Surveillance Society
A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for police to take a DNA swab from anyone they arrest for a serious crime, endorsing a practice now followed by more than half the states as well as the federal government.
Supreme Court says Police can collect DNA from arrestees, 6/3/13
There is no such thing as privacy in America anymore, as evidenced by the fact that our own government violates the Constitution's Fourth Amendment on a daily basis - for our own good, of course.
US government records ALL private telephone calls, 5/28/13
This video is a resource for all those who oppose to Smart Meters and other digital utility meters.
To Utility Companies (RE: Smart Meters), 3/13/13
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court disemboweled the Fourth Amendment. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that citizens cannot challenge government wiretapping laws, in particular the unconstitutional Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and, more recently, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008
It’s Official, the Fourth Amendment is Dead, 2/28/13
According to a Request for Information (RFI) posted on the FedBizOpps website on January 18 (PDF), the DHS, in tandem with the Secret Service, “Is seeking information on commercially available gunshot detection technologies for fixed site surveillance applications. Typical coverage areas are expected to be from 10s to 100s of acres per site, located within urban areas. Due to the secure nature of these sites, a high gunshot detection rate (>95%) is strongly desired while daily, operational monitoring of the system by external parties is undesirable.”
DHS Looks To Install Microphones In “Urban Areas” That Can Listen to Conversations, 1/21/13
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you've got nothing to worry about, right? That seems to be the pervasive logic of an increasing number of government officials and agencies that have forgotten the uniquely American legal principle of being presumed innocent until proven guilty. How else to explain the acceptance and widespread employment of technology that gathers potential evidence on everyone indiscriminately, whether they've been suspected of creating a crime or not?
Rapid DNA analyzers coming to every police station and TSA checkpoint in America, 1/10/13
New York’s “Journal News” ignited a fierce debate Sunday after publishing the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in two New York counties. They are actively working on acquiring data for a third county.
Fury After Paper Publishes Names, Addresses of Legal Pistol Owners in New York, 12/24/12
US cell phone service providers could be required to log personal text messages for upwards of two years if a proposal submitted by a group of law enforcement professionals can successfully plead with Congress.
Cops demand that Congress force telecoms to archive all text messages, 12/3/12
Just when you thought it was impossible for surveillance to get any creepier, a company has announced it has created mannequins with cameras installed inside that can be used to spy on shoppers and record their conversations – and that they’ve already been rolled out at numerous fashion stores across the world.
Cameras Inside Mannequins Spying on Shoppers, 11/21/12
The Petraeus scandal is receiving intense media scrutiny obviously due to its salacious aspects, leaving one, as always, to fantasize about what a stellar press corps we would have if they devoted a tiny fraction of this energy to dissecting non-sex political scandals (this unintentionally amusing New York Times headline from this morning - "Concern Grows Over Top Military Officers' Ethics"
FBI Abuse of the Surveillance State is the Real Scandal Needing Investigation, 11/13/12
The newest version of the popular video game, "Assassin's Creed," is set in 1775, "a time of unrest in the American colonies." The theme is, of course, the Revolutionary War and it evokes thoughts of the colonists' struggle for freedom and independence from Great Britain.
Massive surveillance nation: Police now using license plate scanners to collect intelligence on cars, no crime necessary, 11/10/12
The surveillance society continues to grow unabated, as the city of Baltimore becomes the latest governmental entity to trample civil rights in the name of "public safety."
Baltimore announces city-wide surveillance roll out that records passenger conversations on city buses, 11/5/12
A privacy rights watchdog is suing the Department of Homeland Security for information relating to the agency’s practice of loaning out Predator drones to law enforcement agencies in the US.
Big Sis Loaning Out Military Style Drones To Sheriffs Departments: Privacy Group Sues, 11/1/12
A federal judge has ruled that police officers in Wisconsin did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they secretly installed cameras on private property without judicial approval.
Police allowed to install cameras on private property without warrant, 10/30/12
Verizon customers should be ticked off about the company's practice of selling user data to marketers. Customers' geographic location, app usage, and Web browsing habits are quite literally for sale. Verizon's defense is simply that users can opt out if they want to. Here's how to do it.
Verizon Is Selling Your Data–Here's How To Opt Out Of It, 10/23/12
Soon after the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report stating that fusion centers not only violate the constitutional rights of Americans, but are also a colossal waste of tax payer money, the committee issued a statement trashing the report.
Fusion Centers Are Designed to Spy On the American People, 10/11/12
Apple's launch of the iPhone 5 in September came with a bunch of new commercials to promote the device. But Apple didn't shout quite so loud about an enhancement to its new mobile operating system, iOS 6, which also occurred in September: The company has started tracking users so that advertisers can target them again, through a new tracking technology called IFA or IDFA.
Apple Has Quietly Started Tracking iPhone Users Again, and It's Tricky to Opt Out, 10/11/12
The first line to a recent story on Buzzfeed is enough to make anyone break out a tinfoil hat ... or at the very least buy a new App designed by Navy SEALs. "The first rule," Buzzfeed staffer Russell Brandom writes, "former Navy SEAL Mike Janke tells me, is that you have to assume the worst: 'Everything you do and say — email, text, phone — is monitored on some level.'"
Former SEALs Market iPhone App that the Government Hates, 10/10/12
Sheriff Gregory Ahern wants to put Alameda County on the map as the first jurisdiction in California to use surveillance drones for law enforcement purposes, turning to technology previously used to hunt insurgents in Afghanistan that would allow police to peek inside buildings to detect heat sources of people or the lights of indoor pot growing operations.
Sheriff Wants Drones To Peek Inside Buildings, 10/10/12
Don’t be surprised if you catch a federal fleet of sneaky spy drones soaring over your head in the near future, but don’t be too terrified — it’s all in the name of public safety. The US Department of Homeland Security is asking the makers of small unmanned aerial vehicles to submit their crafts for consideration as the agency ramps up the construction of a full-fledged surveillance state across America. The DHS plans to soon conduct drone tests over the Fort Sill, Oklahoma US Army base, and they’re already soliciting spy planes from the private sector so they can select what kind of UAV to use.
DHS to start testing drones over US for 'public safety', 10/9/12
Informational clip
Smart Card Alliance (Endorsers of Obama) Outlines U.S. Move to Chip-based Payments, Real ID Iowa, 10/5/12
Remember “fusion centers”? Under the Department of Homeland Security’s aegis, their bumbling bureaucrats unabashedly spy on taxpayers while painting anyone who opposes Leviathan in even the smallest degree as a terrorist. Or, as the DHS puts it, “State and major urban area fusion centers (fusion centers) serve as focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between the federal government and state, local, tribal, territorial ... and private sector partners.”
