Our Awful Situation

Archive for the ‘Surveillance’ Category

Rhode Island school district to begin using RFID to microchip students

Posted by patriot on June 19th, 2008

Another reason why we all love public education:

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.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices.

Cell phone users tracked

Posted by patriot on June 4th, 2008

They might be watching you, too:

Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home.

The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods, which would be illegal in the United States.

It also yielded somewhat surprising results that reveal how little people move around in their daily lives. Nearly three-quarters of those studied mainly stayed within a 20-mile-wide circle for half a year.

The scientists would not disclose where the study was done, only describing the location as an industrialized nation.

Researchers used cell phone towers to track individuals’ locations whenever they made or received phone calls and text messages over six months.

Fingerprints to be required for business?

Posted by patriot on May 30th, 2008

I wonder how much of any proposed bill our elected reps actually read…

Yet earlier this week, a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security passed a U.S. Senate committee almost without notice. The legislation would require thousands of individuals working even tangentially in the mortgage and real estate industries — and not suspected of anything — to send their prints to the feds. The database and fingerprint mandates were tucked into housing and foreclosure assistance bills that on Tuesday passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 19-2.

The measure the committee passed states that “an indvidual may not engage in the business of a loan originator without first … obtaining a unique identifier.” To obtain this “identifier,” an individual is requiredto “furnish” to the newly created Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry “information concerning the applicant’s identity, including fingerprints for submission” to the FBI and other government agencies.

Big Brother in the sky

Posted by patriot on May 25th, 2008

Next time you’re near a tourist attraction, lift your head up to the sky and smile—you might be on not-so-candid camera:

On a cloudless spring day, the NYPD helicopter soars over the city, its sights set on the Statue of Liberty.

A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.

“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.

The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates—or scan pedestrians’ faces—from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.

Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.

UK solidifying its Big Brother role

Posted by patriot on May 21st, 2008

“United” Kingdom? Perhaps united in its quest for fascist totalitarianism…

The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.

Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realised.

The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts.

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

Posted by Charlie Kilo on May 6th, 2008

It wasn’t built to solve or prevent “crime”. That’s just the feel good cover story:

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

More…

Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 14th, 2008

Are you “warm on it”?

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation’s most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea’s legal authority.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department’s new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities — such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.

Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications.

“There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans,” Chertoff wrote to Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, respectively, in letters released yesterday.

“I think we’ve fully addressed anybody’s concerns,” Chertoff added in remarks last week to bloggers. “I think the way is now clear to stand it up and go warm on it.”

More domestic surveillance

Posted by patriot on April 12th, 2008

Big brother is set to start watching us more than he already is:

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation’s most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea’s legal authority.

Attorney General Mukasey caught in a lie?

Posted by patriot on April 8th, 2008

Kudos to Glenn Greenwald for pursuing this story, unlike the “fair and balanced” media:

One of two things is true about Mukasey’s extraordinary claim about how and why the 9/11 attacks occurred. Either:

(1) The Bush administration concealed this obviously vital episode from the 9/11 Commission and from everyone else, until Mukasey tearfully trotted it out last week; or,

(2) Mukasey, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer, made this story up in order to scare and manipulate Americans into believing that FISA and other surveillance safeguards caused the 9/11 attacks and therefore the Government should be given more unchecked spying powers.

More States Join In Battle to Stop REAL ID ACT

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 5th, 2008

Via the AmericanFreePress.net:

A Pennsylvania legislative committee’s hearing on March 13 about the so-called Real ID Act was packed with people—most of whom oppose this federal legislation to create a national identification system by nationalizing a new form of state-issued drivers licenses and loading them with sensitive personal information.

Only two members of the 29-member Intergovernmental Affairs Committee showed up to hear the public, even though many citizens went to much expense to be there. The regular media also were absent.

Aaron Bollinger, the nation’s leading anti-Real ID activist, who chairs the National Veterans Committee for Constitutional Affairs, was on the scene, where public sentiment against Real ID was clearly evident in a state that’s considered a key battleground in the sustained effort to defeat the state-by-state implementation of the Real law.

This 2005 law is one of several recommendations of the vaunted 9-11 Commission, whose findings are considered by informed researchers as woefully incomplete and flawed.

“A member of the Lancaster Amish community traveled all the way—about three hours—to Pittsburgh to get out his message,” Bollinger told AFP. The Amish man’s message regarding existing drivers licenses was:

“How PennDOT [state transportation department] is violating existing state law by refusing to issue drivers licenses to those legitimate American citizens [such as the Amish] who do not have Social Security numbers.”

Learn more here. Stop REAL ID!

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