Tag: mass surveillance

How Will the Techno Elite Get Us To Vote for Mass Surveillance? The Bad-Cop/Good Cop Scheme

George Orwell once stated: ‘to see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle.”

What we are being led to turn a blind eye to today is a bizarre choreographed media drama of a presidential election race between an incumbent, but perhaps fake senile president Joe Biden, who is incoherent during debate but verbally skillful at a follow up speech the next day, and his replacement on the ballot by Kamela Harris, a hand-picked incompetent female vice president who had gained no primary election votes; and in Trump an opponent who has been portrayed as a victim of a series of kangaroo courts and a seemingly real assassination attempt which has garnered public sympathy, but who is competent and coherent.  We have been led to believe Trump willingly bankrupted his billion-dollar real estate fortune by fighting court judgments for tax evasion.

The ongoing election spectacle is an old trick called the Bad Cop-Good Cop routine, the Mutt and Jeff technique, or the forced choice between a Carrot and a Stick. We should not fall for the script or plot of opposing political parties and candidates as a contest between “hostility versus indifference” to working class values or the lesser of two evils currently being piped into our TV’s and cell phones. The election is being framed as a referendum on for adoption of mass AI surveillance and information integration, including medical records, that the technocrats have been unable to get from congress or the courts.

At the experiential level, where this will lead is the TSA will be able to bounce you from an airplane flight if you do not have the requisite vaccinations, regardless of what both candidates and their apparatchiks say otherwise. AI would mark the end of a pluralistic economy of public and private sectors, the gig job subeconomy and independent contractors.

Keep reading

Gabbard Episode Shows the Surveillance State Strong and Stupid as Ever

The former Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is apparently the latest Biden critic to be targeted for federal surveillance and harassment. Gabbard, an outspoken opponent of America’s forever wars, is reportedly being stalked by Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, part of the agency’s Quiet Skies covert operation targeting suspected threats to aviation.

After TSA whistleblowers were quoted confirming the surveillance, Gabbard declared that placing her on the TSA Quiet Skies target list was “clearly an act of political retaliation. It’s no accident that I was placed on the Quiet Skies list the day after I did a prime-time interview warning the American people about… why Kamala Harris would be bad for our country if elected as President.” Gabbard lamented that, despite serving in the U.S. Army for 21 years, “now my government is surveilling me as a potential domestic terrorist.” She groused about “the stress of forever looking over my shoulder, wondering if and how I am being watched, what secret terror watch list I’m on, and having no transparency or due process.” As one Twitter wag quipped, “The only thing Tulsi Gabbard blew up was Kamala’s earlier presidential run. That’s why she’s on a list.” 

On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to TSA chief David Pekoske complaining that the Gabbard surveillance appeared to be “part of a broader pattern in which TSA has repurposed Quiet Skies to surveil individuals based on their political activities, even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing.” Paul requested that TSA speedily turn over “unredacted copies of all current guidelines, criteria, standard operating procedures, and related documents governing the selection of individuals for TSA-managed lists and programs, including the Quiet Skies program.” Paul himself had epic airport clashes with TSA officials in 2012, and the agency has been paying the price ever since. 

In response to an inquiry by journalist Matt Taibbi on the Gabbard controversy, TSA issued a formal statement refusing to confirm or deny the targeting of Gabbard: “TSA’s Quiet Skies program uses a risk-based approach to identify passengers and apply enhanced security measures on some domestic and outbound international flights. To safeguard sensitive national security measures, TSA does not confirm or deny whether any individual has matched to a risk-based rule… Simply matching to a risk-based rule does not constitute derogatory information about an individual.”

In fact, a primary purpose of Quiet Skies is to entitle federal agents to stockpile derogatory information on their targets. 

Keep reading

Big Brother Goes Digital: The Feds’ Race to Integrate Mobile IDs in America

The push to develop digital ID and expand its use in the US is receiving a boost as the country’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is launching a new project.

NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has teamed up with 15 large financial and state institutions, as well as tech companies, to research and develop a way of integrating Mobile Driver’s License (mDL) into financial services. But according to NIST, this is just the start and the initial focus of the program.

The agreement represents an effort to tie in yet more areas of people’s lives in their digital ID (“customer identification program requirements” is how NIST’s announcement describes the focus of this particular initiative). These schemes are often criticized by rights advocates for their potential to be used as mass surveillance tools.

Keep reading

Are we being watched?

Ashadowy state agency with no statutory footing, previously used to monitor perfectly lawful yet dissenting speech during the Covid lockdowns, has been deployed by the Labour Government to monitor social media amid ongoing civil unrest across the UK.

