Tag: mass surveillance

Attract Government Attention and Get Your Name Run Through a ‘Terrorist’ Database

In 2021, it’s unfortunately not surprising to learn about routine federal surveillance of people who attract official attention. We live, after all, at a moment when freedom looks haggard and unloved even in liberal democracies and a record number of journalists are behind bars. That the practice of running people’s names through multiple government databases appears to be routine doesn’t bode well for the United States, let alone the world beyond.

“Documents obtained by Yahoo News, including an inspector general report that spans more than 500 pages” expose snooping by Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Counter Network Division, Jana Winter wrote in a December 11 report. “The division, which still operates today, had few rules and routinely used the country’s most sensitive databases to obtain the travel records and financial and personal information of journalists, government officials, congressional members and their staff, NGO workers and others.”

CBP agent Jeffrey Rambo was initially implicated for inquiries about Ali Watkins, a reporter at The New York Times. That included “pulling email addresses, phone numbers and photos from passport applications and checking that information through numerous sensitive government databases, including the terrorism watchlist.” But it quickly becomes apparent that he’s been hung out to dry for doing what he was told by means that are considered normal within the federal government.

“According to records included in the inspector general report, such vetting was standard practice at the division,” Winter adds.

Given the range of tools available to the feds, it’s not a shock that their use has become rote. What’s the point of having vast (if unreliable) databases on people’s activities if you’re not going to use them? To the databases, add geotagging data and information scraped from social media by contractors. Running background checks as a matter of course may be creepy, but it’s difficult to imagine it not becoming standard practice when that information is available at agents’ fingertips.

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Facebook, Google, and Snapchat Are Bypassing Apple’s APP Tracking Transparency and Still Collecting Data on Users

Downloading “free” apps onto devices more often than not allows app providers to collect personal data on users.  Of course, companies that manufacture and sell devices tend to collect personal data on users too (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).  Having access to this data allows companies and providers to analyze users’ habits and preferences so they can market additional products and services to them.  They can also sell users’ data to 3rd parties.  This practice is sometimes referred to as “Surveillance Capitalism.”  As more customers are becoming aware of this, more want to be able to “opt out” of privacy invasive data collection.  Companies aren’t necessarily making this easy though.  Recently Verizon was exposed for automatically enrolling its customers into a new program that scans users’ browser histories.  Facebook, Google, and Snapchat are now also being exposed for continuing to collect data on without users’ knowledge or consent.

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Verizon accused of collecting customer browsing history (and more)

The My Verizon App has been accused of secretly collecting a user’s browser information, tracking apps, location, and contacts, for the purposes of understanding user interests. The mobile network provider appears to be automatically enrolling users in the data collection feature.

Input was first to report about Verizon’s “Custom Experience” feature that is concealed in the My Verizon app. There is also the “Custom Experience Plus” feature that is more invasive in data collection.

According to Verizon, the purposes of these features are to “personalize” users’ experience and “give you more relevant product and service recommendations” through the “information about websites you visit and apps you use on your mobile device.”

The company further states that a user “must opt in to participate and you can change your choice at any time.” However, it appears users are automatically enrolled.

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You’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Has a Naughty List, and You’re On It

“He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness’ sake!”

—“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”

Santa’s got a new helper.

No longer does the all-knowing, all-seeing, jolly Old St. Nick need to rely on antiquated elves on shelves and other seasonal snitches in order to know when you’re sleeping or awake, and if you’ve been naughty or nice.

Thanks to the government’s almost limitless powers made possible by a domestic army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms, Santa can get real-time reports on who’s been good or bad this year. This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—makes the NSA’s rudimentary phone and metadata surveillance appear almost antiquated in comparison.

Consider just a small sampling of the tools being used to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list.

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Your Next Smartphone Could Have an “Always-on” Snooping Camera

Qualcomm Technologies recently announced their newest high-end smartphone processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. This processor has a very controversial feature — it has always-on camera capabilities and will be used in high-end Android smartphones that will be released early 2022.

Qualcomm Vice President of product management Judd Heape  said the following about the new always-on camera capabilities of the processor: “Your phone’s front camera is always securely looking for your face, even if you don’t touch it or raise to wake it.”

Qualcomm touted the new always-on camera during their Snapdragon Tech Summit.

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Popular ‘Family Safety’ App Busted Selling Precise Location Data On Millions – Including Children

After the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal and the ensuing ‘reforms’ within the tech industry to reign in wanton data harvesting by predatory app-makers, one might be left with the impression that the practice had been reined in.

Yet, a deep-dive investigation by The Markup revealed that a popular family safety app used by 33 million people worldwide, Life360, has been selling data on the precise locations of children and other family members to around a dozen data brokers, who have in turn sold data to “virtually anyone who wants to buy it.”

