July 9th, 2010
Google Street View accused of Congress 'snooping'
Surveillance
Google's popular Street View project may have collected personal information of members of Congress, including some involved in national security issues.
Mind Control? Scientists Have Discovered How To Use Nanoparticles To Remotely Control Behavior!
Surveillance
Clusters of heated, magnetic nanoparticles targeted to cell membranes can remotely control ion channels, neurons and even animal behavior, according to a paper published by University at Buffalo physicists in Nature Nanotechnology.
July 4th, 2010
New Digital Converter Boxes complete with built-in Camera and Mic
Surveillance
I have to say I really thought people that were saying that were nuts. I apologize…
Video: Drones Spying On Americans! Why Does The Government Want To Spy On Us Like This?
Surveillance
Video.
April 5th, 2010
Wikileaks Asks CIA to Stop Spying on It
Surveillance
Wikileaks, the crusading non-profit web site that publishes documents companies and governments don’t want released, is alleging that the U.S. State Department and possibly the CIA have been spying on the group and its volunteers, following them on airplanes and even monitoring their production meetings in an Icelandic fish-and-chip restaurant.
April 2nd, 2010
Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Inititative criminalizes non-criminal acts at random
Surveillance
An 82 page analysis of domestic intelligence policy released by Political Research Associates (PRA) Tuesday found local police are being used as domestic intelligence gatherers with little to no oversight in criminal intelligence distinctions.
April 1st, 2010
Children WILL face naked body scans, Government rules
Surveillance
Civil rights groups have raised legal and privacy concerns about the scanners, which have been introduced at Manchester and Heathrow airports following the failed transatlantic plane bomb attack last Christmas.
Federal Judge Finds N.S.A. Wiretaps Were Illegal
Surveillance
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush.
Wyden: Patriot Act Secrecy is “Intolerable”
Surveillance
Under present circumstances, Sen. Wyden said, Americans do not have an accurate perception of what the Patriot Act permits and how it is being used and, he said on Thursday, this is unacceptable. "There is key information that is relevant to the debate on the Patriot Act that is currently classified."
March 28th, 2010
NEW EU GESTAPO SPIES ON BRITONS
Surveillance
It is understood the agency will concentrate on anyone thought “xenophobic” or likely to commit a crime involving the environment, computers or motor vehicles. This could include covert monitoring of people who deny the existence of climate change or speak out on controversial issues.
March 17th, 2010
Pre-Crime Policing
Surveillance
Allegedly “disgruntled” man has his guns seized, and “voluntarily” surrenders to two SWAT teams and dozens of police officers for a crime that hadn’t been committed.
Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010
Surveillance
Silent and seamless, our political minders have every intention of deploying such formidable technological resources as a preeminent--and preemptive--means for effecting social control.
Schoolchildren 'routinely monitored' by CCTV
Surveillance
Schoolchildren are as likely to be monitored by CCTV as prisoners or international air travellers, according to research.
Your Neighbour Is a Terrorist According to talkSport UK
Surveillance
Youtube video. Ad for the confidential terrorist hotline: "If you suspect it, report it."
March 14th, 2010
Homeland Security Unveils Mobile Mind Screening Checkpoints
Surveillance
Youtube. Homeland Security explains its partnership with an array of firms for a new screening checkpoint system.
Brain scan can read people's thoughts: researchers
Surveillance
British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identify thought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
President Obama backs DNA test in arrests
Surveillance
President Barack Obama’s embrace of a national database to store the DNA of people arrested but not necessarily convicted of a crime is heartening to backers of the policy but disappointing to criminal-justice reformers, who view it as an invasion of privacy.
February 5th, 2010
Spying on Americans: A Multibillion Bonanza for the Telecoms
Surveillance
Between 2002 and 2007, the FBI illegally collected more than 4,000 U.S. telephone records, citing bogus terrorism threats or simply by persuading telephone companies to hand over the records. Why? Because the FBI could and the telecoms were more than willing to help out a "friend"--and reap profits accrued by shredding the Constitution in the process.
January 24th, 2010
The eyes have it
Surveillance
The iris scan takes a photo of the eye and uses 240 identifiable points of an eye to create a file. The portable device will be used on occasions when identifying a suspect is difficult, Boone County sheriff’s Capt. Chad Martin said, as well as during booking.
November 30th, 2009
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists
Surveillance
In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.
Government Taking Newborn DNA Samples Without Permission
Surveillance
The state keeps the extra blood. Don't they have enough already?
November 22nd, 2009
VeriChip Buys Steel Vault, Creating Micro-Implant Health Record/Credit Score Empire
Surveillance
VeriChip (CHIP), the company that markets a microchip implant that links to your online health records, has acquired Steel Vault (SVUL), a credit monitoring and anti-identity theft company. The combined company will operate under a new name: PositiveID.
November 11th, 2009
Homes could be invaded by health and safety inspectors checking that parents are keeping their children safe
Surveillance
Whitehall is recommending that inspectors make sure parents have fitted smoke alarms, stair gates, locks on medicine cupboards, windows and ovens, and temperature controls to stop bath water getting too hot. The proposed scheme was condemned by critics yesterday as a nightmarish intrusion into family life.
