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

The Defender’s Creed, by John Farnam

I accept and understand that human predators exist. Criminal or terrorist, they take advantage of our civilized society to prey upon the weak. They represent evil and must be confronted and defeated.

I believe that self-defense is a moral imperative, and that illegitimate force and illegal violence must be met with righteous indignation and superior violence.

I will not rely on others for the security of myself, my family and my community. I proudly proclaim that I run with a like-minded pack. I do not amble through life with the mind-numbed herd.

I will train with my chosen weapons, maintain them and carry them in a condition of readiness at all times. I will be mentally prepared and physically equipped to effectively respond to an attack or emergency.

I will constantly test myself against realistic standards to discover my strengths and weaknesses. I will turn weakness into strength.

I will seek to learn new skills and techniques, and then teach what I have learned to other members of the pack. Be it with firearm or blade, empty hand or blunt object, I will hit my enemies hard, fast and true.

I will live a quiet and unobtrusive life, but I will develop and retain the capacity for swift and decisive violence. I recognize that I am the modern equivalent of the traditional Minuteman, and that I may be called to service at any time against heavily armed enemies. I will respond effectively.

Beware – I am a sheepdog.

I accept that I am a pariah among some of my countrymen, and a quaint anachronism to others.

I will not hold their ignorance against them.

I will win, or die trying.

I swear this creed before God, my family and my fellow citizens.

Source: A.H. Trimble

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.

Judge Rules No 5th Amendment Protections For Fingerprint-Protected Phones

YouViewed/Editorial

Court Rules Police Can Force Users To Unlock iPhones With Fingerprints, But Not Passcodes

” A Circuit Court judge in Virginia has ruled that fingerprints are not protected by the Fifth Amendment, a decision that has clear privacy implications for fingerprint-protected devices like newer iPhones and iPads.

  According to Judge Steven C. Fucci, while a criminal defendant can’t be compelled to hand over a passcode to police officers for the purpose of unlocking a cellular device, law enforcement officials can compel a defendant to give up a fingerprint.

  The Fifth Amendment states that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” which protects memorized information like passwords and passcodes, but it does not extend to fingerprints in the eyes of the law, as speculated by Wired last year. “

MacRumors

—

View original post

Tyranny Beyond Anything Yet Known on Earth | Fred Reed @ Lew Rockwell

Names Encrypted for Their Security,  By Fred Reed

I read that Apple and Google have begun encrypting the data of customers so that nobody, including Apple and Google, have plaintext access to it. This of course means “so that the government will not have access to it.” The FBI is terribly upset about this, the first serious resistance against onrushing Orwellianism. God bless Apple and Google. But will they be able to stand up to the feds?

Here is a curious situation indeed. The government has become our enemy, out of  control, and we have to depend on computer companies for any safety we may have.

NSA spies on us illegally and in detail, recording telephone conversations, reading email, recording our financial transactions, on and on. TSA makes air travel a nightmare, forcing us to hop about barefoot and confiscating toothpaste. The police kick in our doors at night on no-knock raids and shoot our dogs. In bus stations we are subject to search without probable cause. The feds track us through our cell phones. Laws make it a crime to photograph the police, an out-and-out totalitarian step: Cockroaches do not like light. The feds give police forces across the country weaponry normal to militaries. Whatever the intention, it is the hardware of control of dissent. Think Tian An Men Square in China.

And we have no recourse. If you resist, you go to jail, maybe not for long, not yet anyway, but jail is jail. Object to TSA and you miss your flight. They know it and use it. The courts do nothing about this. They too are feds.

TOR users become FBI’s No.1 hacking target after legal power grab | Register

The FBI wants greater authority to hack overseas computers, according to a law professor.

A Department of Justice proposal to amend Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would make it easier for domestic law enforcement to hack into the computers of people attempting to protect their anonymity on the internet.

 The change in search and seizure rules would mean the FBI could seize targets whose location is “concealed through technological means”, as per the draft rule (key extract below). Concealed through technological means is legal speak for hosted somewhere on the darknet, using Tor or proxies or making use of VPN technology.

Authority to Issue a Warrant. At the request of a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government: (6) a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or (B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts.

The DoJ has said that the amendment is not meant to give courts the power to issue warrants that authorise searches in foreign countries.

