Surveillance

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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Mon Aug 29, 2016 1:31 pm

Re: Report secret aerial surveillance by Baltimore police
Post by elfismiles » 27 Aug 2016 12:51
viewtopic.php?p=608850#p608850

Chicago begins building 'fitness tracker' to check its vitals
Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY 6:04 a.m. EDT August 29, 2016
636078316032824682-array-of-things.jpg

(Photo: Rob Mitchum/Urban Center for Computation and Data)

CHICAGO — The Windy City has begun installing what sounds and looks a whole lot like a Fitbit that can measure the vitals of a bustling metropolis.

Chicago, which partnered on the project with researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory and several corporations, last week installed the first two of 500 modular sensor boxes. The devices will eventually allow the city and public to instantly get block-by-block data on air quality, noise levels, as well as vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

The project — dubbed the Array of Things and described by Chicago officials as a "fitness tracker for the city" — is a first-of-its-kind effort in the nation. Plans are in the works to replicate the project in the coming years in more than a dozen other cities, including Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Seattle. The Chicago project was funded with the help of a $3.1 million National Science Foundation grant.

“Five years out, if we’re successful, this data and the applications and tools that will grow out of it will be embedded in the lives of residents, and the way the city builds new services and policies,” Chicago’s chief information officer Brenna Berman told USA TODAY. “It will be viewed as a utility — the same way view our street lights and the way we view our buses. They are there for us and they help us get through the city more easily. ... They are just part of our everyday life.”

The 10-pound, beehive looking boxes — affixed on light poles — are fitted with sensors that will allow the city to measure air and surface temperature, barometric pressure, light, vibration, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone and ambient sound intensity. Two cameras in each sensor box will collect data on vehicle and foot traffic, standing water, sky color and cloud cover.

The data will be nearly instantly distributed through the city’s website. Data from the first sensor boxes installed are expected to be made available to the public starting in mid-October. A total of 50 sensor boxes, or nodes, will be installed around Chicago by the end of the year, and 450 more will come online by 2018.

USA TODAY

Rats! Several big U.S. cities seeing surge in rodent complaints

Officials in the nation’s third largest city are optimistic that the project will have in-the-moment utility for residents trying to make decisions about whether to drive or walk an asthmatic child to school or help pedestrians avoid taking desolate routes. For the city, officials believe the sensors will provide a treasure trove of data that will help them make better decisions about infrastructure and health issues in the future.

“For residents, the ability to have real-time information when you bike to school or to work and to choose the lowest pollution route, once all the nodes are up, is something we envision for the future,” Berman said. “What it means for the city is if we know there are pockets of poor air, we can work with environmentalists and community groups to improve air quality in those areas of the city that need that focus.”

USA TODAY

Big Brother? Chicago to measure pedestrians' movements

Berman added that the city has immediate plans to use the data to help guide decisions about bus service. The city also wants to use the vehicular and pedestrian traffic data to help guide policy and infrastructure decisions as it tries to reduce traffic fatalities in Chicago. (The city is one of many around the globe that are part of an ambitious collaborative aiming to cut traffic fatalities to zero.)

Since the project was announced in 2014, Berman said the city has also been approached by community groups who are eager to use the data. The first sensor boxes were installed in the Pilsen neighborhood, whose residents suffer a higher occurrence of asthma than other parts of the city. Berman said operators of a health clinic in the neighborhood are eager to see the data collected by the sensor boxes.

“There are a ton of hit-and-miss experiments being done in cities around the world, but they are not being measured,” said Charlie Catlett, the lead investigator of the Array of Things project. “We’re not able to take a success in Chicago and say this is why it succeeds, and this is how you can adapt that to Denver or Los Angeles or New Orleans. I want to see this project help city designers and planners navigate better.”

When the project was announced more than two years ago, officials faced some skepticism from residents concerned that the collection of data could invade individual privacy.

The group, however, has scrapped original plans to use a Bluetooth modem, which would have helped it collect foot traffic data by detecting the number of smartphones moving through an area. They’ve also assured residents that photos taken by the cameras would automatically be deleted within “tens of minutes” — the amount of time it takes to download relevant information into the system.