VeriChip buys Steel Vault, changes name to “PositiveID”, creating micro-implant health record/credit score empire
Surveillance
Some regard the company as part of a prophecy in the Book of Revelation (because the HealthLink chip carries an RFID number that can be used as both money and proof of ID)...The most obvious criticism to be made of the deal is that it potentially allows PositiveID to link or cross-check patient health records (from the HealthLink chip) to people’s credit scores. One assumes that the company will put up firewalls to prevent that.
State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search
Surveillance
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited. Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
November 7th, 2009
Employers to take fingerprints for CRB checks
Surveillance
Private companies will take fingerprints from job applicants as part of a trial to improve the accuracy of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) background checks.
October 16th, 2009
Military Looks to Upgrade Its Super Spy Blimps
Surveillance
The U.S. military already uses a fleet of unmanned spy blimps to keep tabs on would-be enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, the Navy wants to upgrade the airships’ sight and hearing, as part of its push for “wide area persistent surveillance.”
September 30th, 2009
Surveillance state 'a good thing'
Surveillance
"The surveillance state is in many circumstances a jolly good thing," an adviser to the NHS has told a fringe meeting at the Labour Conference. The Brits have gone barking mad.
Forgetful patients to be fitted with microchips to remind them to take their pills
Surveillance
Patients will be fitted with a microchip in their shoulder to remind them to take their medicine, under a new scheme being developed by a drugs company. Older people will be given pills containing a harmless microchip that sends a signal to the chip in the shoulder when the pill is taken.
September 15th, 2009
Web-monitoring software gathers data on kid chats
Surveillance
Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids' online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children's chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered. Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.
August 23rd, 2009
Behavioral screening, the future of airport security?
Surveillance
Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers’ intentions and emotions. “We are seeing a needed paradigm shift when it comes to security,” says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based security company.
August 17th, 2009
What law says and...doesn't say about video surveillance
Surveillance
The Supreme Court, Fishman says, has taken the general approach that what a person knowingly exposes to the public — even in his own home or office — is not constitutionally protected.While out in public, he says, people have virtually no right to privacy of any kind from visual surveillance.
Canadian airport to test ‘behaviour detection’ program
Surveillance
From the furrowed brow to the nervously tapping foot, security personnel will soon start studying air travellers' facial expressions and body movements to see if they could be criminals and terrorists.
August 16th, 2009
Balloon near border raises privacy concerns
Surveillance
Having a camera peering into Sarnia is "a clear violation of our privacy and our sovereignty," said Mayor Mike Bradley, when explaining the issue..."It's extremely creepy," said Adam Bush, who has helped organize a cheeky protest against the Aerostat, aptly named "Moon the Balloon."
August 7th, 2009
Nazi-Style Denunciation Campaign Urges Americans To Report Each Other
Surveillance
An Orwellian poster being plastered up across American towns and cities as part of a campaign run by the organization reads, “ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IS NOT TOLERATED” and advises citizens to “turn them in” and receive a reward of up to $1000. Things to “turn them in” for include drug dealing and theft, but more vague examples such as “threats and intimidation” as well as “weapons” and “gang activity” are listed, as is “child abuse”.
CNN: China sets up a genetics camp to DNA test kids to ID genetic gifts and pick careers
Surveillance
The test is conducted by the Shanghai Biochip Corporation. Scientists claim a simple saliva swab collects as many as 10,000 cells that enable them to isolate eleven different genes. By taking a closer look at the genetic codes, they say they can extract information about a child’s IQ, emotional control, focus, memory, athletic ability and more.
August 4th, 2009
British Government Installing CCTV Cameras Inside Private Homes
Surveillance
£400 million ($668 million) will be spent on installing and monitoring CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes.
Terrorism in Bulverde - A True Story of Satellite Surveillance
Surveillance
After years of research and fighting for his life and of those he loved, Bulverde resident and new author Dr. John Hall brings this terrifying account of real life events to the masses in his first book, "A New Breed: Satellite Terrorism in America" which tells what happens when Big Brother goes too far.
August 3rd, 2009
Congress proposed implanting airport workers with RFID chips
Surveillance
A news report from May 2007 reveals high level discussions, including debate in Congress, to require all airport employees to be subject to greater security measures– including a serious discussion of imposing implantable RFID chips into workers or subjecting them to biometric identification systems.
August 1st, 2009
Pendelton, Oregon, seeks bids for city surveillance
Surveillance
The project would need to include the ability to wireless network those public surveillance cameras to the police vehicles. According to The East Oregonian newspaper, new cameras will be installed in the police vehicles.
July 29th, 2009
Air Force on the Hunt for ‘Subversive’ Behavior Online
Surveillance
The Air Force’s geek squad wants the technology to monitor government employees’ deviant online behavior...Taboo activity could span everything from leaking top secret information to spamming contacts with a chain letter to visiting any site that government officials deem dubious. Previously, they’ve said some interesting things about social networking, which may or may not influence what they’d do with new tools.
July 26th, 2009
MTA reins in audio surveillance proposal
Surveillance
Maryland's acting transportation chief, citing concerns about privacy, has pulled back an internal proposal to use listening devices on its buses and trains for recording conversations of passengers and employees.
Canadian Banks now using urine and hair samples to obtain mortgage?