Dropbox Reports 80 Percent of Subpoenas Contain Gag Request | Threatpost

Dropbox Reports 80 Percent of Subpoenas Contain Gag Request | Threatpost | The first stop for security news.

Comcast calls rumor that it disconnects Tor users “wildly inaccurate” | Ars Technica

Comcast calls rumor that it disconnects Tor users “wildly inaccurate” | Ars Technica.

Reviews Mostly Positive Following Metal-Detector Debut At Yankee Stadium

…
…
Seriously? The folks are happy about this ?
Tell me more CBS News.
…

Sis things the US Dept. of Education did to deprive your child of privacy | Common Core

COMMON CORE

The story of Common Core and data mining begins as most stories do, with a huge, unmet need.

Self-appointed “stakeholder” know-it-alls at the federal level (also at state, corporate, and even university levels) determined that they had the right, and the need, for open access to personal student data– more so than they already had.

They needed state school systems to voluntarily agree to common data core standards AND to common learning standards to make data comparisons easy. They didn’t care what the standards were, as teachers and parents and students do; they only cared that the standards would be the same across the nation.

So, without waiting around for a proper vote, they did it. The CEDS (Common Education Data Standards) were created by the same people who created and copyrighted Common Core: the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). No surprise.

Because the federal…

View original post 2,099 more words

Technology Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies | NYT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Just down the road from Google’s main campus here, engineers for the company are accelerating what has become the newest arms race in modern technology: They are making it far more difficult — and far more expensive — for the National Security Agency and the intelligence arms of other governments around the world to pierce their systems.

As fast as it can, Google is sealing up cracks in its systems that Edward J. Snowden revealed the N.S.A. had brilliantly exploited. It is encrypting more data as it moves among its servers and helping customers encode their own emails. Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo are taking similar steps.

After years of cooperating with the government, the immediate goal now is to thwart Washington — as well as Beijing and Moscow. The strategy is also intended to preserve business overseas in places like Brazil and Germany that have threatened to entrust data only to local providers….

Go here

Tech CEO: Why I Shut Down Lavabit | TBI

... If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only a matter of time before you or a loved one find yourself in a position like I did – standing in a secret courtroom, alone, and without any of the meaningful protections that were always supposed to be the people’s defense against an abuse of the state’s power….  via Business Insider.

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.

Pox Americana: Fusion Centers

click here to bounce to post

When fusion centers and their allied federal partners are pinpointed on these United States, it looks less like “We’re here to help you” and more like a military occupation.  Dozens of documents and databases were scrubbed to elicit the actual location of these nefarious centers. You could say these GPS positions are a “fusion” of many sources… GPS Points of Interest files for fusion centers and their partners can be downloaded below:

• Google Earth: Pox Americana.kml
• Garmin: Pox Americana.gpx
• GPS Comma-separated-values: Pox Americana.csv
• Addresses: Fusion Centers.csv
• All Files: Fusion.zip

You can use Extra POI Editor to convert to other file formats like TomTom or Magellan.

Fort Hood opens debate about secrecy of medical records | TheHill

Camel’s nose under the tent alert:  Here we go.  This will be the meme of the coming years.  Your mental status has potential effects on the collective and so your privacy, your guns, your mind, your soul, your freedom and self-ownership are belong to us now.

Never mind that the discussion should be directed toward how a person should defend themselves against the aggression initiated by another.  Let’s instead talk about how ‘we’ prevent all aggression, at all times, in all places and at all costs to individual rights and sovereignty.  Lets instead discuss how we can all suffer for  the benefit of an amorphous ‘society’, instead of how we can empower ourselves as individuals to  protect ourselves.

I don’t know where to start with this tripe, so read it for yourself at TheHill.

Disgusted, Grey Enigma.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Army officials say one thing that could have helped prevent last week’s shooting at Fort Hood is better information sharing with commanders about the mental and behavioral health histories of incoming soldiers.

The shooter, Spc. Ivan Lopez, 34, had arrived at Fort Hood, Texas, in February after being stationed for four years at Fort Bliss, Texas. By the time of his transfer, Lopez had a history of mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, and was prescribed a number of prescription drugs, including Ambien.

But receiving commanders at Fort Hood would not have been privy to Lopez’s health history.

“Here’s the biggest problem we have. … It’s a dilemma,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno. “The problem is sharing information and how you protect an individual’s rights with sharing information, so the commanders and the people at the lower level understand that, maybe, there was a previous problem.”