Doggone, They Lied to Us AGAIN, 10/4/12
You are being watched. The control freaks that hold power in the United States have become absolutely obsessed with surveillance. They are constantly attempting to convince the American people that we are all "safer" when virtually everything that we do is watched, monitored, tracked and recorded.
19 Signs That America Is Being Systematically Transformed Into a Giant Surveillance Grid, 9/28/12
It is easy to be lured into the techno sphere of walled gardens. After all, who wouldn't like a user experience that keeps out the cyber riff-raff of undesirable malware or offensive and questionable material. The problem is that the safe and cozy atmosphere of walled gardens can become a prison of censorship. Who draws the line for what is acceptable and what is not? Add to this features like the app lock on Apple iOS 6 along with the possibility of politically driven blackouts of photo/video functions for iPhones and it does seem as though an Orwellian world really is upon us.
Apple forgets to 'Think Different', 9/28/12
PECO is the acronym for Philadelphia Electric Company, which provides electricity to Philadelphia and its surrounding area. They are in the process of replacing standard analog electric meters with digital, so called, "smart" meters.
Deadly PECO smart meter burns up side of a house - And it's not the first, 9/13/12
InfraGard is an information sharing and analysis effort serving the interests and combining the knowledge base of a wide range of members. At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector. InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States.
Infraguard - a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector, 9/9/12
Birthmarks, be damned: the FBI has officially started rolling out a state-of-the-art face recognition project that will assist in their effort to accumulate and archive information about each and every American at a cost of a billion dollars.
FBI begins installation of $1 billion face recognition system across America, 9/8/12
“The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us, talking directly to us.” - Steven Spielberg
Minority Report: Fiction Has Become Reality, 9/5/12
The legal principle that a man can enter upon another man's property only by invitation has been part of English common law for centuries. In 1628, Sir Edward Coke wrote, "For a man's house is his castle and each man's home is his safest refuge." That used to be the case before the state walked right through our front doors in the name of tax collection, environmental protection, building code and bylaw enforcement, etc. Now, thanks to the smart grid, our safest refuge is about to be invaded by the folks who supply our electrical energy. In fact, they're going to sit right next to us on our sofas and they're going to insist on taking over the remote control.
Smart Grid is Control Grid, 9/5/12
As good as technology has been throughout the centuries for the development and advancement of Mankind, it is becoming a four-letter-word in the 21st century as it is being used more and more to rob us of our constitutionally-protected right to privacy.
X-Ray body-scanning vans raise major privacy concerns, 8/25/12
Advanced technology now provides government agents and police officers with the ability to track our every move. The surveillance state is our new society. It is here, and it is spying on you, your family and your friends every day. Worse yet, those in control are using life’s little conveniences, namely cell phones, to do much of the spying. And worst of all, the corporations who produce these little conveniences are happy to hand your personal information over to the police so long as their profit margins increase. To put it simply, the corporate-surveillance state is in full effect, and there is nowhere to hide.
How the Thought Police Use Your Cell Phone To Track Your Every Move, 8/23/12
Yesterday, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit failed to uphold the same kind of privacy protection for cell phones. In United States v. Skinner it ruled that because we all know cell phones have GPS transponders that can broadcast our locations at any time, we have no reasonable expectation of privacy when we carry them.
Federal Judge: Your Location is No More Private Than the Color of Your Car, 8/16/12
Shoppers could soon be automatically recognised when they walk into a shop using a controversial new camera. Called Facedeals, the camera uses photos uploaded to Facebook to recognise people as they walk in. Shoppers who agree to use the system, which has not been developed with Facebook, will be offered special deals.
Facebook camera that can recognise you every time you walk into a shop, 8/13/12
Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology — and have installed it across the US under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.
Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system, 8/11/12
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government is immune to wireless wiretapping lawsuits in a decision that the plaintiff’s attorney says releases Washington and the White House from ever being held accountable for spying on citizens.
Court gives government the go-ahead for warrantless wiretaps, 8/8/12
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is speading its tendrils across America like a cancerous tumor invading surrounding cells.
Responding to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the federal government launched a misguided attempt to consolidate terrorist information among different intelligence and law-enforcement agencies by creating a super-agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The gargantuan agency swallowed up the FBI, CIA, and Coast Guard while creating a new bastard child: the Transporatation Security Agency.
What began as an attempt to increase protection has become America's modern version of the old Nazi Gestapo.
Nazi Gestapo Checkpoints Spread Across America, 7/22/12
The recent roll out of smart meters has brought about mixed reactions from consumers. On one hand, there are activist groups broadcasting the health and privacy concerns that smart meters may potentially have. On the other, the utility companies are championing the advantages of smart meters in the face of a $3.4 billion fund stimulus given by the government for smart grid technologies (it sure is nice of them to be advocating energy savings while they line their pockets with all that money from the government).
How privacy-conscious consumers are fooling, hacking smart meters, 7/15/12
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
And without you knowing it.
Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away, 7/10/12
U.S. law enforcement agencies are tracking more cellular devices than ever these days but obtaining fewer wiretapping warrants, according to a report by Eric Lichtblau, published in Sunday’s New York Times.
Police spying on more cell phones than ever, 7/9/12
We have all heard a lot of discussion lately on the energy department’s move toward a “smart grid” and the use of “smart meters” fueled by the stimulus funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This smart grid promises to “increase energy efficiency, bolster electric power grid reliability, and facilitate demand response, among other benefits.” However the devil is in the details; as they say.
Smart Meter = Smart Surveillance, 6/30/12
A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. Those could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies.
In an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the way and adverse environments, researchers are mimicking nature.
US military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?, 6/20/12
Computerized detectors look for ‘abnormal’ behaviour. When suspicious individuals are seen, guards called. BRS Labs machines have been trialed in numerous locations. 288 cameras to be installed on subway in San Francisco.
New surveillance cameras will use computer eyes to find ‘pre-crimes’ in SF, 6/7/12
1. The NSA is building a massive data center in Utah to read every email you'll ever send.
2. The FBI maintains detailed files on numerous public, semi-public, and private figures.
3. Homeland Security is reading your tweets and Facebook status messages.
4. Your ISP may soon be required to keep files on what sites you visit.
4 high-tech ways the federal government is spying on private citizens, 5/7/12
In the late 1980s, in a decision it probably regrets, the U.S. prompted New Zealand to join a new and highly secret global intelligence system. Hager’s investigation into it and his discovery of the Echelon dictionary has revealed one of the world’s biggest, most closely held intelligence projects. The system allows spy agencies to monitor most of the world’s telephone, e-mail, and telex communications.
ECHELON: Exposing the Global Surveillance System, 4/26/12
There are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S, federal authorities have been forced to reveal following a landmark Freedom of Information lawsuit.
The unmanned planes – some of which may have been designed to kill terror suspects – are being launched from locations in 20 states.
Most of the active drones are deployed from military installations, enforcement agencies and border patrol teams, according to the Federal Aviation Authority.
