Tag: mass surveillance

The Patriot Act on steroids: D.C. Uniparty wants to use anti-TikTok legislation as Trojan horse for censorship and surveillance

TikTok is indeed a pestilence upon our society.

But there are right ways to go about minimizing this “digital opium” and its impact on our lives, and other means that will allow the American government to leverage the situation to further curtail our individual rights.

And unsurprisingly, the latter idea is making lawmakers in the beltway beyond giddy this week.

The Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act (S.686), which was introduced in the Senate earlier this month, would do much more than just ban TikTok.

This bill is no mere “TikTok ban,” it is a mechanism for a massive, sweeping surveillance and censorship overhaul.  

The RESTRICT Act goes far, far beyond potentially banning TikTok. It gives the government virtual unchecked authority over the U.S. communications infrastructure. The incredibly broad language includes the ability to “enforce any mitigation measure to address any risk” to “national security” today and in any “potential future transaction.”

The Senate legislation currently has 19 cosponsors, all of whom are Uniparty members in good standing. It is fully “bipartisan,” consisting of 9 democrats and 10 republicans. 

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Geofence Surveillance: First, They Spied on Protesters. Then Churches. You’re Next.

“I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”—Senator Frank Church on Meet The Press, 1975

If you give the government an inch, it will always take a mile.

This is how the slippery slope to all-out persecution starts.

Martin Niemöller’s warning about the widening net that ensnares us all, a warning issued in response to the threat posed by Nazi Germany’s fascist regime, still applies.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

This particular slippery slope has to do with the government’s use of geofence technology, which uses cell phone location data to identify people who are in a particular area at any given time.

First, police began using geofence warrants to carry out dragnet sweeps of individuals near a crime scene.

Then the FBI used geofence warrants to identify individuals who were in the vicinity of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It wasn’t long before government officials in California used cell phone and geofence data to track the number and movements of churchgoers on church grounds during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

If we’ve already reached the point where people praying and gathering on church grounds merits this level of government scrutiny and sanctions, we’re not too far from free-falling into a total surveillance state.

Dragnet geofence surveillance sweeps can and eventually will be used to target as a suspect every person in any given place at any given time and sweep them up into a never-ending virtual line-up in the hopes of matching a criminal to every crime.

There really can be no overstating the danger.

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CDC Bought Phone Data to Monitor Americans’ Compliance With Lockdowns, Contracts Show

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purchased data from tracking companies to monitor compliance with lockdowns, according to contracts with the firms.

The CDC paid one firm $420,000 and another $208,000. That bought access to location data from at least 55 million cellphone users.

The contracts, approved under emergency review due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were aimed at providing the CDC “with the necessary data to continue critical emergency response functions elated to evaluating the impact of visits to key points of interest, stay at home orders, closures, re-openings and other public heath communications related to mask mandate, and other merging research areas on community transmission of SARS-CoV-2,” the contracts, obtained by The Epoch Times, state.

The CDC said it would be using the tracking data to “assess home-by-hour behaviors (i.e. curfew analysis) by exploring the percentage of mobile devices at home during specific period of time.” The data could also be integrated with other information “to provide a comprehensive picture of movement/travel of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand mandatory stay-at-home orders, business closure, school re-openings, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions in states and cities.”

Under a heading labeled “potential use cases” for the data, the CDC said it could be used to try to connect the forced closures of bars and restaurants with COVID-19 infections and death rates, as well as try to assess the impact of state restrictions on close contact between people outside of their home.

The data could also be used to monitor adherence to mandated or recommended quarantines after arrival from another state and to examine the correlation of mobility patterns and spikes in COVID-19 cases at facilities such as churches, concerts, and grocery stores. It would also enable examining movement restrictions such as curfews to show “patterns” and “compliance,” the contracts state.

The contracts were previously reported on by Vice News, but the outlet only released a screenshot of a single page. Together, the contracts run 71 pages. Both were signed in 2021.

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Homeland Security Department Caught Hiding Evidence of ‘Domestic Censorship Activities’

By now, it should not surprise you to learn that a federal intelligence agency is trying to cover up evidence showing that they are working to censor free speech. The past decade has shown us that the federal government has no qualms with trying to use its power to shape public opinion – especially through censorship.

This time, it is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that was reportedly caught trying to conceal its role in squashing certain political views on Big Tech platforms. Fox News reported:

A federal agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that’s been scrutinized for what critics argue is suppression of dissenting political views under the guise of combating disinformation now appears to be “burying” evidence of its alleged censorship, experts and watchdog groups say.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, has come under fire for working with Big Tech companies to flag and take down social media posts related to elections, COVID vaccines, and a range of other issues that were deemed mis-, dis-, and malinformation (MDM).

Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, told Fox News his research found that CISA has attempted to hide its involvement in suppressing opinions posted on social media by Americans. The agency’s MDM webpage discusses “foreign influence operations and disinformation … targeting election infrastructure.” It says nothing of focusing on domestic activity.

But this particular page is new and “has a short web archive history” according to the Fox News report, which also noted that it only existed “since late last month.”

However, the old CISA page related to MDM addresses both “foreign and domestic threat actors [using] MDM campaigns to cause chaos, confusion, and division.” It also gives a much wider definition of CISA’s mission as working “in close coordination with interagency and private sector partners, social media companies, academia, and international partners on a variety of projects to build resilience against malicious information activities.”

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DHS has a program gathering domestic intelligence — and virtually no one knows about it

For years, the Department of Homeland Security has run a virtually unknown program gathering domestic intelligence, one of many revelations in a wide-ranging tranche of internal documents reviewed by POLITICO.

Those documents also reveal that a significant number of employees in DHS’s intelligence office have raised concerns that the work they are doing could be illegal.

Under the domestic-intelligence program, officials are allowed to seek interviews with just about anyone in the United States. That includes people held in immigrant detention centers, local jails, and federal prison. DHS’s intelligence professionals have to say they’re conducting intelligence interviews, and they have to tell the people they seek to interview that their participation is voluntary. But the fact that they’re allowed to go directly to incarcerated people — circumventing their lawyers — raises important civil liberties concerns, according to legal experts.

That specific element of the program, which has been in place for years, was paused last year because of internal concerns. DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which runs the program, uses it to gather information about threats to the U.S., including transnational drug trafficking and organized crime. But the fact that this low-profile office is collecting intelligence by questioning people in the U.S. is virtually unknown.

The inner workings of the program — called the “Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program” — are described in the large tranche of internal documents POLITICO reviewed from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Those documents and additional interviews revealed widespread internal concerns about legally questionable tactics and political pressure. The documents also show that people working there fear punishment if they speak out about mismanagement and abuses.

One unnamed employee — quoted in an April 2021 document — said leadership of I&A’s Office of Regional Intelligence “is ‘shady’ and ‘runs like a corrupt government.’” Another document said some employees worried so much about the legality of their activities that they wanted their employer to cover legal liability insurance.

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The Department of Homeland Security Turns 20. Its Legacy Is Disastrous.

To those who don’t remember the events of September 11, 2001, it can be difficult to convey the sense of dread and uncertainty that followed. As horrible as the attacks were, many of us wondered: What’s next?

It was in this context that Congress quickly passed, and President George W. Bush signed, such legislation as the USA PATRIOT Act, less than two months after 9/11. While that law was drafted with the best of intentions—strengthening the nation’s defenses against potential future attacks—in practice, authorities overwhelmingly use it to circumvent Americans’ basic freedoms like privacy and due process.

Similarly, less than a month after the attacks, Bush signed an executive order establishing the Office of Homeland Security. The office would “coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.”

But that was apparently not enough: In June 2002, Bush proposed an entirely new Cabinet department dedicated to “transforming and realigning the current confusing patchwork of government activities into a single department whose primary mission is to protect our homeland.” Bush’s proposal promised that by consolidating multiple agencies under a single director, the new department would “improve efficiency without growing government.”

In November of that year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and brought nearly two dozen disparate agencies, including the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), the U.S. Secret Service, and the Coast Guard, under its purview. The newly incorporated department officially opened 20 years ago today, on March 1, 2003.

The department’s stated intent was to prevent terrorist attacks and protect the homeland. Twenty years later, what is there to show for it?

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Dystopia Down Under: Facial Mood-Tracking CCTV Cameras Deployed at Mardi Gras Pride Parade

Surveillance cameras with the ability to measure a crowd’s “mood” and track the number of people by counting cell phone frequencies were deployed at the Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras Parade on Saturday in Sydney, Australia.

The CCTV technology from the Dynamic Crowd Measurement firm was used to monitor Oxford Street in Sydney as the city’s LGBTQ-themed Mardi Gras parade was held for the first time since 2019, having been cancelled for the past three years due to the Chinese coronavirus.

According to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald, the cutting-edge cameras came equipped with the ability to track the mood of the crowd, with software being able to track facial expressions and determine whether they are displaying signs of happiness, anger, or neutrality.

The cameras also come with the ability to measure crowd density by counting the number of cell phone frequencies emitted in a given area. It was estimated that around 12,000 people attended on Saturday.

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WHO Calls for Global Surveillance to Ensure No One Escapes Vaccination

The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to use the wealth of Bill Gates to expand the global surveillance apparatus to a degree that anyone with any ailment will be quickly identified and prevented from spreading any disease he is suspected of having.

That unbelievable goal is a substantial part of the scheme known as the WHO Zero Draft of the International Instrument on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, which The New American reported on Wednesday.

