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Thread: Emerging Surveillance State?

  1. #531
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CasperParks View Post
    I recall reading about that service at one of the mainstream media outlets.
    From the USPO, it is called "Informed Delivery".

    Suppose we are one step away from them opening up the mail, and just sending us a scanned image?
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
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  2. #532
    Quote Originally Posted by calikid View Post
    From the USPO, it is called "Informed Delivery".

    Suppose we are one step away from them opening up the mail, and just sending us a scanned image?
    That reminds of an old joke, "You have the right to see any files the FBI has on you. And if they don't have a file on you, they'll gladly create one."

  3. #533
    NBC News reports The War on Cash Intensifies: Visa Offers Restaurants $10,000 to Go Cashless by Ben Popken

    Visa has declared war on cash and its "opening salvo" is to start paying restaurants $10,000 to go completely cash free.

    The credit card giant is this week announcing a new plan to hand out thousands of dollars to up to 50 small food and restaurant vendors if they agree to stop taking cash.

    Visa will also upgrade the restaurants' checkout terminals so they can accept contactless payments, like Apple Pay, and invest in some of the stores' marketing costs. When you pay at one of the stores you would only be able to do so with a credit or debit card, or via mobile payment. The program participants will be picked from an online application that starts in August.
    Click here for NBC News article The War on Cash:

    Opinion, this amounts to "boycotting" people who use cash.

  4. #534
    'Fiat' currency and now this.

    Very troubling as it will no doubt make it far easier for the TPTB to hamstring us financially.

  5. #535
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wansen View Post
    'Fiat' currency and now this.

    Very troubling as it will no doubt make it far easier for the TPTB to hamstring us financially.
    Not to mention Law Enforcement's inability to track your every financial move when you use cash.
    So much easier to investigate (with a proper warrant) when every penny transacted is recorded, stamped, filed, indexed.... and archived FOREVER.
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
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  6. #536
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    Hearings on FISA reform/renewal are a chance for real change, so why aren't the major players at the table making noise?

    Silicon Valley mostly quiet in internet surveillance debate in Congress
    By Dustin Volz

    Facebook Inc, Alpabet Inc's Google, Apple Inc and other major technology firms are largely absent from a debate over the renewal of a broad U.S. internet surveillance law, weakening prospects for privacy reforms that would further protect customer data, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    While tech companies often lobby Washington on privacy issues, the major firms have been hesitant to enter a fray over a controversial portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), industry lobbyists, congressional aides and civil liberties advocates said.

    Among their concerns is that doing so could jeopardize a trans-Atlantic data transfer pact underpinning billions of dollars in trade in digital services, the sources said.

    Technology companies and privacy groups have for years complained about the part of FISA known as Section 702 that allows the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to collect and analyze emails and other digital communications of foreigners living overseas. Though targeted at foreigners, the surveillance also collects data on an unknown number of Americans - some privacy advocates have suggested it could be millions - without a search warrant.

    Section 702 will expire at the end of the year unless the Republican-controlled Congress votes to reauthorize it. The White House, U.S. intelligence agencies and many Republican senators want to renew the law, which they consider vital to national security, without changes and make it permanent.

    A coalition of Democrats and libertarian-leaning conservatives prefer, however, to amend the law with more privacy safeguards.
    Story continues

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN1A32B3
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
    Attachment 1008

  7. #537
    Remember how direct deposit of paychecks started as voluntary with promise they never make it mandatory?
    Then it became a condition of employment. They boycott hiring people refusing direct deposit!

    Biochip Implants is becoming as they are - a hive-mind and leads to eternal darkness...
    Do Not Do This:



    Revelation 13:
    16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
    17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

  8. #538
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    A rare look indeed. Are we just collecting information for the sake of hoping large databases will pay off some day?
    A gangbanger runs into my car, and suddenly I'm in a database forever?


    A rare look inside LAPD's use of data
    by Matt McFarland

    A college professor's two-and-a-half year project has brought the cutting edge of police work out of the shadows.

    Since 2011, Silicon Valley-based software firm Palantir has helped the Los Angeles Police Department analyze data, ranging from license plates photos, to rap sheets, traffic tickets, listings of foreclosed properties and more.

    The company, which also works with government agencies such as the CIA and FBI, is quietly transforming how police operate. Palantir doesn't reveal how many clients are using its tools, but police departments in both California and New York have previously worked with the company.

