statism watch

Todd Howe, WeAreChangeToronto
December 8, 2010

Imagine the following. It’s dusk and you’re walking with your best friends down a quiet side street in a major urban centre. You all stop for a moment under the pooled glow of a streetlight — maybe you light a smoke, or send a text. A few minutes later, someone looks up and so you do, too. There on the utility pole above is a cluster of cameras, their dark spherical globes the strange fruit of an uneasy era, and a sign — Warning: This area under surveillance. In that moment, you see your image reflected in the glassy blister as you regard the camera eye. Freeze frame.

What goes through your mind? Do you feel a little uneasy? Do you feel protected? Or do you think nothing of it?

It’s an encounter and a question that an ever-expanding number of Canadians will experience for themselves in the coming months. On November 15th, Toronto police chief Bill Blair announced his intention to ‘buy back’ 52 of the 67 cameras the Federal government had purchased to monitor the June G20 summit (riot gear and LRAD acoustic cannons for crowd control are to be transferred as well in the federally subsidized arrangement). The G20 cameras, installed in May, were to be removed at the end of the summit and indeed came down in July as promised. It will come as no surprise to those following these developments, however, that they are now back on the agenda. For the past number of years, the Toronto Police Services have been building out the CCTV network in the city through a program of ‘pilot project’ installations and rotating trials that amount to nothing more than a shell game.

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People in the UK aren’t allowed to photograph Christmas lights – meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of CCTV cameras on surveillance posts and in shop windows watching them in Metro London alone.

Related: UK photographer films his own ‘anti-terror’ arrest | UK: Photographers protest over terror search laws | UK: Anti-terror stop and search policy ruled illegal by European human rights court | UK: From snapshot to Special Branch: how my camera made me a terror suspect | UK: Photographer questioned under anti-terror laws for taking pictures of Christmas lights | UK: Big fall in police use of stop-and search powers after outcry | Winnipeg police confiscate documentary filmmaker’s camera | Guardian reporter detained for taking picture of sea near Bilderberg conference | Police seizures of cameras prompts B.C. complaint | Police erased cellphone video of fatal shooting, witness alleges | Pre-Olympic transit ads encourage citizen surveillance | UK: Calling the police to account for anti-photography law | UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal | Australian Citizen Journalist Charged for Filming Police under Anti-Terror Law | UK Big Brother police to get ‘war-time’ power to demand ID in the street | Charges laid after Winnipeg street blocked off for hours

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
June 24, 2010

Filming and taking photographs in public is not terrorism

An independent film maker and political activist refused to switch off his camera when he was stopped and searched by police in London recently, and captured footage that highlights how police use empty threats and vague language to enforce absurd terrorism laws.

Charlie Veitch of The Love Police was taken aside by a police officer while filming the outside the heavily protected gates of Downing Street. (Video below)

Rather than switch off his camera as ordered to by the officer, he continued to film, noting that it was his right to do so.

“That’s fine but under prevention of terrorism I do not want it pointing at me, otherwise I will seize it, end of conversation.” the officer replies.

This was the first utterly meaningless statement the officer makes, given that there is no provision under the Terrorism Act allowing police to seize cameras in public places or to stop people from filming them, unless they have reasonable suspicion that the person filming or taking pictures is a terrorist.

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Spy blimps – coming soon to a major domestic event near you. Like the Indy race.

Related: FAA Experiments With Integrating Drones in Civil Airspace | Predator drones to begin flying Texas border patrol in a matter of months | Waterloo firm creates ‘flying robot spies from the skies’ for global law enforcement market | UK Police use spy drone for first domestic arrest — without airspace clearance | Future police: Meet the UK’s armed robot drones | UK police plan to use military-style spy drones | US Domestic Espionage Alert: Spy Drone Discovered | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | Kandahar spy blimp raises privacy concerns | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | 250-Foot Long Hybrid Airship Will Spy Over Afghanistan Battlefields in 2011 | Sarnia resident plans ‘moon’ protest of US border spy balloon | Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum | Military spy blimp watched Indy race from on high | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights | Remote-controlled planes could spy on British homes | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | U.S. set to launch Predator drones to monitor Manitoba border | Military Tech on the Home Front: Predator drones to begin surveillance of Canada-US border | Hoverdrone to be deployed to Iraq | Kids to Help Create Drones, ‘Fuzzy’ Line to Be Drawn between Military and Civil Spheres | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Unmanned spy planes to police Britain | Austin police testing unmanned spy drones | Nunavut taken aback by military plan for drone patrols | U.S. to patrol Manitoba border with drone aircraft

Noah Schactman, Wired.com
June 17, 2010

God smiles when the Army spends a half-billion dollars on spy blimps the size of a football field.

