: Of course it's wrong and we had no part in that.

Thomson: Are you sure we had no part in it?

Straw: Absolutely. It is wrong. It is absolutely wrong for any of that to have happened.

Thomson: And you are sure that the UK government had no part in it, that's what you just said?

Straw: Well, I'm absolutely sure that I had no part in this, let's just be clear about this OK, and there is going to be a full-scale judicial-led inquiry on the wider issues.

So Straw was clear. "I'm absolutely sure that I had no part in this," he said. Here is what the Sunday Times reported last year:

JACK STRAW, the former Labour foreign secretary, admitted that he had approved the secret rendition of a terrorist suspect to Libya after MI6 showed him evidence proving he had signed off the operation, well placed sources say.

Straw, who faces questioning by police over claims by Abdel Hakim Belhadj that he was tortured in a Libyan prison after being seized in 2004, was confronted by Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) officers after publicly appearing to deny he had authorised rendition.

Asked about Britain’s rendition policy during an interview on BBC Radio 4 last autumn, Straw said: “The position of successive foreign secretaries, including me, is that we were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did we turn a blind eye to it."

According to well-placed sources, within days of those comments MI6 officers met Straw. “They reminded him [Straw] that he had signed off on it. He was shown evidence and [then] he did accept that he had signed off on the rendition," said one insider.

Straw has repeatedly declined to comment publicly on the Belhadj case. This weekend a spokesman for him said: “I think that you will readily understand that while an investigation is pending, it is not appropriate for Mr Straw to respond to queries like yours."

And here is a timeline of the key events:

6-8 March 2004: Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his wife Fatima Bouchar are abducted at a Bangkok airport and flown to one of Gaddafi's prisons in Libya.

13 December 2005: Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, tells MPs in response to concerns about rendition: "Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been."

4 September 2011: Documents are found by Human Rights Watch inside the abandoned office Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa. One file contained hundreds of secret letters and faxes that UK spy agency MI6 and US spy agency the CIA had sent to Koussa, some revealing "evidence that British intelligence agencies mounted their own 'rendition' operation in collaboration with Muammar Gaddafi's security services." One document showed MI6 counter-terror chief Mark Allen boasting to Koussa about helping render Belhadj in 2004. “The intelligence was British," Allen wrote, adding that assisting in rendering Belhaj by providing information about his movements was “the least we could do for you and for Libya."

5 September 2011: Straw tells BBC Radio 4 in response to the discovery of the documents: “The position of successive foreign secretaries, including me, is that we were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did we turn a blind eye to it."

8 April 2012: Extensive details on the rendition of Belhadj and his wife emerge in a special report published by the Guardian. It opens: "Just when Fatima Bouchar thought it couldn't get any worse, the Americans forced her to lie on a stretcher and began wrapping tape around her feet. They moved upwards, she says, along her legs, winding the tape around and around, binding her to the stretcher. They taped her stomach, her arms and then her chest. She was bound tight, unable to move."

15 April 2012: The Sunday Times reports that following Straw's Radio 4 appearance in September 2011, officers from MI6 met with him. A source told the newspaper: "They reminded him [Straw] that he had signed off on it [the rendition of Belhadj]. He was shown evidence and [then] he did accept that he had signed off on the rendition."

18 April 2012: Belhadj launches legal action against Straw over alleged complicity in illegal rendition and torture.

14 March 2013: Straw claims in an interview aired by Channel 4 News that he is "absolutely sure that I had no part in this [extraordinary rendition and torture]."

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It doesn't take a genius to see that something does not add up here. There are clear inconsistencies between statements made publicly by Straw and the secret documents, and Straw's Channel 4 interview today contradicted both the secret documents and the claims published by the Sunday Times. The long-delayed judge-led inquiry into the UK's involvement in rendition cannot begin soon enough.