The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), now rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT), has been given the task just months after the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee questioned “the lack of transparency and accountability of [NSOIT] and the appropriateness of its reach”, and recommended that the Government commission an independent review of “the activities and strategy” of the unit to report back within 12 months.

Peter Kyle, Labour’s Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has tasked NSOIT with monitoring online activity following the outbreak of widespread public disorder in the wake of the murder of three schoolgirls in Southport on 29th July.

David Davis, the Conservative MP who previously called for the CDU to be shut down, told the Telegraph he had no real objection to the unit being used to monitor social media during the riots because “it’s perfectly legitimate for the state to monitor things that might incite violence”. 

That’s true, of course – but the question is whether in doing so NSOIT will also be monitoring and flagging for removal online posts that fall well within the law.

Last year, a report by Big Brother Watch unmasked the scale of the digital surveillance system established during the Covid lockdowns, with the government now able to call upon at least three domestic surveillance units, all of which have previously been tasked with monitoring social media posts in the UK, flagging “misleading” content to their Whitehall paymasters who then urge tech platforms to remove them.

These units are the NSOIT in DCMS, the Intelligence and Communications Unit in the Home Office, the Cabinet Office’s Rapid Response Unit (since disbanded, according to the government) and the 77th Brigade, a combined Regular and Army reserve unit within the Ministry of Defence.

NSOIT was originally established to fight what the government calls “disinformation”. 

Keep reading

UK PM Keir Starmer Uses Riots To Call For Mass Surveillance and Social Media Censorship

The more things change, the more they remain the same, at least in the UK; after many years of Tory governments’ vigorous efforts to extend mass surveillance indiscriminately targeting citizens and enact stringent anti-free speech laws, the new Labour government seems to be picking up right where the previous one left off.

The wake of the Southport riots has elicited the usual medley of reactions: moves to address societal issues with more surveillance, strengthen the police state, blame “misinformation” and unproven, but always handy to bring up, “foreign meddling.”

But the real malady seems to be squarely at home: in fact, in the prime minister’s office. Keir Starmer happens to be sitting there now, but the policy hardly ever changes: he, too, wants more mass surveillance based on facial recognition, and more pressure on social media to ramp up censorship.

If anything does change it is the intensity of these demands that have long since been rejected as “Orwellian” by rights groups like Big Brother Watch.

Here, Starmer told a news conference called after the events branded as far-right riots, that participants in the protests (whom he called “thugs” and compared with football hooligans) are “mobile” and for that reason, police forces will, going forward, be a part of a network of sorts.

The prime minister added that there will be intelligence and data sharing, as well as “wider deployment of facial recognition technology, and preventative action, criminal behavior orders to restrict their movements before they can even board a train, in just the same way that we do with football hooligans.”

Movement restrictions are said to apply only to those with previous convictions, and those who have committed “violence at protests.” But here things get complicated because even those who were charged with relatively minor offenses like disorderly conduct could end up having their movements surveilled and restricted.

Starmer isn’t in favor of enacting new laws; he seems satisfied that all this can be achieved within the existing legislation and announced a “coordinated response” within the police across the country and law enforcement taking advantage of those laws more than before. But he does want more police officers, and it seems that increasing their numbers will be one election campaign promise that will be kept.

Keep reading

‘Really Chilling’: Five Countries to Test European Vaccination Card

Five European Union (EU) countries in September will pilot the newly developed European Vaccination Card (EVC), which “aims to empower individuals by consolidating all their vaccination data in one easily accessible location.

The pilot program marks a step toward the continent-wide rollout of the card, according to Vaccines Today.

Belgium, Germany, Greece, Latvia and Portugal will test the new card in a variety of formats, including printed cards, mailed copies and digital versions for smartphones.

The program aims to “pave the way for other countries by harmonising vaccine terminology, developing a common syntax, ensuring adaptability across different healthcare settings, and refining EVC implementation plans,” Vaccines Today reported.

The plans will be made public in 2026, “extending the EVC system beyond the pilot phases and enabling broad adoption across all EU Member States.”

Keep reading

Lawmakers Request Delay on Meta’s Shutdown of “Fact-Checker” Favorite Content Surveillance Tool

Meta’s decision to shut down a content surveillance tool called CrowdTangle, announced earlier in the year and about to take effect next month, has met with opposition from a group of US lawmakers.

CrowdTangle, which the giant bought in 2016, has over the years been “repurposed” by “fact-checkers,” researchers focusing on “disinformation” as well as media who flag it.

Meta said it is replaced by the Meta Content Library, available to some researchers but not commercial entities (such as media outlets, a number of whom are currently running “fact-checking” operations).