“We are not handling anything that’s that sensitive, but we are sensitive to the impressions,” Catlett said. “We wanted to make sure that we’re doing a project that people in Chicago can be excited about and not worried about.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016 ... /89434620/
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Thu Sep 08, 2016 11:51 am

Business
This employee ID badge monitors and listens to you at work — except in the bathroom
By Thomas Heath September 7

A new product by Humanyze aims to increase productivity in the office using analytics. (SolStock)

Do you hog office conversations? Or not talk enough? Does your voice squeal?

Do you sit very still at your desk all day? Or do you fidget under stress? Where do you go in the office? How much time do you spend there? To whom do you talk?

An employee badge can now measure all this and more, all with the goal of giving employers better information to evaluate performance. Think of it as biometrics meets the boss.

A Boston company has taken technology developed at MIT and turned it into special badges that hang around your neck on a lanyard. Each has two microphones doing real-time voice analysis, and each comes with sensors that follow where you are in the office, with motion detectors to record how much you move. The beacons tracking your movements are omitted from bathroom locations, to give you some privacy.

“Within three or four years, every single ID badge is going to have these sensors,” predicted Ben Waber, chief executive of Humanyze, a Boston-based employee analytics company. “We are only scratching the surface right now.”

Those concerned about their privacy might be alarmed by the arrival of such badges. But Humanyze says it doesn’t record the content of what people say, just how they say it. And the boss doesn’t get to look at individuals’ personal data. It is also up to the employee to decide whether they want to participate.

[This software start-up can tell your boss if you’re looking for a job]

“Those are things we hammer home,” Waber said. “If you don’t give people choice, if you don’t aggregate instead of showing individual data, any benefit would be dwarfed by the negative reaction people will have of you coming in with this very sophisticated sensor.”

He and three fellow scientists, two of whom are MIT graduates and one from Finland, call their technology “people analytics.” They developed it as part of their doctoral thesis.

A Bloomberg report this week explained how the groundwork for the new company was laid. MIT finance professor Andrew Lo in 2014 rigged a conference room with monitors “where 57 stock and bond traders lent their bodies to science,” all in the name of using biometrics to identify the characterists that make good employees.

Lo discovered that top-performing traders are “emotional athletes. Their bodies swiftly respond to stressful situations and relax when calm returns, leaving them primed for the next challenge,” according to Bloomberg.

Losers “were hounded by their mistakes and remained emotionally charged, as measured by their heart rate and other markers such as cortisol levels, even after the volatility subsided. Veteran traders had more controlled responses, suggesting that training and experience count.”

“Imagine if all your traders were required to wear wristwatches that monitor their physiology, and you had a dashboard that tells you in real time who is freaking out,” Lo told Bloomberg.

JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have had discussions with tech companies about systems that monitor worker emotions to boost performance and compliance, according to executives at the banks who spoke to Bloomberg.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Waber said one financial services client plans to use the badges to increase productivity. The basic idea is to locate teams that need to communicate with each other closer together based on who talks to whom. By the same token, individuals who do not need to collaborate as much can be farther away or even have their own individual office.

[These lawmakers want to kill the interview question we all hate to answer]

“It’s using sensors to get information about what’s going on in the real world.”
An employee badge by Humanyze with two microphones doing real-time voice analysis, sensors that follow employees locations within the office and motion detectors to record movement. (Courtesy of Humanyze) An employee badge by Humanyze with two microphones doing real-time voice analysis, sensors that follow employees locations within the office and motion detectors to record movement. (Courtesy of Humanyze)

Humanyze is coming out with a next-generation badge in October that will be slightly larger than that credit card in your pocket.

“There are very basic questions I can ask of any business that they cannot answer,” Waber said. “Such as how much does the executive team talk to the engineering team? If you are a retailer, how much should you talk to a customer in a store?”

Humanyze has already sold thousands of these gizmos for Fortune 2000 companies around the world since it was formed five years ago. In addition to Boston, Humanyze has an office in Palo Alto, Calif., and employs 20.

Waber said the company is careful not to divulge personal data to the employer, preferring instead to stick with broad analytics. Employees get to see their own data, but managers do not get to identify the employee with the specific data.

“It’s exactly like a Fitbit for your career,” Waber said.

[How a CEO’s face could predict his success]

Economy & Business Alerts

Breaking news about economic and business issues.