*****

UPDATE, 4 April 2013: It is reported that Straw and former MI6 spy chief Mark Allen say "they cannot respond to allegations of conspiracy in the torture of a prominent Libyan dissident [Hakim Belhadj], pleading the need to protect official secrets." Court documents seen by the Guardian show the former foreign secretary is arguing that the law means he "can neither confirm or deny [MI6] operations," claiming he cannot plead in the case without "causing real harm to the public interest."

However, Straw does explicitly deny misleading parliament in 2005 with his statement that Britain had not "been involved in rendition full stop." Straw claims, according to the Guardian's report, that:

it was 'readily apparent' ... that the committee at the time was discussing 'extraordinary rendition' — that is, rendition specifically carried out for the purposes of torture.

This denial strikes me as tenuous in the extreme, because when you read Straw's full 2005 statement to the parliamentary committee it is not at all clear that when he is talking about rendition he is only talking about rendition in the context of torture. Indeed, he even says at one point that "rendition is a term of art which covers a variety of activities," before going on to add: "there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been." Of course, we now know that the UK was involved in rendition, at the time when Straw was the foreign secretary and thus the responsible minister.

*****

UPDATE II, 22 December 2013: A long-delayed UK government report on British spy agencies' complicity in rendition and torture is finally released on 19 December. The report finds that MI6 turned a "blind eye" to the torture of detainees and was not under any obligation to report breaches of the Geneva Convention. In response to the publication of the report, Jack Straw issues yet another denial, saying in a statement to parliament:

as Foreign Secretary, I acted at all times in a manner that was fully consistent with my legal duties and with national and international law, and that I was never in any way complicit in the unlawful rendition or detention of individuals by the United States or any other state.

The following day, on 20 December, the UK High Court rejects Abdel Hakim Belhadj's rendition and torture case against the government, which Straw was reported to have signed off on. Astonishingly, the judge says that while Belhadj appears to have a "potentially well-founded claim that the UK authorities were directly implicated in the extraordinary rendition," the case cannot proceed because pursuing it would "jeopardise national security." Belhadj is now trying to appeal against the decision.

*****

UPDATE III, 12 November 2015: Citing ongoing Supreme Court proceedings, The Guardian reports that Straw and former MI6 spy Sir Mark Allen "could avoid prosecution over complicity in the rendition and torture" of Belhadj and his wife by claiming immunity in the case.

Spy Trojan Seller on Ethics, Authoritarians, & 'Bad Guys' vs. 'Good Guys'

Headquartered out of a modern industrial estate in Andover, England, Gamma Group sells controversial advanced surveillance technologies to intelligence and law enforcement agencies in countries across the world. The company has been the source of widespread news coverage over the last couple of years due to its spy trojan tools — designed to secretly infiltrate computers, monitor communications and siphon data from hard drives — which security researchers say they believe are being used by authorities in a host of countries with poor human rights records, including: Bahrain, Brunei, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore, Turkmenistan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Recently, I had an interesting and at times revealing back-and-forth email exchange with Gamma's Germany-based spokesman, Martin J. Muench. It is significant enough that I feel it is worth reproducing here, mainly because it offers an unusual level of insight into Muench's — and ultimately Gamma's — thinking.

The exchange began when I sent Muench a query regarding a prospective story I was working on — a follow-up to a Netzpolitik article detailing documents showing German federal police's plans to use Gamma's "Finfisher" (a.k.a "FinSpy") computer surveillance software. I also wanted to ask Muench about a "code of conduct" his company is apparently looking to implement in response to concerns about complicity in human rights violations.

However, the exchange, all on the record, eventually became a broader discussion about selling surveillance technologies, with Muench telling me that "we don’t necessarily agree with each other as far as the definition of what is ethical" and adding that he thought journalists had kicked up a "fuss" about Finfisher because they themselves were "guilty of the most appalling breaches."

It makes for quite a thought-provoking read, I think, especially toward the end. The content of the correspondence has not been edited, though I have removed email signatures and greetings ("Hi Ryan," "best regards," etc.) to cut out unnecessary repetition.

