NJ TRANSIT defends recording conversations, video on trains

The director of NJ TRANSIT on Tuesday defended the use of audio surveillance systems on some of its trains Tuesday, as some questioned the monitoring’s legal and ethical underpinnings.Audio and video recording currently is in use on the River Line between Trenton and Camden and will be in use on similar light rail trains in Newark and in Hudson County, NJ TRANSIT said Tuesday. … the agency is using whatever tools at its disposal to “deter criminal activity” and keep passengers safe, citing global terror attacks.

“In light of terrorist attacks on mass transit facilities around the world, New Jersey Transit is availing itself of the latest technology to deter that, always keeping in mind the privacy rights of our customers,”

Source: NJ TRANSIT Defends Recording Conversations On Light Rail

5 Things You Need To Know About Roadblocks | NMA

Q. Are roadblocks legal?

A. The US Supreme Court has found roadblocks to be legal for a variety of purposes, the most prominent being so-called “sobriety check points.” There is a longer history of roadblock approvals related to checking vehicles near or at national border crossings…

via 5 Things You Need To Know About Roadblocks.

BATFE attempts to intimidate patriot blog-o-sphere by attacking the Charles Carroll Society over coverage | CCS

“I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable.”  — Kurt Hoffman, in his Armed & Safe blog

Out of the entire Internet, the Charles Carroll Society and The Federalist Papers are singled out by the BATFE and US Attorney for their coverage of the immoral and unconstitutional raids conducted by the BATFE against Ares Armor.  Why do you think the BATFE and the Obama administration has personally attacked this blog?

In one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, the BATFE, one of the most lawless agencies we have has targeted this small community here on the Charles Carroll Society (CCS). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), specifically the United States Attorney listed the Charles Carrol Society as the example for their reason not to provide the names of the federal agents who lied to support the novel decision (that means B.S. for the rest of us) to say that an 80% lower is a firearm.  Why didn’t they target the Drudge Report? Why not Alex Jones Info War?  Those blogs covered the unconstitutional seizure of customer records from Ares Armor.   Because those blogs have lawyers and they have very loud voices.  Why not Cam at NRA News?  They wouldn’t dare.  They attack the smallest blogs.  Please forward this to the largest voices in the patriot blog-o-sphere and ask them to cover it. 

Can Police Search Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant? The Supreme Court is About to Decide | Liberty Blitzkrieg

Two very important cases related to the 4th Amendment protection of cellphone data went before the Supreme Court yesterday. At issue here is whether or not police can search someone’s cellphone upon arrest. As usual, the Obama administration’s Justice Department is arguing against the citizenry, and in favor of the (police) state. Let’s not forget that the “Justice” Department also argued in favor of the police being able to place GPS tracking devices on people’s cars without a warrant back in 2011. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled against it.

Naturally, the feds in the current case will discuss all of the criminals they were able to bring to justice as a result of these privacy violations, but they will certainly not point out America’s current epidemic of unlawful arrests, as well as arrests for petty non-violent crimes that happen each and every day. For instance, let’s not forget statistics that came out last fall from the FBI that showed police make an arrest every two seconds in the USA. I covered this in detail in my post: Land of the Free: American Police Make an Arrest Every 2 Seconds in 2012.

Please Repost : The NSA Keyword list

Just give the guys at NSA something to make the screen light up, please send this list by email, text, fax and social media to everyone you know, and some that you don’t. Grey Enigma. _________________________________

Assassination Attack Domestic security Drill Exercise Cops Law enforcement Authorities Disaster assistance Disaster management DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office) National preparedness Mitigation Prevention Response Recovery Dirty bomb Domestic nuclear detection Emergency management Emergency response First responder Homeland security Maritime domain awareness (MDA) National preparedness initiative Militia Shooting Shots fired Evacuation Deaths Hostage Explosion (explosive) Police Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) Organized crime Gangs National security State of emergency Security Breach Threat Standoff SWAT Screening Lockdown Bomb (squad or threat) Crash Looting Riot Emergency Landing Pipe bomb

Why Things Will Get Worse – Much Worse | ZeroHedge

Originally posted at Monty Pelerin’s World blog,

It is easy to be upset about what is happening all around. The economy is being destroyed, deliberately, by insane economic policies. Incentives to work are being eliminated by punishing work. At the same time rewards are increasing for not working. Not surprisingly we get less of what we penalize (work) and more of what we subsidize (non-work).

As an economist I get sick over what I see happening to what was once a great engine of productivity, capital creation and improvements in standards of living.

After two centuries of progress that amazed the world, the conditions necessary for growth and productivity are steadily being removed. Their presence allowed the miracle of America. Their absence guarantees the decline. Carried to extreme, the US could become a second or third-world nation within a few decades. Virtually all changes in the last five to ten years point in this direction and these changes are accelerating.

