Ryan Gallagher - 10 February 2013

Exclusive: Raytheon’s Riot program mines social network data like a ‘Google for spies’, drawing ire from civil rights groups

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an “extreme-scale analytics” system created by Raytheon, the world’s fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

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Privacy - A Postmortem

(or Cell Phones, GPS, Drones, Persistent Dataveillance, Big Data, Smart Cameras and Facial Recognition, The Internet of Things, and Government Data Centers Vacuuming Google and Facebook, Oh My!)

Jam-Packed with real-world examples.

John W. Whitehead - 09/18/2012

Brace yourselves for the next wave in the surveillance state’s steady incursions into our lives. It’s coming at us with a lethal one-two punch.

To start with, there’s the government’s integration of facial recognition software and other biometric markers into its identification data programs. The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system is a $1 billion boondoggle that is aimed at dramatically expanding the government’s current ID database from a fingerprint system to a facial recognition system. NGI will use a variety of biometric data, cross-referenced against the nation’s growing network of surveillance cameras to not only track your every move but create a permanent “recognition” file on you within the government’s massive databases.

By the time it’s fully operational in 2014, NGI will serve as a vast data storehouse of “iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.” One component of NGI, the Universal Face Workstation, already contains some 13 million facial images, gleaned from “criminal mug shot photos” taken during the booking process. However, with major search engines having “accumulated face image databases that in their size dwarf the Earth’s population,” it’s only a matter of time before the government taps into the trove of images stored on social media and photo sharing websites such as Facebook.

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sosadmin’s blog - 09/18/2012

One of the most peculiar events in the ongoing TrapWire surveillance saga was an August 13, 2012 Cubic Corporation press release distancing the company from TrapWire Inc. and its parent, Abraxas Applications. The Cubic statement came amidst growing talk online among privacy researchers and journalists about the possibility that connections remained between the defense and transportation services giant and TrapWire, the Abraxas Corporation spin-off.

Researchers and journalists were worried about such a connection because Cubic oversees firms and services that manage and process extremely private information about millions of people — information a law enforcement and corporate surveillance system like TrapWire would no doubt appreciate direct access to. Unproven allegations started flying online, among them an RT article which stated without evidence that the companies were linked in a “global surveillance network.”

But there is information suggesting that Cubic’s August 13 denial of an Abraxas connection to TrapWire Inc., and its parent company Abraxas Applications, was false.

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- What’s going on with the New York City subway system?
- Search results for trapwire at Pastebin

Steve Johnson - 09/17/2012

Long envisioned as an alternative to remembering scores of computer passwords or lugging around keys to cars, homes and businesses, technology that identifies people by their faces or other physical features finally is gaining traction in the Bay Area and elsewhere, to the dismay of privacy advocates.

Some consumer gadgets already are outfitted with scanners to verify the user’s face or fingerprint, and many office buildings control access via retina and voice-recognition systems. But that could be just the beginning. Corporations, government agencies and university researchers are exploring ways to identify people through everything from the shape of their ears, veins and DNA to their gait, heartbeat and body odor.

“There are multiple benefits to society in using this form of identification,” said Anil Jain, a Michigan State University computer science and engineering professor, adding the technologies could prove “transformative.”

But skeptics call many of these “biometric” concepts infeasible. And while the idea is to bolster security, civil libertarians believe the technology could have grave privacy implications. They fear it could plunge us toward a future where we’ve forfeited the right to remain anonymous and our most personal information is bandied about in massive databases by retailers, police or others — often without our knowledge.

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Use of military surveillance drones overhead would be un-American

Andrew P. Napolitano - June 7, 2012

For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel, where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if - had they existed at the time - King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as someone who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. Folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.

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MEGHAN NEAL - June 1, 2012

As tech companies work to develop ID chips, how long until we’re no longer anonymous?

Would you barcode your baby?

Microchip implants have become standard practice for our pets, but have been a tougher sell when it comes to the idea of putting them in people.

Science fiction author Elizabeth Moon last week rekindled the debate on whether it’s a good idea to “barcode” infants at birth in an interview on a BBC radio program.

“I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached — a barcode if you will — an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals,” she said on The Forum, a weekly show that features “a global thinking” discussing a “radical, inspiring or controversial idea” for 60 seconds .

Moon believes the tools most commonly used for surveillance and identification — like video cameras and DNA testing — are slow, costly and often ineffective.

In her opinion, human barcoding would save a lot of time and money.

The proposal isn’t too far-fetched - it is already technically possible to “barcode” a human - but does it violate our rights to privacy?

Opponents argue that giving up anonymity would cultivate an “Orwellian” society where all citizens can be tracked.

“To have a record of everywhere you go and everything you do would be a frightening thing,” Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Daily News.