*****

From: Ryan Gallagher
To: Martin J. Muench
22 January 2013 12:52

I was reading this report on netzpolitik.org about the German Bundeskriminalamt acquiring Finspy: https://netzpolitik.org/2013/secret-government-document-reveals-german-federal-police-plans-to-use-gamma-finfisher-spyware/

I wanted to confirm with you:

1. is this an accurate report? Have the Bundeskriminalamt purchased Finspy or are they just testing it?

2. I note that the Netzpolitik report says you are in talks with NGOs with regards introducing a code of conduct for companies like yours. Which organizations are involved in the discussions? Can you share any information about what the code of conduct might include? And are any other companies involved?

*****

From: Martin J. Muench
To: Ryan Gallagher
22 January 2013 13:15

1. is this an accurate report? Have the Bundeskriminalamt purchased Finspy or are they just testing it?

As you can imagine this article and others relating to it have stimulated a great deal of interest...

However, I am afraid I have to tell you that Gamma simply does not discuss its client base, its exports, or any of the operations which its clients may or may not be undertaking. This is because there is usually a contractual term of confidentiality, and because naming a client can prejudice criminal or counter terror investigations and compromise the security of the members of the police or security services involved. Neither will Gamma name any countries which have not purchased its products thereby enabling customer countries to be identified by a process of elimination.

2. I note that the Netzpolitik report says you are in talks with NGOs with regards introducing a code of conduct for companies like yours. Which organizations are involved in the discussions? Can you share any information about what the code of conduct might include? And are any other companies involved?

We are currently having discussions with several groups. I don’t wish to elaborate further at the moment as some of these groups are our most vociferous public critics but who are quite prepared to discuss our ideas with us in private. In fact we have drafted a proposed Code of Conduct for the industry which goes far beyond the current ECAs.

*****

From: Ryan Gallagher
To: Martin J. Muench
22 January 2013 14:04

Regarding the code of conduct: is there any way you can send me a copy of the draft so I can get an idea of what it includes? Will it be made available publicly?

I note that Privacy International were previously reported to have turned down an invitation to discuss the code of conduct: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/26/british-company-gamma-international

Why did Privacy International refuse to engage? Do you think the code will have credibility if groups like Privacy International say they won't meet you to discuss it?

*****

From: Martin J. Muench
To: Ryan Gallagher
22 January 2013 14:16

I would honestly appreciate not putting too much focus on it at this point as I firstly would like to finish it and most of all also implement everything that has been and will be defined in there before promoting it publicly. Once it's done and we began the implementation we will definately make it public.

PI was offered numerous times a visit to our offices, a full product demonstration and open discussions about various topics. They mentioned that they're discussing internally a few month ago but did not respond to any follow-up emails. No reasons were given on why the offer was ignored.

I can only guess or better wonder why Eric King of PI does not want a personal meeting and also see the other side of the stories especially as he is spending so much time and energy on them without having the full picture; but I don't think that one organisation like PI not being interested in also giving constructive criticism will affect the credibility of such a code on a global level.

*****

From: Ryan Gallagher
To: Martin J. Muench
22 January 2013 15:05

If you have not yet implemented the code of conduct, doesn't that mean you are acknowledging that thus far you have not been adhering to appropriate ethical standards? What exactly is it that you need to implement? It would be great if you could show me a draft of the code, even on a background basis, to help me understand the context of the thing.

*****

From: Martin J. Muench
To: Ryan Gallagher
22 January 2013 21:56

Firstly, let me correct you. I am not acknowledging that Gamma has not adhered to ethical standards at all. One problem with ethical standards is that we all have them and we don’t necessarily agree with each other as far as the definition of what is ethical. Who decides? You have your views, I have mine and others have theirs’. That’s not to say we all disagree on everything. It simply means that we don’t all have the same views and for very different reasons.

Our position is this; we believe in the right to privacy but we don’t believe it takes precedence over or supersedes the right to life. We believe that nation states have the right to defend themselves against terrorists and we believe in the right to fight organised crime. We sell FinFisher to governments and law enforcement agencies to do this. We don’t sell a mass-monitoring tool. We sell a highly sophisticated piece of target specific software capable of providing evidential quality reports.

