September 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

U.S. Held Liable in '90 Kidnap
by Dynamite Bob 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

http://latimes.com/news/local/la-000073744sep13.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2… U.S. Held Liable in '90 Kidnap Ruling: A court says the government-arranged abduction of a Mexican doctor sought in the murder of a DEA agent broke international law. By HENRY WEINSTEIN, TIMES LEGAL AFFAIRS WRITER For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that a U.S. government-instigated kidnapping of an individual from another country violates international human rights law and that violation can be redressed in a U.S. court. The 3-0 ruling this week by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stems from the April 1990 abduction of Mexican physician Humberto Alvarez Machain. Alvarez had been indicted in Los Angeles three months earlier on charges that he was involved in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of U.S. DEA Agent Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara. The kidnapping occurred after the Mexican government refused to extradite Alvarez, who was later acquitted in the Camarena case. The decision Tuesday means that Alvarez is entitled to recover a limited amount of damages. The Justice Department, however, is likely to appeal the ruling. In an earlier case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alvarez could be put on trial in the United States despite the fact that he had been brought here as a result of a kidnapping. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents based in Los Angeles, using operatives in Mexico, orchestrated the kidnapping. The agency paid about $60,000 to several Mexicans who abducted the doctor and brought him to El Paso and then to Los Angeles, according to testimony by a DEA operative. In 1992 a federal judge here acquitted Alvarez, who was then permitted to return to Mexico--after more than two years of incarceration in the United States. Several other men have been convicted of involvement in the federal drug agent's murder and sentenced to long prison terms. The ruling Tuesday was praised by Los Angeles civil liberties lawyer Paul Hoffman, who has represented the doctor for more than a decade. "We have been fighting for a U.S. court to rule that a kidnapping like this was a violation of international law," Hoffman said. Justice Department attorney Robert Loeb said the agency is considering seeking a rehearing from a larger panel of 9th Circuit judges or appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alvarez's kidnapping precipitated strained relations between the United States and Mexico and spawned considerable litigation. The decision this week evolved from a federal damage suit that Alvarez filed in Los Angeles a year after he was acquitted on the criminal charges. Alvarez, now 53, sued the U.S. government; DEA agents in Los Angeles and Washington; Francisco Sosa, a former Mexican policeman; and five other Mexican nationals, all of whom are now in the U.S. witness protection program. The case involves important and complicated issues involving how far the government can go in attempting to apprehend a suspect abroad. On most of the major issues, the appeals court ruled against the United States. In one of the most significant parts of the decision, the 9th Circuit rejected the government's claim that as a sovereign nation it was immune from such a suit. "The government admits that it knew of and acquiesced in the plan to kidnap Alvarez and bring him to the United States," Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote in a decision joined by jurists Mary M. Schroeder and Samuel P. King. "Sosa performed the search to assist the DEA agents. Sosa had no individual interest in kidnapping Alvarez other than to curry favor with the DEA agents in the hopes that they would reward him. Therefore, because Sosa acted merely as an agent or instrument for 'law enforcement officers,' the United States has waived sovereign immunity," the appellate judges said. These conclusions were praised by an attorney who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of several human rights groups. "The 9th Circuit decision is significant because it recognizes that international law applies to the United States government," said California Western School of Law professor William J. Aceves. The 9th Circuit also rejected the government's argument that the DEA has the power to implement U.S. law overseas even if it overrides international law. "If this assertion [by the government] is an accurate statement of United States law, then it reinforces the critics of American imperialism in the international community," wrote Goodwin, an appointee of President Gerald Ford. The court also ruled that "Alvarez's kidnapping violated his right to freedom of movement, to remain in his country and to security in his person, which are part of the 'law of nations.' " Moreover, the court ruled, the United States is liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for a "false arrest," the basic law that permits a person to file personal injury claims against the federal government or its agents. The appeals court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson for a determination of the government's monetary liability. In earlier proceedings, Alvarez was awarded $25,000 against Sosa, a ruling that Sosa appealed unsuccessfully. The 9th Circuit upheld Alvarez's right to recover against Sosa under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a law enacted in 1789 which permits a foreigner to sue for damages in a U.S. court. Sosa's attorney, Charles S. Leeper of Washington, D.C., said he was disturbed by "the court's conclusion that Alvarez's detention in Mexico was arbitrary and unlawful and that he is entitled to damages for that." Leeper added, "We are especially troubled by the court's conclusion that U.S. law enforcement agents have to obtain a warrant or permission from foreign countries harboring fugitives or other individuals for whom warrants have been issued in the U.S." The 9th Circuit upheld Wilson's ruling that Alvarez can recover damages only for the brief period--about 24 hours--that he was detained in Mexico, not for the 2 1/2 years he was in U.S. custody.