Surveillance
It has become a first for Canadians and the implications can be astronomical, a massively large insurance firm; The CUMIS Group Limited Insurance who have been partnered along with thousands of banks across North America for insurance requirements, has now accepted a policy of pre-screening drug tests & hair samples for the right to obtain home loan insurance, a necessity, if you’re going to purchase a home in Canada.
July 23rd, 2009
That NSA Spy in your Wallet and Purse
Surveillance
Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he’d bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.
July 21st, 2009
The school with 100 spy cameras: 'Big Brother' system watches pupils everywhere
Surveillance
A school has installed nearly 100 security cameras to monitor classrooms, corridors and play areas, it emerged yesterday. The south London school intends to put the technology in every classroom as staff say it helps tackle truancy and false allegations against them...One primary school was criticised for using surveillance equipment to identify an eight-year-old girl who hid her friend's shoes.
July 15th, 2009
Video surveillance drives wireless bandwidth boost
Surveillance
"The biggest driver of this need for more bandwidth is the growth in IP video, particularly megapixel video, which requires a big hit on bandwidth," he said. Security experts want higher quality video because it is easier to search images, such as a vehicle in a landscape, captured on video from a distant security camera, he said.
Lawmakers knew of surveillance, ex-CIA chief says
Surveillance
Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions that the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.
July 14th, 2009
NSA's cyber overkill
Surveillance
The administration reportedly is proceeding with a Bush-era plan to use the National Security Agency to screen government computer traffic on private-sector networks. AT&T is slated to be the likely test site. This classified pilot program, dubbed "Einstein 3," is developed but not yet rolled out. It takes two offenders from President Bush's contentious secret surveillance program and puts them in charge of scrutinizing all Internet traffic going to or from federal government agencies.
Editorial: Unanswered questions on surveillance
Surveillance
As with the interrogation techniques, the surveillance program stood on shaky legal ground, the report says, propped up by legal memoranda from the same source: John Yoo of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
July 13th, 2009
The CIA’s Rogue Operation
Surveillance
Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the “President’s Surveillance Program” did not have any connection to terrorism, the [Inspector Generals'] report said…And as a former CIA agent says, the real question is who ordered the CIA to withhold the information from Congress. Bush apparently ordered the program, but it is not yet known who ordered the CIA to cover it up.
July 11th, 2009
Pervasive Surveillance Continuing Under Obama
Surveillance
Under the rubric of cybersecurity, the Obama administration is moving forward with a Bush regime program to screen state computer traffic on private-sector networks, including those connecting people to the Internet, The Washington Post revealed July 3.
July 7th, 2009
NSA Shields Government Networks With More AT&T Secret Rooms
Surveillance
The Obama administration has decided to proceed with a classified Bush administration plan to let the NSA monitor traffic going to and from government civilian networks to protect the networks from malicious code and activity, according to a Washington Post story on Friday.
U.S. Air Force plans "summit" on ground tracking
Surveillance
The U.S. Air Force, moving aggressively to beef up intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, plans a "soup to nuts" review next week of how it tracks moving targets on the ground.
July 2nd, 2009
Real ID: A Real Warning on the Danger of Government
Surveillance
The REAL ID Act may be on the verge of receiving its final coffin nails. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is pushing a replacement bill that poses many of the same threats as REAL ID. The history of REAL ID should inspire friends of freedom to once again vigorously oppose any and every federal grab for their personal information.
July 1st, 2009
The cover charge at this club? An RFID implant
Surveillance
The implant procedure is simple and mostly painless (except for all the legal paperwork required): The area where the chip is injected is thoroughly numbed, then the glass capsule is injected beneath a layer of skin and fat on the arm...Naturally, security implications are huge: RFID tags can be scanned, copied, and altered by savvy hackers, and it would be a simple matter for a wily crook to scan people en masse as they pass through, say, the entrance of a mall.
June 25th, 2009
Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's a Raytheon Spy Blimp!
Surveillance
"The airship is great because it doesn't have that Big Brother feel, or create feelings of invasiveness," says Lee Silvestre, vice president of mission innovation in Raytheon's Integrated Defense division. "But it's still a really powerful security tool."
Cyber Security Czar Front-Runner No Friend of Privacy
Surveillance
Former Republican Congressman Tom Davis, reportedly President Barack Obama’s top candidate for cyber security czar, voted repeatedly to expand the government’s internet wiretapping powers, and helped author the now-troubled national identification law known as REAL ID.
June 22nd, 2009
Report: Siemens, Nokia aided Iran's Web censorship
Surveillance
in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep-packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.
June 21st, 2009
U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students
Surveillance
A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.
Homeland Security drone patrolling NNY
Surveillance
A Predator B Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has been temporarily based at Fort Drum since early June in an experiment by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office..."So while we were flying, we were asked by our partner law enforcement agencies if we would be kind enough to be on the lookout for suspicious activities," Stanton said.
The panopticon economy
Surveillance
Bamford describes former NSA Director Mike Hayden’s goals for the data-mining center as knowing “exactly what Americans were doing day by day, hour by hour, and second by second. He wanted to know where they shopped, what they bought, what movies they saw, what books they read, the toll booths they went through, the plane tickets they purchased, the hotels they stayed in… In other words, Total Information Awareness, the same Orwellian concept that John Poindexter had tried to develop while working for the Pentagon’s [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency].”
