Tag: surveillance

WEF hears about technology that allows your thoughts to be monitored

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering has always been a testing ground for some bizarre ideas, which nonetheless serve a purpose: to introduce, and if possible normalize all kinds of mass surveillance and sometimes extremely privacy-invasive technologies.

And monitoring people’s brain activity, including via implants – surely, it doesn’t get much more invasive than that.

Yet this was one of the technologies presented at an event in Davos this year by Duke University Professor Nita Farahany.

Brain implants are not new in and of themselves, as are used in medicine to treat some serious conditions. However, the kind brought up here at one point are the ones to be put into healthy people – basically to read their minds.

“Decoding complex thought,” is already possible, Farahany said during her “Ready for Brain Transparency?” talk at the WEF summit last week. And the tech now is also able to reveal the degree of stress somebody is experiencing, as well as what they are paying attention to. So, the goal is to know what/how a person is feeling, what they are thinking, and what draws their interest.

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First-of-its-kind ‘weapons detection system’ planned for Utah schools

The Salt Lake City School District in Utah plans to install the system at East, West and Highland High Schools. The Granite District is also planning a “pilot” system at Hunter High, which was stunned by the shooting deaths of two students near the school a year ago.

All of the new security measures could be in place in a matter of months, or possibly weeks.

“I think that’s a good start,“ said Joann Seybold, the grandmother of a student, adding the shootings are still on the minds of the school community. Last January, a teen shot and killed students and injured a third.

Deborah Servis, whose granddaughter attends Hunter, said it would be “wonderful” to have a new weapons detection system.

“We knew of one of the kids who was shot last year,” she said, “who is still recovering.”

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FBI reveals it uses CIA and NSA to spy on Americans

The FBI revealed how the bureau uses the CIA and National Security Agency to probe the private lives of Americans without a warrant in its updated rulebook, which is the first version made public since the Obama administration. 

The handbook, rewritten in 2021, confirms a decade-old leak showcasing the bureau’s collaboration with the CIA and NSA for FBI probes that may involve surveillance without court orders against people not accused of any crimes. Such probes are known as “assessments” at the FBI.

The revelations will fuel critics who have long accused the FBI of abusing its national security surveillance powers.

The FBI’s partnership with U.S. intelligence agencies that are focused on foreign threats is expected to get intense scrutiny from the new Republican-run Congress. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee are digging into how intelligence agencies target Americans. Plans include a new panel to examine the weaponization of the federal government against U.S. citizens.

New information about the FBI’s work with other federal agencies and state and local officials is included in the 906-page rule book authored during the Trump administration and revised under President Biden. The bureau published the updated Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide online after rejecting requests to make it public.

The words CIA and NSA are unredacted in section 20.2 of the 2021 rule book, while the full details of the section remain hidden from public view. A leaked 2011 copy of the FBI’s rule book without redactions obtained by The Intercept shows that section 20.2 covers name trace requests, which involve formal FBI requests for other agencies to conduct searches of their records regarding subjects of interest.

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Shadowy US Spy Firm Promises To Surveil Crypto Users For The Highest Bidder

Leaked files reviewed by MintPress expose how intelligence services the world over can track cryptocurrency transactions to their source and therefore identify users by monitoring the movements of smartphone and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, such as Amazon Echo. The contents comprehensively detonate the myth of crypto anonymity, and have grave implications for individuals and states seeking to shield their financial activity from the prying eyes of hostile governments and authorities.

The documents are among a trove related to the secret operations of Anomaly 6, a shadowy private spying firm founded by a pair of U.S. military intelligence veterans.

The company covertly embeds software development kits, or SDKs, in hundreds of popular apps, then slices through layers of “anonymized” data in order to uncover sensitive information about any individual it chooses anywhere on Earth, at any time. In all, Anomaly 6 can simultaneously monitor roughly three billion smartphone devices – equivalent to a fifth of the world’s total population – in real-time.