Now 17 lawmakers (three Republicans among them) have written to Meta asking that it reconsider this decision, referring to CrowdTangle as a “transparency tool” both for researchers and journalists.

The letter, addressed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, says CrowdTangle is being used to “view and study” content on Facebook and Instagram, but also other platforms, searching for content ranging from foreign influence, and terrorism, to mental health.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Keep reading

AI Won’t Replace You, But It Will Spy on You

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, workers have had to contend with the inimical effects of technology on their jobs. From the power loom to the personal computer, each wave of automation has not only increased productivity, but also empowered the owners and managers who dictate how these technologies reshape the workplace. Today, workers worldwide are haunted by the specter of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence has been a mainstay in our popular imagination for decades.  Prognostications of an AI-driven future range from apocalyptic robot takeovers to thriving post-work societies where people live off the wealth produced by machines. In spite of these daydreams, robots with full human cognition are still well within the domain of science fiction.

When people speak of AI today, what they’re most often referring to are machines capable of making predictions through the identification of patterns in large datasets. Despite that relatively rote function, many in the space believe that inevitably AI will become autonomous or rival human intelligence. This raises concerns that robots will one day represent an existential threat to humanity or at the very least take over all of our jobs. The reality is that AI is more likely to place workers under greater surveillance than to trigger mass unemployment.

An overwhelming majority of workers are confident that AI will have a direct impact on their jobs, according to a recent survey by ADP,  but they do not agree on how. Some feel that it will help them in the workplace while 42 percent fear that some aspects of their job will soon be automated.

These concerns are not without merit. Grandiose statements of oncoming job losses made by tech executives in public forums fuel worker anxiety. Feelings of job insecurity are compounded by reports that a majority of US firms are planning to incorporate AI in the workplace within the next year. In fact, Goldman Sachs predictsthat generative AI could “substitute up to one-fourth of current work.”

Keep reading

UN Cybercrime Draft Convention Dangerously Expands State Surveillance Powers Without Robust Privacy, Data Protection Safeguards

As we near the final negotiating session for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, countries are running out of time to make much-needed improvements to the text. From July 29 to August 9, delegates in New York aim to finalize a convention that could drastically reshape global surveillance laws. The current draft favors extensive surveillance, establishes weak privacy safeguards, and defers most protections against surveillance to national laws—creating a dangerous avenue that could be exploited by countries with varying levels of human rights protections.

The risk is clear: without robust privacy and human rights safeguards in the actual treaty text, we will see increased government overreach, unchecked surveillance, and unauthorized access to sensitive data—leaving individuals vulnerable to violations, abuses, and transnational repression. And not just in one country.  Weaker safeguards in some nations can lead to widespread abuses and privacy erosion because countries are obligated to share the “fruits” of surveillance with each other. This will worsen disparities in human rights protections and create a race to the bottom, turning global cooperation into a tool for authoritarian regimes to investigate crimes that aren’t even crimes in the first place.

Countries that believe in the rule of law must stand up and either defeat the convention or dramatically limit its scope, adhering to non-negotiable red lines as outlined by over 100 NGOs. In an uncommon alliance, civil society and industry agreed earlier this year in a joint letter urging governments to withhold support for the treaty in its current form due to its critical flaws.

Keep reading

AI Mass Surveillance at Paris Olympics Will Continue Even After Games End

The 2024 Paris Olympics is drawing the eyes of the world as thousands of athletes and support personnel and hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe converge in France.

It’s not just the eyes of the world that will be watching. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems will be watching, too.

Government and private companies will be using advanced AI tools and other surveillance tech to conduct pervasive and persistent surveillance before, during and after the Games.

The Olympic world stage and international crowds pose increased security risks so significant that in recent years authorities and critics have described the Olympics as the “world’s largest security operations outside of war.”

The French government, hand in hand with the private tech sector, has harnessed that legitimate need for increased security as grounds to deploy technologically advanced surveillance and data-gathering tools.

Its surveillance plans to meet those risks, including the controversial use of experimental AI video surveillance, are so extensive that the country had to change its laws to make the planned surveillance legal.

The plan goes beyond new AI video surveillance systems. According to news reports, the prime minister’s office has negotiated a provisional decree that is classified to permit the government to significantly ramp up traditional, surreptitious surveillance and information-gathering tools for the duration of the Games.

These include wiretapping; collecting geolocation, communications and computer data; and capturing greater amounts of visual and audio data.

I am a law professor and attorney, and I research, teach and write about privacy, artificial intelligence and surveillance. I also provide legal and policy guidance on these subjects to legislators and others.

Increased security risks can and do require increased surveillance. This year, France has faced concerns about its Olympic security capabilities and credible threats around public sporting events.

Keep reading