June 19th, 2009
Proposed New Law Would Let Police Snoop On What You Do Online
Surveillance
(Canada) The bill, with the unwieldy name of "An Act Regulating Telecommunications Facilities to Support Investigations," would allow police to force your ISP to hand over any records of your emails, chat room conversations, website history or surfing habits to authorities without a warrant.
June 15th, 2009
Teachers urged to join MI5
Surveillance
The advert, placed in the Times Educational Supplement, says: "Your experience of dealing with people means you can build trust and relationships with all sorts of individuals, which makes you the ideal candidate for developing a career securing the information we need to protect national security."
Are You Being Watched?
Surveillance
Until recently, Raytheon's eye-in-the-sky technology was used in Afghanistan and Iraq to guard American military bases, working as airborne guards against any oncoming desert threat. Using infrared sensors and a map overlay not unlike Google Earth, the technology scans a large area, setting important landmarks (say, the perimeter of a military base), and constantly relays video clips back to a command center.
June 13th, 2009
Digital TV Switch Opens Electronic Door to Censors - and Spies?
Surveillance
DTV technology provides an electronic means for third parties to selectively control the programming available to each set or converter box...the technology also allows a would-be censor to block channels, or programs, from certain groups of viewers, or from the entire audience....And how would a "big brother" know the "address" of each set, or box? Easy! The DTV boxes are being subsidized by government coupons, so the government is collecting a huge database of DTV addresses...Some tekkies insist that the DTV technology could be used to turn any DTV set or set-top converter box into an electronic eavesdropping "bug" -- using the connection to the set's speakers as pre-installed microphones.
June 9th, 2009
Spy bugs may be deployed for 2012 Olympics
Surveillance
BRITISH police are studying Chinese-style surveillance tactics as they prepare security for the 2012 London Olympics, a leaked Scotland Yard report has revealed. The report, marked “restricted”, reveals that among the “Big Brother” tactics deployed at last summer’s Beijing Games was the installation of miniature microphones in thousands of taxis.
June 8th, 2009
Homeland Security to scan fingerprints of travellers exiting the US
Surveillance
From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of international travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta...The DHS is also set to go-live with a trial of RF-enabled biometric identity cards on June 1, aimed at securing the border between the United States and Canada.U.S. and Canadian citizens will be authenticated to travel between the two countries using identity cards fitted with radio-frequency embedded chips.
June 4th, 2009
Census GPS: A Missile at Your Door
Surveillance
Exactly why does the Census Department need to know the precise GPS location of every household in the USA?...GPS is a military technology that has certain non lethal applications. GPS can either be used to locate a missing hiker on Mount Hood, or it can be used to target a Predator drone missile. The choice is all in the use of the technology. Given the history of the US Federal government, at Waco with the Branch Davidians, at Ruby Ridge among others, you will excuse me that I am not buying the Census story.
Little Brother is watching you: Children of ten are taught how to spot a terrorist in police DVD
Surveillance
Hundreds of children as young as ten are being urged to spot potential terrorists and shop them to police.
May 24th, 2009
License Plate Surveillance Grid Used to Track Anti-war Protesters
Surveillance
Earlier this month, a study in the UK concluded that CCTV surveillaance does not have a significant impact on crime. “The review of research into the effectiveness of cameras found they have only a ‘modest’ impact on crime levels,” reported the Birmingham Post. In 2008, a report by UK Police Chiefs concluded that only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV.
May 19th, 2009
London begins testing GPS-enabled speed limiters
Surveillance
Transport for London has just begun testing a new technology that will artificially limit the top speeds of taxis, buses and government fleet vehicles. Called Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), the system will keep track of speed limits all over London and will prevent operators from accelerating past that legal limit. The device is capable of slowing the vehicle down regardless of the driver's wishes.
Airport security bares all, or does it?
Surveillance
Privacy advocates plan to call on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to suspend use of "whole-body imaging," the airport security technology that critics say performs "a virtual strip search" and produces "naked" pictures of passengers, CNN has learned.
May 14th, 2009
The IBM/Lockheed Martin Census: GPSing Your Home
Surveillance
From April 1st, 500,000 census workers, part of a $700 million taxpayer-funded contract, will travel all known streets and roads to identify every living quarter where people live or could potentially live. Each structure also will receive Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates to make sure it is recorded in the right location.
May 13th, 2009
Nokia to build radio ID chips into phones for inventory control
Surveillance
Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, plans to incorporate radio frequency identification chips in its handsets to track them from assembly through recycling.
May 12th, 2009
Brain scanning may be used in security checks
Surveillance
Details of the Humabio (Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behaviourial Analysis) pilot projects have been published amid further evidence of biometric technologies penetrating everyday lives.
May 11th, 2009
Homeless in Canada Have Fingerprints Scanned
Surveillance
A Calgary shelter is scanning the fingerprints of its homeless clients, citing problems with gang members and drug dealers...The homeless shelter is testing a new $150,000 security system that scans clients’ fingerprints, and Baldwin said he expects it will be fully up and running in a few weeks.
