No Digital Communications Is Secure, Federal Gov't Have Access To Everything!!            CNN has learned that the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev spoke to her husband the night the FBI released pictures of him.

May  5th 2013

Big Brother to Switch Off Your Fridge When Electricity Runs Low   Computer chips will take control of home appliances when energy is low. - Sensors will detect spikes in demand for power and when grid struggles to meet it, will temporarily shut off appliances. - Can shut down supply without warning – or your consent. Fridges and freezers in millions of British homes will automatically be switched off without the owner’s consent under a ‘Big Brother’ regime to reduce the strain on power stations.The National Grid is demanding that all new appliances be fitted with sensors that could shut them down when the UK’s generators struggle to meet demand for electricity.Electric ovens, air-conditioning units and washing machines will also be affected  by the proposals, which are already backed by one of the European Union’s most influential energy bodies. They are pushing for the move as green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations, increasing the risk  of blackouts.

April 29th 2013

Big Brother Has A New Face, And It's Your Boss Forbes Recently, the CVS Caremark Corporation began requiring employees to disclose personal health information (including weight, blood pressure, and body fat levels) or else pay an annual $600 fine. Workers must make this information available to the company’s employee “Wellness Program” and sign a form stating that they’re doing so voluntarily.CVS argues this will help workers “take more responsibility for improving their health.” At one level, this makes a certain sense. Because the company is paying for their employees’ health insurance, they naturally prefer healthier workers. But at a deeper level, CVS’ action demonstrates a growing problem with our current system of employer-provided health insurance. If our bosses must pay for our health care, they will inevitably seek greater control over our lifestyles.

April 28th 2013

Big Bro Next Door: UK faces silent boom of private Spooks            Thousands of private investigators are now operating in Britain and their ranks continue to grow. With high-tech surveillance equipment readily available in stores everyone can become a PI. Legal loopholes allow them to work unlicensed and unregistered.

April 15th 2013

An Orwellian America       As a young man, I voraciously read George Orwell’s “1984”, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Alvin Toffler’s trilogy which included “Future Shock”‘, “The Third Wave” and “Power Shift”. During the era of the Vietnam War, I wondered seriously about the future and how it was destined to unfold. Now being considerably older, I have the vantage point to reflect back on my early ruminations and expectations. Unfortunately, I am too old to alter the lessons that are now so painfully obvious. Instead, I pass the gauntlet to those who can understand and take action on what I have unavoidably come to expect for America.

Marsh 21 th 2013

Every Move You Make: US to adopt new biometric surveillance system         The US is funneling money into tracking systems that are threatening to make the very concept of privacy a thing of the past. It could mean people's every move being used against them to keep them under surveillance

February 17 th 2013

Fusion centers: Invading your privacy at your expense     The U.S. government has spent up to $1.4 billion of taxpayer money since 2003 to create “threat fusion centers” under the guise of fighting terrorism. Yet a two-yearbipartisan report recently released by the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has found that these “fusion centers,” operating under the control of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in efforts to engage national, state and local intelligence, have not yielded any useful information to support federal counterterrorism intelligence efforts. Most people who rely on print and TV news probably have never heard of fusion centers. There are as many as 72 of these facilities. 50 state-based and 22 urban centers were set up during the Bush presidency in cooperation between the DHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

October 15 th 2012

Fighting Back Against Big Brother

July 11th 2012

New Big Brother Cyber Weapon Can Turn on Your Computer’s Microphone, Record Communications   To the disbelief of many of our readers, in a 2011 report titled Everything You Do Is Monitored, we noted that microphones and cameras on cell phones and computers allow interested parties (translated to mean your respective government) to hear and see everything going on in the direct vicinity of the device without the knowledge of its owner. That these monitoring features are available on cell phones was a known fact, as FBI surveillance networks already have the ability to turn on any cell phone microphone or camera remotely without tipping off the user. It’s believed that this surveillance technique can work even when the cell phone user has shut down their phone, with the only surefire way to prevent such surveillance being removal of the unit’s battery.