As pained as the economic retrogression is, the loss of freedom is even more disturbing. It was free markets and free men that made America the dominant economic power and the beacon of freedom. Without freedom, no economic policy can succeed. Yet, just as economic policies seem designed to destroy rather than create, so too does the role of government as steadily destroys freedom with its expanded oppression and power. The absence of freedom is tyranny. The absence of freedom is also poverty.

Economic decline is difficult to convey, although data are useful.

The decline of liberty, however, is not easily quantifiable and even more difficult to communicate. An email from Simon Black, expresses his concern regarding Leviathan government and its increasing oppression. It provides as good a qualitative measure of what is occurring to freedom in this country:

 By now it should be clear to anyone paying attention that most of Western civilization is on a dangerous slide into tyranny.

They’re confiscating funds directly from people’s bank accounts. They’re seizing reporters’ personal records and phone logs. They’re digitally spying on everyone’s emails.

They’ve authorized military detention and drone assassination of their own citizens.

They’re using tax offices to harass political opposition groups.

They tell us what we are allowed to eat and drink, what foods we are allowed to put in our own body.

Think about it. These are Soviet tactics, plain and simple.

What’s more, they don’t even care. They think we’re all idiots who are too stupid to even notice what they’re doing.

In fact, just a few days ago, Barack Obama staunchly defended his policies, saying “you can complain about Big Brother. . . but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance.” This is textbook sociopathic behavior: destructive, antisocial conduct and a complete lack of conscience.

Unfortunately this is just the beginning.

Imagine what it will look like in a few more years: trillions of dollars of more debt… more printed currency. More police state tactics. More invasions of privacy. More ridiculous regulations.

Goodbye Fourth Amendment: Homeland Security Affirms “Suspicionless” Confiscation Of Devices Along Border | Zero Hedge

…According to Wired, “the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security...”

 

via Zero Hedge.

This Dog Can Send You to Jail | Reason.com

“… He asked me would I mind if he searched my vehicle, and I said, ‘Well, yes, I would mind if you searched my vehicle.’ ”

But thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, the deputy did not have to take no for an answer. In the 2005 case Illinois v. Caballes, the Court declared that “the use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog…during a lawful traffic stop generally does not implicate legitimate privacy interests.” So the deputy was free to walk his dog around Burns’ truck. “He got out with this dog and went around the car, two or three times,” Burns says. “He came back and said the dog had ‘passively alerted’ on my vehicle.”  via This Dog Can Send You to Jail – Reason.com.

Leave Your Cellphone at Home – an Interview with Jacob Appelbaum | n + 1

Earlier this year in Wired, writer and intelligence expert James Bamford described the National Security Agency’s plans for the Utah Data Center. A nondescript name, but it has another: the First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center. The $2 billion facility, scheduled to open in September 2013, will be used to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store the agency’s intercepted communications—everything from emails, cell phone calls, Google searches, and Tweets, to retail transactions. How will all this data be stored? Imagine, if you can, 100,000 square-feet filled with row upon row of servers, stacked neatly on racks. Bamford projects that its processing-capacity may aspire to yottabytes, or 10²⁴ bytes, and for which no neologism of higher magnitude has yet been coined.

Sixth Circuit Rules That Pinging a Cell Phone to Determine Its Location is Not a 4th Amendment “Search” | Volokh

The decision handed down this morning is United States v. Skinner, and it was 2-1 on the Fourth Amendment merits. The defendant used a pre-paid cell phone obtained by providing false identity information (also known as a “burner“) to communicate with co-conspirators as he brought a motor home filled with marijuana from Arizona from Tennessee. Agents learned the cell phone number that the defendant was using and obtained a court order requiring the cell phone company to disclose location information of the phone to the agents. The government used the location information to track the car for three days, eventually catching up to the car ata rest stop in Texas. Local police brought out a dog to sniff for marijuana; the dog alerted for the presence of drugs inside; and the search of the car revealed 1,100 pounds of marijuana inside.

Cubic Sets the Trap: Acquiring Abraxas and Trapwire was Evil Genius | John Stanton

“Cubic is the world’s leading provider of automated payment and fare collection systems and services for the transportation industry.” Cubic’s purchase of Abraxas in 2010 for $124 million (US) in cash made sense looking at where the $1.2 billion dollar Cubic Company does business. A large chunk of that money comes from its Defense Systems and Mission Support Operations segments (where Abraxas is apparently operating). Roughly $415 million comes from its Transportation division.

Cubic’s acquisition of Abraxas and its magic bag full of electronic tracking/snooping tools was made two years prior to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.In 2011. The transit authority there had recently installed video cameras on all of its 191 buses.