Is There a Drone in Your Neighbourhood? Rise of Spy Planes Exposed After FAA Is Forced To Reveal 63 Launch Sites Across U.S., 4/24/12
If you want to protect your privacy then you must use effective financial privacy strategies. Financial institutions are supposed to keep their customers’ information private. It’s against the law for them to give out a customer’s personal information without his or her permission. In 1999, the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) was established to provide limited privacy protections against the distribution and sale of your financial information. Despite this Act some banks and credit card companies still can’t be trusted and you have to come up with your own financial privacy strategies.
Don't Trust Banks or Credit Card Companies - Protect Your Financial Privacy, 4/18/12
Most people think of a cashless society as something that is way off in the distant future. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. The truth is that a cashless society is much closer than most people would ever dare to imagine. To a large degree, the transition to a cashless society is being done voluntarily. Today, only 7 percent of all transactions in the United States are done with cash, and most of those transactions involve very small amounts of money. Just think about it for a moment. Where do you still use cash these days? If you buy a burger or if you purchase something at a flea market you will still use cash, but for any mid-size or large transaction the vast majority of people out there will use another form of payment. Our financial system is dramatically changing, and cash is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. We live in a digital world, and national governments and big banks are both encouraging the move away from paper currency and coins. But what would a cashless society mean for our future? Are there any dangers to such a system?
A Cashless Society May Be Closer Than Most People Would Ever Dare To Imagine, 3/30/12
Regular readers of NaturalNews know that we've been busy of late keeping track of your privacy in this Information Age, which is not easy considering all of the entities - public and private - who want to know everything these days about you and what you are doing 24/7/365.
NSA building massive spy 'data center,' tracking all private communication, 3/29/12
Using facial recognition to process surveillance footage isn't a new concept — Scotland Yard began using the technique in the wake of last year's London riots — but a new system developed by Hitachi Kokusai Electric could make the process quicker and more flexible than ever before. Shown off at this year's Security Show expo in Japan, the system processes footage from both still images and live footage, recognizing faces in real-time, and can search through up to 36 million different faces for a comparison in one second. Recognized faces are displayed as thumbnails and grouped with matching footage, allowing the operator to look at all of the actions of a given person immediately.
New surveillance system can compare your face against 36 million others in a single second, 3/23/12
If this question had been asked by a fictional character in a spy thriller, it might intrigue you, but you wouldn't imagine that it could be true in reality. If the Constitution means what it says, you wouldn't even consider the plausibility of an affirmative answer. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was written to prevent the government from violating on a whim or a hunch or a vendetta that uniquely American right: the right to be left alone.
Police State in Your Kitchen - CIA and computerized appliances, 3/23/12
Just like the highly publicized war on drugs that the US government has been waging – and losing – for decades, it is doomed to lose its surreptitious war on cash, because the free market can and will respond to the demand of ordinary citizens for a reliable and convenient money.
Can the US government get away with Banning Cash?, 3/21/12
It should come as no surprise that the "workers' paradise" of Sweden is the first country in the declining West (thanks to the establishment of mixed economies) to implement the Rothschild-Rockefeller dream of a cashless society. ("No Virginia—or should I say Ingrid?—those electronic entries in your Swedish bank account are not representative of gold, silver, or any other real commodity.")
'Progressive' Swedes Lead the Way Toward a Cashless Society, 3/20/12
As we have warned often here at NaturalNews, the concept of personal privacy - that quaint, Fourth Amendment constitutional protection that supposedly guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" - is all but gone these days, thanks in large part to the Information and Technology Age.
7 Effective Privacy Techniques for Reducing Risk of Identity Theft, 3/20/12
The Washington Post has done an excellent job discovering the scope and size of the intelligence community that poses a greater threat to Americans than Hitler, Russia, or Osama ever did. If defeating the threat of Hitler, Russia, or Osama was made easier by using Freenet, would you use it? Surveillance of citizens by government, surveillance of customers by corporations, private transactional databases, government transactional databases and other forms of search without a warrant are dangerous to a free society.
Bill Rounds: How Dangerous Citizen Dataveillance Is, 3/17/12
CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new “smart” gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”.
CIA Head: We Will Spy On Americans Through Electrical Appliances, 3/16/12
New York is poised to establish one of the most expansive DNA databases in the nation, requiring people convicted of everything from fare beating to first-degree murder to provide samples of their DNA to the state.
New York State Set to Add All Convict DNA to Its Database, 3/13/12
Police can search a cell phone for its number without having a warrant, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
Court approves warrantless searches of cell phones, 3/1/12
Overflying America with drones unrestrained changes the game. A "surveillance society" will be institutionalized to monitor, track, and record "our every move."
Given a bipartisan penchant for spying, expect the worst. Privacy, like other civil and human rights, is fast disappearing under policies in place or coming to destroy it.
Orwellian Drones: 'Eye in the Sky' Spying on Americans, 2/21/12
A bill passed in by Congress this week paves the way for the use of surveillance drones in US skies. The FAA predicts that by 2020 there could be up to 30,000 drones in operation.
Bill Clears Path For 30,000 Surveillance Drones Over US In Next Ten Years, 2/8/12
In another example that we appear to be rapidly moving into a cashless society, Bank of America in California refused to accept cash for a mortgage payment. The manager of the bank said it was against their policy to accept legal tender physical currency (aka U.S. dollars) as payment for BoA mortgages.
Bank of America Refuses Cash for Mortgage Payment, 2/5/12
Football fans, beware. "Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano joined NFL and other officials in warning that security for Sunday's game at Lucas Oil Stadium would be significantly heightened…" Whoa! Seems professional games have become so dangerous you’d better stay home this year.
And it isn’t just the Super Bowl. Those big, brawny guys at the NFL’s headquarters are so terrified that they "partnered" months ago with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect themselves.
What’s the threat?
You.
Oh, and your kids, too: the "family friendly" NFL ordered all 32 of its clubs last fall to grope every customer entering a stadium, whatever his age, regardless of her condition.
Super Bowl Security, 2/4/12
The Nine ruled on Monday in U.S. v. Jones (PDF here) that planting a GPS tracking device on a person’s car without a valid court order constitutes an illegal search and therefore violates the Fourth Amendment. Which is wonderful – and right – except it’s the exception that violates the rule.
Justices rule against police, say GPS surveillance requires search warrant, 1/25/12
Current events in India should serve not just as a warning, but also as a foreshadowing of the events to come in the Western world, specifically the United States.
Recently, India has launched a nationwide program involving the allocation of a Unique Identification Number (UID) to every single one of its 1.2 billion residents. Each of the numbers will be tied to the biometric data of the recipient using three different forms of information – fingerprints, iris scans, and pictures of the face. All ten digits of the hand will be recorded, and both eyes will be scanned.