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA, a soldier’s mental and behavioral health record is kept private from his or her new commander. Thus, while physicians at a new base would have access to soldiers’ health records, a commander would not.“If a soldier has mental health counseling at Fort Bragg, N.C., and he moves to Fort Carson, Colo., sometimes we have difficulty moving that information with them, because of patient HIPAA….

go here for  the rest Fort Hood opens debate about secrecy of medical records | TheHill.

Planting the Seeds for a Cashless Society…

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

72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered “Potential Terrorists” In Official Government Documents | ActivistPost

Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Activist Post, consider the following…

“Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link. As you can see, this list covers most of the country…

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

Pirates | Bill Still

This is a MUST WATCH re privacy, NSA and government snooping.  H/T Karl Denninger @ The Market Ticker

 

Facial scanning surveillance becoming a reality in the U.S., new documents reveal

h/t Brittius

Police: NYU Student With “Arsenal Of Imitation Assault Weapons” Arrested

Grey Enigma Comments:

1. If they are not weapons, can they be a f’g “arsenal”?
2. Why were the janitors snooping in the kids room, were looking for his underwear?
3. Does one have no right to privacy at NYU?
4. Where are the in house anti-authority liberal attack squads to protest this abrogation of individual rights?
5. Why is blood squirting out of my eyeballs now that I have read this story?
6. Where do I begin to add commentary to this… only in NYC would this even seem possible.

DHS Ammo Investigation | Brittius.com

DHS Ammo Investigation | Brittius.com
click that pic …

Reportedly, there is being a request by a few members of Congress to look into alleged ammunition purchases by the Department of Homeland Security. Numbers are now alleged at two billion rounds of ammunition which is at this time, completely unsubstantiated, but people keep jacking up the numbers. This alone merits being looked into because the fear and panic it is creating has to either be proven or laid to rest as fear mongering, which is very dangerous to the peace of America. Why would people want to start a war in America? Some have demonstrated long ago that they qualify for a straight jacket and to be locked away in a rubber room. On the flip side of the coin, if it is merely an emotional plea to get people’s attention to make them aware of a dangerous situation, Congress needs to go the extra mile for once, and the Congressional underachieving slackers have to stop stuffing money into their pockets and have the DHS ammunition issue, investigated.

Bitcoin and Kim Dotcom: Why it’s Time to “Encrypt Everything” | libertyblitzkrieg.com

Encryption may end up being the biggest trend in 2013, as the concept, usage and term itself move from the realm of computer geeks and hackers into mainstream consciousness. The reason why such a moment must occur relates to the fact that governments and intelligence agencies the world over are rapidly moving in the direction of spying on their citizenry twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Those of us that don’t like this privacy invasion will have to move toward encrypting as much of our daily lives as possible.

TSA screeners miss bomb at Newark Int’l Airport. Fondling of children and old ladies continues apace.

Supreme Court Maintains Spotty Civil-Liberties Record | Reason.com

click to go to Reason.com

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions regarding police powers were mixed, thus offering a reminder to civil libertarians that they cannot depend upon the high court to protect the public from unwarranted government intrusions.

“The U.S. Supreme Court handed police one victory and one loss on Tuesday,” reported National Public Radio. “In one decision, the justices limited the power of police to detain people who are away from their homes when police conduct a search. And in a second case, the justices ruled that drug-sniffing dogs don’t have to get every sniff right in order for a search to be valid.”

Big Brother to monitor ‘sovereign citizens’ | WND

Orwell hit this one on the head…

So if you had any doubt that NDAA, CISPA, DHS, drones, warrant-less searches, TSA, the Newtown-circus and citizen disarmament etc. were a prelude to your preemptive criminalization, consider yourself disabused of that comforting notion.

Make no mistake about it you tinfoil hat wearing, gun toting, Bible clinging, knuckle dragging anachronisms:  YOU ARE the the threat. YOU are the enemy. YOU must be handled, managed, silenced, marginalized and entrapped.

The state fears nothing so much as an awakened, empowered and angry citizenry and so you sheep are not allowed off the farm. Punishment will be severe.

So, what are you going to do?  I think that the time for calls and letters to Congressmen, candlelight vigils, writing op-eds and cordial, thought provoking discourse to the uninformed has long been over:  That stuff is pointless.  The time is here to get ready for the long pull, the dark struggle, the end game.

