Tag: mass surveillance

New York Is Quietly Rolling Out Precrime Surveillance Tech

Picture this: it’s rush hour in New York City. A guy in a Mets cap mutters to himself on the F train platform, pacing in tight circles. Nearby, a woman checks her phone five times in ten seconds. Overhead, cameras are watching. Behind the cameras? A machine. And behind that machine? An army of bureaucrats who’ve convinced themselves that bad vibes are now a crime category.

Welcome to the MTA’s shiny new plan for keeping you safe: an AI surveillance system designed to detect “irrational or concerning conduct” before anything happens. Not after a crime. Not even during. Before. The sort of thing that, in less tech-horny times, might’ve been called “having a bad day.”

MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper, the man standing between us and a future where talking to yourself means a visit from the NYPD, is calling it “predictive prevention.”

“AI is the future,” Kemper assured the MTA’s safety committee.

So far, the MTA insists this isn’t about watching you, per se. It’s watching your behavior. Aaron Donovan, MTA spokesperson and professional splitter of hairs, clarified: “The technology being explored by the MTA is designed to identify behaviors, not people.”

And don’t worry about facial recognition, they say. That’s off the table. For now. Just ignore the dozens of vendors currently salivating over multimillion-dollar public contracts to install “emotion detection” software that’s about as accurate as your aunt’s horoscope app.

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“Stop The Digital Control Grid…”

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), publisher of “The Solari Report,” is back to update us about the “Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.”  (CAF) told us last time here on USAW, “There is no bigger ongoing battle for lovers of freedom than the battle taking place over the freedom killing idea of digital ID.”  

But it’s more that just ID, it’s an entire control grid that is being quietly built that is like a frog being put into pot and the water being brought to a boil.  

CAF explains, “You know our goal at Solari is each person has a free and inspired life.  So, we have been working for several years to stop financial transaction control.“

”  If you get the ability to track each person and control their transactions, so if they don’t do what you say, they can turn off your money.  That is game over for the Constitution and for human liberty.  If you look at how the control grid is coming together, there are many different pieces.  There is digital ID, all digital currency or transaction system to a social credit system to the management to certain kinds of data and back-up energy.  There are many different pieces.  We look at the pieces, and we look at them as one-off things such as, oh, I don’t mind having a ‘Real ID’ because I can see why they might want a federal ID, or a passport or whatever.  Each one of these things looks nonthreatening and even convenient, but when they snap together, they are in a control grid, and it’s completely something else.  When Trump was elected, I was shocked to see, almost immediately, the President announce the Stargate AI initiative with the mRNA vaccines, which to me is the internet of bodies.”

CAF put together a long list of Trump Administration actions that are speeding up what looks like a control grid.  It’s called “The Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.”  It lists things such as crypto friendly currency actions, private Central Bank Digital Currency, shrinking banking sector, DOGE, undisclosed Epstein files and many more red flag items that could be used to allow crime to continue and build a digital prison for “We the People.”  While the Trump Administration brings change at a record pace, not a single thing has been done to find out about the “$21 Trillion Missing Money” that has been well documented by CAF and Michigan State Professor Dr. Mark Skidmore.  The money has been stolen from America, and the silence about this is deafening.  CAF says,

“We know there has been tremendous fraud in the financials of the US government.  We know that has happened.  If you look at all the things that you or I would do to figure out what had happened, where the money went and how do we get it back, that’s not what they are doing. . . . If you look at how we would do a successful operation to reengineer government and identify the real fraud and stop it, I don’t see any indication that they are doing that.  I do see some selected efforts that are probably sincere. . . . They are shutting things down lots of us would like to see shut down. . . . We know how to stop the death and disabilities that come from the Covid 19 vax injection, but you go the CDC website, and they are still recommending the Covid injections.”

The massive crime going on with government accounting makes it necessary for the control grid.  CAF explains, “What happened in the last Trump Administration is they adopted FASAB 56.  FASAB 56 basically said they could take the books of the US government dark.“

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Declassified Biden-Era Domestic Terror Strategy Reveals Broad Surveillance, Tech Partnerships, and Global Speech Regulation Agenda

A once-classified federal strategy paper has surfaced, pulling back the curtain on how the Biden administration planned to address domestic terrorism. Released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard after legal pressure from America First Legal (AFL), the document shows a government effort that stretches far beyond traditional national security work.

We obtained a copy of the documents for you here.

The 15-page plan, dated June 2021, outlines a series of objectives aimed at curbing domestic extremism. What’s caught critics’ attention, however, is how broadly the strategy defines the threat. Violence is only part of the concern. The rest seems focused on speech, ideology, and the online flow of information.

AFL sounded the alarm in an April 2 letter, accusing the administration of turning federal power inward. The group warned that officials were labeling “disfavored views” as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “hate speech” and then moving to suppress them under the banner of national security. The letter called it an attempt to “weaponize” the government against its own citizens.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Tulsi Gabbard responded on April 5, thanking AFL “for your work” and promising action. “We are already on this,” she said, “and look forward to declassifying this and other instances of the government being weaponized against Americans.” She pledged to restore “transparency and accountability” across the intelligence community.