Another problem, of course, is that today’s ‘good guy’ may be tomorrow’s ‘bad guy’ and vice versa. If we imposed a moral code based on our intuition as to who might become a bad guy in the future we could end up spending a lot of time thinking about it and doing very little else. So, until we can get a code of conduct up and running that will actually work, rather than pay lip service to ‘ethics’, we have decided to let the export controls authorities act as our ‘moral compass’, for want of a better expression. After all, they are best placed to know who the ‘bad guys’ are and who the likely future ‘bad guys’ will be. We follow their lead and comply with the law.

Of course one of the reasons that some of the media have picked up on FinFisher products and make such a fuss is that some of them have become the subject of law enforcement inquiries themselves by electronic means and have been shown in the past to be by their own admission guilty of the most appalling breaches. The Leveson Inquiry shows a good example of this.

*****

From: Ryan Gallagher
To: Martin J. Muench
23 January 2013 03:30

Your last email raises many questions for me.

One problem with ethical standards is that we all have them and we don’t necessarily agree with each other as far as the definition of what is ethical.

Ethical standards can sometimes be highly subjective but they are often also relative to basic standards of right and wrong. Would it be ethical for me to sell a gun to a man I knew had a history of violence and might subsequently use it to murder an innocent person? I think the answer to that question is obvious. And I think the same kind of hypotheticals can be used in the realm of surveillance technologies. Would it be ethical for me to sell a sophisticated spy technology to a notoriously brutal state security agency operating in a country ruled by a despot with a well documented record of cracking down on, beating and jailing people engaging in legitimate democratic activities?

So, until we can get a code of conduct up and running that will actually work, rather than pay lip service to ‘ethics’, we have decided to let the export controls authorities act as our ‘moral compass’, for want of a better expression.

By this I assume you mean European export controls? Or are you also including United Nations and United States sanctions?

I should point out that just because a company is not on an export control list doesn't mean it is a place where human rights violations are not rife. For instance, countries such as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Morocco and Thailand are ruled by authoritarian regimes with little (if any) limitations on the use of sophisticated spy technologies to monitor innocent individuals participating in legitimate democratic activities (journalism, activism, etc.). It is a given that these countries also have serious criminals whom they wish to monitor. But they may also have a disposition towards abusing surveillance technology to stifle dissent, track dissidents, target journalists, etc.

Have you never considered conducting an analysis of each country's respective social and polititical conditions before you do business with it? This is in line with the "know your customer" program recommended by the United States and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which outlines how companies should "act with due diligence to avoid infringing on human rights and address adverse impacts."

It doesn't strike me as due diligence for you to say that you will sell to any country so long as they are not on a sanctions list.

Of course one of the reasons that some of the media have picked up on FinFisher products and make such a fuss is that some of them have become the subject of law enforcement inquiries themselves by electronic means have been shown in the past to be by their own admission guilty of the most appalling breaches. The Leveson Inquiry shows a good example of this.

I find this to be a bit of an inaccurate comparison. The "phone hacking" scandal involved (unethical) tabloid journalists listening to the voicemails of individuals by entering a default PIN code into their mailbox to gain access. I don't think that it is comparable to providing authoritarian regimes with a sophisticated spy trojan that can be used to secretly take over targeted computers, intercept communications and steal data from hard disks. The scale is different, the technology is different, and, perhaps most crucially, the potential harms are different.

*****

From: Martin J. Muench
To: Ryan Gallagher
23 January 2013 08:51

Thanks for your email. It’s a fascinating debate and one in which we could engage for some time. I see you have strong views and clearly have made your own judgments but I am afraid that I am going to have to end it here.

Would it be ethical for me to sell a sophisticated spy technology to a notoriously brutal state security agency operating in a country ruled by a despot with a well documented record of cracking down on, beating and jailing people engaging in legitimate democratic activities?