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RE: Crypto-anonymity greases HUMINT intelligence flows
by Sandy Sandfort 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Meyer Wolfsheim wrote: > Would you trust the Witness Protection > Program with your life? In this case, yes. When the program failed in the past it was usually due to putting formally high rollers into dull middle class new lives. They were the ones who ended up outing themselves. In contrast, giving some poor wretch and his family $5 million would put them in the lap of luxury. > Whoever opts to collect that $5,000,000 will forever live in fear. Cost/benefit, you do the math. I'd opt for it in a heartbeat. > No, any tips that directly lead to the apprehension of Bin Laden must be > done under total anonymity. All the more reason for remailers to remain > operational. Anonymity does not require remailers much less untraceable digital cash. I'm for both of those, but they are overkill for someone who turns in Bin Laden. S a n d y

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Scientologists hinder WTC efforts
by Nomen Nescio 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

[...] Additionally we are trying to move in and knock the psychs out of counseling to the grieving families and that could take another 100 plus people right now. Due to some brilliant maneuvering by some simply genius Sea Org Members we tied up the majority of the psychs who were attempting to get to families yesterday in Q&A, bullbait and wrangling. They have a hard time completing cycles of action and are pretty easy to disperse. But today they are out in full force and circling like vultures over these people and all of our resources are tied up in the support efforts in the disaster zone at present. [...] http://www.lisamcpherson.org/ihelp_email.htm

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3 questions...
by Dave 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

1. Any restrictions on Stego exports as compared to regualar crypto, if so can i cheat and break it into modules, and give half of it away and allow them to define there own cypher, give out a template and such for, not really sure the easiest way to do that thought to see if was legal first... 2. Now an American business purposely destroying its own corperate headquaters is an intresting theory, but given the current state of the US, and Bush's current support, what are the odds who ever knew that information would be able to tell us.... 3. Who stood the most to gain? Islamic Terrorists, with a new Vietnam? Corperation, possibly, but whats $5, $10 mil, when you gotta retrain your whole staff that makes 4-5 times that, and it would take a few years? lol, Guess it makes you wonder if anybody sent all the "genious"(yeah i know) childern home... Then on the other hand, we have what a 91% approval rating, and bunch bills that wouldn't have passed a week going threw, and bet yah dollars to donuts, that wonderful new tech in tampa, is comming up north, pretty soon., with hell of lot less bitching then otherwise.... -Dave <Note: I type like shit, I spell like shit, and I know, and i really don't care, if you don't like then use your fucking kill file>

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Shades of X-Files
by keyser-soze＠hushmail.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

There are unconfirmed reports that one of the recently exhumed WTC bodies is that of Chandra Levy...

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Technology Review - Also in the News - US weighs new forms of electronic surveillance following attacks
by Jim Choate 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