Two former employees of Life360 as well as two individuals formerly employed by data brokers Cuebiq and X-Mode revealed that the Life360 app “acts as a firehose of data” for shady info brokers in an industry which has “few safeguards to prevent the misuse of sensitive information.”

When confronted with evidence, Life360 founder and CEO Chris Hulls had no qualms about his business model, telling The Markup: “We see data as an important part of our business model that allows us to keep the core Life360 services free for the majority of our users, including features that have improved driver safety and saved numerous lives.”

Selling data has become a crucial component of Life360’s revenue, jumping from $693,000 in 2016 to $16 million in 2020, comprising around 20% of its revenue that year, not including an additional $6 million from a partnership with Allstate’s Arity. While the company reported a loss of $16.3 million last year, Life360 – which is publicly traded on the Australian Securities Exchange, has plans for an IPO in the US.

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Biden Infrastructure Bill Includes Passive Monitoring Vehicle “Kill Switch” Mandates For Automakers

As if the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to infringe on your civil liberties with lockdowns and vaccine mandates, media reports over the last several days are suggesting that Biden’s new infrastructure bill will also include a mandate for auto manufacturers to install “kill switches” into vehicles.

Former Rep. Bob Barr, writing for The Daily Caller, calls the measure “disturbingly short on details”, but for the fact that the proposed device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”

Which, of course, is code for some kind of device that is constantly on and monitoring your vehicle – and will likely have the power to shut down your vehicle anytime it wants.

“This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents,” The Daily Caller writes.

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Biden administration purchased surveillance technology from CCP-linked firm, which is banned from doing business with the government

According to recent reports, different federal agencies of Joe Biden’s U.S. government have made technology purchases from a Chinese firm linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is on the list of companies from which the government has been banned from making purchases since the 2019 Defense Spending legislation was implemented during the Trump era.

Despite the federal ban, Fox News reported, U.S. government agencies have reportedly purchased surveillance technology from the firm Lorex, a subsidiary of controversial Chinese firm Dahua Technology.

Dahua Technology is one of several Chinese-based companies that were included on the list of firms banned from marketing technology to the U.S. government under the 2019 defense spending bill, citing fears that the Chinese regime could use the devices to conduct espionage.

The Dahua firm was additionally placed on a federal list of companies that have trade restrictions because the company is linked to the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress the Uighur population in China’s Xinjiang region.

As records released by Fox News show, federal agencies spent thousands of dollars on Lorex video surveillance equipment, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, which purchased Lorex hard drives in May through a Washington, DC technology supplier.

Records also show that the Department of the Army and the Defense Department’s Defense Finance and Accounting Service also purchased Lorex equipment. 

The news broke a day after Senate Democrats, in a last-minute intervention, excluded a bill banning the importation of goods made by millions of people detained in concentration camps by the Chinese Communist regime.

According to a memo from Senate leaders, the bill, which was being promoted as the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, was excluded from the annual defense appropriations bill, the Washington Free Beacon reported Dec. 2. 

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How Federal Surveillance and “Parallel Construction” Undermine the Rule of Law

When we talk about NSA spying, most people’s eyes glaze over. They just don’t think it will have any impact on them. After all, the surveillance agency only spies on foreigners and terrorists, right? And if some Americans’ data ends up in NSA databases in the process, well, that doesn’t really matter. It’s the price we pay for security.

But in fact, federal surveillance and the investigative practices it fosters undermines and subverts the fundamental rule of law in the United States.

State and local law enforcement agencies use the reams of data the NSA collects to prosecute Americans. Most of these cases have nothing to do with terrorism or national security. In fact, the vast majority relate to the so-called “war on drugs.” In the process, these state and local cops shred due process, obliterate the Fourth Amendment and make a mockery out of the “rule of law.”

Using a secretive process known as “parallel construction,” police build cases on illegally obtained, warrantless data collected by the NSA and other federal agencies without anybody ever knowing. These investigations take place in complete secrecy with no judicial oversight. Oftentimes, suspects and defense attornies have no idea how police obtained information.

Former NSA technical director William Binney called parallel construction “the most threatening situation to our constitutional republic since the Civil War.”

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HR 550: House Passes Bill To Fund Federal Vaccination Database

Eighty House Republicans voted with Democrats on Tuesday to pass the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act, which if passed by the Senate and signed into law would fund a federal vaccination database.

According to the bill, also called  H. R. 550, the government would provide $400 million in taxpayer dollars to fund “immunization system data modernization and expansion,” a system otherwise defined as “a confidential, population-based, computerized database that records immunization doses administered by any health care provider to persons within the geographic area covered by that database.”

The text specifically outlines an expansion of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Public Health Department capabilities and the ability for state and local health departments, as well as public and private health care providers, to share health data with the federal government.

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