June 1th 2012

Is your TV watching you? Latest models raise concerns       Samsung’s 2012 top-of-the-line plasmas and LED HDTVs offer new features never before available within a television including a built-in, internally wired HD camera, twin microphones, face tracking and speech recognition. While these features give you unprecedented control over an HDTV, the devices themselves, more similar than ever to a personal computer, may allow hackers or even Samsung to see and hear you and your family, and collect extremely personal data.

March 25h 2012

U.S. Supreme Court may allow the government to track phones without a warrant   The upcomingSupreme Court decision on Antoine Jones’ GPS case could have a drastic and disturbing impact on the privacy of every American citizen. If the Supreme Court finds that law enforcement were within the law when placing a GPS tracking device on the car of suspected drug smuggler and nightclub owner Antoine Jones, it would open the door for even more egregious violations of our privacy. This decision would essentially allow the government to monitor anyone and everyone’s movements without a warrant for any reason or no reason at all. While the PATRIOT Act is already an affront to the Constitution and everything that America was built upon, this would dangerously expand the power of the government to act without even having to seek out a warrant.

November 24th 2011

Document Trove Exposes Surveillance Methods   The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents, spanning 36 companies, include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people's computers and cellphones, and "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country. The papers were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and abroad have long conducted their own surveillance. But in recent years, a retail market for surveillance tools has sprung up from "nearly zero" in 2001 to about $5 billion a year, said Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies Inc., the show's operator. Read more about the documents.

November 22th 2011

Justice warns of 'Big Brother society' as Supreme Court decides if police can use GPS to track you without a warrant       A Supreme Court justice has warned there could be a strict Big Brother society if the police are allowed to use GPS devices to track suspected criminals without advance approval. Justice Stephen Breyer said there could be around-the-clock surveillance reminiscent of the totalitarian world of the George Orwell novel 1984. His comments come as the Obama administration appeals a ruling that threw out a drug conspiracy conviction when the FBI and police installed a GPS device on the suspect's car without a search warrant.

November 15th 2011

Big Brother alert over surge in 'citizen spies' as thousands more volunteer to snoop on neighbours Councils across the country have recruited thousands of ‘citizen snoopers’ to report ‘environmental crime’. They target dog foulers, litter louts and neighbours who fail to sort their rubbish properly. The volunteers act as the ‘eyes and ears’ of their neighbourhoods and are encouraged to take photos of ‘environmental crime’ and send them in with location details for a rapid response. They are given hand-held GPS computers for the task or phone cards to cover the cost of using their own devices. Evidence gathered this way is sometimes used in criminal prosecutions. There are already 9,831 snoopers signed up – a 17 per cent increase on the number two years ago – and a further 1,310 are set to be recruited and trained as part of schemes run by 18 councils. Volunteers often apply to become ‘street champions’ through council websites, but many have also been lured by recruitment drives in local newspapers.

November 13th 2011

New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV   As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in a case Tuesday that could determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant, a young man in California has come forward to Wired to reveal that he found not one but two different devices on his vehicle recently. The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car.

November 9th 2011

Big Sis To Monitor Twitter For Signs Of Social Unrest       The wave of civil unrest that has swept the globe over the past year has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to step up its monitoring of Twitter and other social networks in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States. “Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.

November 2th 2011

The Database: Why Criminal Governments Spy On Citizens   At the very foundation of perhaps every modern day conflict between the expansive powers of unchecked bureaucracy and the dwindling freedoms of the ordinary citizen dwells the vital issue of privacy. Privacy and the right to hold personal and political views without being singled out and scrutinized by government is absolutely essential to any society which dares to deem itself “fair and just”. Ultimately, without the presence of these two liberties, and without people to defend them, a nation is ill equipped to circumvent the growth of tyranny, and anyone claiming to be “free” in the midst of such a culture is living a delusion of the highest order.

