Government offered millions to tech companies in exchange for unlimited consumer data access
Julie Wilson Infowars.com August 23, 2013
As recently as this past June, nine U.S. tech companies denied their involvement and/or participation in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) data-mining program, known as PRISM.
Photo: By Thomas Tolkien via Wikimedia Commons
Tech Crunch reported that Google, Apple, Facebook, Dropbox, Microsoft, Paltalk, AOL and Yahoo have all “categorically denied” their participation in the tyrannical NSA program.
According to a new RT report, documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper revealed that not only did some of the tech companies participate, but they were paid millions to do so.
City officials in Oakland, Calif., have decided to accept a $2 million grant from the Obama administration that would allow them to observe citizen movements and actions on a real-time basis all across the city.
The grant is to be used, following a vote by city council members Wednesday, for a “surveillance center.”
A report at OaklandLocal.com earlier this month described the proposal as a plan to create a “Domain Awareness Center” that would allow the government to watch and track data provided by license plate readers and video cameras.
The description of the plan said while it may “make privacy advocates cringe,” the strategy also includes the option of reaching out to other governmental entities to obtain additional information from surveillance cameras, including those at sports facilities that can be trained on spectators.
Renee Domingo, Oakland’s chief of emergency services, said at the time that, “If we needed ability into what was going on there, we could do so.”
The report explained that Ahsan Baig, the manager of Oakland’s information technology, reported to the Public Safety Committee the data obtained from plate readers, cameras and the like could be delivered to just about any computer the city specified, such as a laptop or an iPad.
The San Francisco Chronicle online version reported Wednesday that the council voted to accept the $2.2 million federal grant for the program.
And council members voted immediately to ban spray paint, hammers, slingshots, wrenches and other “potentially destructive items” from any protest or demonstration.
Councilman Noel Gallo said such “tools of violence and vandalism” should be banned so that damages would be minimized during events such as the recent protest against the acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman.
Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private? If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble. As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions. And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it. So if you are making a purchase that you don’t want anyone to know about, don’t use a credit card. This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much. It is just so hard to track. In this day and age, the federal government seems to be absolutely obsessed with gathering as much information about all of us as it possibly can. But there is one big problem.
The FBI has gained access to driver’s license photos for residents of Nebraska, Illinois, South Carolina, Utah, North Carolina, Delaware, Texas and other states to hunt for suspects in criminal investigations.
Google’s denials of involvement with NSA are unbelievable
Steve Watson Infowars.com June 20, 2013
Google shares a shady past with the NSA
The NSA PRISM spying scandal has engulfed practically every major online company, and despite blanket denials of involvement from the likes of Google, Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft, alternative privacy oriented internet tools have seen a huge boost in traffic as web users are ditching the giants that apparently aided government snoopers.
As The Guardian revealed a fortnight ago, leaked NSA material claimed that the spy agency has direct access to the servers of nine companies – Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Apple, Skype, PalTalk, YouTube, Facebook and Google.
The consensus from the heads of the tech companies was summed up by the claim that “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge.”
As a direct result of the revelations, privacy-focused alternatives to the tools most people use to chat, search, and store data online have seen a huge spike in users.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what the NSA is actually doing. Are they reading our emails? Are they listening to our telephone calls? Do they target American citizens or is it only foreigners that they are targeting? Unfortunately, the truth is that we aren’t going to get straight answers from our leaders about this. The folks running the NSA have already shown that they are willing to flat out lie to Congress, and Barack Obama doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record when it comes to telling the truth. These are men that play word games and tell lies for a living. So it would be unrealistic to expect them to come out and tell us the unvarnished truth about what is going on. That is why it is so important that whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden have come forward. Thanks to them and to the brave journalists that are willing to look into these things, we have been able to get some glimpses behind the curtain. And what we have learned is not very pretty. The following are 21 facts about NSA snooping that every American should know…
So far, the Central Intelligence Agency largely has remained out of the spotlight of snooping scandals that have touched agencies such at the National Security Agency and the Justice Department.
So far.
It may not stay that way, if Ira Hunt, the agency’s chief technology officer, is right.
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