This may well be a view held by some of; the UK (Northern Ireland), the USA (Guantanamo Bay) or Germany – and we are a little sensitive of our past. However, many people in the West might not view those counties that way…..

Debate aside and let’s be clear, we co-operate with the export controls agencies of Germany, the UK and the USA. Gamma simply does not discuss its client base, its exports, or any of the operations which its clients may or may not be undertaking. This is because there is usually a contractual term of confidentiality, and because naming a client can prejudice criminal or counter terror investigations and compromise the security of the members of the police or security services involved. Neither will Gamma name any countries which have not purchased its products thereby enabling customer countries to be identified by a process of elimination.

Lastly, may I suggest you have a closer look at the Leveson Inquiry — you may find it illuminating — at least in the definition of a tabloid (David Leigh of The Guardian admits to hacking an arms dealer?)

*****

From: Ryan Gallagher
To: Martin J. Muench
23 January 2013 13:33

Yes, it's an interesting discussion. I was particularly keen to hear your response to my question about due diligence and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which I note that you did not answer directly.

we are a little sensitive of our past. However, many people in the West might not view those counties that way…..

What do you mean?

may I suggest you have a closer look at the Leveson Inquiry – you may find it illuminating — at least in the definition of a tabloid (David Leigh of The Guardian admits to hacking an arms dealer?)

Yes, that's right. There were a few cases included in the Leveson inquiry that focused on journalists outside the tabloids, though it was certainly a tabloid-orientated inquiry. The Leigh case is interesting because it reveals the extent to which investigative journalists will sometimes break the law in order to expose corruption — which can be deemed permissible under UK law if there is a substantial "public interest" defence. In 2006, well before Leveson, Leigh admitted to listening to voicemails of an arms dealer in order to help reveal corrupt payments. If you followed the case you would know that the UK's Crown Prosecution Service looked into Leigh's activities and advised that he not be prosecuted because on balance it was decided his actions were in the public interest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/14/police-guardian-journalist-phone-hacking

I understand why you raise the example. But ultimately it is unrelated to what we are discussing — that is, export controls and surveillance technologies. It's false equivalence for you to bring up Leveson in the context of selling spy trojans to authoritarian regimes. As I wrote in my previous message, the scale is different, the technology is different, and, perhaps most crucially, the potential harms are different.

*****

From: Martin J. Muench
To: Ryan Gallagher
23 January 2013 14:37

Thank you for your email. I do not wish to add anything at this point. You have my answers.

Surveillance and Human Rights? Teliasonera's Business Model

Back in April I reported at Slate on how a Swedish telecommunications firm was linked to spy agencies in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Georgia, facilitating crackdowns on dissident politicians and independent journalists.

Teliasonera, headquartered in Stockholm, was uncovered by a brilliant team of Swedish reporters to have allowed “black box” probes to be fitted within their telecommunications networks, which enabled security services and police to monitor, in real-time, all communications passing through, including texts, internet traffic and phone calls. The mass surveillance had reportedly been used in several instances, without any judicial oversight, to help track down protesters and political opponents.

The company came under huge criticism and pressure following the report, and subsequently issued a statement saying that it was launching "an action programme for handling issues related to protection of privacy and freedom of expression in non-democratic countries."

I noticed yesterday Teliasonera published a post on its website covering a recent conference it participated in about internet governance, held in Azerbaijan. It's quite interesting to see, for a company that was accused of such serious complicity in the most grave of human rights abuses, how Teliasonera is now presenting itself:

For Teliasonera, of course, providing access to telecommunications including the internet is the business model. This business model includes freedom of expression, so that our subscribers can communicate, and protection of privacy, so that our users feel trust in our services. [...]

Human rights are an area which is constantly evolving, and any measures against individuals must be based on the rule of law. Companies need to abide by local legislation whilst respecting human rights.

These two aspects show, that telecoms and human rights at times are in conflict and require difficult tradeoffs, both democratic and economic terms. This means working out and establishing processes based on firm principles. The way forward is not easy, the challenges must be met jointly by the industry, and national as well as international organizations...