October 7th 2011

Atlanta increases surveillance of city   Plans to put Atlanta’s public spaces under camera surveillance will move forward this week with the opening of a state-of-the-art video monitoring center. Whether it’s good that Atlanta is joining other big cities in the video surveillance race depends on your comfort level with being watched more often by police. The downtown “Video Integration Center,” funded by a mix of private donations and public money, has already given Atlanta police links to more than 100 public and private security cameras. Talks are underway to link up with more cameras at CNN Center, Georgia State University, the Georgia World Congress Center and MARTA, along with cameras in Buckhead. Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution toured the center last week, as live footage of a traffic stop and archived video of a DragonCon parade played on a 15-foot screen. Officers can watch up to 128 views at once.

September 22th 2011

Big Brother Literally Watching You - and Talking!

July 13th 2011

Nanny State Betrays Decline and Fall of America   Two more ridiculous examples of the nanny state kicking into high gear add to the overwhelming weight of evidence indicating that America is in a state of terminal decline, with an overtly authoritarian big government enforcing a command and control system at every level of society.   Government environmental permits will now be required in San Diego for any kind of fireworks display, meaning state permission will be required for fireworks at birthday parties or any other outdoor event. Small-scale gatherings would now require an “environmental assessment” before they can take place. “According to the strictest interpretation of this, jumpy-jumps and everything else would be subject to environmental review if this ruling stands,” said lawyer Robert Howard, who represented the La Jolla Community Fireworks Foundation in the case. “It’s a breathtaking ruling.” Meanwhile in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church was fined $4,000 dollars by the city government for “improperly pruning its trees.”

June 1th 2011

US to store passenger data for 15 years   Draft of Washington-EU deal leaked to the Guardian shows agreement 'violates basic European principles' The personal data of millions of passengers who fly between the US and Europe, including credit card details, phone numbers and home addresses, may be stored by the US department of homeland security for 15 years, according to a draft agreement between Washington and Brussels leaked to the Guardian. The "restricted" draft, which emerged from negotiations between the US and EU, opens the way for passenger data provided to airlines on check-in to be analysed by US automated data-mining and profiling programmes in the name of fighting terrorism, crime and illegal migration. The Americans want to require airlines to supply passenger lists as near complete as possible 96 hours before takeoff, so names can be checked against terrorist and immigration watchlists. Read the agreement between the US and European Union that will allow the Americans to hold passenger data for 15 years

May 31th 2011

Feds to Mandate Black Box on all New Cars   The feds will mandate next month that all new cars be fitted with a black box, according to news reports. So-called black boxes record information about speed, seat belt use and brake application. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been involved in the use of black boxes since their introduction. In 2006, the safety administration encouraged but did not require automobile manufacturers to install the systems and also did not set a single standard for the way data would be recorded, according to the New York Times. In February, NHTSA administrator David Strickland said the government was considering making the technology mandatory in the wake of recalls of millions of Toyota vehicles. Strickland made the disclosure to a subcommittee hearing by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

May 25th 2011

Big Sis and DHS Push ID Program for Travelers   Department of Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano told a conference of travel and tourism industry leaders gathered in Las Vegas that the prospect of shoe bombing remains a threat to aviatio “Aviation remains a target. Material taken from Bin Laden’s house in Pakistan confirms that,” she said. “We are moving away from one size fits all in security,” she added. “Trusted traveller programs are where we are focused. But it is more difficult than you imagine. You need to recognize it only takes one plane to go down.” Napolitano’s remarks fall on the heels of a report commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association that calls on airlines to create a voluntary “trusted traveler” program similar to a mandatory one previously proposed by president Bush and rejected by Congress. TSA administrator and former deputy FBI director John Pistole told the Wall Street Journal that the agency would use data from frequent-flier programs, which many carriers have kept for decades, to identify potential “trusted travelers,” the Boston Globe reports. Boarding passes of individuals in the program would be marked with a bar code, and those passengers would go through an expedited screening line after presenting their passes and valid identification

May 22th 2011

Thermal cameras look inside homes to monitor energy efficiency   The city of Boston has been taken to task by the ACLU over concerns about a roll-out of thermal imaging cameras being used to monitor energy efficiency inside homes. A pilot program to take aerial and street-level photos of heat loss in Boston was part of a scheme to encourage participation in home energy improvement programs, as well as to drive consumers towards green companies. According toCBS, the project had been halted following public outcry about invasions of privacy, namely that “infrared cameras would reveal information about what’s going on inside the homes.” Further objections have been raised about potential violations of the Fourth Amendment (but what’s that anyway?). Officials reportedly “planned on sharing the photos and analysis with homeowners, and were hoping the findings would increase enrollment in efficiency programs and also create business opportunities.”

