any station come out and say that indeed that there is a family issue with the way the police operates in the country. so far, president even has been insisting that if there have been cases of abuses on part of the police being the responsibility of individual officers. however, in past days he did present a basic plan to reform the police. ah, hello again. the headlines on al jazeera us president joe biden is due to arrive in the u. k. in the coming hours as part of his 1st official trip abroad. the a day visit to europe will take in the nato and g 7 summit plus talk the russian president susan alan fisher's at the white house and says the pandemic will be a big focus of the summit. they're going to talk about the economy in how corporate

is impact to the economy, how they can recover for that. but also vaccines are betty key to the discussions, both with the g 7 and the e u as well. and, well, joe biden was leaving and he said they wanted to show china and russia that the u. g 7 is very much in that the difficulty is that they're not when it comes to vaccines. joe biden has said, for example, that he wants to see the patent lifted. so the total countries can afford to start a vaccination program. joe biden says he will revoke an executive order issued by donald trump that sought to ban the popular chinese own doubts tech talk and we chat. the us will review several foreign controlled apps to see if they posed a security risk. al jazeera is condemning a series of cyber attacks against its services. it says the attacks try to access, disrupt down, control it's news platforms. all attempts were thwarted since they began on saturday. the un is warning if

a major loss of life in eastern me and mar if no immediate action is taken. it's accusing security forces of indiscriminate air strikes against civilian arm groups have been resisting the military gentle, which has cracked down on the sense and seizing power in february. at least 10 workers clearing land mines in northern afghanistan have been killed. the government claims the taliban, but it denies responsibility. police say gunman entered the camp in babylon. province an open fire. a russian court has been hearing a petition to outlaw political organizations linked to jailed opposition leader like st. only if approve that will ban of all these allies from running and parliamentary elections later this year. moscow's top prosecutor accuses of all the and his supporters of trying to launch a revolution. those are the headlines on al jazeera inside story is coming up next . thanks for watching news.

news, news. news, police arrest hundreds around the world in an unprecedented thing. operation, weapons, and they control. so what the implication flow enforcement will you keep ahead of criminals? this is inside story. ah, ah, ah. hello, welcome to the show. i'm sammy's a than for 3 years, many in the criminal underworld thought they were operating under the radar,

organized crime, gangs plotted drug deals, money laundering, even murder. they had no idea detectives were monitoring them the entire time. police arrested hundreds of suspects in a global operation. cold trojan shields as the name suggests, it involved a bit of trickery. the gang thought they were messaging on a secure encrypted platform, cold and arm. but the app was controlled by a straightly and police and the f. b. i gave law enforcement agents an unprecedented insight into criminal activity as pull brennan explains. the global police rates have included the italian mafia, asian crime syndicates, drug cartels, and illegal motorcycle gangs. more than 800 arrests in 16 different countries, the criminal gangs felt that that communications were encrypted and secure. what they didn't know with the devices called anom had been developed by the f b i. in collaboration with australian and european police, the criminals using these devices believe they were secretly planning crimes far

beneath the radar of law enforcement. but in reality, the criminals were not underneath the radar. they were on it. criminal gangs today rely on secure digital communication. on the plan was a real slow burner. the 1st handful of compromised unknown devices were quietly supplied to criminals in australia, around 18 months ago, and built up a solid reputation among the criminal underworld. then when law enforcement knocked out the rival encroach athens guy e z c networks earlier this year, more than $12000.00, but the compromised anom devices were in circulation all around the globe. multi $1000000.00 international crime in pines were now openly visible to the f. b, i and police on in a criminal communicated in 45 languages. about things like dr. again, drugs, arms and explosive ram rate 80 and get it. dex armed robberies.

and last but not least, contract killings the coordinated rates around the globe have found more than $32.00 tons of various illegal drugs. hundreds of firearms and weapons have been recovered, and nearly a $150000000.00 in cash and cryptic currency has been ceased. the 3rd, mobile phone, encrypted, mobile phone networked, the compromise by law enforcement within a very short period of time. and i expect others coming. so who can you trust? there are still criminal networks in existence. there are other elicit communications networks still operating. but when police call this operation a watershed moment in global lauren enforcement, it's difficult to disagree, pull brennan, al jazeera, the. let's bring our guests into the show now that we have joining us from boston, glen call, former deputy national intelligence office of trends, national threat. i've been national intelligence council in cardiff, michael levy,

