*** A new emphasis on gainful employment in India

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By Jonathan Woetz

As India’s labor market shifts, it is time to focus on improved quality of work and the income derived from it, not simply the number of jobs being lost or created. 

Statistics showing that India’s overall labor-force participation declined between 2011 and 2015 have prompted a heated public debate about whether the country is experiencing jobless growth. Scratch the surface, however, and it becomes clear that Indian labor markets are in fact undergoing a significant structural shift, away from agriculture and towards the non-farm sector, particularly construction, trade, and transport. Employment in agriculture shrank by 26 million in 2011 to 2015, while non-farm jobs rose by 33 million over this period (exhibit). 

Exhibit 

*** “The Other Side of ‘the Biggest Political Story in China’”

“New York Times has dubbed internet sensation Guo Wengui “the biggest political story in China this year.” The Chinese billionaire, also known as Miles Kwok, has been streaming online videos of himself making allegations of massive corruption against the Communist Party of China’s top figures. His newfound stardom is his way of reacting to his own brush with the authorities; he, too, has been accused (he claims unjustly) of corruption. According to Guo, his family members have been jailed and humiliated, his staff members rounded up and allegedly tortured in detention, for a crime he didn’t commit.

Guo’s claims, which have so far gone unchallenged, charge China’s most highly placed with new depths of lowly behavior. He has accused, for instance, “anti-corruption tsar” Wang Qishan of being far more corrupt than any of the officials he has punished for the same crime. Wang’s family reportedly controls assets worth hundreds of billions of yuan, and travels the world in the only Boeing 787 ever to be repurposed as a private jet.

** After Raqqa, How the US Must Adapt to ISIS

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BY BRIAN MICHAEL JENKINS

What to do when ISIS goes underground, and other things to worry about after the caliphate falls. 

The last bastions of the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria – Mosul and Raqqa –could be liberated within months. But they will remain perilous places, and in some respects, the fall of Raqqa will complicate the conflicts that swirl through the region.

How might the U.S. have to adapt to ISIS after Raqqa?

ISIS GOING UNDERGROUND: Military analysts have already warned that the elimination of the Islamic State as a territory governed by ISIS will not end the group’s armed struggle. Its leaders spent years underground and can revert to a covert terrorist campaign. Even while pummeled and pushed back by Iraqi, Kurdish, and other ground forces backed by coalition air power, ISIS demonstrated its capability to simultaneously carry out terrorist operations in Baghdad and Damascus as well as in neighboring countries. That will continue and may escalate.

** Did the US Just Abandon Tibet?

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By Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma

Reversing its stand on Tibet policy and giving a huge jolt to the Tibetan aspirations, the Trump administration recently took a step away from precedent by proposing zero aid to the Tibetans in 2018. This move points to both the changing internal politics of the United States, especially after Trump’s election, and also the new geopolitics and emerging world order, which is overshadowed by the People’s Republic of China.

The U.S. “Tibetan Policy Act of 2002” clearly states that it is intended to “support the aspirations of the Tibetan people to safeguard their distinct identity,” including by supporting “projects designed … to raise the standard of living for the Tibetan people and assist Tibetans to become self-sufficient.” This act, a major piece of Tibet legislation, was enacted as law by President George W. Bush on September 30, 2002, as part of the U.S. Foreign Relations Authorizations Act.

Since the second half of the 20th century, the “Tibet Question” remained an important factor in the US-China relationship. The Tibet agenda of the United States was tactically inspired by a dual policy encompassing both a strategic and a pragmatic aspect. Strategically, the United States has consistently and explicitly supported the Chinese position that Tibet is a part of China. But at pragmatic level, Washington has been opportunistic in its dealing with Tibet and has been prone to wide fluctuations: the provision of financial and military aid to Tibetan guerrilla forces in the 1950s and ’60s; neglect and almost no official contact in the ’70s and ’80s; the enactment of the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002; and most recently the Trump administration proposal to withdraw all monetary assistance to the Tibetan community.

** Understanding the military buildup of offensive cyberweapons

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By Conner Forrest 

"Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?"

True geeks will recognize the above exchange as one of the seminal pieces of dialogue from the 1983 film WarGames, where a young hacker named David Lightman nearly starts World War III after gaining access to a powerful military supercomputer. The film was a critical success, and set the stage for a variety of films that explored the relationship between cybersecurity and the military.