I believe that’s the message Northrop Grumman is trying to convey in this illustration accompanying the company’s announcement of a $517 million, five-year contract to build three combat airships for the military.

The military already employs a fleet of blimps to look for enemies and relay communications. But none of them are as big, as high-flying, or as far-seeing as this Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. It’s supposed to float at 20,000 feet for up to three weeks at a time, snooping on absolutely everything below with a variety of sensors.

“Basically what we see it as is an unblinking eye,” LEMV project manager Marty Sargent tells Inside Defense.

Sargent figures it would take as many as 12 of the military’s advanced Reaper surveillance drones “to do the same mission that the LEMV would do.”

The first airship is supposed to be inflated around 10 months from now. Eight months later, the Army hopes to have the first LEMV flying over Afghanistan. On that day, the clouds will part, the sun will shine, and the cherubs will sing as the unblinking eye begins looking for Taliban.

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What, are they going to try yellow stars next?

Related: French government prepares total ban on full Islamic veils | Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled | US Airline Security Moves to Known Threat Descriptive Profiling | Australia to fingerprint, face-scan visitors from Muslim nations | ‘Unclear’ Whether US Air Security Profiling Violates Canadian Charter: Baird | US implements travel profiling: Tougher air screening for ’security-risk’ countries | They hate us for our bombs | How MI5 blackmails British Muslims

Paul Lewis, The Guardian
June 17, 2010

Bags placed over cameras in two Muslim areas of Birmingham after Guardian revealed scheme was a counterterrorism initiative

A project to place two Muslim areas in Birmingham under surveillance has been dramatically halted after an investigation by the Guardian revealed it was a counterterrorism initiative.

Bags are being placed over hundreds of cameras which were recently installed in the neighbourhoods of Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook, to reassure the community that their movements are not being monitored until a public consultation takes place.

Announcing that the cameras would not be turned on, West Midlands police and Birmingham city council apologised for not being “more explicit” about the funding arrangements of the project, which stipulated they should be used to combat terrorism.

But officials insisted the £3m project could still go ahead if the consultation showed support for the cameras. The programme could also be shelved altogether, which would require police and the council to take down the cameras.

Under the initiative, Project Champion, the suburbs were to be monitored by a network of 169 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras — three times more than in the entire city centre. The cameras, which include covert cameras secretly installed in the street, form “rings of steel” meaning residents cannot enter or leave the areas without their cars being tracked. Data was to be stored for two years.

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Here is the relevant section of the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual, updated February 2010: “UAS operations are now being approved in the NAS [National Airspace] outside of special use airspace through the use of FAA-issued Certificates of Waiver or Authorization (COA) or through the issuance of a special airworthiness certificate. COA and special airworthiness approvals authorize UAS flight operations to be contained within specific geographic boundaries and altitudes, usually require coordination with an ATC facility, and typically require the issuance of a NOTAM describing the operation to be conducted” GPS tracking will certainly play a large part in this as it has just been mandated that all planes must have GPS installed for a next-gen air traffic control system. Expect to see UAVs all over US skies before too long.

Related: Predator drones to begin flying Texas border patrol in a matter of months | Waterloo firm creates ‘flying robot spies from the skies’ for global law enforcement market | UK Police use spy drone for first domestic arrest — without airspace clearance | Future police: Meet the UK’s armed robot drones | UK police plan to use military-style spy drones | US Domestic Espionage Alert: Spy Drone Discovered | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | Kandahar spy blimp raises privacy concerns | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | 250-Foot Long Hybrid Airship Will Spy Over Afghanistan Battlefields in 2011 | Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights | Remote-controlled planes could spy on British homes | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | U.S. set to launch Predator drones to monitor Manitoba border | Military Tech on the Home Front: Predator drones to begin surveillance of Canada-US border | Hoverdrone to be deployed to Iraq | Kids to Help Create Drones, ‘Fuzzy’ Line to Be Drawn between Military and Civil Spheres | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Unmanned spy planes to police Britain | Austin police testing unmanned spy drones | Nunavut taken aback by military plan for drone patrols | U.S. to patrol Manitoba border with drone aircraft

Jason Paur, Wired.com
June 14, 2010

The Federal Aviation Administration is studying how to integrate unmanned aerial vehicles into U.S. airspace alongside conventional aircraft. Although UAVs have been flying in the United States for several years, they are limited to restricted airspace as well as portions of the borders with Canada and Mexico.