professor of criminology at cardiff university and in alexandria, virginia offer rise a former u. s. department of justice prosecutor, welcome to wal if i could start with glen. so this is quite an innovative and creative approach is almost like something out of a movie. how did it all come about? well i, i don't know this the, the details of this specific operation. but although it's, it is creative and i'm happy to be able to talk for once about a real triumph and dramatic success of the f. b. i. law enforcement, intelligence, and international cooperation. it's not an unusual operation. in many ways. i have worked closely with the bureau for, for decades, and they can do simply spectacular work. law enforcement is what they do. the agency tends to find fault with them more frequently on intelligence issues

because that's our be able to work in. there are rivalries and so on. but in law enforcement they can be spectacular. not at all levels. nick land the seems to be quite unprecedented to convince the criminals to actually well, basically turn themselves into informants. well, that's not surprising. i think the extent is surprising, since this seems to span 17 countries, at least, or i forget the exact number, but it's really global with hundreds, 800 people arrested in a whole range of criminal activities. so the scope i think is, is surprising, at least to me, but that there be multilateral law enforcement operations. this is, this happens frequently. and it's, it's a joy, frankly, to be able to speak about one of the successes since all of us, only become aware most of the time of the problems that, that my colleagues sometimes have. so all right is i'm surprised at the scope,

but not at the nature. i think i have the number, it's 18 countries, hundreds of arrests in 18 countries. professor michael, how much of a blow has this dealt to organize? crime? is this a knockout punch for them? i'm afraid it's not a knock out punch, but it will have been the blow. and one of the things that i'd like to see going forwards is a lot more analysis of what it tells us about the nature of criminal organization and crime networks and money laundering. networks because it's relatively rare, i accept what was said earlier, but it's relatively red that you get this kind of knowledge real world as opposed to relayed by informants, insight into the kinds of discussions and offenders well having amongst themselves . and it will lead to

a lot more distrust of technology by offenders. and in that respect to say, it's a punch, but we have yet to see what impact they will have on criminal math. it means the certificate going for some triumph but and it's a very unusual in terms of scale but, but whether it will really stop that many more drugs getting on the street so that many forwards from that. and then it's already disrupted some killings. and that's a good thing for sure, but the longer term impacts on markets. we don't yet know about also, how much insight has it given authorities into the world of global crime organized crime. i mean, as professor michael said, it's rare that you have this sort of level of direct access, you know,

not going through. i mean, i mean, i guess in the old days loan for some would work maybe for years just to plant one in former or informant inside the network. and now suddenly you have a lot of people giving you 1st hand what they're talking about. a new level of insight. yeah, you have all the details. you have all the details. you don't have to fill in the gaps and often when you're building the federal prosecutor, you're building huge cases. you have to fill in a lot of the details that you think that are there. i think one of the most interesting aspects of this is they closed the trap. now i would like to know why they closed the trap and i, i'm speculating, but it's probably because they had something really big that happened. because this would be an incredible tool to be able to use and continue to use. and just because you can, it's very prosecute each case that comes into your trap. there's other law enforcement tools that you can use to in order to make this effective. for instance, you can take little bits and pieces of the information you gather and you can

trickle it out to different law course agencies across the world. but because they close the entire loop on this, i would suspect there is something major that happened where they knew that they wanted to kind of lay it out or maybe it was, it was reached at some point. it was going to come out that this was going on. i think one of the most unique aspects of this is exactly what we're getting into. is that all right, professor michael. wonder what that something go ahead faster. i think it was probably the security of that bridge, but it was also that the missions in some of the jurisdictions were expiring. and i think they wanted to do a big concerted push, which is what's generated massive. and that's an interesting i am, i am sure there are people that are disappointed about that. i think there's a lot of people that i'm sure one of those to keep going. this is

a very unique and impressive. we've been tricking bad guys for a long time. i remember working on a case will be, you know, basically told people they want to prize and all they do is show up the claimant and it was just warrants for their arrest and they all showed up and we arrested them. but it was interesting to see the scope of this. it's quite impressive. glenda. he's a maybe along those lines. a statement that's been made by some of the australian officials was to the fact that, hey we, we always knew that there was going to come a particular point a day when we'd need to shut this down from your experience in an intelligence work, shall we say what does that, what impose is that expiry date? is it a breach, or is it a expiry of your ability or some license or warrant? well warrants is certainly the case. sometimes an issue for the law enforcement people west. so for, for us and the intelligence community pure purely intelligence community. but like