“Imagine you are a salesperson at a high-end retailer and you get paid on commission. Now I want to know, how should I talk to a customer so that I sell more. Or, on a day when I sell a lot of products, what did I do?”

Waber said Humanyze doesn’t make money on the badges but instead makes money on the data it produces.

Waber cited the following real example:

“A bank has hundreds of retail locations. Some perform really well. Some don’t perform as well. The executives want to understand what the high-performing branches do differently. In turns out that in one company, the high-performing branches were very cohesive. The people who work in that branch talk a lot to each other.

“The people in the lowest performing branches almost never talk to each other. The company used Humanyze technology to identify that issue and also change how they pay people and how they organize the branches’ management process. Top line sales grew by 11 percent.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/bus ... o-workers/
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Sat Sep 10, 2016 6:21 pm

Fort Myers could use your home security to monitor crime
Posted: Sep 08, 2016 10:19 PM CDT
Updated: Sep 08, 2016 11:25 PM CDT
By Nestor Mato, ReporterCONNECT


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CANJGbreUqo

FORT MYERS - The city of Fort Myers wants to tap into your home security cameras to possibly help catch criminals.

Some residents worry it could be the first step in a "big brother" takeover.

City leaders have been brainstorming ways to curb violent crime. Having your home security system tapped into would be voluntary, but some have already said "no way."

"I have those security cameras in my home for my reasons, not for anybody else's!" said Sierra Holmes.

A life-long Fort Myers resident, Holmes said if the city asked her for permission to tap into her home security cameras, she'd say no.

"How do I regulate that, how do I know what type of privacy they're invading, what are they using," she questioned.

Fort Myers City Manager Saeed Kazemi said right now, the preliminary idea is for residents to volunteer, allowing the city to tap into their home systems. If a call or crime happens nearby, the city would have instant access.

Mindaugas Balcuumas is an IT professional who worries about how the city will have access to the cameras - and how far the monitoring would go.

"If you have somebody's IP address, you can sniff out some ports. I can get into their home computers; you can actually look at what they're looking up on their computers," he said.

"It's more of big brother being brought in, and it's invading privacy."

Cameras have already been placed downtown, and there are plans to add more at the entrance of two high-crime neighborhoods.

"The police shooting or the Zombicon shooting... it would've been nice if we would've had cameras on the streets because we could've caught suspects," said Elise Kurtz.

She likes that the city is doing what it can to deter crime and collect clues.

As far as the possibility of tapping into your home camera, Kazemi said the city will not violate privacy or the people's trust.

He said the proposal is still in the early stages, and plans and procedures are being developed, and a legal team is still hashing it out.

He said a proposal to city council is still months away.

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/33054837/for ... itor-crime
http://www.nbc-2.com/clip/12718582/fort ... itor-crime
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Wed Dec 28, 2016 3:41 pm

Want to See the Ball Game? Scan Your Iris First
by Alan Levin and Jonathan Levin
December 28, 2016, 4:00 AM CST
Fingerprint biometrics ease stadium lines for select fans
Teams use data to boost revenue, triggering privacy concerns
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... h-tech-age

The lie-detecting security kiosk of the future
December 28, 2016 by Suzanne Finch
The lie-detecting security kiosk of the future
AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers. AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers.
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-lie-detect ... ture.html#
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Tue Jan 10, 2017 10:23 am

The FBI Is Apparently Paying Geek Squad Members To Dig Around In Computers For Evidence Of Criminal Activity
from the maybe-these-are-the-'smart-people'-who-can-fix-Comey's-encryption-&# dept

Law enforcement has a number of informants working for it and the companies that already pay their paychecks, like UPS, for example. It also has a number of government employees working for the TSA, keeping their eyes peeled for "suspicious" amounts of cash it can swoop in and seize.

Unsurprisingly, the FBI also has a number of paid informants. Some of these informants apparently work at Best Buy -- Geek Squad by day, government informants by… well, also by day.

According to court records, Geek Squad technician John "Trey" Westphal, an FBI informant, reported he accidentally located on Rettenmaier's computer an image of "a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." Westphal notified his boss, Justin Meade, also an FBI informant, who alerted colleague Randall Ratliff, another FBI informant at Best Buy, as well as the FBI. Claiming the image met the definition of child pornography and was tied to a series of illicit pictures known as the "Jenny" shots, agent Tracey Riley seized the hard drive.