Having previously hawked its wares to U.S. Special Operations Command, as this journalist revealed on December 6, Anomaly 6 is now using British private military company Prevail Partners – heavily involved in the West’s proxy war in Ukraine – to market and sell its product to a variety of Western military, security, and intelligence agencies the world over. This is despite the company’s own founders fearing its global dragnet could be completely illegal under national and international data protection regimes.

The company’s international surveillance reach could be more sweeping – and invasive – than even that of the C.I.A. and N.S.A. MintPress can reveal individuals, organizations, and states seeking to bypass traditional financial structures and systems loom prominently in Anomaly 6’s mephitic crosshairs, and spying on their transactions is a pivotal component of its sales pitch to government and private clients. This Orwellian technology leaves cryptocurrency users the world over nowhere to hide.

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The More We Learn, the More Questions We Have: Here Are the Latest Details About the Pelosi Break-in

In the ongoing saga of the break-in at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and and subsequent assault of her husband Paul, new information has been confirmed that raising more questions about the security and monitoring systems in place at the million-dollar home of one of the most powerful individuals in the U.S. government. 

According to Fox News’ Capitol Hill reporter Chad Pergram, the United States Capitol Police did have eyes on the Pelosi’s home from afar at the time the break-in and assault was taking place “but no one saw anything until they noticed police lights at her home.”

The Washington Post reported more on how USCP found out what was going on 2,000 miles away in San Francisco:

Inside the command center for the U.S. Capitol Police, a handful of officers were going through their routines early Friday morning, cycling through live feeds from the department’s 1,800 cameras used to monitor the nearby Capitol complex as well as some points beyond, when an officer stopped. On a screen showing a darkened street nearly 3,000 miles away, police lights were flashing outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), officials say.

The officer in D.C. quickly pulled up additional camera angles from around Pelosi’s home and began to backtrack, watching recordings from the minutes before San Francisco police arrived. There, on camera, was a man with a hammer, breaking a glass panel and entering the speaker’s home, according to three people familiar with how Capitol Police learned of the break-in and who have been briefed on or viewed the video themselves.

That is, there was a live video feed in which the alleged perpetrator — who has since entered a “not guilty” plea — presumably was seen lurking around the property and breaking into the Pelosi home. But no one was paying attention. And no, it wouldn’t have been on a delay or only visible after the incident. Fox confirmed what the Post reported, that Capitol Police “would have witnessed the break-in in real-time.” But they didn’t, and only saw it happening when they replayed a recording from the night of the attack after seeing police lights outside the Speaker’s house.

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U.S. Capitol Police had live video feed at Pelosi home but didn’t notice break-in: Sources

Alive security video feed at the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi caught the suspect in the recent assault on her husband Paul Pelosi, but no one from the U.S. Capitol Police was watching, sources told Just the News.

U.S. Capitol Police did not return numerous requests for comment on Tuesday. 

A source revealed to Just the News that the officer who was in charge of monitoring the feed didn’t notice the break-in occurred until the flashing strobe lights from responding San Francisco police squads were visible on the feed.

Berkeley resident David DePape has been charged in the attack.

Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said that the department is currently conducting a formal review of the incident but declined to provide further detail in a statement released on Tuesday.

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Gov. Hochul’s SUVs are cloaked from traffic cameras

Gov. Kathy Hochul might not be camera shy on the campaign trail, but her state trooper-driven vehicles travel incognito when it comes to being photographed for speeding and running red lights.

Both Hochul and Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado – Democrats pushing campaign platforms aimed at curbing car use — are chauffeured around New York city and state in SUVs equipped with license plates that can’t be flagged by traffic cameras, The Post has learned.

Unlike Mayor Eric Adams’ NYPD security detail and other city officials whose vehicles aren’t cloaked from the camera program’s scrutiny, state-owned vehicles used by State Police’s protective services unit to transport Hochul, her Democratic running mate and their staff come back as “NO-HIT” on the Department of Motor Vehicles database.

A State Police spokesman confirmed the plate numbers are designed to remain anonymous “as a security measure,” adding such protocol has been in place roughly 50 years.