India Implements First Biometric ID Program for all of its 1.2 Billion Residents, 1/12/12
These days, police don't seem to need a warrant to enter your home without your permission when you're not there. Well, at least not in Westerly, R.I.
According to a local report, crews from the local utility company, accompanied by cops, were going door-to-door to close off the gas meters of about 1,600 homes, under the guise of trying to fix a "distribution problem."
Now cops can enter homes to shut off natural gas valves, 12/30/11
There was a time when ordinary citizens still had an expectation of the right to privacy, even in public, but as technology has improved over the past generation, so has the government's ability to get around the Constitution and the rule of law when it comes to keeping the common folk under surveillance.
We're talking about more than just traffic light and city surveillance cameras. We're talking about the use of undercover police to infiltrate otherwise peaceful groups, and employing drones to spy on citizens without proper legal authority to do so.
Spying on Americans rising rapidly as warrantless use of undercover police, drones increases, 12/21/11
...The Brossarts may well be eccentric or even misguided. They might be regarded by some as poor neighbors. But only those with a unique gift for dishonesty – and a large measure of cravenness – could depict them as a Predator-worthy menace. The SPLC is amply endowed with the former, and Sheriff Janke's department apparently boasts a large measure of the latter.
As a result, we've seen the first test run of the vertically integrated Homeland Security State, in which your friendly local sheriff or police chief, using hit lists compiled by the SPLC, can call in the drones to help round up anybody he considers to be potentially troublesome.
Send in the Drones: Predator State Goes Domestic, 12/19/11
As much as many folks understand the real aim of the government's war on guns, less is known about the government's war on preparedness. Survivalists, off-the-grid folks, gun "nuts", and now, preppers who are determined to stay self-sufficient (and alive and crime-free) in times of hardship are being openly targeted by the feds.
...federal agents recently visited a Later Day Saints (Mormon) Church food storage cannery in Tennessee, demanding customer lists, wanting to know the identity of Americans who are purchasing food storage from the Mormons.
Confiscate Your Guns? How About Confiscating Your Food?, 12/10/11
A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. The manager informed the agents that the facility kept no such records and that all transactions were conducted on a cash-and-carry basis.
Feds Demand Customer Lists from Storable Food Facility, 12/9/11
If you regularly carry a cell phone around with you, you might as well say goodbye to your privacy. The truth is that any cell phone you buy is going to track you wherever you go 24 hours a day. Just as you leave "footprints" wherever you go on the Internet, so also your cell phone is constantly recording wherever you go in the physical world. Most people do not realize this, but the reality is that cell phones are tracking devices that governments, law enforcement authorities, big corporations and even stalkers can use to easily track your movements. If you do not know about this yet, then you are going to be absolutely amazed by what you are about to read. Not only do cell phones track you wherever you go, they can also be used to listen to your private conversations even when they are turned off. We live in a brave new world, and there are a lot of control freaks out there that love to monitor where we go and what we do. Unfortunately, it seems like every time technology advances, we lose a little bit more privacy. Eventually, we may wake up someday in a world where there is absolutely no privacy left.
Cell Phones Are Tracking Devices that Governments, Police, Big Corporations and Stalkers can use to easily Track Your Movements, 12/2/11
WikiLeaks has released secret files shining light on the mass surveillance practices of dozens of governments and the corporate contractors that provide the technology.
The whistle-blowing organization, according to a press release and a new “Spy files” section of the website, is “releasing a database of hundreds of documents from as many as 160 intelligence contractors in the mass surveillance industry.” This latest release – with the help of “Bugged Planet and Privacy International, as well as media organizations form six countries” including the Washington Post in the U.S. – includes 287 documents, but the “Spy files” project will be ongoing.
WikiLeaks Releases Documents on Government Surveillance Tactics, 12/1/11
An Android app developer has published what he says is conclusive proof that millions of smartphones are secretly monitoring the key presses, geographic locations, and received messages of its users.
BUSTED! Secret app on millions of phones logs key taps, 11/30/11
After months of debate, state regulators on Tuesday revealed a proposal that would allow PG&E customers to opt out of having a SmartMeter -- but at a cost.
Customers would be charged an initial opt-out fee of $90 and an ongoing monthly charge of $15. The initial fee would be waived for low-income customers, who would pay a monthly charge of $5. The recommendation, which could be voted on as early as January, only applies to customers within PG&E's vast Northern California territory.
State regulators reveal 'opt-out' plan for PG&E SmartMeters, 11/23/11
Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year. Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.
Malls track shoppers' cell phones on Black Friday, 11/22/11
When we first wrote about these evil "Smart Meters" well over a year ago, they weren't receiving much attention. But we saw them as part of a broader plan of the Anglosphere power elite to continue their quest for control over every part of people's lives. We figured the deployment of Smart Meters would go forward for several years without much resistance but we were wrong.
California Recall... Beginning of the End for Smart Meters?, 11/10/11
Credit Suisse AG, Switzerland's second-largest bank, has begun notifying certain U.S. clients suspected of offshore tax evasion that it intends to turn over their names to the Internal Revenue Service, with the help of Swiss tax authorities.
Credit Suisse's notification by letter, a copy of which was obtained on Monday by Reuters, says the handover of names and account details will take place following a recent formal request for the information by the IRS.
Credit Suisse will disclose names of U.S. clients, 11/7/11
If you live in the United States today, you need to understand that your privacy is being constantly eroded. Our world is going crazy, government paranoia is off the charts and law enforcement authorities have become absolutely obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, compiling information on all of us and getting us all to spy on one another. If you doubt that we are rapidly getting to the point where the government will monitor every breath you take and every move you make, just read the rest of this article. The truth is that the government is watching you more closely than ever, and they are spending billions upon billions of dollars to enhance their surveillance capabilities even further. If our society stays on this current path, we will eventually have zero privacy left. At this point, it is not too hard to imagine a society where we will not be able to say anything, buy anything, sell anything, assemble with others or even leave our homes without government permission. We truly are descending into a dystopian nightmare and the American people had better wake up.
14 New Ways That the Government Is Watching You, 11/7/11
As part of a federally funded project, public street lights will soon have the ability to record conversations, broadcast government warnings, advertise just about anything, and possibly even x-ray bodies for concealed weapons, just like the highly controversial TSA scanners. The street light surveillance systems are fail-proofed because they are linked together through underground cables and a wireless network, so if one goes out, the rest still work in tandem.
If you thought the Patriot Act was an infringement of civil and personal rights, wait until you get a load of this. Like some strange deja vu of the Nazi concentration camps, the manufacturer Illuminating Concepts is now installing hi-tech devices, paid for with tax dollars, which enable "big brother" to monitor, record, display, and announce just about anything he wants.