Not necessarily a problem, considering companies performing computer/electronic device repair are legally required to report discovered child porn to law enforcement. The difference here is the paycheck. This Geek Squad member had been paid $500 for digging around in customers' computers and reporting his findings to the FBI. That changes the motivation from legal obligation to a chance to earn extra cash by digging around in files not essential to the repair work at hand.

More of a problem is the FBI's tactics. While it possibly could have simply pointed to the legal obligation Best Buy has to report discovered child porn, it proactively destroyed this argument by apparently trying to cover up the origin of its investigation, as well as a couple of warrantless searches.

Setting aside the issue of whether the search of Rettenmaier's computer constituted an illegal search by private individuals acting as government agents, the FBI undertook a series of dishonest measures in hopes of building a case, according to James D. Riddet, Rettenmaier's San Clemente-based defense attorney. Riddet says agents conducted two additional searches of the computer without obtaining necessary warrants, lied to trick a federal magistrate judge into authorizing a search warrant, then tried to cover up their misdeeds by initially hiding records.


The "private search" issue is mentioned briefly in OC Weekly's report, but should be examined more closely. Private searches are acceptable, but the introduction of cash payments, as well as the FBI having an official liaison with Best Buy suggests the searches aren't really "private." Instead, the FBI appears to be using private searches to route around warrant requirements. That's not permissible and even the FBI's belief that going after the "worst of worst" isn't going to be enough to salvage these warrantless searches.

As Andrew Fleischman points out at Fault Lines, the government's spin on the paid "private search" issue -- that it's "wild speculation" the Best Buy employee was acting as a paid informant when he discovered the child porn -- doesn't hold up if the situation is reversed. AUSA Anthony Brown's defensive statement is nothing more than the noise of a double standard being erected.

Flipping the script for a minute, would an AUSA say it was “wild speculation” that a man was a drug dealer when phone records showed he regularly contacted a distributor, he was listed as a drug dealer in a special book of drug dealers, and he had received $500.00 for drugs? Sorry to break it to you, Mr. Brown, but once you start getting paid for something, it’s tough to argue you’re just doing it for the love of the game.


In addition to these problems, the file discovered by the Best Buy tech was in unallocated space… something that points to almost nothing, legally-speaking.

[I]n Rettenmaier's case, the alleged "Jenny" image was found on unallocated "trash" space, meaning it could only be retrieved by "carving" with costly, highly sophisticated forensics tools. In other words, it's arguable a computer's owner wouldn't know of its existence. (For example, malware can secretly implant files.) Worse for the FBI, a federal appellate court unequivocally declared in February 2011 (USA v. Andrew Flyer) that pictures found on unallocated space did not constitute knowing possession because it is impossible to determine when, why or who downloaded them.


This important detail was apparently glossed over in the FBI's warrant application to search Rettenmaier's home and personal devices.

In hopes of overcoming this obstacle, they performed a sleight-of-hand maneuver, according to Riddet. The agents simply didn't alert Judge Marc Goldman that the image in question had been buried in unallocated space and, thus, secured deceitful authorization for a February 2012 raid on Rettenmaier's Laguna Niguel residence.


Courts have shown an often-excessive amount of empathy for the government's "outrageous" behavior when pursuing criminals. The fact that there's child porn involved budges the needle in the government's direction, but the obstacles the FBI has placed in its own way through its deceptive behavior may prevent it from salvaging this case.

The case is already on very shaky ground, with the presiding judge questioning agents' "odd memory losses," noting several discrepancies between the FBI's reports and its testimony, and its "perplexing" opposition to turning over documents the defense has requested.

In any event, it appears the FBI has a vast network of informants -- paid or otherwise -- working for both private companies and the federal government. Considering the FBI is already the beneficiary of legal reporting requirements, this move seems ill-advised. It jeopardizes the legitimacy of the evidence, even before the FBI engages in the sort of self-sabotaging acts it appears to have done here.

Underneath it all is the perplexing and disturbing aversion to adhering to the Fourth Amendment we've seen time and time again from law enforcement agencies, both at local and federal levels. Anything that can be done to avoid seeking a warrant, and anything that creates an obfuscatory paper trail, is deployed to make sure the accused faces an even more uphill battle once they arrive in court.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170 ... vity.shtml


fruhmenschen » 10 Jan 2017 05:29 wrote:Bonus Read

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... story.html

If a Best Buy technician is a paid FBI informant, are his computer ...