...privacy sillyness... http://www.techreview.com/screaming/article.asp?SMContentIndex=3&SMContentS… -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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[psychohistory] FW: [msal-politics] Background info on Osama bin Laden (fwd)
by Jim Choate 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 10:49:31 +0800 From: "Chen Yixiong, Eric" <cyixiong(a)yahoo.com> Reply-To: psychohistory(a)yahoogroups.com To: Extropians <extropians(a)extropy.org>, "Psychohistory(a)Yahoogroups.Com" <psychohistory(a)yahoogroups.com> Subject: [psychohistory] FW: [msal-politics] Background info on Osama bin Laden -----Original Message----- From: champion67(a)aol.com [mailto:champion67@aol.com] Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 7:49 AM To: msal-politics(a)yahoogroups.com; lpf(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: [msal-politics] Background info on Osama bin Laden Special Report Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist Ahmed Rashid of Pakistan is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center for Public Integrity. He is the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph of London. This is an excerpt from his book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (Yale University Press). By Ahmed Rashid In 1986, CIA chief William Casey had stepped up the war against the Soviet Union by taking three significant, but at that time highly secret, measures. He had persuaded the US Congress to provide the Mujaheddin with American-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Soviet planes and provide US advisers to train the guerrillas. Until then, no US-made weapons or personnel had been used directly in the war effort. The CIA, Britain's MI6 and the ISI [Pakistan�s Inter-Services Intelligence] also agreed on a provocative plan to launch guerrilla attacks into the Soviet Socialist Republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the soft Muslim underbelly of the Soviet state from where Soviet troops in Afghanistan received their supplies. The task was given to the ISI's favourite Mujaheddin leader, Gulbuddin Hikmetyar. In March 1987, small units crossed the Amu Darya river from bases in northern Afghanistan and launched their first rocket attacks against villages in Tajikistan. Casey was delighted with the news, and on his next secret trip to Pakistan he crossed the border into Afghanistan with [the late Pakistani] President Zia [ul-Haq] to review the Mujaheddin groups. Thirdly, Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin. The ISI had encouraged this since 1982, and by now all the other players had their reasons for supporting the idea. President Zia aimed to cement Islamic unity, turn Pakistan into the leader of the Muslim world and foster an Islamic opposition in Central Asia. Washington wanted to demonstrate that the entire Muslim world was fighting the Soviet Union alongside the Afghans and their American benefactors. And the Saudis saw an opportunity both to promote Wahabbism [their strict and austere Wahabbi creed] and to get rid of its disgruntled radicals. None of the players reckoned on these volunteers having their own agendas, which would eventually turn their hatred against the Soviets on their own regimes and the Americans. Thousands of radicals come to study . . Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan Mujaheddin. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad. In camps near Peshawar and in Afghanistan, these radicals met each other for the first time and studied, trained and fought together. It was the first opportunity for most of them to learn about Islamic movements in other countries, and they forged tactical and ideological links that would serve them well in the future. The camps became virtual universities for future Islamic radicalism. None of the intelligence agencies involved wanted to consider the consequences of bringing together thousands of Islamic radicals from all over the world. "What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?" said Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US National Security Adviser. American citizens woke up to the consequences only when Afghanistan-trained Islamic militants blew up the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, killing six people and injuring 1,000. "The war," wrote Samuel Huntington, "left behind an uneasy coalition of Islamist organizations intent on promoting Islam against all non-Muslim forces. It also left a legacy of expert and experienced fighters, training camps and logistical facilities, elaborate trans-Islam networks of personal and organization relationships, a substantial amount of military equipment including 300 to 500 unaccounted-for Stinger missiles, and, most important, a heady sense of power and self-confidence over what had been achieved and a driving desire to move on to other victories." A young Bin Laden . . Among these thousands of foreign recruits was a young Saudi student, Osama Bin Laden, the son of a Yemeni construction magnate, Mohammed Bin Laden, who was a close friend of the late King Faisal and whose company had become fabulously wealthy on the contracts to renovate and expand the Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina. The ISI had long wanted Prince Turki Bin Faisal, the head of Istakhbarat, the Saudi Intelligence Service, to provide a Royal Prince to lead the Saudi contingent in order to show Muslims the commitment of the Royal Family to the jihad. Only poorer Saudis, students, taxi drivers and Bedouin tribesmen had so far arrived to fight. But no pampered Saudi prince was ready to rough it out in the Afghan mountains. Bin Laden, although not a royal, was close enough to the royals and certainly wealthy enough to lead the