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European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy, Framing Mass Surveillance as “Lawful Access”

The EU is once again looking for a way to undermine end-to-end encryption in the name of strengthening law enforcement capabilities, this time via a new strategy, ProtectEU.

The internal security strategy, announced this week by the EU Commission, is presented as a “vision and workplan” that will span a number of years but stops short of making concrete policy proposals.

A press release asserts that the current geopolitical environment is one of “growing” threats from hostile states, and mentions powerful criminal groups and terrorists who are “operating increasingly online” – as well as “surging cybercrime and attacks against our critical infrastructure.”

With the threat elements defined in this way, the EU’s new strategy focuses on six areas, one of them being “more effective tools for law enforcement” – which is where online encryption comes under attack.

When it describes how the groundwork might be laid for mandating encryption backdoors, the EU chooses to use euphemisms such as creating roadmaps for “lawful and effective access to data for law enforcement” and seeking “technological solutions for accessing encrypted data.”

A technology roadmap on encryption would allow for these “solutions” to be found. The EU is not alone in searching for mechanisms to, eventually, legislate against encryption, but these initiatives are invariably met with warnings from both tech companies and civil rights and privacy advocates.

The key issue is that encryption provides both for private communications (which is what law enforcement wants access to) and also the technical security of those communications, financial transactions, etc.

The new EU strategy promises that cybersecurity and fundamental rights will be protected as a future encryption backdoor is implemented.

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Congressional Hearing Reveals Stablecoins And CBDCs Share The Same Financial Control Risks

A congressional hearing on digital currencies rarely makes headlines. Yet, this week’s debate over stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) revealed more than technical disagreements; it exposed deeper anxiety about financial power, privacy, and control in an increasingly digital world.

The conversation unfolded along predictable lines. Those skeptical of CBDCs warned of creeping surveillance and government overreach. Advocates, meanwhile, framed it as a necessity, a matter of American competitiveness in a world where China and Europe are already moving ahead. Yet what emerged, almost inadvertently, was a realization that the supposedly safer alternative, privately issued stablecoins, carries many of the same risks.

While CBDC opponents championed stablecoins as the free-market alternative, testimony from industry leaders revealed that stablecoins — despite their branding as decentralized, private-sector solutions — already carry many of the same risks. The ability to freeze assets, enforce government mandates, and track transactions is a present reality, especially when combined with Know Your Customer (KYC) laws which eradicate privacy.

The core argument against CBDCs is simple: they give the federal government unprecedented control over personal finances. Randall Guynn, Chairman of the Financial Institutions Group at Davis Polk & Wardwell, issued a stark warning.

“A CBDC would give the Federal Reserve staff a direct window into virtually every transaction every person in America makes,” he said. “And at least one of them won’t be able to resist the temptation to use that information to promote what they consider to be worthy political goals.”

His comments echoed a broader concern: a US CBDC could function as a financial surveillance tool, much like China’s digital yuan. In China, authorities can track purchases in real-time and even restrict how certain funds are spent. Many fear the US government could use a CBDC to implement similar controls — whether to enforce political objectives, regulate behavior, or even deplatform individuals from the financial system.

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Finland’s Big Bet on Biometrics: Crime-Fighting Tool or Privacy Nightmare?

Finland has come out with a plan to expand the use of biometric data, with a new a new proposal from the country’s Interior Ministry.

Even as the push to introduce various forms of advanced biometric surveillance, including that incorporating facial recognition, is gaining momentum in countries around the world – so is the pushback from civil rights and privacy campaigners, which ensures that such initiatives these days rarely fly under the radar.

Finland’s Interior Ministry announced on its website that the proposal aims to amend existing rules on biometric data stored by the police and the immigration service – stored, that is, in Finnish citizens’ ID cards, and registers containing biometric data of foreigners.

The government says the intent is not only to strengthen crime prevention – but also to “improve the conditions for using biometrics in law enforcement.”

In addition to the collection of data captured by facial recognition devices, the proposal includes DNA samples and fingerprints taken from suspects. The process is then to attempt to match this biometric data with other types already contained in the law enforcement’s databases – for “crime prevention and investigative purposes.”

The groups keeping a close eye on this development are warning about some of the issues that crop up time and again around similar legislative efforts: the wording that allows for future “mission creep”- as well as unsatisfactory level of provisions that would guarantee against any abuse of such highly sensitive personal information.

Currently, the Finish proposal is yet to be presented to the lawmakers – the Interior Ministry is seeking comments before this can happen. And while the announcement of the proposal goes into the intent driving it, it is short on detail regarding the elephant in the room – privacy safeguards.

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Medical Surveillance Part 2: Tracking the Unvaccinated

Part 1 of “Medical Surveillance” revealed how contact tracing evolved into databases called real-time AI ecosystems. The data stored in these ecosystems ranges from medical records to genomic sequences that were largely collected using Covid-19 PCR tests. Health privacy laws were revised to enable an alarming amount of data sharing with public and private intelligence agencies for military operations. Using the Covid-19 scamdemic as a front, the military worked with so-called health authorities to weaponize Covid-19 statistics to target non-compliant or undesirable groups with mRNA vaccines, ventilators, and Remdesivir. In other words, it was a military operation that utilized covertly collected private medical and genetic data to deploy bioweapons. Targets were acquired using AI generated predictive behavior models provided by government intelligence agencies like Palantir. If that sounds disturbing to you, keep reading because that was just a warm-up.