I say it is time to disappear, opt out and go Galt.  I say the ‘laws’ and Government are now so illegal, so immoral that the only ethical course of action is to withdraw from that context.  In other words, I quit.  I am forming and fostering a new society of the like minded.   If that makes me a “sovereign man” to you Mr. FBI person, so be it. And fuck you.  I’ll be out here working for the good, and working against you if needed.

Good luck on getting me back in the corral.

G.E.

With almost no media coverage, the White House last week announced its new Interagency Working Group to Counter Online Radicalization to Violence that will target not only Islamic terrorists but so-called violent “sovereign citizens.”

5 tools to protect your privacy online | SovereignMan

We’ve discussed many times before—hardly a month goes by without some major action against Internet users… from Obama’s ‘kill switch’, to ACTA, SOPA and PIPA, to stasi tactics against people like Kim Dotcom.  Online privacy is becoming more important by the day. And nobody is going to give it to you, you have to take steps yourself to secure it.  Below are five different tools and services that will get you started:

1. Tor Browser – Tor is a great weapon in the fight for online anonymity as it allows you to surf the web without giving up your location and other personal data to the websites you visit.  The Tor Browser Bundle is the easiest and most secure way to get started; simply download it, and start surfing the web with the Tor Browser. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Learn more about and download the Tor Browser Bundle here

The Worry About Google | RFNJ

…The real threat is that Google, or perhaps just a few people within the leadership of Google, may be quietly operating as a private intelligence agency for the left…

via Radio Free NJ: The Worry About Google.

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.

Silent Circle’s latest app democratizes encryption. Governments won’t be happy. | Slate

By Ryan Gallagher|Posted Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, at 12:21 PM ET

Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds.  For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.

Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button…. via Slate Magazine.

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.

Here’s how to avoid “consensual” police encounters | Slate

click the pic to go to Slate

The crux of avoiding a consensual encounter is noncooperation—refusal to answer questions and to consent to police requests. As noted above, this requires a fair degree of self-confidence and a willingness to flout the conventions of common discourse which, of course, this is not. Nevertheless, it is the sine qua non of consensual encounter avoidance. “Can we see your driver’s license?” “No!” “What are you doing here?” “I am not answering,” or less politely, “None of your business.”

Saying “no” once may not be enough. Some courts have held that continued badgering after a first refusal causes the encounter to cross the line to a seizure, but others have permitted repeated questioning and requests for consent to search without concluding that a seizure had taken place. A reasonable person would thus be well-advised to say “no” repeatedly, and to reject any attempt by the officer to accompany her if she tries to leave. Some courts have found it significant that the refusals were delivered in a shout or scream, or that the individual ran from police in an attempt to get away. The cases thus not only encourage flatly rebuffing the officer’s inquiries, but also encourage doing so in the rudest, most confrontational, and most obnoxious manner.

via Stop-and-frisk Florida: Here’s how to avoid “consensual” police encounters..

“Significant Resistance”: A Call to Action | Market Ticker

President Obama has said that his push to effectively delete the Second Amendment will face “significant resistance.” It is time to show him and those in Congress how much resistance there is for any sort of additional gun bans and/or registration requirements in a peaceful and lawful manner.  Print copies of this and dispatch them to your Congresspeople, The White House, and staple them to telephone poles and other locations across the country.

UPDATE 3: NY Paper Publishes Legal Gun Permit Holders Names – Contact & Home Address info for Janet Hasson, President & Publisher, LOHUD.com

Janet Hasson (via LinkedIn)

 Janet Hasson,

President & Publisher,

Journal News Media Group, is reported to dwell at 3 Gate House Lane, Mamaroneck NY, 10543, and with a home or work telephone number of (914) 694-5204 and / or -5203.  Janet reportedly takes her email at jhasson@lohud.com

Hasson’s place, 3 Gatehouse Ln., Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York – an upscale yet bucolic little favela nestled in between a golf course and a county park, moments from the Hutch!

NY Paper Publishes Legal Gun Permit Holders Names in Print & Online | AMI Global Security

click here to go to AMI

…December 23rd 2012 a New York Newspaper Printed the names and addresses of every Licensed Pistol Permit holder in two Counties [poster’s note: Rockland and Westchester]  and another County is being posted shortly! This is a massive privacy breach and the latest in a series of over the top emotional reactions to the latest shooting tragedy in Sandy Hook CT meant to intimidate the lawful and  prey on peoples fears to exploit the gun grabbing agenda.