April 13th 2011

Finding Order in the Orwellian Chaos   It has become nearly impossible to determine the "truth" in our increasingly chaotic world. Reality is seemingly being twisted and flipped on its head in this rapid unfolding of multi-front crises. The world is facing a new world war in the Arab world, nuclear holocaust from the Fukushima meltdown, total economic collapse/takeover, and a stunning rise in the cost of essential commodities. In each case, the public is being told directly the opposite of basic human understanding. In fact, it's so blatant that it appears to be a test to see how fast and far the collective human psyche can be warped. George Orwell would be impressed with the level of doublespeak manipulation that has taken place concerning these recent catastrophic events

April 11th 2011

Highway Checkpoints and Licence Plate Reading Camera Legislation Moving Forward In The Texas Senate.(Your Papers Please)   One thing I learned about politicians they never keep their promises and do the opposite of they say they will do for the people. This is why I never had any faith in those who ran on the Tea Party platform because once they were in office. They would get all caught up in the web of deceit of special interest. Most of the bills filed in the Texas legislator this session infringe on our rights and does not secure them. What rights that are being infringed upon is the right to travel and the right to contract or not enter into an agreement. SB-1700- filed by Texas State Senator Tommy Williams would set up checkpoints to check for licenses and insurance from motorist if this bill becomes law. Has Senator Williams realized the economy is in the tank? People can not afford to buy auto insurance. They are barely able to survive with high fuel prices and the spike of food cost shopping at the supermarket.Is this Senator doing the bidding of the insurance lobby to make sure every Texan is forced to purchase auto insurance to drive on the roads the taxpayers paid for.Texas made sobriety checkpoints illegal years ago because people complained about the abuses by Police where they never hardly caught drunks. Mostly people who did not have their papers(License,insurance and registration please?)These were the people that were affected.Not the drunks driving. Drunks know how to avoid these checkpoints. These checkpoints are only for revenue generation for the state to enrich there budgets

March 30th 2011

FBI dedicates $1 billion to massive biometrics identification program   The Federal Bureau of Investigations announced recently that it is dedicating up to $1 billion for a Lockheed Martin-developed system that will enable on-the-fly analysis of detailed identification information that can be instantaneously shared with law enforcement all around the world. It's called the "Next Generation Identification System" (NGIS), and if you're a fan of television dramas like the CBS crime drama NCIS, it may sound pretty familiar. The FBI says their forthcoming system is an "incremental" upgrade to their currently-existing "Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System" (IAFIS), but it's more than just an upgrade: it's a revolution in law enforcement technology that's bound to draw comparisons to the "Total Information Awareness" (TIA) project Congress ostensibly shut down in 2004. The TIA project, however, was broader in scope, targeting private individuals all over the world instead of just suspected criminals or terrorists

March 25th 2011

FBI urges Congress to expand Internet wiretapping   The FBI urged members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Thursday to update the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop on Internet. The act was passed in 1994 and requires telecommunication companies to design their equipment and services to ensure that law enforcement and national security officials can monitor telephone and other communications whenever necessary. "Over the years, through interpretation of the statute by the Federal Communications Commission, the reach of CALEA has been expanded to include facilities-based broadband internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that are fully inter-connected with the public switched telephone network," FBI General Counsel Valeria Caproni told the subcommittee.

