Citigraf was conceived in 2016, when the Chicago Police Department hired Genetec to solve a surveillance conundrum. Like other large law enforcement organizations around the country, the department had built up such an impressive arsenal of technologies for keeping tabs on citizens that it had reached the point of surveillance overload. To get a clear picture of an emergency in progress, officers often had to bushwhack through dozens of byzantine databases and feeds from far-flung sensors, including gunshot detectors, license plate readers, and public and private security cameras. This process of braiding together strands of information—“multi-intelligence fusion” is the technical term—was becoming too difficult. As one Chicago official put it, echoing a well-worn aphorism in surveillance circles, the city was “data-rich but information-poor.” What investigators needed was a tool that could cut a clean line through the labyrinth. What they needed was automated fusion.
Tag: mass surveillance
Biden Takes Trump’s Wall to Next Level, New “Smart” Wall Will Spy on Americans Hundreds of Miles Inland
On January 20, in the minds of the establishment left, a new dawn was on the horizon with nothing but unicorns, a$15 minimum wage, and free health care and college for all. However, many on the left are already learning that their new messiah, Joseph R. Biden, is not that different from the right’s former messiah when it comes to wars, the police state, and immigration.
Though the right claims Biden is “going to open up the borders” so all the immigrants can rush in and “take our jobs and rape our children” that is not what will happen. For people outraged by Trump putting “kids in cages” as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration over the last four years, Joe Biden is not different, in fact when you read below to see what is unfolding, you will see that he is worse.
Remember, Biden was vice president during the Obama administration which aggressively deported more immigrants than Trump and who also put “kids in cages.” In fact, the photos used to first bring attention to kids in cages under Trump, were actually taken during Biden’s tenure as VP and the detention facilities were an Obama-era creation.
Sure, Biden used executive action to stop the construction of Trump’s silly wall that was easily scalable and could easily be circumvented. He also stopped new enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols program, which forced asylum seekers to wait in often-dangerous circumstances in Mexico for their US immigration hearings. However, this is little more than virtue signaling for which the media can have something to praise him. Behind the scenes, Biden and his advisers have something in the works that dwarfs Trump’s wall — a “virtual” or “smart” wall.
Biden’s new “Smart” wall will use advanced surveillance technology to patrol the border, presenting a danger to immigrants and citizens alike. According to a report in The Nation, while the full text of the immigration legislative proposal Biden sent to Congress has not been made public, a fact sheet distributed to reporters contains a section titled “Supplement existing border resources with technology and Infrastructure,” which calls for additional funding to, among other things, “enhance the ability to process asylum seekers” and “manage and secure the southern border between ports of entry that focuses on flexible solutions and technologies that expand the ability to detect illicit activity.”
The smart wall will not be as obvious and physically offensive as an actual wall, but aerial drones, infrared cameras, motion sensors, radar, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence is far more ominous than steel and bricks.
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Rights Advocates Alarmed by US Spy Agency’s Purchase of Warrantless Phone Location Data
Digital rights advocates reacted with alarm to a report published Friday detailing how Defense Intelligence Agency analysts in recent years bought databases of U.S. smartphone location data without first obtaining warrants.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is part of the Department of Defense and is tasked with informing military and civilian policymakers about the activities and intentions of foreign governments and nonstate actors.
The new revelation, first reported by the New York Times, initially came in the form of DIA responses to questions from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) regarding the agency’s warrantless purchase of commercial location data generated by phones both inside and outside of the United States.
Wyden asked the DIA to clarify its interpretation of Carpenter v. United States, a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring law enforcement agencies from requesting personal location information from a cellphone company without first obtaining a search warrant from a judge.
“DIA does not construe the Carpenter decision to require a judicial warrant endorsing purchase or use of commercially-available data for intelligence purposes,” the agency replied, implicitly acknowledging its exploitation of an apparent loophole in the case that DIA believes permits its warrantless acquisition of location data from third-party brokers.