But emails between Geek Squad technicians and FBI agents in the Louisville field office indicate a long-running relationship. In revealing those publicly in a Dec ...
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Tue Feb 07, 2017 10:26 am

Law & Disorder —
Vizio smart TVs tracked viewers around the clock without consent
Manufacturer will pay $2.2 million and delete data to settle privacy-invasion charges.
Dan Goodin - 2/6/2017, 2:42 PM

Vizio, one of the world's biggest makers of Smart TVs, is paying $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected viewing habits from 11 million devices without the knowledge or consent of the people watching them.

Further Reading
Man-in-the-middle attack on Vizio TVs coughs up owners’ viewing habits
According to a complaint filed Monday by the US Federal Trade Commission, Internet-connected TVs from Vizio contained ACR—short for automated content recognition—software. Without asking for permission, the ACR code captured second-by-second information about the video the TVs displayed. The software collected other personal information and transmitted it, along with the viewing data, to servers controlled by the manufacturer. Vizio then sold the data to unnamed third-parties for purposes of audience measurement, analysis, and tracking.

"For all of these uses, Defendants provide highly specific, second-by-second information about television viewing," FTC lawyers wrote in Monday's complaint. "Each line of a report provides viewing information about a single television. In a securities filing, Vizio states that its data analytics program, for example, 'provides highly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale with great accuracy, which can be used to generate intelligent insights for advertisers and media content providers.'"

In an e-mailed statement, Vizio officials wrote: "The ACR program never paired viewing data with personally identifiable information such as name or contact information, and the Commission did not allege or contend otherwise. Instead, as the Complaint notes, the practices challenged by the government related only to the use of viewing data in the ‘aggregate’ to create summary reports measuring viewing audiences or behaviors."

The tracking started in February 2014 on both new TVs and previously sold devices that didn't originally ship with ACR software installed. The software periodically appended IP addresses to the collected data and also made it possible for more detailed personal information—including age, sex, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and home values—to be associated. The collection occurred under a setting that was described as a "Smart Interactivity" feature that "enables program offers and suggestions." The menu never informed users that the feature also transmitted viewing habits or other personal information. The complaint offered these additional technical details:

Through the ACR software, Vizio's televisions transmit information about what a consumer is watching on a second-by-second basis. Defendants’ ACR software captures information about a selection of pixels on the screen and sends that data to Vizio servers, where it is uniquely matched to a database of publicly available television, movie, and commercial content. Defendants collect viewing data from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, external streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. Defendants have stated that the ACR software captures up to 100 billion data points each day from more than 10 million VIZIO televisions. Defendants store this data indefinitely.

Defendants’ ACR software also periodically collects other information about the television, including IP address, wired and wireless MAC addresses, WiFi signal strength, nearby WiFi access points, and other items.

Big Brother is watching

Further Reading
LG smart TV snooping extends to home networks, second blogger says
The allegations are only the latest to raise troubling privacy concerns about Internet-connected TVs and other so-called Internet-of-things devices. In late 2015, security researchers found that Vizio TVs failed to properly validate the HTTPS certificates of servers they connected to when transmitting viewing-habit data. That made it trivial for anyone who had the ability to monitor and control the Internet traffic passing between the TV and the Vizio servers to impersonate the servers and view or tamper with the transmitted data. Smart TVs manufactured by LG have also been caught collecting potentially sensitive data, including a list of shows being watched, the names of files contained on connected USB drives, and the names of files shared on home or office networks.

Under the terms of the settlement, Vizio will pay $1.5 million to the FTC and $700,000 to the New Jersey Division of Consumer affairs. The settlement also requires Vizio to delete all data collected before March 1, 2016. Additionally, Vizio has agreed to prominently disclose and obtain express consent for all future data collection. The FTC has more details about the case here and here.

Post updated to add comment from Vizio.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... t-consent/


elfismiles » 12 Nov 2015 14:22 wrote:Not news to most of us ...