Homeland Security streetlights include surveillance cameras and loud speakers, 11/3/11
New street lights that include “Homeland Security” applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding.
The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.
New Street Lights To Have "Homeland Security" Applications, 10/26/11
If you buy or sell secondhand goods and live in the state of Louisiana, you can no longer use legal tender to complete such transactions. Ackel & Associates LLC (A&A), a professional law firm, explains that House Bill 195 of the 2011 Regular Session (Act 389), which was recently passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal, prohibits anyone who "buys, sells, trades or otherwise acquires or disposes of junk or used or secondhand property [from entering] into any cash transactions in payment for the purchase of [such items]."
Besides prohibiting the use of cash, the law also requires such "dealers" to collect personal information like name, address, driver's license number, and license plate number from every single customer, and submit it to authorities. And the only acceptable form of payment in such situations is a personal check, money order, or electronic transfer, all of which must be carefully documented.
Louisiana prohibits residents from using cash when buying, selling secondhand goods, 10/16/11
Roll call is going high-tech in Washington County, Fla. Rather than the usual name calling and response, students are now checking into class with finger scanning devices. And to keep better track of students from the minute they come under district supervision until they are delivered safely home again, the scanners are now moving from the school building to the school bus.
Florida School District is Taking Attendance by Scanning Students’ Fingers, 10/7/11
Protecting privacy protects peaceful protesters of any cause. Smart strategy is needed to prevent financial blockades, unjust police action and other tools that could be used to cripple protest movements. Using these privacy tactics and others in the book How To Vanish can help peaceful people avoid unjust actions from law enforcement around the country and around the world.
Occupy Wall Street Protester Privacy, 10/7/11
I have never liked GM’s OnStar system – in part because I don’t like the idea of my car that I paid for having someone else’s “black box” recording (and transmitting) data about how I drive, where I drive and even when I drive. I also don’t like that GM force-feeds OnStar to every buyer of every GM car – whether the buyer wants it or not.
GM Is Watching You, 9/28/11
More demanding rule-of-law requirements of government tracking of us are coming. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, have introduced the truly patriotic Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, supported by the ACLU, that "requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant before acquiring the geolocational information of a U.S. person."
This would apply, among other forms of such tracking, to cell phones. It would also require telecommunications companies (including providers of cell phones) to get our consent to collect data from locations where we use them. Where do we go with cell phones in our ears? These companies, without telling us, already convey this location information to the FBI without our knowing we're being tracked as we talk.
FBI is on your cell phone - Do you care?, 9/20/11
American Civil Liberties Union policy counsel and former FBI agent Mike German sat down with Reason.tv to discuss the expansion of surveillance programs since 9/11, noting the government and law enforcement agencies had become obsessed with collecting data.
“We’ve moved away from surveillance based on individualized suspicion, the Fourth Amendment standard of probable cause and a warrant has basically evaporated,” German said. “And the government can now collect information about people it doesn’t even suspect of wrongdoing.”
ACLU’s Mike German: Domestic surveillance no longer based on probable cause, 9/12/11
Six years after Treasury identified that vulnerability, concern that drug smugglers and terrorists are exploiting it is driving the federal government to change the rules for issuing and using prepaid cards, particularly high-value reloadable cards like the cash cards you might take with you on vacation.
By making it harder to get prepaid cards without subjecting buyers to government scrutiny, regulators and lawmakers hope to make it easier to detect patterns of money movement that could signal something nefarious. But card issuers and some business experts warn that the expense and paperwork involved in the new restrictions, which require issuers to keep records on who bought how much for five years, could drive smaller card operations out of the market.
U.S. aims to track 'untraceable' prepaid cash cards, 9/1/11
Smart meters are the latest technological imposition of utilities generating power to force with no option to opt out a system of control of billing power consumption of consumers at peak energy time rates. This should come as no surprise, but Smart Grid is an Agenda 21 population control Carbon Tax based population TAX ! There is no Federal Law mandating Smart Meters, and even if there was it would be between the Utilities and Federal Regulators and cannot include a non-contracted third party, the consumer. It violates the Federal Wiretapping Laws and clearly builds databases for sale of private information of power usages with the electrical signature of every appliance and time use in the home. This is powerful marketing and control data in the hands of control-freak bureaucrats and marketing gurus.
Smart Meters thus have two primary areas of contention. First, they are a bold invasion of privacy and purport to have authority to gather data and modify behavior and consumption patterns of unwitting power consumers and market data to third parties and government and policing agencies. Second, they are a Class 2b Carcinogen even by WHO standards, and the mountain of toxic data is mounting that Smart Meters are thousands of times more toxic than even cell phones, causing cancer, insomnia, and numerous medical problems. The biological basis is energy transferred to cell membranes and molecules that open calcium and other ion channels and disrupt the non-covalent Van der Waals hydrogen bonds that hold the fragile double helix of DNA intact and cause 4D enzyme active site disruption with disturbed enzyme KMax and nutrient-enzyme interactions and cellular communications.
Smart Meters - A Call For Public Outrage, 8/30/11
There is a Facebook site devoted to stopping smart meters. There is also plenty of financial support pushing this kind of technology. We have only just begun to explore what they are good for or not good for, and some problems will be resolved as technology continues to unfold it secrets.
Smart Meters - they know when you've been sleeping, 8/25/11
Mayor Bloomberg wants to blanket the city with red light cameras - and maybe even publish the names of scofflaws who blow through intersections.
"I think we should have 'em on every corner if we could," the mayor said of the controversial cameras that trigger tickets to drivers caught running red lights.
"If people didn't go through red lights, you'd save a lot of lives of elderly and kids," Hizzoner told reporters Monday during a press conference.
Bloomberg was responding to a Daily News report on the $52 million in fines the city issued last year to drivers caught by cameras - really a $55 million haul with penalties included.
Mayor Bloomberg pushes for traffic light cameras 'on every corner', 8/22/11
Are you ready for Big Brother 2.0? If you think that the hundreds of ways that the government watches, monitors, tracks and controls us now are bad, just wait until you see what is coming. We live in an age when paranoia is running wild. As technology continues to develop at an exponential pace, governments all over the globe are going to discover a multitude of new ways to spy on us and control our behavior. In a world where everyone is a “potential terrorist”, we are told that things like liberty, freedom and privacy are “luxuries” that we can no longer afford. We are assured that if we just allow the government to watch all of us and investigate all of us that somehow that will keep us all safe. But it isn’t just the government that is watching us. Now we are being taught to spy on one another and to report any trace of “suspicious activity” to the government immediately. The entire civilized world is being transformed into one giant prison grid, and many of the new technologies that are now being introduced are going to make things even worse.
The following are 10 new ways that the government will be spying on you and controlling your behavior...