    Sarah Brayne, a sociology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, conducted more than 100 interviews of officers and civilian employees. She went on ride-alongs in patrol cars and a helicopter, and watched data analysts answer queries from detectives. Brayne also observed divisions adopt the new technologies.

    Her results were published online in the American Sociological Review last month.

    Experts say that Brayne's work is a window into the future of law enforcement. It illuminates the promise big data holds for making police work more efficient. But it also shows its perils: how data, which is generally thought to be objective and fair, can exacerbate biases.

    Civil rights lawyers and advocates for minority communities, among others, have criticized the use of data by police departments. Nineteen cities have considered legislative proposals related to police surveillance, according to the ACLU.

    The Los Angeles Police Department and Palantir both declined to comment for this article.

    What follows are six of Brayne's most striking findings.

    1. Surveillance today is unprecedented

    Just as Facebook made it easy for you to track your friends, Palantir simplifies law enforcement's ability to monitor potential criminals. Its platform is similar to a social network. Basic information such a person's name, gender, school affiliations are entered. Officers sometimes record this data on note cards when they stop citizens on the street, say, following a traffic accident. Information is collected not only on the individual, but the people with them at the time. Additional data comes from government agencies, or data the department purchases from private companies.

    Once a person is in the system, officers can receive automated alerts on their smartphones. For example, an alert may be triggered when an individual's car is seen driving into a specified neighborhood. The Los Angeles Police Department has integrated cameras installed on its cars and along streets into Palantir's system. The cameras photograph license plates, feeding their time and location into the system.

    Another example: If a suspected bank robber's vehicle is caught on camera going near a specified bank, a police officer may receive an alert.

    Data once held in technical silos, requiring multiple searches, is now centralized and more easy to access to aid investigations.

    2. Citizens without police contact can be tracked

    Brayne found that Los Angeles' databases also included individuals who haven't had direct contact with law enforcement. For example, just having a link to a person of interest is enough to be in the city's Palantir system. This could be a simple as being in a fender bender with a gang member....
    Story Continues
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
    Attachment 1008

  9. #539
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    You reap what you sow NSA. Even if the new proposed standard is a good one, and would help protect everyone's encrypted transactions remain secure, the source has lost to much credibility to be trusted.

    Insight: Distrustful U.S. allies force spy agency to back down in encryption row
    By Joseph Menn

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An international group of cryptography experts has forced the U.S. National Security Agency to back down over two data encryption techniques it wanted set as global industry standards, reflecting deep mistrust among close U.S. allies.

    In interviews and emails seen by Reuters, academic and industry experts from countries including Germany, Japan and Israel worried that the U.S. electronic spy agency was pushing the new techniques not because they were good encryption tools, but because it knew how to break them.

    The NSA has now agreed to drop all but the most powerful versions of the techniques - those least likely to be vulnerable to hacks - to address the concerns.

    The dispute, which has played out in a series of closed-door meetings around the world over the past three years and has not been previously reported, turns on whether the International Organization of Standards should approve two NSA data encryption techniques, known as Simon and Speck.

    The U.S. delegation to the ISO on encryption issues includes a handful of NSA officials, though it is controlled by an American standards body, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

    The presence of the NSA officials and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about the agency's penetration of global electronic systems have made a number of delegates suspicious of the U.S. delegation's motives, according to interviews with a dozen current and former delegates.

    A number of them voiced their distrust in emails to one another, seen by Reuters, and in written comments that are part of the process. The suspicions stem largely from internal NSA documents disclosed by Snowden that showed the agency had previously plotted to manipulate standards and promote technology it could penetrate. Budget documents, for example, sought funding to “insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems.”

    More than a dozen of the experts involved in the approval process for Simon and Speck feared that if the NSA was able to crack the encryption techniques, it would gain a "back door" into coded transmissions, according to the interviews and emails and other documents seen by Reuters.

    “I don’t trust the designers,” Israeli delegate Orr Dunkelman, a computer science professor at the University of Haifa, told Reuters, citing Snowden's papers. “There are quite a lot of people in NSA who think their job is to subvert standards. My job is to secure standards.”
    Story Continues
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
    Attachment 1008

  10. #540
    End of Net Neutrality in the United States is part of the Police and Surveillance State.

    Murdering Net Neutrality allows corrupt politicians and corporations to control the flow of information and stifles free speech.

    Killing Net Neutrality places access to websites like The Outpost Forum in jeopardy.

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