Image

Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You
Vizio, one of the most popular brands on the market, is offering advertisers “highly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale.”
by Julia Angwin / ProPublica, Nov. 9, 2015, 11:57 a.m.
<SNIP>
http://www.propublica.org/article/own-a ... tching-you


Image

Googlization
Post by elfismiles » 13 Mar 2012 14:23
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34236

elfismiles » 22 Oct 2015 14:11 wrote:This has been increasingly happening to me ...

So last night I spoke of spray foam insulation to my wife within earshot of our phones. And this is what I see in my FuckBook news stream this morning...

Image

elfismiles » 01 Dec 2011 13:22 wrote:Of course, AJ has been ranting about this and TimeWarner and Google spying on folks (listening in) for a while now.

Saw this yesterday...


Security researcher: Android software ‘Carrier IQ’ records communications
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/30/s ... nications/




...so riddle me this ... GPS data mining / colocating for cross-platform advertising? ...

This day before turkeyday I was at a relative's house. They had just gotten new hardwood floors. We talked about it a lot. I was there less than 24 hours. Next morning I am leaving and begin the drive to other relatives house. I am listening to Pandora in the car on my phone and an advert I've never heard before comes on.

It was for the same kind of hardwood flooring! And NO I'd not searched for the info on my phone or otherwise. \<]
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Re: Surveillance

Postby Grizzly » Thu Feb 16, 2017 7:49 pm

Can you say, Gestapo : http://www.citylab.com/crime/2017/02/ce ... ts/512543/
Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

Major cities throughout the U.S. have spent millions on mobile surveillance tools—but there are still few rules about what happens to the information they capture.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
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Re: Surveillance

Postby identity » Wed Feb 22, 2017 4:04 am

US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
Published on Mon, Feb 20, 2017

A Vancouver man was denied entry into the United States after a US Customs and Border Patrol officer read his profiles on the gay hookup app Scruff and the website BBRT.

The officer suspected the man was a sex worker because he found messages from the man saying he was “looking for loads,” and assumed it meant he was soliciting sex for cash. While the misunderstanding might sound funny, it underscores the bitter reality that non-Americans have very few rights at the border, and that even suspicion of criminal behaviour can be used to deny non-Americans entry.

André, a 30-year-old Vancouver set decorator who declined to give his full name for fear of retaliation from US Customs, describes the experience as “humiliating.” André says he was planning to visit his boyfriend, who was working in New Orleans. But when he was going through Customs preclearance at Vancouver airport last October, he was selected for secondary inspection, where an officer took his phone, computer and other possessions, and demanded the passwords for his devices.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was scared, so I gave them the password and then I sat there for at least an hour or two. I missed my flight,” André says. “He came back and just started grilling me. ‘Is this your email?’ and it was an email attached to a Craigslist account for sex ads. He asked me, ‘Is this your account on Scruff? Is this you on BBRT?’ I was like, ‘Yes, this is me.’” When the officer asked him what he meant by “looking for loads,” André says he tried to explain, but the officer kept grilling him. “I could tell just by his nature that he had no intentions of letting me through. They were just going to keep asking me questions looking for something,” he says. “So I asked for the interrogation to stop. I asked if I go back to Canada am I barred for life? He said no, so I accepted that offer.”

A month later, André attempted to fly to New Orleans again. This time, he brought what he thought was ample proof that he was not a sex worker: letters from his employer, pay stubs, bank statements, a lease agreement and phone contracts to prove he intended to return to Canada. When he went through secondary inspection at Vancouver airport, US Customs officers didn’t even need to ask for his passwords — they were saved in their own system. But André had wiped his phone of sex apps, browser history and messages, thinking that would dispel any suggestion he was looking for sex work. Instead, the border officers took that as suspicious.

“They went through my computer. They were looking through Word documents,” André says. “I had nude photos of myself on my phone, and they were questioning who this person was. It was really humiliating and embarrassing.”

“They said, ‘Next time you come through, don’t have a cleared phone,’ and that was it. I wasn’t let through. He said I’m a suspected escort. You can’t really argue with them because you’re trapped,” he says.

André says he lost at least $1200 on non-refundable flights and hotels on the two cancelled trips.
We should never forget Galileo being put before the Inquisition.
It would be even worse if we allowed scientific orthodoxy to become the Inquisition.