Saudi contingent Bin Laden, Prince Turki and General Gut were to become firm friends and allies in a common cause. The centre for the Arab-Afghans [Filipino Moros, Uzbeks from Soviet Central Asia, Arabs from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and Uighurs from Xinjiang in China who had all come to fight with the Mujaheddin] was the offices of the World Muslim League and the Muslim Brotherhood in the northern Pakistan city of Peshawar. The center was run by Abdullah Azam, a Jordanian Palestinian whom Bin Laden had first met at university in Jeddah and revered as his leader. Azam and his two sons were assassinated by a bomb blast in Peshawar in 1989. During the 1980s, Azam had forged close links with Hikmetyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Afghan Islamic scholar, whom the Saudis had sent to Peshawar to promote Wahabbism. Saudi funds flowed to Azam and the Makhtab at Khidmat or Services Center, which he created in 1984 to service the new recruits and receive donations from Islamic charities. Donations from Saudi Intelligence, the Saudi Red Crescent, the World Muslim League and private donations from Saudi princes and mosques were channelled through the Makhtab. A decade later, the Makhtab would emerge at the center of a web of radical organizations that helped carry out the World Trade Center bombing and the bombings of US embassies in Africa in 1998. Until he arrived in Afghanistan, Bin Laden's life had hardly been marked by anything extraordinary. He was born around 1957, the 17th of 57 children sired by his Yemeni father and a Saudi mother, one of Mohammed Bin Laden's many wives. Bin Laden studied for a master�s degree in business administration at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah but soon switched to Islamic studies. Thin and tall, he is 6 feet 5 inches, with long limbs and a flowing beard. He towered above his contemporaries, who remember him as a quiet and pious individual but hardly marked out for greater things. His father backed the Afghan struggle and helped fund it, so when Bin Laden decided to join up, his family responded enthusiastically. He first traveled to Peshawar in 1980 and met the Mujaheddin leaders, returning frequently with Saudi donations for the cause until 1982, when he decided to settle in Peshawar. He brought in his company engineers and heavy construction equipment to help build roads and depots for the Mujaheddin. In 1986, he helped build the Khost tunnel complex, which the CIA was funding as a major arms storage depot, training facility and medical center for the Mujaheddin, deep under the mountains close to the Pakistan border. For the first time in Khost he set up his own training camp for Arab Afghans, who now increasingly saw this lanky, wealthy and charismatic Saudi as their leader. . . Bin Laden later claimed to have taken part in ambushes against Soviet troops, but he mainly used his wealth and Saudi donations to build Mujaheddin projects and spread Wahabbism among the Afghans. After the death of Azam in 1989, he took over Azam's organization and set up Al Qaeda or Military Base as a service center for Arab-Afghans and their families and to forge a broad-based alliance among them. With the help of Bin Laden, several thousand Arab militants had established bases in the provinces of Kunar, Nuristan and Badakhshan, but their extreme Wahabbi practices made them intensely disliked by the majority of Afghans. Moreover, by allying themselves with the most extreme pro-Wahabbi Pashtun MuMeddin, the Arab-Afghans alienated the non-Pashtuns and the Shia Muslims. Upset by U.S. role in Gulf War . . By 1990, Bin Laden was disillusioned by the internal bickering of the Mujaheddin and he returned to Saudi Arabia to work in the family business. He founded a welfare organization for Arab-Afghan veterans. Some 4,000 of them had settled in Mecca and Medina alone, and Bin Laden gave money to the families of those killed. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait he lobbied the Royal Family to organize a popular defense of the kingdom and raise a force from the Afghan war veterans to fight Iraq. Instead, King Fahd invited in the Americans. This came as an enormous shock to Bin Laden. As the 540,000 US troops began to arrive, Bin Laden openly criticized the Royal Family, lobbying the Saudi ulema to issue fatwas, religious rulings, against non-Muslims being based in the country. . . In 1992, Bin Laden left for Sudan to take part in the Islamic revolution under way there under the charismatic Sudanese leader Hassan Turabi. Bin Laden's continued criticism of the Saudi Royal Family eventually annoyed them so much that they took the unprecedented step of revoking his citizenship in 1994. It was in Sudan, with his wealth and contacts, that Bin Laden gathered around him more veterans of the Afghan war, who were all disgusted by the American victory over Iraq and the attitude of the Arab ruling elites who allowed the US military to remain in the Gulf. As US and Saudi pressure mounted against Sudan for harboring Bin Laden, the Sudanese authorities asked him to leave. In May 1996, Bin Laden travelled back to Afghanistan, arriving in Jalalabad in a chartered jet with an entourage of dozens of Arab militants, bodyguards and family members, including three wives and 13 children. Here he lived under the protection of the Jalalabad Shura [an advisory body or assembly], until the conquest of Kabul and Jalalabad by the Taliban in September 1996. In August 1996, he had issued his first declaration of jihad against the Americans, whom he said were occupying Saudi Arabia. "The walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets," the declaration read. Striking up a friendship with Mullah Omar, in 1997 he moved to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and