In a presentation delivered on February 5 explaining the globalists’ purpose in putting the whole world under the watchful eye of Bill Gates and his globalist water carriers, Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO’s  COVID-19 Technical Lead, declared:

We want to end this emergency in every country, so we need to strengthen the systems in countries around surveillance. So that any individual, if they are infected with whatever they have — flu, respiratory syncytial virus [RSV], COVID-19 — will receive that antiviral as quickly as possible.

That’s right. The WHO is calling on member states to deploy more robust surveillance systems in order to identify people with any disease whatsoever so that the “infected” person can be identified and vaccinated “as quickly as possible.”

While I would encourage everyone reading this article to watch Van Kerkhove’s presentation, I would likewise encourage you to read the Zero Draft and acquaint yourself with the WHO’s plans and the language they use to explain and justify the execution of those plans by the governments of WHO member states. Here are a couple examples from the text of the WHO’s pandemic plan:

Each Party shall, in accordance with national law, adopt policies and strategies, supported by implementation plans, across the public and private sectors and relevant agencies, consistent with relevant tools, including, but not limited to, the International Health Regulations, and strengthen and reinforce public health functions for … surveillance (including using a One Health approach), outbreak investigation and control, through interoperable early warning and alert systems…. (Chapter IV, Article 11, Section 4(c))

The Parties commit to strengthen multisectoral, coordinated, interoperable and integrated One Health surveillance systems and strengthen laboratory capacity to identify and assess the risks and emergence of pathogens and variants with pandemic potential, in order to minimize spill-over events, mutations and the risks associated with zoonotic neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases, with a view to preventing small-scale outbreaks in wildlife or domesticated animals from becoming a pandemic. (Chapter V, Article 18, Section 7)

Pay close attention to the language. This Zero Draft, should it be adopted by WHO, will be forced upon countries who are signatories to WHO and the citizens of those countries. Those citizens will be placed under surveillance — surveillance developed, deployed, and driven by a cabal of nameless, faceless, unelected, and unaccountable global bureaucrats who will use these expanded surveillance systems to identify every man, woman, and child in every country who has not been vaccinated and isolate and vaccinate that person so that they cannot “infect” others.

This is the world we live in.

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Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to NSA mass surveillance

The entity behind Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundations partnered with the ACLU and the Knight Institute to try to get the US Supreme Court to force Congress to curtail the current NSA internet surveillance.

The decision leaves the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit with a divided opinion, which threw out Wikimedia’s challenge accepting the government’s “state secrets privilege” argument.

The notorious agency’s legal basis for such surveillance are based on FISA (Foreign Surveillance Act) which grew into quite a “monster” since it was first passed in 1978, and in particular after 9/11 – and, specifically with Section 702, introduced in 2008.

Section 702 is up for renewal later this year and this is what the petition sought to prevent. The contested legislation proved to be the foundation of much of the mass surveillance wrongdoings revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

Wikimedia and others unsuccessfully attempted to ensure that the NSA “upstream” surveillance program (the harmful nature of which is said to be backed up by a number of disclosures coming from government sources) would be “reviewed” rather than simply renewed this time. It allows the spy agency to search internet traffic to and from the US, and that means emails, messages and other communication belonging to Americans.

This means that both those on US soil and targeted individuals abroad are spied on.

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NSA on massive hiring spree, snatching up laid-off Big Tech workers from Meta, Zoom, and Twitter

The National Security Agency (NSA) is scooping up laid-off Big Tech employees in the biggest hiring spree by the intelligence organization in 30 years, poaching talent from Silicon Valley companies such as Meta, Zoom, and Twitter, among others, to add to its spying ranks.

The NSA is scouring LinkedIn for 3,000 tech workers in what it is describing as an “unprecedented hiring effort in 2023.”

It’s been a bloodbath as the Big Tech sector has seen more than 200,000 laid off since last year with analysts and software engineers finding employment within roughly eight weeks of being let go. They are being paid handsome severance packages on the way out the door.

Zoom cut ties with 1,300 workers last week. That was 13 percent of its workforce. The CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan, has said he would slash his own $1.1 million salary by 98 percent, according to the Daily Mail. Other executives can expect to see their salaries cut by roughly 20 percent and there will reportedly be no annual bonuses in 2023. Those laid off will be given 16 weeks’ salary and healthcare coverage, as well as their 2023 annual bonuses. They will also get stock options vesting for six months, along with one-on-one coaching, workshops, and networking sessions.

“We have made the tough but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15 percent and say goodbye to around 1,300 hardworking, talented colleagues,” Yuan wrote in a message on Zoom Blog 30 minutes prior to sending out emails terminating employees. “I know this is a difficult message to hear, and certainly not one I ever wanted to deliver.”

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