Military, Security & Surveillance

Activists have condemned Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia for lending $850 million to Mozambique in 2013 that was used mostly to buy military equipment, despite telling the public that the money would be used to buy fishing boats. Read More

Thales, the French aerospace company, is hoping to develop a weaponized version of the Watchkeeper drone to sell to Poland. This is despite a series of software glitches and accidents that resulted in many of the first 54 Watchkeepers that were delivered to the UK to be sitting idle. Read More

U.S. Air Force officials has begun to hire private companies to fly drone aircraft operating over Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The unprecedented move is in response to demands from the Obama administration to dramatically expand the drone war just as the Pentagon faces a critical shortage of military pilots. Read More

Hundreds of private sector intelligence analysts are being paid to review surveillance footage from U.S. military drones in Central Asia and the Middle East, according to a new report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Read More

Qosmos - a French technology company - is being investigated for acting as an "assisted witness" in alleged torture in Syria. The specialized crimes unit of the Paris Tribunal has agreed to study the use of Qosmos surveillance software by Bashar Al-Assad's regime, following complaints filed by two human rights NGOs. Read More

A formal complaint has been filed against Uber, the car ride company, by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-profit advocacy group. The NGO says Uber plans to use their smart phone app to access user's locations at all times, and to send advertisements to user's contact lists. Read More

U.K. asylum seekers have gone on hunger strike to protest living conditions at Harmondsworth immigration detention centre, which is run by Mitie, a British outsourcing company. The protests come months after Mitie took over from the Geo Group whose contract was canceled after prison authorities found repeated problems. Read More

Apple has agreed to allow the Chinese government run security audits on the new iPhone to prove that there is no back door access for the U.S. government. However, activists say that this agreement could have the opposite effect, allowing China to broaden spying on its own people. Read More

Local government officials have the ability to track individual drivers in the U.S. in real time and take pictures of the occupants of their vehicles, with new "truly Orwellian" technology purchased from companies like Vigilant Solutions, according to new documents uncovered by the American Civil Liberties Union. Read More

A federal jury has found three former Blackwater contractors guilty of manslaughter and a fourth guilty of murder for killing 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nissour Square on September 16, 2007. The men were private security guards hired to provide security to U.S. government employees at the time. Read More