Our Post-9/11 Response Deprived Us of Liberty and Didn’t Stop Terrorism. Let’s Not Venerate or Expand It.
Writing at The Daily Beast, Jeff Stein asks whether America needs a new federal spy agency focused on domestic threats in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Americans who refuse to accept that outgoing President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
But we already have such an organization. It’s called the FBI. Stein argues that the FBI is so focused on solving and clearing crimes that it’s not able to effectively engage in domestic intelligence gathering. He asks whether a new federal agency should be created for that purpose.
In reality, the FBI is set up just fine for intelligence gathering. In fact, under Trump, the FBI’s authority to secretly snoop on American citizens was actually expanded. The intelligence failures that preceded the attack on the Capitol involved a lack of communication between law enforcement agencies about the intelligence that had been gathered. It’s not entirely clear how yet another federal surveillance agency would fix that problem.
How “Smart” Bulbs Track Your Behavior (Even When Lights Are Turned Off) and Why Manufacturers Want Your Data
Privacy and security experts have warned for many years about privacy and cybersecurity risks associated with ALL “Smart” and wireless technology – cell phones (see 1, 2, 3), medical devices and implants (see 1, 2), personal and “Smart” home devices and wearables (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), utility “Smart” meters (electric, gas, and water), and everything that uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology (see 1, 2). Last month, researchers from Carnegie Melon University proposed product warning labels that would make it easier for consumers to understand this.
Of course, manufacturers may not be in a hurry to use them because their “Smart” products allow them to collect data on consumers to analyze and sell to 3rd parties. This is referred to as “Surveillance Capitalism.” “Smart” light bulbs can be used for this as well.
DHS’s Facial/Iris Recognition Can ID Airline Passengers Wearing Masks
It is official, unless airline passengers are willing to wear motorcycle helmets or Daft Punk style masks, the Feds can use facial and iris recognition to identify nearly everyone.
According to an S&T press release, a pilot program run by DHS proves they can use facial/iris recognition to identify airline passengers.
The in-person rally, held at the Maryland Test Facility (MdTF), included 10 days of human testing during which six face and/or iris acquisition systems and 13 matching algorithms were tested with help from 582 diverse test volunteers representing 60 countries.
What is DHS’s so-called motivation to ID everyone?
Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen
The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash can is programmed to decide whether a person looks suspicious—and then call the human police on them. Police robots may not be able to hurt people like armed predator drones used in combat—yet—but as history shows, calling the police on someone can prove equally deadly.
Long before the 1987 movie Robocop, even before Karel Čapek invented the word robot in 1920, police have been trying to find ways to be everywhere at once. Widespread security cameras are one solution—but even a blanket of CCTV cameras couldn’t follow a suspect into every nook of public space. Thus, the vision of a police robot continued as a dream, until now. Whether they look like Boston Dynamics’ robodogs or Knightscope’s rolling pickles, robots are coming to a street, shopping mall, or grocery store near you.
The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast
A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.
“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”
“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”
The Many Occasions Joe Biden Took Credit For Writing The Patriot Act
If Vice President Joe Biden decides to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his past positions — including on trade bills, the Iraq War, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and changes to welfare — are sure to draw the ire of the party’s liberal base.
Much has already been made about Biden’s instrumental role as a senator pushing through the 1994 crime bill — “a bill that made the problem worse” according to former President Bill Clinton, who signed it into law.
Another potential sticking point for liberals: Biden not only voted for the 2001 Patriot Act, he, on many occasions, claimed credit for writing it.
“I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing,” Biden was quoted as saying by the New Republic in 2001.
“And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,” Biden continued, referring to the Patriot Act. The act broadened the surveillance capabilities of U.S. law enforcement agencies as it relates to identifying potential terrorists, and many of its provisions have been opposed by liberal Democrats and civil libertarians.
Hellbound and Down 
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