The DELAYED REACTION THAT ENABLED THE ILLUSION OF THE PANDEMIC OF THE UNVACCINATED

As contact tracing phased into the background and the genome-collection method known as PCR testing was normalized, one more important piece of data needed to be collected: vaccination status.

The mockingbird media foreshadowed that vaccination status must be made public information because during a public health emergency everyone has a right to know their risk. Soon everyone would need to have a Covid-19 shot to travel, work, go to school, and participate in society. All this would inevitably lead to a vaccine passport. Yet there was no official way to track who was vaccinated in the healthcare industry.

The CDC and Medicare (CMS) announced new codes for tracking vaccination status that would go live on April 1st 2022. The update occurred exactly two years after the Covid-19 diagnosis code went live — on April fools’ Day. This time the emergency update was for the purposes of tracking vaccination status. It just wasn’t an emergency during the most aggressive portion of the vaccine campaign; the part where everyone had to get the shot in order for society to come out of lockdown and “go back to normal”. At any point during 2021, the CDC, CMS, or the AMA could have stopped the presses to do another emergency update to introduce a new code for vaccination status (or for adverse events, for that matter). They did not.

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Spies, Secrets, and iCloud: Apple’s Legal Showdown in London

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London is the one that will consider Apple’s appeal against the UK’s Home Office secret order to include an encryption backdoor in the giant’s iCloud service.

As things stand now, pending the outcome of the legal – and political – wrangling, iCloud users no longer enjoy the security and privacy benefits of the Advanced Data Protection (ADP).

This affects iCloud Backup in the following categories: iCloud Drive, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, Wallet Passes, and Freeform.

Meanwhile, the tribunal itself is “secret,” and the date it will consider Apple’s attempt to avoid the permanent breaking of encryption, and of the trust of its users worldwide, has been set for Friday, March 14.

But privacy activists like Privacy International (PI) want these hearings to be public, since the outcome of the UK’s anti-encryption push potentially affects millions, possibly billions of people around the world.

Secret as it may be, the IPT – which is believed to normally deal with national security issues – announced Friday’s closed-door meeting, a move that is described as “unusual.”

Unusual perhaps, but not illogical – Apple’s appeal against the original secret order was also apparently meant to be secret but has in the meantime been “leaked” to the public.

The original order came from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who targeted the US company with a “technical compatibility notice.” The end result of compliance was giving UK’s spies and law enforcement access to data, by compromising iCloud encryption.

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Ontario school children face compelled medical surveillance or suspension

Ontario school children are currently caught in the middle of an ongoing issue regarding student rights, medical privacy, and the power of public health authorities. Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), students attending Ontario schools are required to be vaccinated against certain diseases unless exempt for medical, religious, or philosophical reasons.

However, the recent push by public health officials to have students disclose their vaccination status and face suspension for non-compliance is raising serious privacy concerns.

The problem lies in the ambiguity between ISPA and the Education Act. ISPA stipulates vaccine requirements, but suspension orders are the responsibility of school principals under the Education Act, not public health authorities. This confusion is leading to violations of students’ fundamental right to a free public education, with some students at risk of being unlawfully suspended for failing to disclose their vaccination status.

The pressure to disclose private medical information is causing significant distress among parents and children alike. There are increasing concerns about the safety of centralized digital health databases, which have been vulnerable to data breaches and unauthorized access. With healthcare data a prime target for cyberattacks, parents are understandably worried about the security of their children’s sensitive medical records—which is big business for hackers.

Parents are resisting this growing pressure, with some viewing the disclosure demands as a violation of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). PHIPA requires informed consent before the collection of medical information and protects against coercion. However, the current approach by threatening suspension or else puts this principle into question.

The Ministry of Education was contacted for clarification, but media representatives Ingrid Anderson and Brook Campbell failed to respond days later. The inquiry focused on the confusion between ISPA and the Education Act, and how these conflicting laws are affecting students’ right to education. Additionally, clarification was sought on how medical privacy is being protected for parents wishing to uphold PHIPA.

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Larry Ellison Pushes for AI-Powered National Data Centralization and Mass Surveillance

Oracle co-founder and the company’s executive chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison is trying to persuade governments to descend deep into AI-powered surveillance dystopia by centralizing the entirety of their national data in a single place.

And when he says everything should go into this “unified” database, Ellison means everything. That includes health-related data, such as diagnostic and genomic information, electronic health records, DNA, data on agriculture, climate, utility infrastructure…

Once in there, it would be used to train AI models, such as those developed by Oracle – Ellison shared with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair during a panel at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

As for why any government would do such a thing – his “sell” is that it would allow AI to be used to provide better services. But this time, he left out how this centralization would also represent an exceptional opportunity to “turbocharge” mass government surveillance, even though there is little doubt that many governments are hearing him loud and clear on that point as well.

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