Richard Smith, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal 1991-2004,
in a published letter to Nature
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Re: Surveillance

Postby identity » Tue Feb 28, 2017 4:57 am

https://fee.org/articles/welcome-aboard-but-first-us-marshals-will-scan-your-retina/
Welcome Aboard, But First US Marshals Will Scan Your Retina

Jeffrey Tucker
Saturday, February 25, 2017


For some 15 years, airport security has become steadily more invasive. There are ever more checkpoints, ever more requests for documents as you make your way from the airport entrance to the airplane. Passengers adapt to the new changes as they come. But my latest flight to Mexico, originating in Atlanta, presented all passengers with something I had never seen before.

Like everyone else, I complied. What was my choice?We had already been through boarding pass checks, passport checks, scanners, and pat downs. At the gate, each passenger had already had their tickets scanned and we were all walking on the jet bridge to board. It’s at this point that most people assume that it is all done: finally we can enjoy some sense of normalcy.

This time was different. Halfway down the jetbridge, there was a new layer of security. Two US Marshals, heavily armed and dressed in dystopian-style black regalia, stood next to an upright machine with a glowing green eye. Every passenger, one by one, was told to step on a mat and look into the green scanner. It was scanning our eyes and matching that scan with the passport, which was also scanned (yet again).

Like everyone else, I complied. What was my choice? I guess I could have turned back at the point, decline to take the flight I had paid for, but it would be unclear what would then happen. After standing there for perhaps 8 seconds, the machine gave the go signal and I boarded.

I talked to a few passengers about this and others were just as shaken by the experience. They were reticent even to talk about it, as people tend to be when confronted with something like this.

I couldn’t find anyone who had ever seen something like this before. I wrote friends who travel internationally and none said they had ever seen anything like this.

I will tell you how it made me feel: like a prisoner in my own country. It’s one thing to control who comes into a country. But surveilling and permissioning American citizens as they leave their own country, even as they are about to board, is something else.

Where is the toggle switch that would have told the machine not to let me board, and who controls it? How prone is it to bureaucratic error? What happens to my scan now and who has access to it?

The scene reminded me of movies I’ve seen, like Hunger Games or 1984. It’s chilling and strange, even deeply alarming to anyone who has ever dreamed of what freedom might be like. It doesn’t look like this.

Why Now?

I’ve searched the web for some evidence that this new practice has been going on for a while and I just didn’t notice. I find nothing about it. I’ve looked to find some new order, maybe leftover from the Obama administration, that is just now being implemented. But I find nothing.

Update: a reader has pointed me to this page at Homeland Security:

As part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) border security mission, the agency is deploying new technologies to verify travelers’ identities – both when they arrive and when they leave the United States – by matching a traveler to the document they are presenting. CBP’s goal is to enhance national security and protect a traveler’s identity against theft through the use of biometrics.

Biometric information (such as finger, face, or iris) measures a person’s unique physical characteristics. CBP incorporated fingerprints for biometric identification and verification in 2004, and is now testing facial and iris imaging capabilities to help improve travelers’ identity protection, the integrity of our immigration system, and our national security.


I happened to be on the "one daily flight" that gets exit scanned.

Another change has to do with new rules for Homeland Security just imposed by the Trump administration. They make deportation vastly easier for the government. I have no idea if these rules are the culprit for intensified emigration checks.

What people don’t often consider is that every rule that pertains to immigration ultimately applies to emigration as well. Every rule that government has to treat immigrants a certain way also necessarily applies to citizens as well.

Chandran Kukathas is right when he says that “controlling immigration means controlling everyone.”

Regulating immigration is not just about how people arrive, but about what they do once they have entered a country. It is about controlling how long people stay, where they travel, and what they do. Most of all, it means controlling whether or not and for whom they work (paid or unpaid), what they accept in financial remuneration, and what they must do to remain in employment, for as long as that is permitted. Yet this is not possible without controlling citizens and existing residents, who must be regulated, monitored and policed to make sure that they comply with immigration laws.

To be sure, there might have been some tip off that security officials received that triggered these special measures for this flight only. Maybe they were looking for something, someone, in particular. Maybe this was a one-time thing and will not become routine.

The point is that it happened without any change in the laws or regulations. Whatever the reason, it was some decision made by security. It can happen on any flight for any reason. And who is in charge of making that decision?