It's a positive sign that Teliasonera is recognising that telecommunications companies need to respect human rights, and that a company providing access to telecommunications must respect freedom of expression and protect privacy. But what I would like to hear more about is the action Teliasonera has taken to put these principles into practice. I would be interested to hear from citizens in countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan about whether or not there are still situations in which they find themselves called in for interrogations after saying things critical about the ruling government on a phone call or in an email or text message.

I can't imagine that Teliasonera has had much success trying to convince secret police in Azerbaijan, for instance, that they should start respecting privacy and stop using the "black boxes" to sift through emails and identify dissidents. Ultimately, if Teliasonera is still operating in these countries, then on some level it seems realistic to suggest that it will remain complicit in human rights violations — violations that will almost inevitably occur as a result of authoritarian governments abusing the power that they hold to spy on people.

At the internet governance conference I mentioned above, Neelie Kroes, the vice president of the European Commission, gave a stern speech in which she condemned Azerbaijan's human rights record: "In this very country, we see many arbitrary restrictions on the media," she said. "And we see activists spied on online, violating the privacy of journalists and their sources." What happened after Kroes speech was telling and indicative of the scale of the problem in a country like Azerbaijan: members of her team had their computers reportedly hacked. "I'm presuming it was some kind of surveillance," one said.

[To reiterate: I'd be keen to hear from any activists, journalists, telecom engineers, politicians, anyone in this region with more information about the current state of surveillance in the former Soviet Republics. Info on Teliasonera's continuing role would be especially welcome.]

UPDATE, 17.11.12: A kind gentleman has emailed me a link (.doc) to a very interesting full transcript of a meeting at the recent internet governance conference in Azerbaijan, which representatives from Teliasonera participated in.

Here are some notable snippets from speakers who identified themselves as representatives of Teliasonera or its subsidiary in Azerbaijan, Azercell (emphasis added):

...as a telecom company we do not participate in the decisions on proportionality between national security and human rights. That's something which is done by legislator and authorities.

and:

...the frequencies in this country [Azerbaijan] have been owned by the government, and we just lease them, so we just own the infrastructure, and the lease for those contracts are like for 20, 25 years, we lease the frequencies from the country, and then those -- and the government has the right to interfere in accordance with the different legislations, so whenever those defined cases are, they can take the information even without the notification to the company in accordance with the whole legislation so whatever Teliasonora operate in the local market they do operate in accordance with the legislation.

and:

...because the frequencies have been owned by the government, we don't even have to have this [secret "black box"] room or whatsoever. Because it is the property of the government.

The Teliasonera representatives also said that the company is trying to improve transparency in relation to its human rights efforts by publishing information on its website, and is working to "improve processes when it comes to government demands" such as by "maybe seeking judicial review."

I had a quick scan through one of the key documents over at teliasonera.com, which is supposed to be an overview of Teliasonera's "action programme" related to telecommunications and human rights. One of the most striking passages, in a document (.pdf) headed "Freedom of expression and privacy – the international framework," is as follows (emphasis added):

The requirements generally imposed on a telecoms operator that are sensitive from the point of view of rights and freedoms are those allowing the police and national security services to intercept and monitor telecommunications traffic in secret, or to gain access to information on subscribers and historical information on telecommunications traffic and on the location of mobile phones. There may also be requirements to shut down all or part of a telecommunications network, block individual messages and block specific websites on the Internet.

One aspect that national regulations have in common is that the telecoms operators do not participate in public authorities' decisions to take a particular action. Local laws sometimes require decisions to be made by a court or by an individual public authority. The choice of decision-making body may be influenced by the nature or severity of the threat and how time-critical the measures are. One recurring feature of national regulations is that details concerning public authorities' decisions, requirements and work in these areas are strictly confidential and telecoms operators are not given any information on why a particular measure is to be adopted.

