 Taking your privacy while keeping ours in Washington D.C.!!! Wiretapped phones, now Internet?To better track criminals, U.S. wants to be able to wiretap online communications.
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, New York Times WASHINGTON - Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations of the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is "going dark" as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone. Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters such as BlackBerry, social networking websites such as Facebook and software that allows direct "peer-to-peer" messaging such as Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. The legislation, which the Obama administration plans to submit to Congress next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering technological innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally. James Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had "huge implications" and challenged "fundamental elements of the Internet revolution" -- including its decentralized design. "They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet," he said. "They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function." But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers. "We're talking about lawfully authorized intercepts," said Valerie Caproni, general counsel for the FBI. "We're not talking expanding authority. We're talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security." Keeping up with technology Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the FBI, the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution. There is not yet agreement on important elements, such as how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations. But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, such as Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service. In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cell phones. Often, investigators can intercept communications at a switch operated by the network company. But sometimes -- like when the target uses a service that encrypts messages between his computer and its servers -- they must instead serve the order on a service provider to get unscrambled versions. Like phone companies, communication service providers are subject to wiretap orders. But the 1994 law does not apply to them. While some maintain interception capacities, others wait until they are served with orders to try to develop them. That can cause big delays, which the new regulations would seek to forestall. Link: http://www.startribune.com/nation/103836983.html
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 Welcome to Homeland Security in America 2010 WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department plans to test futuristic iris scan technology that stores digital images of people's eyes in a database and is considered a quicker alternative to fingerprints.
The department will run a two-week test in October of commercially sold iris scanners at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, where they will be used on illegal immigrants, said Arun Vemury, program manager at the department's Science and Technology branch. "The test will help us determine how viable this is for potential (department) use in the future," Vemury said. Iris scanners are little used, but a new generation of cameras that capture images from 6 feet away instead of a few inches has sparked interest from government agencies and financial firms, said Patrick Grother, a National Institute of Standards and Technology computer scientist. The technology also has sparked objections from the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU lawyer Christopher Calabrese fears that the cameras could be used covertly. "If you can identify any individual at a distance and without their knowledge, you literally allow the physical tracking of a person anywhere there's a camera and access to the Internet," he said. Iris scans can be quicker than fingerprints. "You can walk up to a wall-mounted box, look at the camera, and that's it," Grother said. Homeland Security will test cameras that take photos from 3 or 4 feet away, including one that works on people as they walk by, Vemury said. In 2007, the U.S. military began taking iris scans of thousands of Iraqis to track suspected militants. The technology was used in about 20 U.S. airports from 2005 to 2008 to identify passengers in the Registered Traveler program, who could skip to the front of security lines. Financial companies hope the scans can stop identity fraud, said Jeff Carter of Global Rainmakers, a New York City firm developing the technology. "Iris is going to completely reshape the fraud environment," he said. Link: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2010-09-13-1Airis13_ST_N.htm I was arrested with felony charges for expressing protest against acts of injustice against a neighbor.
After cops felt her up during the traffic stop and illegally began to search her vehicle against her will, I expressed myself and got arrested. After the video, they illegally trespassed and searched my vehicle, finding one of my many legal firearms and held me 24 hours on a felony charge that was dropped the next day. The film about war crimes using microwave weapons to neutralize and kill political activists and whistleblowers. The author has interviewed 200 targets who have been turned into human guinea pigs to perfect electromagnetic weapons and the science of behavior modification. 2hrs and 15 minutes.
 America is a police state: Where they monitor everything! Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, have provided funding to a company that monitors all the noise on the web looking for connections between people, groups and events, according to Wired.
Recorded Future monitors traffic on Facebook, Twitter, news sites, blogs and other sites to help companies connect the dots between people, places and events. (Credit: CNET News) The company, Recorded Future, offers a Temporal Analytics Engine for predictive analysis, allowing people to "visualise the future, past or present". In addition, In-Q-Tel and Google Ventures both have seats on the board Recorded Future and have been "very helpful", providing advice to the start-up, chief executive Christopher Ahlberg, an ex-Swedish Army ranger, told Wired in an article last week. The amount of the investments is undisclosed, but it was less than US$10 million each and was given in 2009, the article said. This may be the first time Google and the CIA have funded the same firm, but it's not the first time they've worked together. Google has sold servers to intelligence agencies and reportedly sought aid from the NSA after it was targeted in attacks it said originated in China. In-Q-Tel also had provided backing to Keyhole before Google acquired the mapping company to use in its technology in Google Earth. Via CNET URL:http://www.zdnet.com.au/google-cia-fund-analytics-firm-report-339304924.htm Please wake up before it's too late.
The ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport
Written by Bruce Schneier September 16, 2006 If you have a passport, now is the time to renew it -- even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. If you don't have a passport and think you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don't want one of these chips in your passport. RFID stands for "radio-frequency identification." Passports with RFID chips store an electronic copy of the passport information: your name, a digitized picture, etc. And in the future, the chip might store fingerprints or digital visas from various countries. By itself, this is no problem. But RFID chips don't have to be plugged in to a reader to operate. Like the chips used for automatic toll collection on roads or automatic fare collection on subways, these chips operate via proximity. The risk to you is the possibility of surreptitious access: Your passport information might be read without your knowledge or consent by a government trying to track your movements, a criminal trying to steal your identity or someone just curious about your citizenship. At first the State Department belittled those risks, but in response to criticism from experts it has implemented some security features. Passports will come with a shielded cover, making it much harder to read the chip when the passport is closed. And there are now access-control and encryption mechanisms, making it much harder for an unauthorized reader to collect, understand and alter the data. Although those measures help, they don't go far enough. The shielding does no good when the passport is open. Travel abroad and you'll notice how often you have to show your passport: at hotels, banks, Internet cafes. Anyone intent on harvesting passport data could set up a reader at one of those places. And although the State Department insists that the chip can be read only by a reader that is inches away, the chips have been read from many feet away. The other security mechanisms are also vulnerable, and several security researchers have already discovered flaws. One found that he could identify individual chips via unique characteristics of the radio transmissions. Another successfully cloned a chip. The State Department called this a "meaningless stunt," pointing out that the researcher could not read or change the data. But the researcher spent only two weeks trying; the security of your passport has to be strong enough to last 10 years. This is perhaps the greatest risk. The security mechanisms on your passport chip have to last the lifetime of your passport. It is as ridiculous to think that passport security will remain secure for that long as it would be to think that you won't see another security update for Microsoft Windows in that time. Improvements in antenna technology will certainly increase the distance at which they can be read and might even allow unauthorized readers to penetrate the shielding. Whatever happens, if you have a passport with an RFID chip, you're stuck. Although popping your passport in the microwave will disable the chip, the shielding will cause all kinds of sparking. And although the United States has said that a nonworking chip will not invalidate a passport, it is unclear if one with a deliberately damaged chip will be honored. The Colorado passport office is already issuing RFID passports, and the State Department expects all U.S. passport offices to be doing so by the end of the year. Many other countries are in the process of changing over. So get a passport before it's too late. With your new passport you can wait another 10 years for an RFID passport, when the technology will be more mature, when we will have a better understanding of the security risks and when there will be other technologies we can use to cut the risks. You don't want to be a guinea pig on this one. Bruce Schneier writes often on security subjects. Charlie Veitch was arrested not just once but twice at the G20 Conference.