Are you ready for Big Brother 2.0?, 8/19/11
Despite the fact that I try to keep up with the massive assault against we the people by the Outlaw Congress and too many new laws coming out of our state legislatures, no one can keep up with everything. Which is why I had only read a little here and there about something called 'smart meters'. Then, of course, the problem came knocking at my door.
Devvy Kidd: My fight against the 'smart meter', 8/15/11
The federal government has enormous control over the States with the DOE's Super Grid. The federal government spent billion in bribe money to States to accept Smart Grids and Smart Meters in opposition of public health and interest.
Smart Meter Slavery, 8/5/11
See also: Smart Meters, 6/29/11
Chip maker NXP, biometrics hardware vendor AuthenTec and NFC specialist DeviceFidelity have announced they are working together to enable payments made with mobile phones to be secured via both fingerprint biometrics and NFC technology.
Your Smart Phone Will Be Your Biometric Ankle Monitor Device, 8/4/11
Keep clicking on a face to enlarge the image.
Gigapixel Panorama Photography
Creating a climate of fear is key to those who seek to manage daily life. Thus the various media-driven panics surrounding nebulous, open-ended "wars" on "deficits," "drugs," "terror" and now "cyber-crime."
That firms such as TruePosition and hundreds of others who step in to capitalize on the highly-profitable "homeland security" market, hope to continue flying under the radar, we would do well to recall U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who strongly admonished us that "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Development of 'Privacy Killing Technologies': A Link to the Murdoch Scandal?, 8/2/11
Remember the last time you got your driver’s license renewed? You may recall the procedure for taking your picture was a bit different than it used to be. Instead of the usual “smile”! you might have been told to do no such thing – very specifically. To be as expressionless as possible. And that the system seemed more “high-tech” than it used to be. Instead of receiving your new license on-site, it would be mailed to you in a week or so – from some unspecified “secure location,” perhaps. You may have been told or seen signs or been given literature explaining that the new way of taking your picture is part of new security measures designed to make it harder for people to manufacture fake IDs (since a driver’s license is the de facto national ID in this country).
But they probably didn’t mention that the pictures – digitized images, actually – were to be downloaded into a new database that uses facial recognition software to “scan” for (are you surprised?) Terrorists – among other things.
Only it’s ordinary Americans who are being terrorized.
At the DMV, Big Brother’s doing a bit more than just watching you these days, 7/23/11
An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses a disturbing new trend: that of local police forces starting to use hand held face recognition devices. The implements allow for a picture taken at up to a five foot distance to be compared to images of individuals with a criminal record. They can also take fingerprints.
The story focuses on the civil liberties aspects, which are troubling enough and we’ll turn to them shortly. But I’d like to discuss the technology. I worked a bit with a company that had a terrific algorithm for face recognition, and they’d be the first to tell you it was far from foolproof. Even though, in extremely large databases of images, it could find matches of an individual’s photo, it would also generate quite a few false positives. False positives and sloppy or overly aggressive cops means at best an erroneous arrest (and capture of your vital information in the police database; even though that is not supposedly happening, don’t kid yourself that this is the way this is headed) and could conceivably produce more dire outcomes.
The story also describes considerable variation in police attitudes towards these tools. In Arizona, which requires everyone to carry a photo ID (!), the cops are pretty enthusiastic: law-enforcement officials believe the new gear could be an important weapon against crime. “We are living in an age where a lot of people try to live under the radar and in the shadows and avoid law enforcement,” says Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Ariz. He is equipping 75 deputies under his command with the device in the fall.
Surveillance State Tactics Increasing: Police Starting to Use Facial Recognition Devices, 7/13/11
The U.S. Constitution is clear about the issue of privacy. In fact, the Fourth Amendment states, in part, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
With that in mind, it's safe to say it's more than just a little disturbing to know that, in certain circumstances, police can search your cell phone and computer(s), even if you don't want them to and even if they don't yet have a warrant to do so.
The good news is, someone out there has recognized the problem and has taken steps to help you protect that vast amount of data you have stored on your smart phone or laptop.
How to protect your mobile phone and computer from illegal police searches, 7/13/11
An investigation by The Guardian reveals that CIA agents organized a fake vaccination scheme to harvest DNA from innocent civilians as part of a secret intelligence operation. The scheme was carried out in the town of Abbottabad, where Bin Laden's family was believed to be hiding. And the purpose of the vaccination scheme was to acquire the DNA of Bin Laden family members in order to identify where Bin Laden was hiding.
This is the first time the mainstream media has gone public with a story admitting that vaccines are used as weapons of war, and it proves that vaccination programs sometimes have nothing to do with public health at all (and everything to do with killing people, which was the entire purpose of locating Bin Laden).
US government caught in fake vaccination program harvesting DNA from civilians to target terrorists, 7/12/11
NYU Langone Medical Center announced today that it is the first medical center in the Northeast to use PatientSecure™ -- a cutting-edge biometric technology – to identify patients. Utilizing near infrared light to map an image of the blood-flow pattern through the veins in a person's palm, the digital palm image is converted into a unique patient identifier that interfaces with the medical center's electronic health record system.
Patient Identification "In The Palm Of Your Hand", 6/14/11
In the video below Napolitano lays out a sweeping surveillance agenda that includes citizen spies who have a mission of "shared responsibility" to thwart "Core" al-Qaeda, foreign groups "inspired by" al-Qaeda, as well as domestic "extremist" groups, which apparently include an increasing number of plots by U.S. citizens. She added that "there is no single portrait" of today's potential terrorist, citing recruiting tactics "including Hip Hop videos, if you can imagine that." And, naturally, cyberspace. Each of the four key ways that she stated as critical to Homeland Security's mission will widen the Stasi-style network of unpaid employees of the State virtually deputized to spy on their neighbor in the private and public sector and issue reports to the DHS federal security matrix.
Janet Napolitano Visits NYU Law School to Discuss Need For Citizen Spies, 6/9/11
Fulcrum Biometrics has lifted the curtain on the FbF MobileOne biometric accessory that was specially built for the iPod touch, where it will turn that hugely popular portable media player into a fingerprint scanner which is capable of sending data over to wireless networks, with the option to store it locally on the device. The whole point of this? For use with governmental, law enforcement and medical systems.
Your iPod Touch Can Now Function As A Finger Print Scanner, 5/19/11
The Homeland Security and Defense Business Council today released its ninth monograph in its 9/10/11 Project, focusing on the growth of the use of biometrics and ID authentication, detailing how the partnership of government and private industry has brought sophisticated new biometric and authentication technologies to the mainstream.
Biometrics and Fascist ID Authentication - ARE WE READY FOR THE DAY BEFORE TOMORROW?, 5/10/11
Emergency officials will soon be able to blast critical alerts to anyone with a cell phone in a certain section of the city.
If Times Square needs to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or if a hurricane is bearing down on Queens, warnings will be bounced from cell towers.