came under the protection of the Taliban. By now, the CIA had set up a special cell to monitor his activities and his links with other Islamic militants. A US State Department report in August 1996 noted that Bin Laden was "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world." The report said that Bin Laden was financing terrorist camps in Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan. In April 1996, President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allowed the US to block assets of terrorist organizations. It was first used to block Bin Laden's access to his fortune of an estimated US$250-300 million. A few months later, Egyptian intelligence declared that Bin Laden was training 1,000 militants, a second generation of Arab-Afghans, to bring about an Islamic revolution in Arab countries. CIA tries snatch operation In early 1997, the CIA constituted a squad that arrived in Peshawar to try to carry out a snatch operation to get Bin Laden out of Afghanistan. The Americans enlisted Afghans and Pakistanis to help them but aborted the operation. The US activity in Peshawar helped persuade Bin Laden to move to the safer confines of Kandahar. On 23 February 1998, at a meeting in the original Khost camp, all the groups associated with Al Qaeda issued a manifesto under the aegis of "The International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders." The manifesto stated "for more than seven years the US has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsular, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbours, and turning its bases in the peninsular into a spearhead through which to fight the neighbouring Muslim peoples." The meeting issued a fatwa. "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to." Bin Laden had now formulated a policy that was not just aimed at the Saudi Royal Family or the Americans, but called for the liberation of the entire Muslim Middle East. As the American air war against Iraq escalated in 1998, Bin Laden called on all Muslims to "confront, fight and kill, Americans and Britons." 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings However, it was the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 220 people which made Bin Laden a household name in the Muslim world and the West. Just 13 days later, after accusing Bin Laden of perpetrating the attack, the USA retaliated by firing 70 cruise missiles against Bin Laden's camps around Khost and Jalalabad. Several camps which had been handed over by the Taliban to the Arab-Afghans and Pakistani radical groups were hit. The Al Badr camp controlled by Bin Laden and the Khalid bin Walid and Muawia camps run by the Pakistani Harakat ul Ansar were the main targets. Harakat used their camps to train militants for fighting Indian troops in Kashmir. Seven outsiders were killed in the strike -- three Yemenis, two Egyptians, one Saudi and one Turk. Also killed were seven Pakistanis and 20 Afghans. In November 1998 the USA offered a US$5-million reward for Bin Laden's capture. The Americans were further galvanized when Bin Laden claimed that it was his Islamic duty to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons to use against the USA. "It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims. Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded for it by God," he said. . . After the Africa bombings, the US launched a truly global operation. More than 80 Islamic militants were arrested in a dozen different countries. Militants were picked up in a crescent running from Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Yemen to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Phillipines." In December 1998, Indian authorities detained Bangladeshi militants for plotting to bomb the US Consulate in Calcutta. Seven Afghan nationals using false Italian passports were arrested in Malaysia and accused of trying to start a bombing campaign." According to the FBI, militants in Yemen who kidnapped 16 Western tourists in December 1998 were funded by Bin Laden. In February 1999, Bangladeshi authorities said Bin Laden had sent US$l million to the Harkat-ul-Jihad (HJ) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, some of whose members had trained and fought in Afghanistan. HJ leaders said they wanted to turn Bangladesh into a Taliban-style Islamic state. Thousands of miles away in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in West Africa, several militants were arrested who had also trained under Bin Laden in Afghanistan and were suspected of plotting bomb explosions. Meanwhile, during the trial of 107 Al-Jihad members at a military court in Cairo, Egyptian intelligence officers testified that Bin Laden had bankrolled Al-Jihad. In February 1999, the CIA claimed that through monitoring Bin Laden's communication network by satellite, they had prevented his supporters from carrying out seven bomb attacks against US overseas facilities in Saudi Arabia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uganda, Uruguay and the Ivory Coast -- emphasizing the reach of the Afghan veterans. . . But it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the original sponsors of the Arab-Afghans, who suffered the most as their activities rebounded. In March 1997, three Arab and two Tajik militants [from Tajikistan] were shot dead after a 36-hour gun battle between them and the police in an Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar. Belonging to the Wahabbi radical Tafkir group, they were planning to bomb an Islamic heads of state meeting in Islamabad. Fighting in Kashmir against India With the encouragement of Pakistan, the Taliban and Bin Laden, Arab-Afghans had enlisted in the Pakistani party Harkat-ut-Ansar to fight in Kashmir against Indian