our colleagues share a moment ago when i 1st heard about this, one of my initial reactions was, well, lot of people are not going to be happy. no, no, until opperation operations officer ever wants to reveal the source or the method because then it is compromised and you can't use it again. so there are, there were compelling reasons. i think a couple were mentioned such as there were, there might have been events that needed to be stopped and can only be done so by acting or warrants were expiring. or there might have been freedom of information requests that came into play. i don't know but, but the reasons must have been compelling because you wouldn't want to give up this kind of tool. if i could at one point, i think this clearly is a, is a triumph. but like our colleagues have said, i'll echo it's not a i think a medium term, powerful success, meaningful short term. of course, it's a big problem for the people who have been detained long term. well, you know,

so long as there is a demand, people will find a way to provide a supply. and that fundamental use the issue i, i spoke with the head of our naval forces, coast guard charter narcotics operations for the southern part of the united states . and he told me he had this is a few years ago, 12 ships to cover an area going from i think north carolina to the tip of south america. that's a lot of water to cover with 12 ships. and the head of the car narcotic center, told me one time that all the operations that, that institution in the f b i had done over the years had never materially affected the price of any, any illegal drug on the street. so, so long as there is a demand, people will be creative and will have to use a new iteration of what we just discover. professor michael can they can loan force,

they continue to use this technique going forward. now that the cats out of the bag working they'll have to find a similar own tray. i mean, yeah. so the smooth running of a criminal enterprise, they would want that level of kind of seat as they believe it secret interchange which smoothed the passive offender cooperation. but so i think that creates the opportunity for the insertion of this kind of technique. so people on both sides will be searching both to insert it and to stop. it means that is like the sting operations that were mentioned earlier that they have a disruptive effect for a while. and then if you like the needs criminal collaboration generates its own demand. and if the authorities and can produce the

supply, then this sort of thing might happen again. so this might continue off the other, any civil liberties issues to think about here when you're traditionally doing maybe showing, call it traditional law enforcement sort of spying and ease dropping. you might need to get, you know, clearance from a judge, a court order. you might need, if you trying to use one of the existing apps to go through the company. what's that viber and say, hey, can you give us access? but if you own the app yourself, and if you push it out for winder and why they use the sand, the lack of oversight, you yeah, i mean, this is a debate that we have to have him when you volunteer and you avail yourself to an app you do lose some of those rights. one of the issues that i kind of see is that, you know, our laws, especially united states, are really designed and they're still written for the old, you know, trap and trace and title 3 wiretaps where you're plug in the operators literally

plugging, you know, a plugs into different holes in order to connect mines, and that is the way that our title 3, which is our wire tap law and other laws were drafted and many countries have kind of model. there was after ours, one of the issues with this is because technology has changed so quickly is that we don't really have the civil liberty trail is not really keeping up. i don't know if there was any judicial interference or oversight over this, this law. now there will be on the prosecutor said something. glenn said that was really profound, was talk about, you know, the procedures and the source and method is really one of the things that they, that they want to protect. and there's always that tension between intelligence and law enforcement because intelligence wants to protect source methods, law enforcement, the good bad guys in jail. and that tension is usually where civil liberties comes to play. and we have classified information procedure act, which allows us to do certain things behind the veil. but at the end of the day,

if we want to put bad people in prison in the united states, we have to release discovery. and i think one of the things about this effort, because now it's in the open, they can actually do discovery and because they can do discovery, they can actually start putting people in prison and that is key. now, the civil liberty aspect of it. we're constantly having that, that interplay between civil liberties, technology and the way that bad guys do business and it's a very hard race to keep up with. i do enjoy the fact that for once i'm reading a cyber story where we're on the offensive instead of be on the details of which is the last year. all it's been, it's been decent. so this is, this is great news regards. i'd like to add a point on the civil liberties. if i could please go ahead glen. yeah, the conventional wisdom in the united states and then everywhere really certainly for 20 years and perhaps for, for

a lot of that has been that the us intelligence community, specifically this is a concern to me from my career. of course, it has been is a threat to the civil liberties and has broken the law and ignored them, flaunted its power as opposed to its obligations and repeated independent analyses of the national security agencies. those are the people who, who tap the phones and capture radio transmissions, and sean, or the intelligence officers and the ca, who are human operations, or do physical penetration or facility say, have somehow infringed civil liberties. but all of the studies have shown that of the dozens of millions of instances, of taps of conversations or something. i think they were 80 instances that they broke the law and 75 or something of those were inadvertent

and then rectify, rectify they, they were expunged. or not used in any way. i can tell you from 1st things when i talked about the known and analyzed cases though, right? oh, well that, that dramatically mischaracterized is actually not intentionally the extent of the analysis. the, i think it was the congress of the department justice or an independent investigator. all of the above looked at several of the national security agencies programs and found that actually they did not in any, almost any case, almost any case break the law. what they did was, and this is objectionable to many, but it's not your legal was they would capture transmission say, so you call me or i call somebody in europe, but they did not use it. it's sitting what some of getting into message. it can only be access if there is probable cause. alright, can you,