February 19h 2011

FBI can obtain phone records without oversight, Justice Dept memo claims   Without court oversight, the nation's top law enforcement agency can obtain domestic records of telephone conversations made to international receivers, the Justice Department claimed recently. "[The Office of Legal Counsel] agreed with the FBI that under certain circumstances (word or words redacted) allows the FBI to ask for and obtain these records on a voluntary basis from the providers, without legal process or a qualifying emergency," the Justice Department's inspector general said in a recent report by McClatchy Newspapers. The claim put forth in the document released to McClatchy seemed to indicate that the Obama administration has continued the previous administration's policies. The Bush administration maintained that the FBI needed such policing powers in order to stop possible terrorism. Critics of the FBI's surveillance program stated that the tactic was frequently applied in abusive manners. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told McClatchy that the OLC's disclosure that explained its legal position on part of the 1978 federal wiretapping law was a missing puzzle piece

February 13th 2011

Why Do We Just Accept Things?   The things that we human beings will accept are absolutely amazing. On many occasions, large groups of people have managed to accept things that make people today think they must have been stupid or cowards. And people today accept things that, in the future, our descendants will probably regard the same way. Acceptance is not all bad, of course. The world isn’t all roses and sunshine; humans do need to adapt, and before that can happen, we need to accept and absorb what is around us. No doubt, there have been some humans who had too much of a tendency to not accept the things around them, and they probably didn’t make much of a contribution to our gene pool. But when it comes to our social environment, over-acceptingness can be a major point of weakness, and even a fatal flaw. “Doormat” is a pretty apt metaphor for one who consistently accepts too much. “Sheep” is another. Vast numbers of people have knowingly been led to horrible fates simply because they nodded their heads and submitted at the wrong moment. Those same people didn’t have much to contribute to the human gene pool.

February 1th 2011

AIRPrint performs ranged fingerprintscanning, won't let the terrorists win   While ears may be the new biometric du jour, Advanced Optical Systems (AOS) is doing its best to keep fingerprints as the preferred method for identifying enemies of the state. The company has built a fingerprint scanner with the ability to accurately read a print up to two meters away, and our military views the system as a means to reduce the risk to soldiers at security checkpoints all over the world. The AIRPrint system is a significant upgrade over previous biometric security systems because it allows a person's identity to be confirmed by military personnel from behind the safety of a blast wall or armored vehicle, which keeps our serviceman out of harm's way.

January 20th 2011

Cameras & Phones Pinpoint Your Location Online

January 14th 2011

Judge warns of ‘Orwellian state’ in warrantless GPS tracking case   Police in Delaware may soon be unable to use global positioning systems (GPS) to keep tabs on a suspect unless they have a court-signed warrant, thanks to a recent ruling by a superior court judge who cited famed author George Orwell in her decision. In striking down evidence obtained through warrantless GPS tracking, Delaware Judge Jan R. Jurden wrote that "an Orwellian state is now technologically feasible," adding that "without adequate judicial preservation of privacy, there is nothing to protect our citizens from being tracked 24/7."

January 1th 2011

"National Security" Means Tyranny

December 31h 2010

Asapplication approvals drop, work on secret wiretaps grows, U.S. government sources say Even as the Justice Department reports a two-year decline in the number of wiretap applications approved by a secret U.S. intelligence court, the workload of Justice Departmen lawyers assigned to request and oversee such sensitive surveillance activities appears to be growing. The activity by the department's National Security Division, which is responsible for obtaining authorization from a secret court to tap Americans' telephone calls and e-mails and conduct other surveillance, was a prominent factor cited by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in a campaign this month to prod the Senate into confirming President Obama's nomination of James M. Cole to serve as Holder's deputy.

December 26th 2010

IF YOU TOLERATE THIS...

December 25th 2010

The government's one-way mirror   One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is its fixation on hiding everything it does behind a wall of secrecy while simultaneously monitoring, invading and collecting files on everything its citizenry does. Based on the Francis Bacon aphorism that "knowledge is power," this is the extreme imbalance that renders the ruling class omnipotent and citizens powerless. In The Washington Post today, Dana Priest and William Arkin continue their "Top Secret America" series by describing how America's vast and growing Surveillance State now encompasses state and local law enforcement agencies, collecting and storing always-growing amounts of information about even the most innocuous activities undertaken by citizens suspected of no wrongdoing. As was true of the first several installments of their "Top Secret America," there aren't any particularly new revelations for those paying attention to such matters, but the picture it paints -- and the fact that it is presented in an establishment organ such as The Washington Post -- is nonetheless valuable.