Think of it: there might be no getting out of the country without subjecting yourself to this process. On the plane, finally, my mind raced through the deeper history here. Passports as we know them are only a little over a century old. In the late 19th century, the apotheosis of the liberal age, there were no passports. You could travel anywhere in the world through whatever means you could find. Nationalism unleashed by World War I ended that.

And here we are today, with ever more controls, seeming to follow Orwell’s blueprint for how to end whatever practical freedoms we have left. And we are going this way despite the absence of any real crisis, any imminent threat? The driving force seems to be this: our own government’s desire to control every aspect of our lives.

Think of it: there might be no getting out of the country without subjecting yourself to this process. It's a digital Berlin Wall. This is what it means to put “security” ahead of freedom: you get neither.
We should never forget Galileo being put before the Inquisition.
It would be even worse if we allowed scientific orthodoxy to become the Inquisition.

Richard Smith, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal 1991-2004,
in a published letter to Nature
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Re: Surveillance

Postby Luther Blissett » Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:09 pm

The final portion of this episode of the very wonderful Intercepted podcast by Jeremy Scahill covers the scope of the NSA's data rendering powers with Palantir's products "Gotham" and "Metropolis."

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/int ... oritarian/
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:37 am

All-knowing surveillance system detects gunfire all across America
By Allison Barrie
March 6, 2017
http://nypost.com/2017/03/06/all-knowin ... s-america/

Are those lamps on your local streets detecting when guns are fired? American cities are being upgraded to pinpoint shooters and help police fight gun violence.

Like something out of the futuristic policing TV show “APB,” new tech can locate the exact position where a gun is fired and report it immediately to law enforcement.

Called ShotSpotter <http://www.shotspotter.com>, this is a tool that can be used by officials to respond even faster to the aid of gun violence victims — minutes can be the difference between life and death. And it provides police with far more information in advance.


elfismiles » 09 Sep 2014 12:57 wrote:I wonder how many towns / cities have these systems?

NYC approves sensors to pinpoint gunfire

Posted: Sep 09, 2014 7:11 AM CDT Updated: Sep 09, 2014 7:25 AM CDT

NEW YORK (AP) - New York City's comptroller has approved a contract for rooftop sensor technology for the NYPD to help pinpoint and reduce gunfire.

Comptroller Scott Stringer approved the contract for the ShotSpotter Flex System on Monday.

The technology will pinpoint the exact location of a gunshot, allowing officers to respond quickly.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the two-year $1.5 million contract will allow the NYPD to target about 15 square miles with the new technology. Officials say that's up to five separate coverage areas in the five boroughs.

The law enforcement agency is still working to determine where to place the sensors. It hopes to have them operating by early spring 2015.

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/26483613/n ... nt-gunfire


See also:

http://psiopradio.com/2007/08/17/austin ... n-program/

elfismiles » 19 Feb 2010 03:33 wrote:...
Image
Audio: East Palo Alto plane crash
Audio: Gunshot spotter system captured East Palo Alto plane crash as it happened
San Jose Mercury News - ‎3 hours ago‎
The crash killed three employees of Silicon Valley electric-car maker Tesla Motors. No one on the ground was injured.
Warning: The audio files contain what may be disturbing sounds from the scene of the crash.
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_14428180

I wonder if Austin's gunshot detector microphone system caught the crash?

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Re: Surveillance

Postby Grizzly » Sun Mar 12, 2017 5:12 pm

“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:03 am

Dishwashers Microwaves Vibrators - oh my!!

Vibrator maker ordered to pay out C$4m for tracking users' sexual activity
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ual-habits
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:08 am

Did I post this already?

Germany bans internet-connected 'spying' doll Cayla - Phys.org
Phys.org › Technology › Security
AMP - Feb 18, 2017 - German regulators have banned an internet-connected doll called "My Friend Cayla" that can chat with children, warning Friday that it was a de facto "spying device". Parents were urged to disable the interactive toy by the Federal Network Agency which enforces bans on surveillance ...
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Re: Surveillance

Postby elfismiles » Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:52 am

Wiping out crime: face-scanners placed in public toilet to tackle loo roll theft
Facial recognition software installed in Beijing convenience to crack down on people taking large amounts of toilet paper
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... na-beijing
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