WarGames, and films like it, were meant to be perceived as fictional. As time has gone on, though, the line between what kinds of cyberwarfare are possible, and what are science fiction has begun to blur. Computer programs like the Stuxnet worm, for example, have taken down large portions of government infrastructure, including centrifuges used in Iran's nuclear programme.

But, when and how did this happen? The rise of offensive cyberweapons has changed the landscape of cyberwar, from protecting against data theft to defending against physical destruction. To understand this rise, it's helpful to look at the history of such weapons.

Asia Is Trawling for a Deadly Fishing War

BY JENNY GUSTAFSSON

THALVUPADU, Sri Lanka — Stanley Cruz, a fisher in this beachside village on the island of Mannar off Sri Lanka’s northwestern coast, stands with his bare feet in the sand, holding up a green net between his hands.

“This is the kind of net, you see. Last week, we lost many hundreds of these. Twelve of us fishers, when we went out to get them in the morning they were gone,” he says.

He points toward the waters behind him: the Palk Strait, a narrow body of water separating Sri Lanka from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Cruz was out the night before, laying his nets in the sea, just like thousands of other fishers from both sides of the strait. But when he went to get them in the morning, they were gone.

“It keeps happening over and over,” says Mary Subramali, an elderly woman who cleans and sorts the incoming fish. “The trawlers come to take our fish and cut our nets, destroying them with their propellers. My son just lost his for the second time.”

She picks up a cold, slippery fish from a basket and severs its head and fins with ease. For her and others on the northern coast of Sri Lanka, losing nets has become a familiar story. Over 30,000 people from the minority Tamil community in Thalvupadu work as fishers, mainly on a small-scale, mostly earning less than $2,500 per year, about two-thirds of the islands’ average. Nets in these coastal societies are precious investments — even a small one costs $23, and the village has lost nearly 1,000 of them.

American GI Life In India During Second World War

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Shefali K. Chandan

American GIs were well-behaved and light-hearted than the British, and would become friends to Indians.

The GI life in India was popularised by the annotated photographs of American military photographer Clyde Waddell.

"Dear Mom, I got a valet", wrote one American in his letter home (from Calcutta) in November 1942. He had just discovered the bearers – Indian valets – who usually served British officers in India. Apparently, the bearers preferred American bosses because they were richer and friendlier.

“The bearer of an important English official recently deserted without so much as collecting back salary. He was finally discovered happily valeting nine American enlisted men – colored quartermaster troops. Earning twice his old salary, he was also becoming proficient at American slang and winning heavily at craps. After a life spent quietly pussy-footing through plush apartments, salaaming and calling all Europeans ‘master' and 'sahib', he was drunk with a life in which he indulged in horseplay with his bosses and called them by their first names. An old saying of the bearers in India goes as follows: Work for the English and sweat; work for the French and be well-dressed, work for the Dutch and travel; but work for Americans and be rich."

US Still Tilting at Windmills in the ‘Ghan: Why Is the US Sending 4,000 More Troops to Afghanistan?

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Sixteen years into its longest war, the United States is sending another 4,000 troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to turn around a conflict characterized by some of the worst violence since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. They also face the emergence of an Islamic State group affiliate and an emboldened Taliban, who by Washington’s own watchdog’s assessment now control nearly half the country.

In February, Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko, in his first report to the Trump administration, offered a bleak picture of a country struggling under the burden of a deeply corrupt government, a strengthening Taliban and a U.S. development budget rife with waste.

While the government of President Ashraf Ghani asked for a troop surge, at least one lawmaker, Nasrullah Sadeqizada, was skeptical of the plan and cautioned that any should be coordinated with the Afghan government and not be done unilaterally by the United States.

“The security situation continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan and the foreign troops who are here are not making it better,” he said.

At its peak, the war involved 120,000 international troops from 42 countries. So many in Afghanistan question whether adding 4,000 troops to the 8,500 U.S. soldiers in the country will bring peace. But failure could leave the U.S. vulnerable to an increasingly hostile Afghanistan and its growing anti-Western sentiment.

Pakistan’s Two-Pronged Game in Kabul

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BY ANAND ARNI AND PRANAY KOTASTHANE 

Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar speaks during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani 

Kabul’s tryst with terror seems never ending. The city was never really out of danger through the last two decades but the frequency, scale, and impact of the latest round of terrorist attacks is comparable only to the darkest days of the Afghan Civil War between 1989 and 1996. 

