Tag Archives: privacy
Families Threatened With Police “Monitoring” Over Transgender Complaints
Parents & daughters face retribution for expressing concerns about boy using female bathroom at Colorado high school
TSA pat-downs soon coming to your travel route
Program also targets visitors to sports events, rodeos, concerts
Officials with the Electronic Privacy Information Center appear to not be enthused about the strategy being adopted by the Transportation Security Administration to expand the reach of its famous airport pat-downs to highway checkpoints, bus stations, concerts, rodeos and other events.
Said the privacy organization Thursday, “The Transportation Security Administration has expanded its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program to perform warrantless searches at various locations, including festivals, sporting events, and bus stations.”
The organization, which has fought the government over the use of invasive body scanners or intimate physical pat-downs by federal agents on privacy grounds, noted that it had prevailed in a lawsuit in 2012 that “revealed the agency’s plan to deploy body scanners outside of the airport at bus stations, train stations and elsewhere.”
California libs can’t stomach massive surveillance
City gathering ‘real-time’ data on citizen movements, actions
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.
X-Keyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’
One presentation claims the XKeyscore program covers ‘nearly everything a typical user does on the internet’
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.
Move to Stop NSA Surveillance Program Defeated in House
By Siobhan Hughes and Siobhan Gorman
Wall Street Journal
July 24, 2013
House lawmakers on Wednesday defeated an attempt to drastically curb a national-security program that collects the phone records of millions of Americans, after a tense debate on the balance between privacy rights and government efforts to find terrorists.
The measure was narrowly defeated, 205-217, after last-minute lobbying by the Obama administration and House members on the intelligence panel, who said the program was crucial to national security.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who doesn’t often cast a ballot, voted against the amendment, reflecting nervousness among opponents about whether they would be able to defeat the bill.
Sheeple Waking Up To NSA Spying: Privacy Search Engines Booming
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.
MUST WATCH VIDEO: NSA Whistle Blower – Edward Snowden…
Behind the NSA Surveillance Speaks Out – Full Interview
Published on Jun 9, 2013 – The Guardian
Full Interview Released on June 9, 2013 – The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows. The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations — the NSA.
Editorial: Federal snooping program PRISM is troubling
The PRISM email-interception program is one more example of federal power unconstrained by law.
Reblogged from: www.helpwithsurvivalhq.com
A FEDERAL document reveals a program called PRISM that scoops up email, chats, videos, photos, stored data, Internet phone calls, file transfers, video conferences and logins from nine different Internet providers.
The companies deny it. Not us, says Microsoft. Never heard of PRISM, says Apple.
Do we believe the companies?
Obama: Massive seizures ‘modest encroachments’
President Obama pauses while speaking in San Jose, Calif., on June 7, 2013. The president defended his government’s secret surveillance, saying Congress has repeatedly authorized the collection of America’s phone records and U.S. internet use. (Photo by: Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
President Obama Friday defended his administration’s massive seizure of private citizens’ phone records, email and Internet activities as “modest encroachments on privacy” that are necessary to fight the war on terrorism.
“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Mr. Obama said at a hastily arranged news conference in San Jose, Calif. “They’re not looking at peoples’ names and they’re not looking at content. We have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about.”
End Time Bible Prophecy 
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