New Yorkers soon to get emergency cell phone alerts in what Bloomberg calls 'quantum leap forward', 5/9/11
Kathy Thomas knew she was under surveillance. The animal rights and environmental activist had been trailed daily by cops over several months, and had even been stopped on occasion by police and FBI agents.
But when the surveillance seemed to halt suddenly in mid-2005 after she confronted one of the agents, she thought it was all over. Months went by without a peep from the FBI surveillance teams that had been tracking her in undercover vehicles and helicopters. That’s when it occurred to her to check her car.
Rumors had been swirling among activists that the FBI might be using GPS to track them — two activists in Colorado discovered mysterious devices attached to their car bumpers in 2003 — so Thomas (a pseudonym) went out to the vehicle in a frenzy and ran her hands beneath the rear bumper. She was only half-surprised to find a small electronic device and foot-long battery wand secured to her metal fender with industrial-strength magnets.
Battle Brews Over FBI’s Warrantless GPS Tracking, 5/9/11
Now that Osama Bin Laden is allegedly dead (for something like the ninth time), prepare to eventually be groped, molested, and herded through naked body scanners and other X-ray scanning machines everywhere you go. According to a recent CBS New York report, "counter terrorism" experts and other "security" officials are gearing up to require all Americans to essentially show their papers everywhere they go -- at the shopping mall, sports stadium, museum, grocery store, and even at church.
Bin Laden kill conveniently paves way for security checkpoints everywhere -- shopping malls, sports stadiums, grocery stores, churches, 5/7/11
History has shown what tends to happen in surveillance societies. Often times, that surveillance is forced upon the people by tyranical government. We won't argue that this is not the case today, as governments the world over are not hiding the fact that they want to know what everyone is doing. The odd thing is, we the people don't seem to care a whole lot. What we're seeing is that the surveillance state is expanding in concert with the definitions for what is criminal or terrorist-like activity – and that's scary. Every year, more people are finding themselves on no-fly lists, no-work lists, or other terrorist watch lists. We've facetiously noted in a previous commentary that at this rate, the terrorist watch list will exceed the U.S. population by 2019. While we were, for the most part, trying to put a humorous spin on an otherwise very important issue, the fact is, that as surveillance expands, more and more people will become enemies of the state or persons-of-interest. That's just how these things tend to work with these types of things.
Americans, Everything You Do Is Monitored, 5/6/11
The clowns in Congress continue to promote the fake terror war despite the fact that the official story of the 9/11 attacks is a total lie, and the entire war against terror is based off of an entirely false pretext. It is also highly unlikely that any American will end up dead as a result of a terrorist attack but the promotion of fear continues. Americans are more likely to die from disease, a car accident or any number of other circumstances than they are from a terrorist attack. Despite all of this, we continue to see members of Congress propose bills that seek to destroy individual freedom under the guise of fighting this completely bogus terror war. A new bill proposed by Representative Peter King (R-NY) called the See Something Say Something Act seeks to encourage Americans to spy and report information on their neighbors by ensuring that those who make such reports would be immune from lawsuits.
See Something Say Something Act Seeks To Turn USA Into East Germany, 4/30/11
Apple's iPhone and iPad have been tracking the locations of users in a hidden file, according to The New York Times.
Computer programmers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, presented their findings last week at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 technology conference in San Francisco. Their research showed the iPhone and 3G iPads have been logging the location data for the past year after a software update installed a new hidden file on the mobile devices.
Confirmed: iPhone and iPad secretly track and store your location, 4/30/11
Cryptography 101:
Without diving into all sorts of arcane, geekified minutae regarding computer communications and cryptographic algorithms, let’s first add some background.
How To Secure Your Wireless Communications, 4/28/11
In response to the hubbub surrounding the iPhone's unwanted tendency to transcribe your every move and remember it for years, Apple today issued a curious statement--mostly a blanket denial of wrongdoing, though that's undermined a bit by Apple's promising to issue a software update that'll solve the issue. Apple claims the data logging is a crowdsourcing effort to improve location services, and that both the excessively long memory for location data and the problem of logging even when location services are turned off are bugs that will be fixed. All in all, a totally Apple response: Sometimes wrong, but never uncertain.
Apple Denies Tracking iPhone Users, Will Issue Software Update to Discontinue Tracking iPhone Users, 4/27/11
Michigan State Police have reportedly been downloading data from cell phones of motorists that get pulled over for minor infractions like speeding, as if 8 million warrantless requests to Sprint weren't enough. They use a special piece of hardware to download all of the data on the phone, including information the user has deleted.
Police Search Cell Phones On Massive Scale, 4/27/11
The U.S. government has a history of commandeering military technology for use against Americans. We saw this happen with tear gas, tasers and sound cannons, all of which were first used on the battlefield before being deployed against civilians at home. Now the drones -- pilotless, remote controlled aircraft that have been used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (at least 600 civilians have been killed in drone attacks in Pakistan since the United States started targeting insurgents in that country) and were most recently approved by President Obama for use in Libya -- are coming home to roost (and fly) in domestic airspace.
Drone-ification of America, 4/22/11
iPhone and iPad customers were spooked Wednesday to find out that their devices have recorded a detailed history of their geographical locations for the past year in an unprotected file. But it turns out that Apple already explained its location-collection practices in a detailed letter — almost a year ago.
Why and How Apple Is Collecting Your iPhone Location Data, 4/21/11
Your iPhone or 3G-equipped iPad has been secretly recording your location for the past 10 months.
Wired.com can confirm that fact: The screengrab above shows a map containing drop pins of everywhere yours truly has been in the past year.
Software hackers Peter Warden and Alasdair Allen discovered an unencrypted file inside Apple’s iOS 4 software, storing a long list of locations accompanied with time stamps. The file is labeled “consolidated.db.”
iPhone Tracks Your Every Move, and There’s a Map for That, 4/20/11
For several years now the United States Postal Service photographs every letter. The photograph and bar codes are most likely used for routing the letters. But knowing both the sender and receiver of correspondence allows inferences to be made. Additionally, this information is in plain view, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy and no warrant is required.
Careful With a Return Address, 4/18/11
Recently, a small town accountant tipped off the IRS that his employer was shorting the government on taxes. He was rewarded with a big fat check for $4.5 million (minus a 28% federal tax withholding, of course).
Become a multi-millionaire… as a tax snitch, 4/13/11
The San Francisco Entertainment Commission was scheduled Tuesday to consider a proposal that would mandate ID scans for every person entering a "place of entertainment" attended by more than 100 people -- a move that immediately sparked the fears of civil libertarians, who saw it as yet another encroachment of a creeping "police state" culture.
San Francisco considers requiring ID scans for most public events, 4/12/11
Under the guise of environmentalism, Boston is considering the installation of thermal imaging cameras throughout the city for the stated purpose of determining the energy efficiency of individual homes. However, the cameras also have the capability of showing activity within the homes of Boston residents, raising privacy concerns.