troops. By inducting Arabs who introduced Wahabbi-style rules in the Kashmir valley, genuine Kashmiri militants felt insulted. The US government had declared Ansar a terrorist organization in 1996 and it had subsequently changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. All the Pakistani victims of the US missile strikes on Khost belonged to Ansar. In 1999, Ansar said it would impose a strict Wahabbi-style dress code in the Kashmir valley and banned jeans and jackets. On 15 February 1999, they shot and wounded three Kashmiri cable television operators for relaying Western satellite broadcasts. Ansar had previously respected the liberal traditions of Kashmiri Muslims, but the activities of the Arab-Afghans hurt the legitimacy of the Kashmiri movement and gave India a propaganda coup. Pakistan faced a problem when Washington urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to help arrest Bin Laden. The ISI's close contacts with Bin Laden, and the fact that he was helping fund and train Kashmiri militants who were using the Khost camps, created a dilemma for Sharif when he visited Washington in December 1998. Sharif sidestepped the issue but other Pakistani officials were more brazen, reminding their American counterparts how they had both helped midwife Bin Laden in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s. Bin Laden himself pointed to continued support from some elements in the Pakistani intelligence services in an interview. "As for Pakistan there are some governmental departments, which, by the Grace of God, respond to the Islamic sentiments of the masses in Pakistan. This is reflected in sympathy and co-operation. However, some other governmental departments fell into the trap of the infidels. We pray to God to return them to the right path," said Bin Laden. Conundrums for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Support for Bin Laden by elements within the Pakistani establishment was another contradiction in Pakistan�s Afghan policy. . . . The US was Pakistan�s closest ally, with deep links to the military and the ISI. But both the Taliban and Bin Laden provided sanctuary and training facilities for Kashmiri militants who were backed by Pakistan, and Islamabad had little interest in drying up that support. Even though the Americans repeatedly tried to persuade the ISI to cooperate in delivering Bin Laden, the ISI declined, although it did help the US arrest several of Bin Laden's supporters. Without Pakistan�s support, the United States could not hope to launch a snatch by US commandos or more accurate bombing strikes, because it needed Pakistani territory to launch such raids. At the same time, the USA dared not expose Pakistan�s support for the Taliban, because it still hoped for ISI cooperation in catching Bin Laden. The Saudi conundrum was even worse. In July 1998 Prince Turki had visited Kandahar and a few weeks later 400 new pick-up trucks arrived in Kandahar for the Taliban, still bearing their Dubai license plates. The Saudis also gave cash for the Taliban's cheque book conquest of the north in the autumn. Until the Africa bombings and despite US pressure to end their support for the Taliban, the Saudis continued funding the Taliban and were silent on the need to extradite Bin Laden. The truth about the Saudi silence was even more complicated. The Saudis preferred to leave Bin Laden alone in Afghanistan because his arrest and trial by the Americans could expose the deep relationship that Bin Laden continued to have with sympathetic members of the Royal Family and elements within Saudi intelligence, which could prove deeply embarrassing. The Saudis wanted Bin Laden either dead or a captive of the Taliban -- they did not want him captured by the Americans. . . By now Bin Laden had developed considerable influence with the Taliban, but that had not always been the case. The Taliban's contact with the Arab-Afghans and their Pan-Islamic ideology was non-existent until the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996. Pakistan was closely involved in introducing Bin Laden to the Taliban leaders in Kandahar, because it wanted to retain the Khost training camps for Kashmiri militants, which were now in Taliban hands. Persuasion by Pakistan, the Taliban's better-educated cadres, who also had Pan-Islamic ideas, and the lure of financial benefits from Bin Laden, encouraged the Taliban leaders to meet with Bin Laden and hand him back the Khost camps. A life with the Taliban in Kandahar Partly for his own safety and partly to keep control over him, the Taliban shifted Bin Laden to Kandahar in 1997. At first he lived as a paying guest. He built a house for Mullah Omar's family and provided funds to other Taliban leaders. He promised to pave the road from Kandahar airport to the city and build mosques, schools and dams, but his civic works never got started as his funds were frozen. While Bin Laden lived in enormous style in a huge mansion in Kandahar with his family, servants and fellow militants, the arrogant behaviour of the Arab-Afghans who arrived with him and their failure to fulfill any of their civic projects antagonized the local population. The Kandaharis saw the Taliban leaders as beneficiaries of Arab largesse rather than the people. Bin Laden endeared himself further to the leadership by sending several hundred Arab-Afghans to participate in the 1997 and 1998 Taliban offensives in the north. These Wahabbi fighters helped the Taliban carry out massacres of the Shia Hazaras in the north. Several hundred Arab-Afghans, based in the Rishkor army garrison outside Kabul, fought on the Kabul front against [the Mujaheddin leader Ahmad Shah] Masud. Increasingly, Bin Laden's world view appeared to dominate the thinking of senior Taliban leaders. All-night conversations