If the guy who invented DNA fingerprinting is worried, we should all be
Surveillance
If you are cleared, the profile is immediately destroyed unless you have been cleared of a violent or sexual offence – in which case the sample can be kept for up to five years.
May 6th, 2009
Ahern to crack down on 'overstayers' with new control system
Surveillance
A hi-tech new border system is to be introduced to crack down on the increasing numbers of foreign migrants who illegally overstay their welcome in Ireland...Mr Ahern said: "We are currently developing a new Irish Border Information System (IBIS). This will operate on the basis that passenger information collected by carriers prior to departure will be sent to an Irish Border Operations Centre.
May 5th, 2009
We refuse to be ID card guinea pigs
Surveillance
The British Airline Pilots' Association represents more than 10,000 commercial pilots. Our members are overwhelmingly against the government's national ID card scheme trials for pilots and other airside workers, and we will resist the card with all legal means possible.Our members feel at home navigating the world, but a growing number are incensed at the stress and bureaucracy of having to navigate the UK's security system. A recent internal poll shows that inconsistent and petty-minded UK security arrangements at airports are leading flightcrew to experience delays and, more worryingly, stress, with 40% saying in this poll that the experience makes them less able to operate the aircraft.
May 3rd, 2009
Thought police muscle up in Britain
Surveillance
There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent. .The government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison.
May 1st, 2009
Your Conversations Are Being Intercepted: The Truth About Project ECHELON
Surveillance
“On the day at Menwith Hill when I realized in earnest how utterly wrong it was, I was sitting with one of the many ‘translators’. He was an expert in languages like Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Suddenly he asked me if I wanted to listen in on a conversation taking place in the US at an office in the US Senate Building. Then I clearly heard a southern American dialect I thought I had heard before.”
April 27th, 2009
Police can snoop on every email and eavesdrop on Internet phone calls under new plan
Surveillance
The proposals, which will be revealed by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, come amid increasing evidence that terror groups such as those in the Mumbai attacks are using internet telephones to avoid telephone taps on landline and mobile phones.
Plan to monitor all internet use
Surveillance
Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
April 26th, 2009
Tapping your cell phone
Surveillance
Video. 13 Investigates explains how your cell phone can be secretly hijacked and used against you - and how to protect yourself.
April 21st, 2009
New surveillance law unveiled
Surveillance
The Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Bill 2009, published by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern this morning, sets out a legal framework for the first time that will allow the use of covert surveillance as evidence in criminal trials.
April 20th, 2009
NSA Broke New Eavesdropping Law
Surveillance
Even after Congress drafted legislation last year that gave the National Security Agency broad powers to eavesdrop, the agency exceeded that authority and intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months, according to The New York Times.
Blimps over America
Surveillance
In 2003, the US military announced that it was adding old-style blimps to the long and growing list of aircraft (helicopters, planes, uninhabited aerial vehicles, satellites) that are going to used ensure America's "homeland security" in the coming years...these modern blimps will be equipped with visible-light cameras (capable of seeing and zooming in on small objects from very long distances), color-infrared cameras (allowing the spies to see, even at night, and to see even the smallest "discolorations" during the day), and hyperspectral sensors (allowing them to see through translucent obstacles such as trees or deep waters).
April 15th, 2009
Riddle of missing CCTV as pictures reveal there WERE cameras near G20 death
Surveillance
Speaking to Channel 4 News in a live interview last week, Mr Hardwick said: ''We don't have CCTV footage of the incident...there is no CCTV footage, there were no cameras in the location where he was assaulted."However, several cameras appear to be trained on the corner of Threadneedle Street and Royal Exchange Passage where the assault took place.
April 14th, 2009
They've got your number
Surveillance
Every call made, email sent and website visited is now being logged under new regulations. What does that mean for investigative journalists - and their need to protect sources?
Daily Mail & Times report on tiny microchips in medicine that helps doctors track your wellness
Surveillance
Two articles from the Daily Mail and the Times giviecoverage to this new michochipped medicine. These are followed by extracts from the producer’s publications showing that they have powerful backing, supported by the World Economic Forum and partly funded by the infamous Carlyle Group.
April 12th, 2009
Fox News: Nursing home microchips elderly people, Fox News says it’s good.
Surveillance
Video. Fox sells verichips as a reliable way to tag your crazy senile relatives.
April 8th, 2009
Join the snooper troopers
Surveillance
New anti-terror adverts are urging Londoners to look in their neighbours' dustbins to help the overstretched police unmask the enemy within. Either this is a viable way of catching terrorists or the police and security services are getting desperate.
Chase To Issue RFID-Embedded Credit Cards
Surveillance
Chase Bank U.S.A., a division of the nation's largest credit-card issuer, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., will begin offering credit cards that use radio-frequency identification technology. The technology, called "blink," will let consumers make purchases by passing RFID chip-embedded cards in front a point-of-sale terminal. Chase plans to issue millions of blink cards by the end of this year.
Internet records to be stored for a year
Surveillance
Details of every email sent and website visited by people in Britain are to be stored for use by the state from tomorrow as part of what campaigners claim is a massive assault on privacy.
April 1st, 2009
Electronic tagging for exiles of 'high net worth' proposed
Surveillance
The measure is aimed at monitoring the presence in the State of individuals who claim to be non-resident for tax purposes.