December 22th 2010

Buying a Car a Little Harder Now: Terror Check Required For Financing   If you're in the market for a car, be prepared to prove you are not a terrorist. The federal government's Red Flags Rule mandates that auto dealers, banks, credit unions and other "creditors" and "financial institutions" take additional steps to prevent identity theft and fraud, beginning Jan. 1. Included in the list of so-called creditors is your family doctor. Among those steps is determining whether a person applying for financing - or even paying cash for a car - appears on any government watch lists of known or suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations. As a result, consumers hoping to finance a new or used car, a home or even a major appliance will be required to supply personal information - such as their Social Security number and birth date, as well as the answers to five questions designed to confirm a customer is who they say they are - to the business at the time of the sale. Those questions could include anything from previous addresses and area codes to the names of other members of the consumer's household.

Ncvember 21th 2010

Why you may soon need a warmist’s permission to eat   SO you think I exaggerate when I say global warming is just the latest cause of the closet totalitarian? Then pay close attention to an experiment the warmists are about to inflict on the people of Norfolk Island. Be warned. What’s being trialled there with $390,000 of Gillard Government money may, if it works, be spread to the mainland, say the researchers. Which means it’s coming for you. The plan - and, no, I’m not joking - is to put Norfolk Islanders on rations to fight both global warming and obesity. Funded by the Australian Research Council, and approved by the Socialist Left Science Minister Kim Carr, researchers from the Southern Cross University will give each volunteer on the island a “carbon card”. Every time they buy petrol, electricity or an air flight, they will have “carbon units” deducted from the fixed allowance on their card. More units will be lost each time they buy fatty foods, or produce flown in from a long way away. If, at the end of each year or so, they have carbon units left over, they can sell them. If they’ve blown their allocation, they must buy more.

Ncvember 6th 2010

The Future of Hotel Security   Technology is opening new doors to hotel safety, and the way we navigate hotels is set to change in the blink of an eye. Or the swipe of a cellphone. Or the print of a finger. With futuristic systems like scent and iris scanners and digital facial-recognition, hotel security is being taken to the next level. Those plastic key cards that once seemed so innovative will soon go the way of the actual key. The new thing is contact-less Smartcards and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) cards that need just be waved to allow room access. Much like the cruise world's one card system, these cards may soon make hotel stays easier by allowing guests to pay for services, as well as to check-in and check-out, through a single device. Travelers may even be able to save preferences on the cards, from pillow type to floor choice. RFID cards are already in use at New York's Plaza Hotel, and Starwood Hotels are considering introducing them into their hip Aloft and Element properties.

Ncvember 5th 2010

New speed camera can catch drivers committing five offences at once   A speed camera designed to catch motorists committing up to five offences at the same time could be heading to Britain's roads. As well as catching speeding motorists, the Asset camera should be able to pick out drivers who are not wearing seatbelts and accurately measure distances between moving cars to identify tailgating. Asset (advanced safety and driver support for essential road transport) can also note number plates and recognise cars with out-of-date tax discs and no insurance. Funded by the European commission, the camera system is being developed by a consortium that includes a number of European universities and research institutes and is being tested in Finland. Motoring organisations and campaigners in the UK gave the system a cautious welcome. AA president Edmund King said he was pleased if it stopped motorists tailgating but hoped it would not be used as a money-making measure. "Tailgating is more dangerous in most cases than speeding so I think most motorists would welcome it," he said. "We will need sophisticated technology to police the roads and there would have to be safeguards. But it needs to be done as a safety measure, not as a money-making machine."

Ncvember 4th 2010

UK government to impose Orwellian-style surveillance   The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition is pushing ahead with plans to allow Britain’s security services and police to spy on the activities of every citizen who uses a phone or the Internet. The secret services and police will have unlimited powers to track every single phone call, email, text message and website visit made by anybody in the UK. The plans were contained within last month’s “Strategic Defence and Security Review” in which the government stated, “We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.”