between Bin Laden and the Taliban leaders paid off. Until his arrival, the Taliban leadership had not been particularly antagonistic to the USA or the West but demanded recognition for their government. However, after the Africa bombings the Taliban became increasingly vociferous against the Americans, the UN, the Saudis and Muslim regimes around the world. Their statements increasingly reflected the language of defiance Bin Laden had adopted and wh! ic! h was not an original Taliban tr ait. As US pressure on the Taliban to expel Bin Laden intensified, the Taliban said he was a guest and it was against Afghan tradition to expel guests. When it appeared that Washington was planning another military strike against Bin Laden, the Taliban tried to cut a deal with Washington -- to allow him to leave the country in exchange for US recognition. Thus, until the winter of 1998 the Taliban saw Bin Laden as an asset, a bargaining chip over whom they could negotiate with the Americans. The US State Department opened a satellite telephone connection to speak to Mullah Omar directly. The Afghanistan desk officers, helped by a Pushto translator, held lengthy conversations with Omar in which both sides explored various options, but to no avail. By early 1999 it began to dawn on the Taliban that no compromise with the US was possible and they began to see Bin Laden as a liability. A US deadline in February 1999 to the Tatiban to either hand over Bin Laden or face the consequences forced the Taliban to make him disappear discreetly from Kandahar. The move bought the Taliban some time, but the issue was still nowhere near being resolved. The Arab-Afghans had come full circle. From being mere appendages to the Afghan jihad and the Cold War in the 1980s they had taken centre stage for the Afghans, neighbouring countries and the West in the 1990s. . . Afghanistan was now truly a haven for Islamic internationalism and terrorism and the Americans and the West were at a loss as to how to handle it. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/47cccB/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/VjIolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-~> to unsubscribe from this group, send a blank message to mailto:psychohistory-unsubscribe@egroups.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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Detecting Steganographic Content on the Internet
by aleph1＠securityfocus.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Detecting Steganographic Content on the Internet Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman Steganography is used to hide the occurrence of communication. Recent suggestions in US newspapers indicate that terrorists use steganography to communicate in secret with their accomplices. In particular, images on the internet were mentioned as the communication medium. While the newspaper articles sounded very dire, none substantiated these rumors. To determine whether there is steganographic content on the Internet, this paper presents a detection framework that includes tools to retrieve images from the world wide web and automatically detects whether they might contain steganographic content. To ascertain that hidden messages exist in images, the detection framework includes a distributed computing framework for launching dictionary attacks hosted on a cluster of loosely coupled workstations. We have analyzed two million images downloaded from eBay actions but have not been able to find a single hidden message. http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-01-11.pdf http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-01-11.ps.gz --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Detecting Steganographic Content on the Internet
by aleph1＠securityfocus.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Detecting Steganographic Content on the Internet Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman Steganography is used to hide the occurrence of communication. Recent suggestions in US newspapers indicate that terrorists use steganography to communicate in secret with their accomplices. In particular, images on the internet were mentioned as the communication medium. While the newspaper articles sounded very dire, none substantiated these rumors. To determine whether there is steganographic content on the Internet, this paper presents a detection framework that includes tools to retrieve images from the world wide web and automatically detects whether they might contain steganographic content. To ascertain that hidden messages exist in images, the detection framework includes a distributed computing framework for launching dictionary attacks hosted on a cluster of loosely coupled workstations. We have analyzed two million images downloaded from eBay actions but have not been able to find a single hidden message. http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-01-11.pdf http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-01-11.ps.gz --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Re: MARTIAL LAW Cypherpunks and terrorism
by keyser-soze＠hushmail.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

At 10:57 AM 9/14/2001 -0400, !Dr. Joe Baptista wrote: >I have many american friends who are very angry these days. Many very depressed. Many have lost a great deal. And this is fueling a potential war which will make vietnam look like a broadway comedy. many american boys are going to die over this one and i find that an even greater tragedy. "War is just a racket ... something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small group knows what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." --- Major General Smedley Butler, 1933

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