Now, there’s another common link between that tumultuous period and today’s chaos: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Though there is little to establish direct causation, but the strong correlation between Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s return to Kabul and the spike in the attacks deserves serious attention. 

Who is Hekmatyar? 

US Still Tilting at Windmills in the ‘Ghan: Why Is the US Sending 4,000 More Troops to Afghanistan?

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Sixteen years into its longest war, the United States is sending another 4,000 troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to turn around a conflict characterized by some of the worst violence since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. They also face the emergence of an Islamic State group affiliate and an emboldened Taliban, who by Washington’s own watchdog’s assessment now control nearly half the country.

In February, Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko, in his first report to the Trump administration, offered a bleak picture of a country struggling under the burden of a deeply corrupt government, a strengthening Taliban and a U.S. development budget rife with waste.

While the government of President Ashraf Ghani asked for a troop surge, at least one lawmaker, Nasrullah Sadeqizada, was skeptical of the plan and cautioned that any should be coordinated with the Afghan government and not be done unilaterally by the United States.

“The security situation continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan and the foreign troops who are here are not making it better,” he said.

At its peak, the war involved 120,000 international troops from 42 countries. So many in Afghanistan question whether adding 4,000 troops to the 8,500 U.S. soldiers in the country will bring peace. But failure could leave the U.S. vulnerable to an increasingly hostile Afghanistan and its growing anti-Western sentiment.

** One Belt, One Road: Why Trump Should Get Behind China's Economic Growth Plan

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Doug Bandow

Like Hong Kong, Macau enjoys special status within China. The Special Administrative Region is effectively governed by Beijing, but retains liberal freedoms reflecting its Portuguese heritage. Much smaller than neighboring Hong Kong, Macau relies on gaming rather than finance as its economic foundation.

The Special Administrative Region took a major economic hit in 2015 in the midst of the Xi government’s crackdown on corruption and ostentatious living. The flow of Chinese “whales” to Macau’s casinos slowed and the economy retrenched. Macau has since recovered, but its leaders hope to diversify for the future. To promote that end the territory hosted the international conference on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Macau’s development.

The initiative, also known as One Belt, One Road, was proposed by China’s President Xi Jinping four years ago. A priority for Beijing, it necessarily is a priority for anyone under Beijing’s sway. And while Western states have been understandably skeptical of the program, Xi’s plans have been boosted by the Trump administration’s retreat from the international marketplace.

Why the Belt & Road Initiative? Key drivers behind Xi Jinping’s grand project

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“Belt and Road” is the most discussed phrase in Indian foreign policy circles over the last month or so. And yet, we have an incomplete understanding over the factors behind this grand project.

At a simplistic level, it is either seen as a Chinese project to encircle India or as a project to deploy China’s potentially crippling overcapacity in the infrastructure sector.

This is where I found Nadege Rolland’s China’s Eurasian Century? to be of great help. Chapter 3 of the book lists a number of drivers behind BRI.

To make greater sense, I have classified the factors listed by the author into 3 categories: domestic, geopolitical, and geoeconomic.

“Zhōngguó mèng” — The Chinese Dream — is China’s equivalent of Achche Din

Domestic drivers

GCC crisis: How to resolve the diplomatic rift

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Beverley Milton-Edwards

A week earlier, Gulf media—including social media—had erupted amid reports that Qatari Emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, made critical remarks against America in a speech, as well as offered support for Iran and backing to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatari officials denied the reports and countered that state media had been hacked. As that crisis quickly turned into a rift with Qatar’s Gulf and Arab neighbors, the need for serious mediation to head off further trouble became obvious.

2014 REDUX? 

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), like other regional organizations, has seen its share of splits and disagreements. Past differences have blown up over border demarcation, energy exploitation, and foreig policy approaches. The present crisis, however, is by far the worst and most threatening in terms of politics, security and economy. In 2014, a diplomatic rift broke out between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain on one side, and Qatar on the other. Like the current dispute, that too centered on allegations about Qatari foreign policy, with a GCC statement charging that Qatar failed to “implement a November 2013 agreement not to back anyone threatening the security and stability of the GCC whether as groups or individuals—via direct security work or through political influence, and not to support hostile media.” In the spring of 2014, the three GCC states ordered their ambassadors out of Doha.