let's come back. i mean, that's a big discussion about the capture of method dancer in the picture. you can or cannot form about someone and how intrusive that is and how legal or not. but professor, i'm wondering, does it make sense? i mean, if law enforcement was already putting this program together, might you be tempted to think that they may have also thought about stage 2 already? there may be all the apps which are already out there. should we assume that this was the only one that they thought to put together? well, i mean that the, lurking down the hope to hoping to keep in mind that the offenders so that they won't use the next one unless they have it, in which case we not forget one of the arrival at schools, sky, global and the authorities rated that and close it down, that drove more offenders towards the more unknown one. you know,

the authorities will only fit by on the what, who we call the bad guys to spy on suspected criminals? yeah, i mean that, that is, that seems to be the object to, i mean it's, i understand that the f b, i did not use this in a widespread away within the united states. and that's one of the reasons why this is i should be international case because of concerns about powers and, and interested surveillance. i mean, if you're getting out 12010 fed, inconceivable somebody might give one out to i don't know if i missed or so somebody that's not directly involved in criminal activity. you may have given a limitation, rules. ok, let met professor michael, finish the thought, and then we'll come to you offer given the utility,

the very limited utility of leaves particular handsets, which didn't have any other realistically. and the other apps on them. it wouldn't have been much use to a sexual partner except for communicating with one of the principal. so i didn't think that was that much of a risk in this. all right, go ahead offer. yeah, we have them as a i to teach limitation for the d a, b i. agents. and there are strict rules about how you minimize conversations that are not relevant out. but the thing that actually does most of the protection who has those strict rules is this. you talk with probably just, is there any over the it is an eternal rule, but i was going to say that the most protection comes from just a man. ours, we do not have the hours and the day to listen to conversation between lovers and

my experiences. when you're, when you're here in conversation between lovers or attorneys and their, their clients, you know, they turn the conversation. it's not just because of innovation is because they, they're actively trying to get evidence in order to proceed with intelligence in cases. and they just don't have the time to listen to all that. i mean, there is a body on the end of every single one of these conversations, reading these things, and then we'll talk about international, then you have all the translators involved. we do have some computer programs that can help out look for buzzwords, but i'll tell you bad guys are really sophisticated. i mean, i cannot tell you the coping system that the cartels would use in order to come up and talk about their business in a way that we could recognize. but at the end of the day, man, ours plays a huge part into ensuring that we are on the things that are important to us. okay, glenn, man, alice internal rules that might be, you know, it might work well in theory. is there a need to have some independent oversight? if this is a thing of the future that you know,

not only criminals are going to have to go deeper and deeper into this kind of technology, but law enforcement will. is that a need to have some independent oversight? well is there is, there's always a dilemma in intelligence. how do you keep something secret and have an outside oversight which is required for objectivity and fairness? and the in the us system the we have twisted ourselves into not trying to solve this dilemma, but i think it's done pretty well. actually one. all the institutions truly are profoundly law abiding, and if that officer breaks the law or does something questionable that he or she will at the very the suffer. and how is this ascertained? because there are inspector general's who travel around to from station to station office to office all the time and they conduct their reports and they are they are powerful and they do their jobs very well. supervisors will have huge

consequences if they have allowed something to occur one little and slightly different perspective on some of that of course. so because all of that is sort of internal relying, isn't it? well, the, the only oversight outside ultimate, these, the department of justice and that only, i don't mean to minimize the department of justice and our elected officials, the oversight committees who will then, who are empowered to take all sorts of steps to make sure that people like me or don't break the law and it really is a rare occurrence or have one quick and only be a moment. no running out of time. yeah, go ahead. i'm going to tell me if, if an american name or person was heard on a, an intercept of a conversation, and we didn't have a warrant, we literally had to stop the, the, the listening, we could not do it. and so even if we gave up information,

we just couldn't do it. all right, and it's a really fascinating discussion and i'm sure we could go on for another hour, but we are out of time. so let's thank i guess i'm should be back anyway guys to talk about this in the not too distant future. let's thank glen call michael levy and also riser and thank you to for watching. you can see the show again and all of our previous programs any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com for further discussion head over to our facebook page that facebook dot com forward slash ha inside story. can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a j inside story from me, sam is a than and the whole team here for now. the school by the news,

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