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CCP Runs Police Outpost in New York City, Part of Global Network of Transnational Repression

Chinese authorities have opened at least one “overseas police service station” in the United States as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) global transnational repression, according to human rights group Safeguard Defenders.

“These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity in third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods,” the Spain-based group said in a recent report.

The report, titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild,” examined the initiative first launched by ten “pilot provinces” in 2018. These stations were also called 110 Overseas, named after the country’s police emergency services phone number.

An outpost in New York City was among the “first batch” of 30 overseas police service stations in 21 countries set up by the Public Security Bureau in Fuzhou city, the capital of the southern coastal province of Fujian. Other Chinese cities also set up their own outposts abroad.

The Chinese police authorities’ division in New York was opened on Feb. 15, according to Dongnan News, a media outlet backed by Fujian provincial government. The center, called Fuzhou Police Oversea Service Station, is located at 107 East Broadway, inside the headquarters of the American ChangLe Association (ACA), a non profit with close ties to the Chinese regime.

Safeguard Defenders identified 54 overseas police service stations across five continents, including in cities from Toronto to Dublin.

Yet the total number of such stations is unclear. “There is no complete list of such “110 Overseas” police service stations available,” the report stated. “[T]he number is undoubtedly larger and such stations more widespread,” it added.

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USDA Now Asking People to Register Their Vegetable Gardens for National Database

In a move that has many folks scratching their heads, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has renewed its push for the People’s Garden Initiative which now includes registering vegetable gardens nationwide. According to the USDA, the move is to foster a “more diverse and resilient local food system to empower communities to address issues like nutrition access and climate change.” But those who have been following the USDA closely for years know that they couldn’t care less about your health and nutrition.

To register your garden with the USDA, one must meet several easily obtainable standards.

School gardens, community gardens, urban farms, and small-scale agriculture projects in rural, suburban and urban areas can be recognized as a “People’s Garden” if they register on the USDA website and meet criteria including benefitting the community, working collaboratively, incorporating conservation practices and educating the public.

These standards essentially define every community garden in the country. Now, the government organization that shells out billions every year to companies whose products, like high-fructose corn syrup, are responsible for a massive epidemic of obesity across the planet, will have a database of them.

“We welcome gardens nationwide to join us in the People’s Garden effort and all it represents,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, “Local gardens across the country share USDA’s goals of building more diversified and resilient local food systems, empowering communities to come together around expanding access to healthy food, addressing climate change and advancing equity.”

Secretary Vilsack added: “We encourage existing gardens and new gardens to join the movement. Growing local food benefits local communities in so many ways, and we offer technical resources to help. Also, it’s a great way to connect with your local USDA team members.”

Again, it is important to point out that the mission statement of the USDA does not involve anything to do with keeping Americans healthy. In fact, their track record over the years has done the complete opposite.

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Surveillance shift: San Francisco pilots program allowing police to live monitor private security cameras

Last week San Francisco city leaders approved a 15-month pilot allowing police to monitor live footage from surveillance cameras owned by consenting businesses and civilians without a warrant.

The 7-4 decision by the San Francisco board of supervisors was a major loss for a broad coalition of civil liberties groups that had argued the move would give police unprecedented surveillance powers. It also seemingly marked a departure from the progressive stance on surveillance the city’s leadership had previously maintained.

In May 2019, the board had made history by making the city the first to ban the use of facial recognition by any local government agency. At the time, supervisor Aaron Peskin said, the city had an “an outsize responsibility to regulate the excesses of technology”.

But more than three years, a pandemic and many protests against police injustice later, some members of the board now say they need to balance concerns for privacy with the need to allow law enforcement officials to “utilize certain technologies to make San Francisco safer”.

Privacy advocacy groups say the shift is part of a larger phenomenon in cities across the US, where fears of both perceived and real increases in crime have prompted police and elected officials to expand the use of surveillance technology, even if there isn’t always clear evidence those technologies are effective at deterring or solving crimes.

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