Ncvember3th 2010

End of Liberty

Ncvember3th 2010

Big Brother's food safety fear-mongering lays groundwork for "new global food safety agency"   Is it a mere coincidence that this morning’s New York Times contains TWO front-page articles pointing out the incompetence of the F.D.A. a few weeks after the U.S.D.A.’s public disaster? While today’s F.D.A.-related articles appear to be about the distinct topics of toxic food and killer medical tubes, the underlying message is certainly clear and consistent - we cannot trust our food or healthcare industries to protect us AND the F.D.A. isn’t competent in its oversight role. I could not help but wonder why two different reporters on the front pages of two different sections were singling out the F.D.A. on the same day with blatant fear-bating tones, especially since the main tragedy referred to in one of the articles happened in 2006. How the heck did that make today’s front page news???

October 7th 2010

FBI wants revision in telecom law to aid terror probes   WASHINGTON — FBI Director Robert Mueller is calling for changes in federal law to help his agents with surveillance of communications in anti-terrorism and other criminal investigations. At a conference of intelligence experts, Mueller said that in some instances communications companies are unable to provide electronic communications the FBI seeks in response to court orders. His comments come as the Obama administration considers proposals that would require service providers to make the plain text of encrypted conversations – over the phone, computer or e-mail – readily available to law enforcement

October 7th 2010

Feds: Privacy Does Not Exist in ‘Public Places’   The Obama administration has urged a federal appeals court to allow the government, without a court warrant, to affix GPS devices on suspects’ vehicles to track their every move. The Justice Department is demanding a federal appeals court rehear a case in which itreversed the conviction and life sentence of a cocaine dealer whose vehicle was tracked via GPS for a month, without a court warrant. The authorities then obtained warrants to search and find drugs in the locations where defendant Antoine Jones had travelled. .

September 24th 2010

Tightened muzzle on scientists is 'Orwellian'   The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age. Natural Resources Canada (NRC) scientists were told this spring they need "pre-approval" from Minister Christian Paradis' office to speak with journalists. Their "media lines" also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation. The documents say the "new" rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply to not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago. They also give a glimpse of how Canadians are being cut off from scientists whose work is financed by taxpayers, critics say, and is often of significant public interest -- be it about fish stocks, genetically modified crops or mercury pollution in the Athabasca River.

September 14th 2010

Orwellian DoubleThink: War is Peace         No need to modernize the phrasing of this most obviously relevant Orwellian slogan. Obama, our Nobel Prince of Peace, continues the endless wars, warrantless and evidence-less detentions, and illegal torture. The public is kept in an increasing state of fear of a manufactured bogeyman that assumes the faces of individual leaders as needed (and their countries), but ultimately is defined as a War on Terror, thus a war without end.

September 9th 2010

U.S. schools: grooming students for a surveillance state   Schools are increasingly invading student privacy both in school and outside of school. Are schools grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere? A PogoWasRight.org commentary. The increasing use of student surveillance and intrusion of school districts into students’ extra-curricular conduct should alarm us all. Whether it is a district surveilling students in their bedrooms via webcam, conducting random drug or locker searches, strip-searching students, lowering the standard for searching students to “reasonable suspicion” from “probable cause,” disciplining students for conduct outside of school hours, searchingtheir cellphones and textmessages, or allegedly forcing them to undergo pregnancy testing, student privacy is under increasing threat.

August 30th 2010

I-Dosing: Another Excuse for Government Control Over Our Lives   I don’t know about you, but I am not about to run out and experiment with the latest fad, known as “i-dosing,” a gimmick that supposedly uses binaural tones to create euphoria. “Simply put, i-dosing is the attempt to achieve a perceived drug ‘high’ from listening specially-engineered sounds and music,” reports Psychology Today. “Is it a real drug? Probably not.” But don’t tell that to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The government agency has declared that i-dosing induces the same kind of mind-altering effects as marijuana, cocaine, peyote, and opium. “Kids are going to flock to [i-dose websites] just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places. If you want to reach these kids and save these kids and keep these kids safe, parents have to be aware, and they’ve got to take action,” said Mark Woodward, the spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. So dire is the threat, Oklahoma’s Mustang High School recently sent home letters to parents warning them of the dangers of i-dosing.

August 26th 2010

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