March 31st, 2009
DNA scan 'could cut cost of insurance - even if results kept secret
Surveillance
The advent of tests for DNA variants that affect common disorders such as diabetes and heart disease has prompted fears of discrimination and the creation of a “genetic underclass” who cannot buy cover.
Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed
Surveillance
The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.
March 28th, 2009
Brain scan reveals memories of where you've been
Surveillance
Scans of the part of the brain responsible for memory have for the first time been used to detect a person's location in a virtual environment. Using functional MRI (fMRI), researchers decoded the approximate location of several people as they navigated through virtual rooms.
Intruder alert: Tel Aviv University's 'Smart Dew' will find you!
Surveillance
A remarkable new invention from Tel Aviv University — a network of tiny sensors as small as dewdrops called "Smart Dew" — will foil even the most determined intruder. Scattered outdoors on rocks, fence posts and doorways, or indoors on the floor of a bank, the dewdrops are a completely new and cost-effective system for safeguarding and securing wide swathes of property.
March 27th, 2009
Google Street View forced to remove images
Surveillance
Google has had hundreds of requests for images to be removed since it launched Street View on Thursday, including pictures of members of the public leaving sex shops or vomiting in the street. But the pictures of young children suggest the service could be exploited for more sinister purposes.
Get the Feeling You're Being Watched? If You're Driving, You Just Might Be
Surveillance
Once a rarity, traffic cameras are filming away across the country. And they're not just focusing their sights on red-light runners. The latest technology includes cameras that keep tabs on highways to catch speeders in the act and infrared license-plate readers that nab ticket and tax scofflaws...But a study in last month's Journal of Law and Economics concluded that, as many motorists have long suspected, "governments use traffic tickets as a means of generating revenue.".
March 26th, 2009
Now 'Big Brother' targets Facebook
Surveillance
The idea to police MySpace, Bebo and Facebook comes on top of plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom.
March 25th, 2009
One generation is all they need
Surveillance
By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits.
March 24th, 2009
Anaheim police surveillance of poor may overstep federal law
Surveillance
Anaheim police routinely scour city records of families receiving federal rental assistance to look for links to crime suspects, a practice that critics say amounts to placing the poor under illegal surveillance.
March 21st, 2009
Airport security technique debated
Surveillance
An October report by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that there is "no scientific consensus" that behavioral surveillance techniques like those employed by the TSA are an effective way to combat terrorism. It found they have "enormous potential for privacy violations."...The TSA won't divulge the traits its officers watch for, but they include "involuntary physical and physiological reactions" people exhibit when they fear being discovered.
March 21st, 2009
Researchers find ways to sniff keystrokes from thin air
Surveillance
That PC keyboard you're using may be giving away your passwords. Researchers say they've discovered new ways to read what you're typing by aiming special wireless or laser equipment at the keyboard or by simply plugging into a nearby electrical socket...Laptops were the hardest to read, because the cable between the keyboard and the PC is so short, making for a tiny antenna. The researchers found a way to sniff USB keyboards, but older PS/2 keyboards, which have ground wires that connect right into the electric grid, were the best.
March 19th, 2009
Google's pictures of UK go live
Surveillance
Google has launched the UK version of its Street View service, which allows users to browse a selection of pictures taken along city streets.
March 17th, 2009
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Motorists could be banned from leaving Britain over unpaid parking fines
Surveillance
Ministers are examining whether to use powers to track the travel plans of everyone leaving the country under a system known as e-Borders to deal with the problem of unpaid fines....As disclosed by The Daily Telegraph, the scheme will track anyone leaving Britain including day-trippers, leisure sailors and even channel swimmers.
March 14th, 2009
Microsoft Partners With Implantable RFID Chip Maker VeriChip
Surveillance
Thanks to the VeriChip-Microsoft agreement, VeriMed Health Link customers can open a HealthVault account and use it to access and manage their personal health records and data that are stored in the VeriMed database. "VeriMed adds an exciting RFID-based option for HealthVault users trying to keep themselves and their families safe," Nolan says.
March 13th, 2009
Pentagon Seeks Fleet Of Massive DARPA Spy Blimps
Surveillance
The Pentagon has announced intentions to launch an entire fleet of giant 450-foot-long airships which will act as a massive airborne radar system providing perpetual surveillance of vehicles, planes and people on the ground.
March 12th, 2009
FBI has one MILLION people on 'watch and stop' terror list
Surveillance
People on the list are stopped from flying into America or subjected to intense questioning at border crossings before being allowed entry into the country.
A step closer to reading the mind
Surveillance
"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words we could 'read' their spatial memories."
March 10th, 2009
Council spends £6,000 fitting sat-nav to its fleet of mowers... to stop gardeners getting lost
Surveillance
Bosses at Leicestershire County Council had sat-nav fitted to 14 ride-on lawnmowers and claim the satellite systems will help mowers combat an 'unprecedented amount of growth' on it's verges and playing fields.The on-board computers will also be used by contractors to locate the next patch of unmown grass and will show council officers where contractors are and which areas have been cut and when.
Baby's DNA was held on database
Surveillance
The home secretary said the youngest person to have a DNA profile held on the database was less than a year old and the oldest was over 90. It is understood the sample would have been taken to eliminate the baby's DNA from a crime scene.