Backgrounder on Russia’s Military Intervention in Syria: 2015-Date

Russia’s announcement that the Islamic State group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria in late May — if confirmed — would be a huge military coup for Moscow as a key player in Syria’s civil war and strengthen its hand in future peace talks.

It would also mark a climax in Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, in which it has sided with President Bashar Assad’s government, from the first days of the air campaign two years ago to boots on the ground in the city of Aleppo.

The airstrike would also highlight the capabilities of Russia’s modernized military, which has tested new precision weapons in Syria.

Here are some key moments in Russia’s military campaign in Syria.

QUICK DEPLOYMENT

A series of major battlefield defeats suffered by Assad’s army in 2015 prompted Moscow to intervene to protect its long-time ally. On August 26, 2015, Russia signed a deal with the Syrian government on deploying an air force contingent and other military assets at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s province of Latakia, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite religious minority.

How Russia Targets the U.S. Military

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By BEN SCHRECKINGER

In the fall of 2013, Veterans Today, a fringe American news site that also offers former service members help finding jobs and paying medical bills, struck up a new partnership. It began posting content from New Eastern Outlook, a geopolitical journal published by the government-chartered Russian Academy of Sciences, and running headlines like “Ukraine’s Ku Klux Klan — NATO’s New Ally.” As the United States confronted Russian ally Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons against Syrian children this spring, the site trumpeted, “Proof: Turkey Did 2013 Sarin Attack and Did This One Too” and “Exclusive: Trump Apologized to Russia for Syria Attack.”

In recent years, intelligence experts say, Russia has dramatically increased its “active measures” — a form of political warfare that includes disinformation, propaganda and compromising leaders with bribes and blackmail — against the United States. Thus far, congressional committees, law enforcement investigations and press scrutiny have focused on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s successful efforts to disrupt the American political process. But a review of the available evidence and the accounts of Kremlin watchers make clear that the Russian government is using the same playbook against other pillars of American society, foremost among them the military. Experts warn that effort, which has received far less attention, has the potential to hobble the ability of the armed forces to clearly assess Putin’s intentions and effectively counter future Russian aggression.

Backgrounder on Russia’s Military Intervention in Syria: 2015-Date

Russia’s announcement that the Islamic State group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria in late May — if confirmed — would be a huge military coup for Moscow as a key player in Syria’s civil war and strengthen its hand in future peace talks.

It would also mark a climax in Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, in which it has sided with President Bashar Assad’s government, from the first days of the air campaign two years ago to boots on the ground in the city of Aleppo.

The airstrike would also highlight the capabilities of Russia’s modernized military, which has tested new precision weapons in Syria.

Here are some key moments in Russia’s military campaign in Syria.

QUICK DEPLOYMENT

A series of major battlefield defeats suffered by Assad’s army in 2015 prompted Moscow to intervene to protect its long-time ally. On August 26, 2015, Russia signed a deal with the Syrian government on deploying an air force contingent and other military assets at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s province of Latakia, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite religious minority.

In a matter of weeks, Russia’s military built up the base so it could host dozens of Russian jets. It delivered thousands of tons of military equipment and supplies by sea and heavy-lift cargo planes in an operation dubbed the “Syrian Express.” On Sept. 30, Moscow declared the launch of its air campaign in Syria — Russia’s first military action outside the former Soviet Union since the federation’s collapse.

CJCS Dunford Talks Turkey, Iran, Afghan Troop Numbers & Daesh

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By JAMES KITFIELD

Breaking Defense contributor James Kitfield spoke with Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during Dunford’s swing through Japan, Singapore, Australia, Wake Island, and Hawaii. BD readers know that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis promised Sen. John McCain yesterday that America would get a new Afghan strategy by mid-July. In this second part of Kitfield’s interview, Dunford talks Turkey, Kurds, Daesh (ISIS) and whether the US will boost the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan. Read on! The Editor.

BD: Just while you were meeting with your Asian counterparts in Singapore and Sydney, Australia, there were terrorist attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in London, Melbourne, and Kabul. What are we and our allies doing to try and contain the threat from ISIS’ foreign fighters returning to their home regions and launching attacks?