What these snippets illustrate is the deeply conflicted position Teliasonera has put itself in by doing business in countries such as Azerbaijan. The company says that it is committed to protecting human rights, freedom of expression and privacy, and yet in the same breath admits that it must adhere to "local laws" in these authoritarian countries and in some cases has no say in decisions about "proportionality between national security and human rights." It is definitely a good sign that Teliasonera has at least recognised that it must do more to address these problems, as I mentioned above. But any telecom company that chooses to continue operating in countries where crackdowns on activists and journalists are rife at the present time is still on some level taking a decision to put financial considerations first, while implicitly turning a blind eye to ongoing human rights violations facilitated with communications surveillance.

Yemen: Drones, Death And Secrecy

There have been a flurry of drone missile strikes conducted by the United States in Yemen over the the last week. Attacks on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday resulted in up to 18 fatalities, according to London's Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The attack on Wednesday in particular caught my eye. It was reported that a vehicle was targeted while travelling on an inner city road in Hadramawt, eastern Yemen, killing five "suspected militants," the country's military officials said.

However, Yemen's press were quick to report that among the dead were two civilians. One was a mosque caretaker and imam named Salim Ahmad Jaber, the other a police officer, Walid Abdullah bin Ali Jaber, according to details posted online by Yemini lawyer Haykal Bafana. Bafana wrote that the car was targeted as it was driving between houses, and the caretaker and policeman were in a house that was hit. Reuters reported local residents saying that "the car was struck by one of three missiles fired from a plane ... charred bodies were pulled from it afterwards." Pictures published by Yemeni news outlet Dammon purported to depict children playing in the mangled, burnt out and blackened remains of the car, a Suzuki Vitara.

This strike stands out as an acute example of why drone attacks can be deeply problematic. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday's attack it was widely reported that a number of suspected militants had been obliterated in a new drone strike. Yet it later transpired that among the "suspected militants" there may have been two civilians. The concern is that, seemingly by default, unnamed "military sources" have a tendency to promptly announce that "suspected insurgents" or "militants" were the victims in any given strike - but how can we know for sure? We can't, as Wednesday's incident illustrates, and that's why scepticism about claims made by anonymous military sources is always necessary.

As is so often the case with drone strikes, it is almost impossible to confirm details for a number of reasons. 1) The bodies end up badly burnt and damaged, meaning identities of victims are hard to quickly establish; 2) the strikes can occur in dangerous and remote locations, in places where news outlets have a limited presence and facts are not forthcoming; and 3) the perpetrators of drone strikes in Yemen, the US CIA, conduct their actions and pick their targets behind a cloak of secrecy. (NB: Even the UK's Ministry of Defence has acknowledged there are "immense difficulty and risks" involved in verifying who has been hit in drone strikes. The MoD says it cannot tell exactly how many how many alleged insurgents it has killed using drones in Afghanistan.)

So the situation in Yemen is as follows: US forces are covertly bombing people in a country where no formal war has been declared. We do not know (with any certainty) who they are bombing or the justification for each bombing. We do not know exactly how many civilians have been killed in the process (the BFIJ estimates it could be up to 151), or how the pilots who remotely fly the drones from thousands of miles away are held accountable for their sometimes catastrophic errors. This can also be said in other countries that are being subjected the America's covert drone attacks, such as Pakistan and Somalia.

Drone attacks of this kind self-evidently raise profound legal, moral and ethical questions. Unfortunately, the US government presently appears to have very little interest in addressing them.

*****

Incidentally, I put up a short post here the other day about the psychological impact drone strikes conducted by the United States are apparently having on residents of Manzer Khel, a tribal village in North Waziristan, Pakistan. The same can be said of certain communities within Yemen. As a sheikh from Bayhan district in Shabwaare told the Economist in a piece out today: "People are afraid to go to weddings because, whenever large groups of men gather, they are afraid a drone will hit them." And Yemeni news outlet Dammon reported that prior to Wednesday's attack targeting the car in Hadramawt, US drones were spotted, instilling "panic among the citizens of the region."