When Is a Dog Sniff in Your Car Not a Search? | Volokh

Jonathan H. Adler • July 27, 2012 11:42 am

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided United States v. Sharp, a dog-sniff case.  Here’s the court’s summary:

It is well-settled that a dog’s sniff around the exterior of a car is not a search under the Fourth Amendment. Defendant appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress because a narcotics dog jumped into his car and sniffed inside the car before “alerting” to the presence of narcotics. The canine’s jump and subsequent sniff inside the vehicle was not a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment because the jump was instinctive and not the product of police encouragement. Therefore, we AFFIRM.

It’s legal: cops seize cell phone, impersonate owner | Ars Technica

Everybody loves texting (click to jump to source article)

In November 2009, police officers in the state of Washington seized an iPhone belonging to suspected drug dealer Daniel Lee. While the phone was in police custody, a man named Shawn Hinton sent a text message to the device, reading, “Hey whats up dogg can you call me i need to talk to you.” Suspecting that Hinton was looking to buy drugs from Lee, Detective Kevin Sawyer replied to the message, posing as Lee. With a series of text messages, he arranged to meet Hinton in the parking lot of a local grocery store—where Hinton was arrested and charged with attempted possession of heroin.

10 Reasons Why Nothing You Do On The Internet Will EVER Be Private Again | American Dream

The Internet is rapidly being transformed into a Big Brother control grid where privacy rights are being systematically strangled to death. The control freaks that run things have become absolutely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that you do on the Internet…. The following are 10 reasons why nothing you do on the Internet will ever be private again…. go here: 10 Reasons Why Nothing You Do On The Internet Will EVER Be Private Again

Do We Have Any Right to Privacy Outside Our Homes? | The Nation

“… The Constitution protects our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. At the same time, searches by the government exist against a very different backdrop from when the Fourth Amendment was written. How do we guard our “space” when it is neutralized as mere geography-beyond-the-house rather than the mobile positioning of the body politic? We live in an era when new technologies make the most personal information easily accessible, whether the government collects it or not.

Our private lives are available “privately” everywhere, even if it’s deemed “data mining” by businesses. The market for information is as thorough as a laser; it is as inescapable as the air we breathe: our lives are online. Our medical records are stored in “clouds.” We date through websites. Our genetic code is decipherable from any bit of discarded bubble gum. “Private” security cameras aim their ceaselessly gathering gaze on every public street. Our cellphones blip our location to satellites in space. People send compromising pictures of themselves in “sext” messages that can never be retracted. If our neighbor wishes to surveil us or to stalk us, we are all too vulnerable…”

via Do We Have Any Right to Privacy Outside Our Homes? | The Nation.

Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV | Wired.com

The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-fighting tool with “great frequency,” and GPS retailers have told Wired that they’ve sold thousands of the devices to the feds.

But little is known about how or how often law enforcement agents use them. And without a clear ruling requiring agents to obtain a “probable cause” warrant to use the devices, it leaves citizens who may have only a distant connection to a crime or no connection at all vulnerable to the whimsy of agents who are fishing for a case.via Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV | Threat Level | Wired.com.

» Florida School District Installs Fingerprint Scanners on Buses | Infowars

» Florida School District Installs Fingerprint Scanners on Buses | Infowars.

“…The effort to digitally monitor the whereabouts of students in Florida follows a national trend. In 2010, the Los Angeles Unified School District told students they would have to submit to a compulsory biometric identification system in order to receive lunch. Other K-12 schools have used fingerprint and biometric systems during lunch and to improve reimbursement for federal programs such No Child Left Behind…” See more here.

Time to abolish DHS | Washington Examiner

Time to abolish DHS By: Gene Healy | 09/26/11 8:05 PM

” Two years ago this month, the federal government broke ground on what was supposed to be a massive new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security. Situated on the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in Southeast Washington, the $3.4 billion project was designed to bring together some 15,000 employees of our newest Cabinet department, which in less than a decade has become notorious for waste, mismanagement and inflicting pointless humiliation on airline travelers…” Go here.

Ohio Appeals Court Strikes Down GPS Vehicle Spying | the Newspaper.com

Ohio Appeals Court Strikes Down GPS Vehicle Spying. 9/30/2011.  –  “Although the US Supreme Court is expected to settle the issue of GPS tracking of motorists soon, a three-judge panel of the Ohio Court of Appeals, Fifth District ruled 2-1 earlier this month against the warrantless use of the technology. The majority’s decision was likely designed to influence the deliberations of the higher courts. On November 8, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the GPS case US v. Jones. The Ohio Supreme Court is also considering Ohio v. Johnson in which the Twelfth District appellate court upheld warrantless spying…” Go here …