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By Christopher Ross Harrison, 2011-03-25

Where the debate over privacy rights is concerned, there exists a perpetual danger of being drawn into one of two extreme camps: One that would dismantle all security entirely, leaving us open to those very real threats that exist at home and abroad, and the other that would submerge our basic rights and freedoms beneath an Orwellian surveillance state, all in the name of our collective safety. Of course; freedom isn’t free, it just seems that way because we have been blessed to live in an oversaturated freedom market. On the other hand, although the price of freedom is still eternal vigilance, it seems there are those who would impose an artificial price hike; having us pay eternal vigilance, plus groping and manhandling fees, plus a whopping one hundred and fifty percent interest. These folks don’t necessarily hate freedom, they’d just prefer that you visit it in a museum under a glass cover.

If this sounds like a paranoid fantasy, let us reflect upon the following evidence for the recent and undue ascension of Big Brother in our Western Democracies.

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Proof positive of RCMP provocateurs during the Security And Prosperity Partnership Of North America (SPP) protests in Montebello Quebec

Newly released G8/G20 summit documents reveal the RCMP and various Ontario police forces spent several months infiltrating anti-war, anti-globalization and anarchist groups with the use of undercover officers ahead of last June’s summits in Huntsville and Toronto.

The reports by the Joint Intelligence Group formed by the RCMP-led ISU (Integrated Security Unit) show that various police services contributed at least 12 undercover officers to take part in covert surveillance of potential “criminal extremists” in a bid to “detect … and disrupt” any threats.

The reports omit details on specific individuals or groups, nor do they offer conclusions about what, if any, crimes or plots of violence were detected.

“There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t in there, that’s been redacted, or isn’t spelled out. But it says these undercover operations were going on, that there were 12 officers,” says Tim Groves, who requested and obtained the reports through an access to information request. “The problem is that, looking at these documents, police expected criminal extremism everywhere.”

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Police Provocateurs stopped by union leader at anti SPP protest

Under Occupation: Toronto G20 Operation is an educational documentary that shows, in chronological order, the events that transpired over the G20 weekend in Toronto, Canada. While the mainstream media repeatedly broadcast images of burning police cars and broken windows, the cameras on the ground captured a far more terrifying story. Eyewitness video footage and firsthand accounts featured in this film tell a horrific tale of police brutality, mass arrests, secret laws and outrageous violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Press For Truth Presents Into The Fire

World leaders and activists from around the world gathered for the G20 Summit. With over 19,000 police officers and security personnel on hand, the results lead to over 1100 arrests, martial law in downtown Toronto, and the most massive violation of civil liberties in Canadian history.

One Mainframe To Rule Them All is a breathtaking rundown of the human microchipping agenda. Concise and effective, it breaks down the coming global information control grid in all its horrifying detail. Scarier than any horror movie could be because it is real and documented.

The American Dream - May 26, 2011

[...]

#1 The days of the free and open Internet are slowly coming to an end. Many nations around the world have implemented strict Internet censorship and many other nations are moving in that direction. With each passing year the level of freedom on the Internet diminishes.

Regulation of the Internet has even become a primary topic of discussion at G-8 meetings. According to The New York Times, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is leading the charge for a more “civilized Internet”….

Leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized countries are set to issue a provocative call for stronger Internet regulation, a cause championed by the host of the meeting, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, but fiercely opposed by some Internet companies and free-speech groups.

Why are free speech groups strongly opposing what Sarkozy is trying to do?

It is because western governments want to kill liberty and freedom on the Internet just like China is doing. The Internet has been a great tool for waking people up and distributing information, and the control freaks that want to run all of our lives do not like that one bit.

#2 Internet censorship in China, the largest nation on earth, is absolutely brutal. The Chinese government blocks any websites that talk about such topics as the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters and Falun Gong.

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Ms. Smith - Sun, 03/06/11

We’ve heard how if you don’t like TSA screenings, then don’t fly; instead take a bus, a train, or drive your car. If gas prices keep climbing, driving may not be an affordable option in the future. In that same future, Homeland Security had considered hitting the streets with TSA airport-like body scanners to covertly peek under your clothes, into your bags, and even into your vehicles. Whether you call it a police state, a peep show, or plain old privacy invasion, the increasing surveillance needs to stop.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) discovered that the Department of Homeland Security paid contractors “millions of dollars on mobile body scanner technology that could be used at railways, stadiums, and elsewhere” on crowds of moving people. EPIC acquired the 173-pages of contracts and reports [PDF] via the Freedom of Information Act.

Homeland Security said it dropped the project, but EPIC lawyer Ginger McCall called Homeland Security’s project “disturbing” because the “department obviously believed that this level of surveillance is acceptable when in fact it is not at all acceptable,” USA Today reported.

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