Here is a part of his biography written by Mr. Veitch: Hello everyone. This is a bio written by me so I will be honest and open. I am no different to all the other apes with over-clocked brains running around on the surface of this beautiful planet we call Earth. I have been very lucky in that I have had the opportunity to live in various cultures around the world, most notaby Brazil, Guinea (West Africa), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Caribbean and of course the United Kingdom. Growing up I had a very pleasant family life, with parents who nurtured me and provided me with unconditional love. Being someone who always had to change schools (Whenever my Dad got another job in the oil industry), I found myself having to think very quickly in terms of how to make new friends, seeing as I was always “the new kid” at school. This raised fantastic opportunities to make new friends and learn a lot about myself. Anyway, enough about my distant past. Around the age of 17 I got very interested in the nature of things and of reality, and so I did a degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland with Philosophy as my major for the four years of attendance, with other subjects such as Anthropology, Criminology, Forensic Medicine (The autopsy was intense. I had to leave the room feeling unwell) and Sociology. Still something was always missing. There was some truth which I felt none of the lecturers or tutors were able to give me. Upon graduation, I promised myself I would never wear a suit, nor would I work in an office. Fate threw me suited up into an office for seven years, and seven years exactly. This was my tour of duty in the illusory world of hierarchical control, greed, fear and systemic hypnosis. It’s fair to say I tried to push aside my yearning for more esoteric explanations of the reality I found myself in and distracted myself with womanising and drug taking at weekends, not to mention exotic holidays and fun hobbies. I was living a half-life, and no-one was more aware of this fact than I was. There were, of course, moments of stunning humanity in my time in “the office” working as a financial adviser and all round salesman for the corporate control grid. I met people who inspired me, people who helped propel me out of the locked way of thinking that a big corporation (in my case HBOS PLC) demands of the minds in attendance. But still I remained a slave, wearing my tie as I woke up before dawn to go and sell investments to unsuspecting people. Read the rest here..... UK satirist charged with impersonating G20 officer A self-described absurdist filmmaker and member of "the Love Police" is facing a charge of impersonating a peace officer. He appeared in a Toronto courtroom Wednesday. "I'm shocked and appalled. I've spent 48 hours in incarceration for things which were not crimes, I did not hurt or steal anything," Charlie Veitch told the Toronto Star on Wednesday. He is to re-appear in court on Aug. 23 after being released on $500 bail. Police announced the arrest late Tuesday in a news release. "On Thursday, June 24, 2010, the accused was filming the G20 Summit security fence area at Front Street/York Street," they said. "He was approached by a security officer and was requested to provide identification. He indicated that he was not carrying identification because he was working undercover as a peace officer." Peel Regional Police carried out the arrest as Veitch, 29, of England, was about to board an aircraft at Pearson International Airport. One YouTube video shows him telling a private security guard on June 24, two days before the G20 Summit started: "We're from British military intelligence. I'm here with the the Metropolitan Police. It's all fully authorized at the highest levels." The video doesn't appear to show Veitch flashing anything that imitates official identification. "We're not press because we're fully undercover. If we carried ID around we might be searched by protesters," he told the guard. When challenged again as to his identity, Veitched added: "I can't say. If you're going to radio that in, we're undercover, so it's best not to say." Another YouTube video shows Veitch conversing with other security guards and Toronto police officers. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are the police entertainment division. We know that protecting Toronto against all those anarchists and terrorists can get very boring, so we are here to remind you that we are on your side," he said using a megaphone. "We are the Love Police, and our job is to lower fear and raise love." Private security guards told Veitch and his crew they were on private property. They then moved onto the public sidewalk close to the security fence. Police approached and engaged in conversation. Veitch said the police had been "super cool." The officer said they couldn't film where they were because they were within five metres of the fence. He asked them to turn off the camera. "The Public Works Act states that," he said. Police asked to see Veitch's identification. He asked to see theirs. "Failure to identify yourselves under the Public Works Act is going to end up in you guys being arrested, which none of us wants," the officer said. "I hope that sounds fair." A badge number wasn’t visible in the video. Later, one of the film crew was arrested for not identifying himself. An officer said as soon as police determined his identity, he would be released. According to the alternative website PressForTruth.ca, the person arrested was Veitch. On Tuesday, it became known police didn't have authority under that act for arresting someone for not showing identification within five metres of the fence. Asked about it, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said, "… I was trying to keep the criminals out." At least 1,500 people showed up at police headquarters on Monday to protest police tactics used to quell demonstrators after the appearance of anarchist vandals caused chaos and damages. One person armed with a microphone, possibly Veitch, told the officers protecting the building that if they were not neo-nazi fascist police to raise their hands. "Come on, there's some of you in there," he said. On Wednesday, Blair told CTV Toronto: "I wasn't lying to anybody. I was telling them what I believed to be true." He said he did insist that every police officer be told about the limits to their authority around the fence, but the public was never informed. He said he regrets not issuing a news release, but pointed a finger at the provincial government and the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit. According to the Globe and Mail, more than 1,000 people were arrested during the course of the G20 summit, but only 263 were charged with an offence more serious than breach of peace. Police spokesman Mark Pugash told the Globe that no one was arrested under the Public Works Protection Act who shouldn't have been. |
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