March 9th, 2009
NY Times: Mileage Tax Would ‘Track Where Motorists Have Been’
Surveillance
A New York Times article about the different test studies being conducted as a precursor to the introduction of a CO2 or mileage tax admits that cars will contain tracking devices that will record where motorists have been.
March 7th, 2009
Why are we fingerprinting children?
Surveillance
An increasing number of today's schoolchildren are forgoing the humiliating daily name call of registration, and are instead having to "fingerswipe" in and out of class, or to give it its proper name: biometric registration. According to campaign group LeaveThemKidsAlone, schools have fingerprinted more than two million children this way, sometimes even without their parents' consent. A statement on its website claims: "It's part of an enormous softening-up exercise, targeting society's most impressionable, so they'll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control."
March 6th, 2009
Schools put 'Big Brother' CCTV cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers' performance
Surveillance
Schools [in Britain] are installing CCTV cameras and microphones in classrooms to spy on teachers...Under the system, special training classrooms have been equipped with 360-degree cameras and five microphones...Some cameras are so powerful they can pick up what pupils are writing in their exercise books or what's on their computer screens.
Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones
Surveillance
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Surveillance Self-Defense Project
Surveillance
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
March 5th, 2009
Chicago Rushes Head First Into ‘Limitless’ Surveillance
Surveillance
Under the auspices of fighting crime and preventing terrorism, Chicago’s Police Superintendent Jody Weis is hyping CCTV as having “limitless” crime-fighting potential. The reality, as is evident to anyone who has actually researched this type of thing, is that studies have shown municipal surveillance cameras to have little to no positive effect on crime.
March 4th, 2009
CCTV simulated-sex pair sentenced
Surveillance
A couple who were caught on CCTV cameras simulating sex to torment their neighbours have both been given two-year restraining orders.
March 3rd, 2009
Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license?
Surveillance
Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.
Every step you take: UK underground centre that is spy capital of the world
Surveillance
Using the latest remote technology, the cameras rotate 360 degrees, 365 days a year, providing a hi-tech version of what the 18th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham conceived as the "Panopticon" - a space where people can be constantly monitored but never know when they are being watched.
March 1st, 2009
Motorway cameras let police and MI5 track all car trips across the country
Surveillance
The 1,090 cameras read numberplates of cars on all motorways and major trunk roads, recording the time, date and location of the vehicle and storing the data for five years.
February 28th, 2009
Government Prepares the Public for Cradle to Grave Surveillance
Surveillance
Adding GPS tracking to this emerging surveillance network would be a control freak’s wish come true. Obama’s supposed rejection of the GPS track and tax idea is a public relations trick. In fact, the global elite have long planned to impose a high-tech surveillance and control grid on humanity.
February 18th, 2009
We are all extremists now
Surveillance
The government is criminalising legitimate dissent under the guise of fighting 'extremism', a word for which it has no definition.
Surveillance will cost more than £34 billion say Convention on Modern Liberty
Surveillance
The cost of running Britain’s state-run databases over the next ten years has soared to £34 billion, according to estimates from a new campaign against what it called the surveillance society.
Smart Roads. Smart Bridges. Smart Grids.
Surveillance
Powering the smart infrastructure are the latest advances in sensors, wireless communications and computing power, all tied together by the Internet...These systems would let roads, traffic signals and vehicles talk to each other, and share crucial information automatically, by using a range of technologies -- GPS navigation, wireless communications, advanced sensors and onboard computers. Translation: the government will know where you are at all times.
February 12th, 2009
British bobbies could become off limits to photographers
Surveillance
A new British anti-terrorism law went into effect today that could effectively bar photographers from taking pictures of police or military personnel.
Federal Agency Aided Md. Spying
Surveillance
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security tracked the protest plans of a peaceful Washington area antiwar group and passed the information to the Maryland State Police, which had previously labeled the activists as terrorists in an intelligence file.
February 12th, 2009
Licence to spy on drinkers
Surveillance
The police are forcing publicans to install CCTV before approving their licences.
The secret police are watching you
Surveillance
How can an organisation that is not subject to public scrutiny set up a sinister unit to monitor political and environmental groups?
February 10th, 2009
Mexico 'to fingerprint all mobile phone users'
Surveillance
Mexico will start a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms.
February 8th, 2009
Spy centre will track you on holiday
Surveillance
THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons.The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.
Warning over 'surveillance state'
Surveillance
Electronic surveillance and collection of personal data are "pervasive" in British society and threaten to undermine democracy, peers have warned.
February 4th, 2009
Google Latitude - now Google can know where you are all of the time
Surveillance
See where your friends are in real time! And why is this needed?
Google offers free software to track people
Surveillance
A new piece of free Google software released today allows people to keep track of each other using their cell phones...it "uses GPS systems and what's called cell tower triangulation to do the job," CBS reports. "The software seeks the closest three cell towers and, with GPS, combines the data to show where someone is."They're not even charging us for the shackles? What a deal!
January 21st, 2009
Rovio - "I can See and Hear you now!"
Surveillance
If you got one of these little devices, please do be careful with it, you never know who might be eavesdropping!