There could well be blowback. While the strikes are intended to take out terror suspects, by spreading fear among villages and in some cases killing civilians, they may only be serving to recruit greater numbers of terrorists to fight and plot against America and its allies. As the Yemeni lawyer Haykal Bafana wrote on Twitter back in May: "Dear Obama, when a US drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda."

UPDATE 4.09.12: CNN is reporting that a fresh suspected US drone strike in Yemen has killed 13 civilians, including three women. A senior Yemeni Defense Ministry official is quoted as saying the target was "completely missed. It was a mistake". CNN says that families of the victims closed main roads and vowed to retaliate. Nasr Abdullah, an activist from the district where the attack took place, in the al-Baitha province, told CNN: "I would not be surprised if a hundred tribesmen joined the lines of al Qaeda as a result of the latest drone mistake."

Constant Fear In Manzer Khel

In the last few days I've been working on a piece about 'unmanned aerial vehicles', or 'drones' as most people call them. I was interested to discover that there is a company based in England that has manufactured technology sold and exported to the United States for use as part of drone systems. The US uses its drones for controversial covert attacks in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia - attacks that many believe are being conducted in violation of international law.

In a factory on a bland-looking industrial estate in Towcester, Northamptonshire, General Electrics Intelligence Platforms (GEIP) has produced single-board computers that it has acknowledged may be used on the ground stations that communicate with drones. The company says the parts are not used as part of "weapons systems" but are rather "used solely in connection with the operation of the aircraft itself." Nevertheless, human rights group Reprieve is demanding that the British government restrict exports of this technology for use in drones because it says it is "helping to kill, maim and terrify citizens."

What's particularly interesting is that lawyers acting on behalf of a Pakistani elder named Malik Jalal have sent a letter to the UK government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) regarding technology exported by GEIP. Jalal lives in Manzer Khel, North Waziristan, a tribal village that has been hit by repeated strikes by US drones as part of a 'targeted killing' programme which has operated covertly in Pakistan since 2004. Jalal's lawyers, Tuckers, are requesting that BIS officials provide a series of answers about approvals of GEIP exports. The exports, they allege, are helping to facilitate strikes that are a violation of international law on armed conflict and a breach of human rights.

Most striking about the letter is one passage that describes an aspect of drones I hadn't considered before: their psychological impact. It is hard imagine what it must be like to know that there are remote control aircraft soaring 20,000ft in the sky above your head every day, armed with deadly 'Hellfire' missiles and on the hunt for groups of suspected militants. But this particular paragraph goes some way to explaining the profound and alarming effect it is having on the people living in North Waziristan. It's something I think everyone should read:

As a result of the UAV strikes, Malik Jalal and others residing in the area live in constant fear. There are very often UAVs hovering overhead. Members of Malik Jalal's tribe cannot tell whether they are intending to fire missiles or simply for surveillance, and the knowledge that any one of them at any time could launch a missile is unbearable. Malik Jalal as the tribal elder feels particularly helpless that he is unable to stop the UAVs and he fears for the physical safety of his family as well as the psychological effects, especially on the young, of the UAVs' presence. Even young children are aware of the UAVs and can see them and hear their buzzing overhead. The UAVs also affect the economy and daily life. People are scared to be out together in large groups or to travel with others in case they are mistaken for militants and targeted, and many parents are reluctant to send their children to school in case they are hit during the journey.

You can read the full lawyers' letter here.

It is estimated that up to 3,303 people have been killed in US drone strikes on Pakistan since 2004, including as many as 880 civilians. The issue is causing huge tension in the country and politicians have repeatedly called for America to stop its attacks - to no avail.

The BIS told me that it "takes is export licensing responsibilities seriously" but said that "we do not comment on individual licence requests, the application or the end user." Of more interest was what a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) told me when I called to query how the Royal Air Force uses drones. In an apparent attempt to distance the MoD from the increasingly controversial US bombings in places like Pakistan, the spokesman said: "I wouldn’t want you to confuse the way we operate drones with the way the Americans operate drones. They use them for wholly different missions."