The
Jonathan administration secretly, and in open violation of lawful contracting
procedures, has awarded an Israeli firm, Elbit Sysems, with headquarters in
Haifa, a $40million contract to help it spy on citizens’ computers and Internet
communications under the guise of intelligence gathering and national security.
Elbit announced the
contract award Wednesday in a global press release but was silent on the
Nigerian destination of the contract. Its general manager, Yehuda Vered,
opaquely announced that “Elbit Systems will supply its Wise Intelligence
Technology (WiT) system to an unnamed country in Africa under a new $40 million
contract announced on 24 April for Intelligence Analysis and Cyber
Defense,” but effusively claimed, in the statement, that his company is “proud
to be selected to supply this unique system, which is already field-proven,
fully operational and customisable.
“Elbit Systems is a world
leader in the fields of intelligence analysis and cyber defense, with proven
solutions highly suitable for countries, armies and critical infrastructure
sites. We hope that additional customers will follow in selecting our highly
advanced and cutting edge systems in these fields as their preferred solution,”
Mr. Vered added.
Multiple and very
reliable sources in the administration confirmed to Premium Times that Nigeria
is indeed the “unnamed African country,” and with details from the Elbit
statement, our sources say the contract will now help the Jonathan
administration access all computers and read all email correspondences of
citizens in what is clearly, an infringement on constitutionally guaranteed
freedom of expression.
No single policy of this
administration has so far affected, in one fell swoop, the lives of 47 million
citizens, a third of the Nigerian population and about four times the number of
voters who brought the president to power two years ago.
Nigerian netizens, the
horde of active citizens that use the computer and Internet, are the 10th in a
global ranking that make them 27 per cent of Africa’s total Internet users, far
ahead of Egypt [19th global ranking] and South Africa [37th in global ranking].
The growth path of the
Internet in Nigeria has also been dramatic, rising from a mere 200,000 Internet
users in 2002 to 47 million this year, according to data from the Global
Internet user, one of the Internet audit groups.
This development has not
always gladdened public officials in Nigeria many who have expressed open
displeasure at the use of the Internet by social media activists and the power
of its possibilities as an empowering medium for popular communication. The calls
for regulation have been loud in both the administration and in the Nigerian
legislature.
The earliest hint that
the Jonathan administration had desires to invade privacy of citizens surfaced
ealy April when researchers at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the
University of Toronto alerted the world that Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya were
deploying Internet surveillance and censorship technology developed by an
American company, Blue Coat, which specializes in online security. Blue Coat’s
technology will allow the government to invade the privacy of journalists,
netizens and their sources.
Its censorship devices
use Deep Packet Inspection, DPI, a technology employed by many western Internet
Service Providers, to manage network traffic and suppress unwanted connections.
Civic groups kick against
DPI because, they say, it makes it possible for censors to look into every
single Internet Protocol packet and subject it to special treatment based on
content (censored or banned words) or type (email, VoIP or BitTorrent
Protocol).
DPI not only threatens
the principle of Net Neutrality and the privacy of users, civic groups say, it
makes single users identifiable and, in countries that flout the rule of law
and violate human rights, often exposes them to arbitrary imprisonment,
violence or even torture.
While details on the Blue
Coat contract appears to have managed to evade scrutiny up till this point,
PREMIUM TIMES sources say the Elbit annunciation of the contract, opaque as it
was, terribly rattled top administration officials – from the presidency to the
National Security Adviser’s Office, and the National Assembly.
“The presidency had
wanted this contract to be a top secret,” said one of our sources. “The
presidency did not envisage that Elbit was going to make it public. Monitoring
computers and Internet use is a contentious issue and the National Security
Adviser had tried to keep the contract secret.”
Elbit says it will take
it two years to complete the project, by which time it claimed, the
administration will have “a highly advanced end-to-end solution, [to] supports
every stage of the intelligence process, including the collection of the data
from multiple sources, databases and sensors, processing of the information,
supporting intelligence personnel in the analysis and evaluation of the
information and disseminating the intelligence to the intended recipient…[that]
will be integrated with various data sources, including Elbit Systems’ Open
Source Intelligence (OSINT) solution and Elbit Systems’ PC Surveillance Systems
(PSS), an advance solution for covert intelligence gathering.”
The administration had
indicated in the 2013 budget that it would procure a Wise Intelligence Network
Harvest Analyzer System, Open Source Internet Monitoring System and Personal Internet
Surveillance System at a cost of N9.496 Billion ($61.26 million).
Now that the contract has
been awarded to Elbit for about $40million, it is unclear if the National
Assembly will raise questions as to what becomes of the extra $21million
earmarked for the project.
Investigations indicate
that in awarding the contract to the Israeli firm, no tenders or calls for bids
were made just as there were no public announcements. The contract was awarded
following a proposal from a single vendor who dictated the contract sum and the
terms of the contract.
The procedure for public
procurement of services as stipulated by the Bureau of Public Procurement
(BPP), the Nigerian agency charged with the duty of ensuring transparency in
all matters concerning government contracts, were largely ignored. In addition,
there are no public records indicating that the BPP approved this contract.
The manner of award
directly contravenes the 2007 Public Procurement Act. While the Act gives room
for single source contracts, the Elbit contract met none of the requirements
under which such special contracts could be awarded.
Section 47 (3) (iii) of
the 2007 Act stipulates that single source contracts are to be awarded in
emergency situations such as “natural disasters or a financial crisis”.
Presidential
spokespersons, Reuben Abati, and Doyin Okupe were not available for comments
Wednesday. They didn’t answer or return calls seeking comments.
Calls to Elbit’s
headquarters in Haifa, Israel, were also unanswered.
Shari Clarkson, a spokesperson
at the company’s subsidiary in the United States declined comments on the
contract saying only Dalia Rosen, a spokesperson based in Israel, could
comment. Rosen’s phone was unanswered.
Source: www.naija.com(http://www.collinsatos.com/2013/04/jara-tv-show-episode-99-with-cy.html)
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