In an article title “The gun owner next door: What you don’t know about the weapons in your neighborhood” the paper linked to an interactive map titled: “Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood?” where you can search neighborhoods to see who received a legal permit to own a hand gun license listed by name and address…

Your Cellphone Is Spying on You: How the surveillance state co-opted personal technology | Reason.com

…There are 331 million cellphone subscriptions—about 20 million more than there are residents—in the United States. Nearly 90 percent of adult Americans carry at least one phone. The phones communicate via a nationwide network of nearly 300,000 cell towers and 600,000 micro sites, which perform the same function as towers. When they are turned on, they ping these nodes once every seven seconds or so, registering their locations, usually within a radius of 150 feet. By 2018 new Federal Communications Commission regulations will require that cellphone location information be even more precise: within 50 feet. Newer cellphones also are equipped with GPS technology, which uses satellites to locate the user more precisely than tower signals can. Cellphone companies retain location data for at least a year. AT&T has information going all the way back to 2008.

The Growth of Homeland Security’s Domestic Intelligence Enterprise | Public Intelligence

The Department of Homeland Security’s production of domestic intelligence has increased substantially over the last few years according to a brochure of “intelligence products” published last month by Cryptome. The 2012 DHS Intelligence Enterprise Product Line Brochure is “a standardized catalogue of intelligence reports and products that represent the full breadth” of the agency’s analytical capabilities. It provides descriptions of each type of product created by the DHS Intelligence Enterprise as well as the classification level and instructions on how DHS “customers” can obtain the products.

Project censored top 10: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories underreported by the mainstream media | Boulder Weekly

Project censored: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories under-reported by the mainstream media, By Yael Chanoff – Thursday, October 11,2012

People who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election. But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s overreaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

The Silent Majority: America’s Emasculation | JD Longstreet

Everywhere one looks in America, these days, one finds cameras trained on him/her recording our every move…. go here The Silent Majority: America’s Emasculation.

US Totalitarianism Loses Major Battle As Judge Permanently Blocks NDAA’s Military Detention Provision | ZeroHedge

Back in January, Pulitzer winning journalist Chris Hedges sued President Obama and the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, specifically challenging the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force or, the provision that authorizes military detention for people deemed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces.” Hedges called the president’s action allowing indefinite detention, which was signed into law with little opposition from either party “unforgivable, unconstitutional and exceedingly dangerous.” He attacked point blank the civil rights farce that is the never-ending “war on terror” conducted by both parties, targeting whom exactly is unclear, but certainly attaining ever more intense retaliation from foreigners such as the furious attacks against the US consulates in Egypt and Libya. 

Medical Records Privacy | How to Vanish

There are various types of medical records privacy. Little attention has been given to the concept of medical records privacy especially in the field of medicine. In the medical setting, the average patient has general expectations that they will not be touched unnecessarily, or crowded with other patients or people. All these matters relate to dignity of the person, his security and very importantly, psychological comfort. Healthcare majorly involves the doctor coming into contact with the patient. However in the years to come, technologies that will upgrade the use of telecommunication will make it possible for health care service providers to perform their duties without having to come into direct contact with their patients.

The Eye of Sauron: Something New Under the Sun | Fred Reed

The pieces come together. Within the last week I have read:

1) New software, associated with Google, will recognize customers in stores so as to offer them discounts; having your photos uploaded to allow this service will (for now) be voluntary.

2) A new surveillance system in New York will store footage from cameras in, for example, the subway, so that when an unattended package is discovered, the police can look back in time to see who left it.

3) TSA is perfecting a laser that will allow detection on travelers of trace amounts of drugs, explosives, and doubtless a wide variety of other things.

4) The government is moving toward mandating black boxes on cars to record information thought to be useful in ascribing blame in crashes.

5) Various police departments are beginning to use “drone” aircraft to monitor the population.

These are recent pieces of the coming world. They have not yet all been completely deployed and linked. Some are voluntary, for the moment. Others are in development. All are coming.

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.