The FRA Law: Sweden as a Survellience Society
Surveillance
Sweden is likely to soon become the strictest country in Western society in terms of surveillance of electronic communication.
Face scanners to be introduced in British schools in new 'Big Brother' row
Surveillance
Face scanners to speed up pupil registration and queues for lunches were helping to create a Big Brother regime in schools.
January 16th, 2009
Unmanned Vehicles Mimic Insects
Surveillance
Gaggles of mechanical grasshoppers, flies, bees and spiders--each a relatively dumb creature--can be networked into very smart networks to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
James Bamford on Democracy Now! -10-14-2008
Surveillance
James Bamford describes the NSA's subcontracting to Israeli firms for mass surveillance of U.S.-based electronic communications.
January 15th, 2009
Big Brother database a 'terrifying' assault on traditional freedoms
Surveillance
Sweeping new powers allowing personal information about every citizen to be handed over to government agencies faced condemnation yesterday amid warnings that Britain is experiencing the greatest threats to civil rights for decades.
January 10th, 2009
Obama: Let's Postpone Digital TV Switch
Surveillance
President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won't be ready. Since when does a president (elect) concern himself with Americans obtaining the clearest possible TV picture? Since when does the govt pay for such things? See the EM Technology page to find out what their agenda really is.
January 9th, 2009
UK e-mail law 'attack on rights'
Surveillance
Rules forcing internet companies to keep details of every e-mail sent in the UK are a waste of money and an attack on civil liberties, say critics.
January 7th, 2009
Obama's Black Widow
Surveillance
Barack Obama will be in charge of the biggest domestic and international spying operation in history..."The NSA's colossal Cray supercomputer, code-named the 'Black Widow,' scans millions of domestic and international phone calls and e-mails every hour. . . . The Black Widow, performing hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, searches through and reassembles key words and patterns, across many languages."
January 4th, 2009
Police set to step up hacking of home PCs
Surveillance
THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.
January 3rd, 2009
Council's 'litter police' spy on people - BEFORE they drop rubbish
Surveillance
The team of 11' environmental enforcement officers' has been equipped with mobile phone cameras and told to use them to film people they think may be about to drop litter.
January 1st, 2009
Surveillance culture sneaks up on Europe, despite resistance
Surveillance
Despite the fact that fascism and repressive state security services dominated Europe — East and West — at different points in the 20th century, a new culture of surveillance is spreading, slowly, across the region again, using tools that the Nazis and the KGB never had.
December 29th, 2008
Big Brother CCTV to spy on pupils aged four - complete with CPS evidence kit
Surveillance
Classwatch, the firm behind the system, says its devices can be set up to record everything that goes on in a classroom 24 hours a day and used to compile ‘evidence’ of wrongdoing.
December 24th, 2008
Santas fight the surveillance state!
Surveillance
Video - Santa's helpers disable big brother cameras in Tempe.
December 20th, 2008
"Smart" Surveillance System May Tag Suspicious or Lost People
Surveillance
Intelligent video cameras, large video screens, and geo-referencing software are among the technologies that will soon be available to law enforcement and security agencies.
The U.S. Government Can Now Legally Take Your Baby's Blood!
Surveillance
Last April, President Bush signed a law which actually allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all babies born in the United States.
December 16th, 2008
MPAA to Obama: censor the Internet, kick people off the Internet, break other countries' Internet
Surveillance
Tim Jones of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has some good commentary on the news that the MPAA has asked Obama to spy on the entire Internet.
Whistleblower exposed NSA wiretapping because 'this is crazy'
Surveillance
Former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm explained, "My entire life, really, was based on trying to enforce the law ... and I believed that the law was being broken in the place where I was working."
December 15th, 2008
Microsoft wants to get under your skin
Surveillance
Microsoft's HealthVault, the medical records database, is to be integrated with VeriMed's human-embedded RFID tags, allowing doctors to access the medical records of unconscious patients with a quick scan of the arm.
New Rule Expands DNA Collection to All People Arrested
Surveillance
Immigration and civil liberties groups condemned a new U.S. government policy to collect DNA samples from all noncitizens detained by authorities and all people arrested for federal crimes.
December 8th, 2008
Drone to Keep Watch on U.S.-Canada Border
Surveillance
On Saturday, a Predator drone touched down at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. The unmanned spy plane will provide eyes in the sky for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which currently employs three Predators to monitor the U.S.-Mexican border.
December 1st, 2008
Obama and the surveillance state
Surveillance
Civil libertarians shouldn't count on Barack Obama to dismantle George Bush's warrantless wiretapping programme
November 26th, 2008
Web spies monitor activists online for police, attorney-general - report:
Surveillance
A PRIVATE intelligence company has been engaged by police to secretly monitor internet and email use by activist and protest groups, a report says.
New York Police Fight With U.S. on Surveillance
Surveillance
An effort by the New York Police Department to get broader latitude to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects has run into sharp resistance from the Justice Department in a bitter struggle that has left the police commissioner and the attorney general accusing each other of putting the public at risk.
U.S. gov't. taps Facebook, Google, MTV to 'fight terrorism'
Surveillance
The US State Department announced plans on Monday to promote online youth groups as a new and powerful way to fight crime, political oppression and terrorism.
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