Dunford: One of the issues we talked about with our allies is that there are three pieces of connective tissue that unites these terrorist groups: the flow of foreign fighters, the flow of resources, and a common ideology. And we need to cut that connective tissue. A primary way we are doing that is through a broad intelligence and information sharing network that we have established with the members of the anti-ISIS coalition, who all share a common view of this threat of ISIS foreign fighters.

Philippine City is a Battleground in Global Fight Against Extremism

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 WILL EDWARDS

Last week, General Eduardo Ano, the Philippines Chief of Staff, said he hoped that the city of Marawi would be liberated from Islamist militants before June 12, the country’s Independence Day.

The deadline has come and gone, but the fighting continues. Islamist militants still hold about a fifth of the city of Marawi. Fighters from an ISIS-affiliated coalition formed from the Abu-Sayyaf and Maute groups, who seized portions of the city May 23, have dug in and are now repelling sustained air and ground assaults by Philippine forces. A military spokesman in Manila said that 58 soldiers and police officers and 26 civilians have died and that 206 militants have been killed. The spokesmen added that 100 more fighters may remain in Marawi, and though most of the city was evacuated weeks ago, 300 to 600 civilians may remain trapped within the city.

The Philippines has struggled with insurgencies for decades. Historically, its island geography complicated Manila’s centralized authority, particularly over the southern province of Mindanao where Marawi is located. Tensions between the Catholic majority and Muslim minority have generated religious strife. These conditions have produced several insurgent groups who ascribe to Maoist or militant Islamist ideologies. The latter have grown increasingly bold in recent years.

This Is How Israel's Air Force Dominates the Middle East

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Robert Farley

In its early years, Israel took what weapons it could from what buyers it could find. This meant that the IDF often operated with equipment of a variety of vintages, mostly secured from European producers. By the late 1950s, however, Israel had secured arms transfer relationships with several countries, most notably the United Kingdom and France. The relationship with France eventually blossomed, resulting in the transfer of high-technology military equipment, including Mirage fighters (and also significant technical assistance for Israel’s nuclear program). These Mirage fighters formed the core of the IAF in the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel largely destroyed its neighbors’ air forces in the first hours of the conflict.

Since the 1960s, the air arm of the Israel Defense Forces (colloquially the IAF) has played a central role in the country’s defense. The ability of the Israeli Air Force to secure the battlefield and the civilian population from enemy air attack has enabled the IDF to fight at a huge advantage. At the same time, the IAF has demonstrated strategic reach, attacking critical targets at considerable distance.

Military Omnipresence: A Unifying Concept for America’s 21st-Century Fighting Edge

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BY CHARLES F. WALDRETIRED

The Pentagon should converge its technological and doctrinal efforts towards a perpetual, networked presence that enables operations and awareness anywhere in the world. 

When the Royal Navy’s new steam-powered ships emerged victorious from the First Opium War in 1842, one British newspaper could barely contain itself: “Steam, even now, almost realizes the idea of military omnipotence and military omnipresence; it is everywhere, and there is no withstanding it.” 

One hundred years later, Wernher von Braun, a German engineer who’d been secretly whisked away to the United States, suggested a different approach: an armed space station into low earth orbit. As he put it, “Our space station could be utilized as a very effective bomb carrier, and the nation who owns such a bomb-dropping space station…will have military omnipresence.”

Today, in the face of other nations’ advances and area-denial strategies, the U.S. Department of Defense is looking for the next set of technological breakthroughs that will allow the military to engage “at the time and place of our choosing.” But unlike steam engines or space stations, the technologies and supporting architectures that can actually establish omnipresence today are possible.

Modern Wars Are a Nightmare for the US Army’s Official Historians

Adin Dobkin

The Atlantic

When Major Spencer Williams was ordered to “shut down shop and move out” of Afghanistan in 2005, he closed his final message from the field as he always did—quoting a long-dead historian. “Plant yourself not in Europe but in Iraq; it will become evident that half of the roads of the Old World lead to Aleppo, and half to Bagram.”

Williams made up one-third of the U.S. Army’s historical field staff in Afghanistan—a team directed to cover the breadth of the country, vacuuming up media, documents, and oral histories so that some future soldier or academic could better understand the course of the war and how one might respond to circumstances should they arise again. The war offered more than enough material to keep Williams and the others busy, but they weren’t able to communicate the importance of that work to those leading the mission in the country. Following a command from the highest-ranking officer in Afghanistan, the historians were on their way out of Kabul.