Court Upholds Domestic Drone Use in Arrest of American Citizen | USN&WR

A judge denied a request to dismiss charges Wednesday against Rodney Brossart, a man arrested last year after a 16-hour standoff with police at his Lakota, N.D., ranch. Brossart’s lawyer argued that law enforcement’s “warrantless use of [an] unmanned military-like surveillance aircraft” and “outrageous governmental conduct” warranted dismissal of the case …

…District Judge Joel Medd wrote that “there was no improper use of an unmanned aerial vehicle” and that the drone “appears to have had no bearing on these charges being contested here,” according to the documents… Court records state that last June, six cows wandered onto Brossart’s 3,000 acre farm, about 60 miles west of Grand Forks. Brossart allegedly refused to return the cows, which led to a long, armed standoff with the Grand Forks police department. At some point during the standoff, Homeland Security, through an agreement with local police, offered up the use of an unmanned predator drone, which “was used for surveillance,” according to the court documents… via US News and World Report.

Airport scanning technology is a transparent victory for terrorism | The Observer

Security devices that invade our privacy are about to take a giant leap forward with a scanner that can tell what you had for breakfast from 50 metres away

click to jump to Observer article

The ‘New Gestapo’? Maine Gov. Blasts Massive Expansion of IRS Agents | Yahoo! News

Maine Governor Paul LePage

“…This tax will add to the $500 billion in tax increases that are already in Obamacare. Now that Congress can use the taxation power of the federal government to compel behavior or lack thereof, what’s next? More taxes if we don’t drive Toyota Priuses or if we eat too much junk food or maybe even pea soup?

This decision has made America less free. ‘We The People’ have been told there is no choice. You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo – the I.R.S.

Even more disheartening is that reviving the American dream just became nearly impossible to do. We are now a nation in which supports dependency rather than independence. Instead of encouraging self-reliance we are encouraging people to rely on the government...”  via Yahoo! News.

SCOTUS Ruling Means Bigger, More Intrusive IRS | Fox Business

IRS officials on background tell FOX Business the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on health reform gives the IRS even more powers than previously understood.  The IRS now gets to know about a small business’s entire payroll, the level of their insurance coverage — and it gets to know the income of not just the primary breadwinner in your house, but your entire family’s income, in order to assess/collect the mandated tax.

Plus, it gets to share your personal info with all sorts of government agencies, insurance companies and employers.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “We expect even more lien and levy powers,” an IRS official says. Even the Taxpayer Advocate is deeply concerned.

Your Privacy Is Yours | Whiskey & Gunpowder

“I Lived. I Died. Now Mind Your Own Business.” That’s how I want my tombstone to read.

What do I have to hide? Everything! Which is to say, every piece of personal information someone or something demands to know is something I don’t want to tell because no one has the right to demand access to my life.

The right to privacy rests largely on a presumption of innocence. It assumes that — in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing — an individual has a right to shut his front door and tell other people (including government) to mind their own business.

Must read: Low-Tech Solutions To High-Tech Tyranny | ZeroHedge

Disclaimer:  The following is a series of fictional accounts of theoretical situations.  However, the information contained within was taken from established scientific journals on covered technology and military studies of real life combat scenarios.  Alt-Market does not condone the use of any of the tactics described within for “illegal” purposes.  Obviously, the totalitarian subject matter portrayed here is “pure fantasy”, and would never be encountered in the U.S. where politicians and corporate bankers are forthright, honest, and honorable, wishing only the sweetest sugar coated chili-dog best for all of mankind…

Imagine, if you will, a fantastic near future in which the United States is facing an unmitigated economic implosion.  Not just a mere market crash, or a stint of high unemployment, but a full spectrum collapse driven by unsustainable debt spending and hyperinflationary printing.  The American people witness multiple credit downgrades of U.S. Treasury mechanisms, the dollar loses its reserve status, devaluation of the currency runs rampant, and the prices of commodities and imported goods immediately skyrocket. 

Irony Alert! | Coyote Blog

April 23, 2012, 3:06 pm  — From the Washington Post

President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, from cellphone tracking to Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.

LOL, Foreign nationals identified by NSA communications monitoring as violating this order will be pinpointed by satellites and surveillance drones and hit with a cruise missile.

Hard to picture any American President in the last 20 years signing this with a straight face.   Is there a Federal law enforcement agency or major police force in this country who is NOT violating this order, had it applied to American citizens? … via Coyote Blog.