The federal government monitors us all

The article is quite long but worth reading. In a nutshell: The Swiss intelligence service collects data on everything that comes through the Swiss “fibres” by machine and then sorts it out by hand, despite denying mass surveillance during the vote in 2017. I feel here Fichenaffäre vibes.

https://www.republik.ch/2024/01/09/der-bund-ueberwacht-uns-alle

Some parts translated into english:

>__Before the vote on the Intelligence Service Act, the Federal Council promised that there would be no blanket surveillance of the population. But today, cable reconnaissance is just that: a programme for mass surveillance. The series on the Swiss surveillance state__

……

>__The reality__

>This research shows that not a single one of these promises has been kept. Exclusive documents – court files and official correspondence – available to Die Republik provide the first insight into the intelligence service’s approach to cable reconnaissance. They show:

>1 . Since the law came into force in 2017, the internet traffic of Swiss has been read on a massive scale. In court documents, the Defence Department __admits that the content of “domestic” communication is read and analysed. And: all data is stored for later searches.__

>2. One consequence of this is that __journalists can no more technically guarantee source protection than lawyers can guarantee attorney-client privilege.__ This is because the ZEO cyber centre and the intelligence service do not explicitly protect these professional groups – and their communications may therefore be forwarded to the intelligence service.

>3. In 2023, the intelligence service even took __steps to further expand cable reconnaissance.__ Smaller companies received a request to prepare their infrastructure for surveillance by the ZEO service.

>4. the intelligence service and the ZEO __approach Swiss companies directly for cable tapping__ that do not offer any cross-border data traffic themselves. This approach contradicts the assertions of the intelligence service that only providers with cross-border lines are tapped.

….

>__The “Swiss Internet” and the “fibre to Syria”__

>Let’s first address the question: Which cables are being monitored? In a statement submitted to the Federal Administrative Court, the intelligence service writes that “only those physical connections” are selected that “contain cross-border data traffic (…) from a region relevant to a specific cable reconnaissance mission”. The intelligence service therefore claims that tapping only takes place on those cables that connect Switzerland with other countries. It is therefore saying that it is able to identify the fibres that are used to communicate between Switzerland and Syria, for example. It registers when, for example, “a lot of traffic passes through to Syria on one fibre. This fibre is then processed further.”

>At the request of the Republic, this claim is repeated and a graphic is sent as evidence to show how the service “only selects fibres of the cable” that contain “communications from a specific region” such as Syria or Iraq.

>In its correspondence with the Digital Society, the intelligence service repeatedly emphasises that “purely domestic communication” (for example from Geneva to St. Gallen) is not recorded at all. Communication traffic between two people from Switzerland takes place within the country’s borders: “As a rule, the Internet sends packets to their destination via the shortest route”, according to a letter from the intelligence service.

>These explanations of how the Internet works are more than questionable: they are objectively wrong. And they reveal a highly adventurous understanding of how the Internet works.

by BezugssystemCH1903