It would be almost two years until another team came back into the country. In that time, units cycled in and out of the war zone, each adding a small drop to the bucket of the longest U.S. military engagement in history. Whenever a unit prepared for the return trip home, its soldiers collected their gear, prepared the site for the following unit, wiped local servers, and allowed the details of the prior months to fade.

A Cyber Attack By An Enemy Nation Could Cause Mass Casualties In US, Says New Documentary

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This week, security experts warned that a new computer virus could cause mass power outages — a scenario that could prompt life-and-death emergencies across the globe. In an assessment of the circumstances surrounding a blackout in Kiev, analysts at the security firm Dragos said they discovered “the first ever malware framework designed and deployed to attack electric grids,” and concluded that the software could be easily changed to attack other critical infrastructure all over the world. They said the relatively limited attack in Kiev “may have been more of a proof-of-concept attack than a full demonstration” of the total power of the cyberweapon.

The Kiev attack came only a few years after the 2010 Stuxtnet attack — a virus aimed at destroying centrifuges inside Iran’s nuclear facilities. While no governments have acknowledged their role in that attack, most security experts believe the malware was created by government agencies, and many assert that the United States and Israel were involved in its development. In a documentary called “Zero Days” that recently won the Peabody Award, Oscar-winner Alex Gibney explored the roots of Stuxtnet. The film looks at the question of whether or not the U.S. government is now using malware as an offensive military weapon — even as it keeps its cyberwarfare units a complete secret. 

In a podcast interview with International Business Times’ David Sirota, Gibney reviewed the Stuxtnet case, arguing that the secrecy surrounding the United States’ cyberwarfare programs is preventing Americans from weighing the pros and cons of a whole new kind of warfare that could cause mass casualties at home and throughout the world. Without an open debate like the one that unfolded at the beginning of the nuclear weapons era, Gibney says, Americans are unable to consider whether to constrain such weapons — and whether such weapons will inevitably be turned against the U.S. itself.

Infographic Of The Day: The World's Biggest Data Breaches

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Before 2009, the majority of data breaches were the fault of human errors like misplaced hard drives and stolen laptops, or the efforts of “inside men” looking to make a profit by selling data to the highest bidder. Since then, the volume of malicious hacking (shown in purple) has exploded relative to other forms of data loss.

From Millions to Billions

Increasingly sophisticated hacking has altered the scale of data loss by orders of magnitude. For example, an “inside job” breach at data broker Court Ventures was once one of the world’s largest single losses of records at 200 million.

However, it was eclipsed in size shortly thereafter by malicious hacks at Yahoo in 2013 and 2014 that compromised over 1.5 billion records, and now larger hacks are increasingly becoming the norm.

Small But Powerful

Requests for data FB

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We respond to valid requests relating to criminal cases. Each and every request we receive is checked for legal sufficiency and we reject or require greater specificity on requests that are overly broad or vague.

Request Type Total Requests Users/Accounts Requested Percentage of Requests Where Some Data Produced Legal Process 7,210 9,803 51.84%

Emergency 79 129 60.76%

Total 7,289 9,932 51.94%

Preservation requests

We will take steps to preserve account records in connection with official criminal investigations for 90 days pending our receipt of formal legal process.

Preservation Requests Users/Accounts Requested 917 1,463

Opinion: Google is the truly chilling global spy network

John Naughton

When Edward Snowden first revealed the extent of government surveillance of our online lives, the then foreign secretary, William (now Lord) Hague, immediately trotted out the old chestnut: “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.” This prompted replies along the lines of: “Well then, foreign secretary, can we have that photograph of you shaving while naked?”, which made us laugh, perhaps, but rather diverted us from pondering the absurdity of Hague’s remark. Most people have nothing to hide, but that doesn’t give the state the right to see them as fair game for intrusive surveillance.

By now, most internet users are aware that they are being watched, but may not yet appreciate the implications of it

During the hoo-ha, one of the spooks with whom I discussed Snowden’s revelations waxed indignant about our coverage of the story. What bugged him (pardon the pun) was the unfairness of having state agencies pilloried, while firms such as Google and Facebook, which, in his opinion, conducted much more intensive surveillance than the NSA or GCHQ, got off scot free. His argument was that he and his colleagues were at least subject to some degree of democratic oversight, but the companies, whose business model is essentially “surveillance capitalism”, were entirely unregulated.