Boston Considers Invasive Thermal Cameras, 4/12/11
In one corner we have the vast address lookup databases, pulling in personal information from public records and the entire internet. In the other corner is you, trying to keep your private address from becoming public knowledge. If you are a star on a Hollywood star map, or just an average Joe who wants to separate his private and public life, public records of real estate ownership can make it difficult to protect your private address. The address lookup sites are usually the heavy favorite, but here are a few tips for the underdog to protect privacy and maintain a private address.
Address Lookup Versus Your Private Address, 3/25/11
The Clarksburg FBI complex is taking part in a $1 billion project that will enable law enforcement agencies to identify criminals and terrorists by physical characteristics more quickly and accurately, an FBI official said Monday in Charleston.
FBI center takes on $1 billion ID project, 3/21/11
Miami-Dade’s newest crime fighting tool is a literal ‘eye in the sky’. The Micro Air Vehicle, or MAV for short, is a small radio controlled drone aircraft equipped with a portable camera system. Miami-Dade Sgt. Andrew Cohen said drone will be used to gather real time information in situations which may be too dangerous for officers.
“If an SRT (Special Response Team) has to go into an area they don’t know what’s there, we don’t know what is in the backyard,” said Cohen, “They want to know if there are dogs in the backyard, if there is a shed, things that could be a threat to us."
The MAV is used by the military to scan dangerous areas before troops are sent in. Miami-Dade police used a $50,000 grant to buy one, but not everyone is happy with the purchase. “What happens when they fly over backyards and they see something without a warrant that they want to take against,” said ACLU Executive Director Howard Simon.
Dade Cops Waiting To Get Crime Fighting Drone Airborne, 3/9/11
You used to be able to get lost in the crowd, but not anymore. Double click on any area in the picture to bring the person closer. Or, just click the mouse and use the mouse wheel to bring them closer. This is a photograph of 2009 Obama Inauguration. You can see IN FOCUS the face of EACH individual in the crowd !!!
Crowd Identity MAP - How Big Brother Watches Crowds, 3/6/11
The Sacramento Police Department will soon have more eyes on the streets. They’re going to be partnering with public and private entities to tap directly into existing surveillance cameras across the city. Officers say this will allow them to get to surveillance video more quickly.
Sac Police To Tap Into Business Security Cameras To Deter Crime, 3/4/11
You'll never look at hummingbirds the same again. The Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into the development of tiny drones inspired by biology, each equipped with video and audio equipment that can record sights and sounds.
Tiny spy planes could mimic birds, insects, 2/28/11
Big Brother now watches everyone, including with growing numbers of digital cameras monitoring streets, commercial areas, airports, highways, public and private transportation, government and office buildings, and shopping malls – virtually everywhere people congregate, work, reside, recreate, or inhabit for any reason. Anti-terrorist SWAT teams are ready to react against any suspected provocation or threat. As a result, American democracy fundamentally changed. Always more illusion than reality, total surveillance reveals a harshness too ugly to hide, especially when sophisticated technologies target anyone for any reason, what McCoy calls "the stuff of dystopian science fiction."
America's Total Surveillance Society, 2/28/11
Attempting a police omniscience seen in only about 20 U.S. cities, the Ogden Police Department is gearing up for a "real time crime center" to be operational soon after its Crime Blimp launches. The center hopes to eventually be linked with the thousands of private and government security cameras around town, including the city's own inventory of some 200 cameras.
Utah Department of Transportation and Utah Transit Authority are already on board to share their cameras with Ogden police in the video center planned for soon-to-be-remodeled offices in the department headquarters. Officials are shooting for an April launch date for the blimp, under construction by Weber State University's Utah Center for Aeronautical Innovation and Design, which will feed video to a fledgling version of the RTCC. They hope the center is fully operational by July.
A civil rights debate is likely to flare at some point. "Scary," was local defense attorney Bernie Allen's reaction to the coming integrated camera system and the blimp. "Talk about your Big Brother, it's 'A Brave New World,' " he quipped, referring to two famous novels about futuristic worlds surveilled by oppressive governments.
External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center', 2/27/11
Mayor Richard M. Daley has rejected a call from the American Civil Liberties Union to stop expanding use of surveillance cameras and to require authorities to have probable cause before zooming in on anyone with a city camera.
Daley Defends City’s Camera Network, 2/8/11
In the latest, probably eeriest example of civilian life imitating war, reports indicate that police all over the country want to employ high tech drones to engage in domestic surveillance operations.
That’s right – thanks to 10 years of war and the military’s drive to get increasingly sophisticated equipment to hunt down former sheepherders and poppy farmers armed with old Soviet rifles and cell phones, law enforcement here will soon be able to regularly deploy unmanned aircraft into the sky to “hover and stare” on the domestic population, engaging enough sensors and cameras – and who knows what weapons – to finally obliterate whatever expectation of privacy Americans had left.
Fearing the Reaper, 2/1/11
The world we were aiming at was to be a free one, granting people peace, equality, riches and healthcare, and allowing us to extend our lives and rid ourselves of numerous illnesses - and yet, the world we are approaching, which Fukuyama calls "our posthuman future," may be far more hierarchical and focused on competition than the present one: a world where the powers-that-be will be able to achieve full control over governed communities, and the governed communities, in turn, will manifest full control over the individuals. It is going to be a world of different - possibly genetically modified - people. Perhaps humankind, Adam and Eve's tribe, is reaching for the forbidden fruit. Will that effort result in an end to a possible life in a paradise of democracy and human rights?
Farewell to Modernity in the New Age of Surveillance, 1/30/11
Video surveillance cameras are everywhere. What would it be like to be Tom Cruise’s character in Minority Report, walking through a public space unable to avoid video surveillance cameras that know who you are? Kinda creepy, huh? This technology is on the verge of widespread implementation around the world. Tommy got an eye transplant in the movie, which solved the problem. Unfortunately, modern facial recognition software relies on several reference points so changing just a few traits, like two baby blues, is usually not enough. I like to have fun. Sometimes that means doing something thrilling like skydiving or bungee jumping, and sometimes that means innocently and harmlessly being a trouble maker. So, in that spirit, lets make some trouble.
Avoid Nosy Video Surveillance Cameras, 1/14/11
Surveillance Society. We already know that the government and private entities collect a vast amount of personal data about our everyday activities. Previously I commented about the dangers and intrusion of private entities maintaining transactional databases and having access to this wealth of personal information. It is also dangerous and intrusive for government entities to have access to this information without meeting the requirements for a search warrant. Critical to understanding why it is dangerous for governments to have this information is knowing how it is collected and what they are doing with it.
Surveillance Society: Negative Aspects of Government Data Mining, 12/27/10
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