The problem of operating unmanned aircraft within the same airspace as conventional aircraft has been a contentious issue for pilots and carriers. Under an agreement the FAA signed last week with Boeing subsidiary Insitu, the feds will begin flying an unmanned aircraft as part of continuing research using air-traffic-control simulations. Insitu will provide the FAA with a ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system for the research, which will be conducted at the William J. Hughes Technical Training Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The goal is to evaluate how an air traffic controller can manage unmanned aircraft along with manned aircraft. The ScanEagle is a relatively small UAV with a 10-foot wingspan. It weighs less than 50 pounds. During the research program, the New Jersey National Guard will fly the UAV within current air-traffic-control simulations operating in a restricted airspace.

Other UAV makers, including General Atomics, maker of the larger Predator family of unmanned aircraft, have similar agreements with the FAA.

Unmanned aircraft do not currently fly within U.S. airspace except within a handful of restricted regions or with a special waiver. Versions of the General Atomics Predator have been flying border patrols for a few years now, even operating from airports with a mix of small general-aviation aircraft.

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As though coordinated (it is), UK and Australian (oh, and Canadian) style anti-camera tyranny comes to the US of A. You may remember it as the country of former reknown as a defender of free speech and civil liberties.

Related: UK: Photographers protest over terror search laws | UK: Anti-terror stop and search policy ruled illegal by European human rights court | UK: From snapshot to Special Branch: how my camera made me a terror suspect | UK: Photographer questioned under anti-terror laws for taking pictures of Christmas lights | UK: Big fall in police use of stop-and search powers after outcry | Winnipeg police confiscate documentary filmmaker’s camera | Guardian reporter detained for taking picture of sea near Bilderberg conference | Police seizures of cameras prompts B.C. complaint | Police erased cellphone video of fatal shooting, witness alleges | Pre-Olympic transit ads encourage citizen surveillance | UK: Calling the police to account for anti-photography law | UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal | Australian Citizen Journalist Charged for Filming Police under Anti-Terror Law | UK Big Brother police to get ‘war-time’ power to demand ID in the street | Charges laid after Winnipeg street blocked off for hours

Mike Masnick, Techdirt.com
June 4, 2010

Back in April, we wrote about the case of a motorcyclist in Maryland who was wearing a helmet-mounted camera while riding his motorcycle (admittedly, above the speed limit). As he stopped at a traffic light, an off-duty police-officer in plain clothes and an unmarked car jumped out of his car with his gun drawn. All of this was caught on video. No matter what you think of the cop’s reaction, what happened later is ridiculous: after the biker, Anthony John Graber III, posted the video from his helmet cam to YouTube, he was arrested for illegal wiretapping, based on Maryland’s two-party consent rule for recording. As we explained at the time, wiretapping laws that require all parties to consent were not, at all, designed for this type of situation.

However, apparently this sort of thing is becoming all too common — and stunningly, many courts are siding with the cops. Gizmodo recently had a good article highlighting how police in states that require all parties to consent to recordings have been using this law against being videotaped in public, and the courts are siding with them. What’s really scary is that most of those laws even have clearly written exceptions for recording in public places “where no expectation of privacy” exists.

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Three steps forward, two steps back is the way that surveillance cameras are being implemented in this city. They’ll leave a few more up in the Entertainment District as they remove a batch elsewhere, now you see them now you don’t, nothing up this sleeve, which neighbourhood will they be in next? As though we wouldn’t notice that the screw only turns one way:

Updated (2010/06/02): The cameras are now up – 67 new cameras is the actual tally. See a list of locations here.

Related: More police security cameras approved for Toronto | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | Toronto police board challenges chief on CCTV deterrence, demands ‘phase-in’ | Police laud Toronto surveillance cameras, critics not so sure | Criminologists: CCTV schemes in city and town centres have little effect on crime | UK House of Lords warns over ’surveillance state’ | Toronto surveillance project to enter new phase pending review | CCTV doesn’t keep us safe | CBC Radio Broadcasts Expose of North American Police State | T.T.C. Starts Camera Installation On Buses & Streetcars | Toronto police seek feedback on installing security cameras | Premier Thinks Yonge St. Cameras Should Stay, John Tory Wants Them In Ent. District | Cameras To Be Installed Downtown For Holiday Shopping Season | You Are a Suspect

Jennifer Yang, Toronto Star
May 14, 2010

Police began installing 77 more closed circuit security cameras around downtown Toronto Friday in preparation for the upcoming G20 summit.

They will remain up and in use until “the completion of the event, when there’s no longer an issue of security,” said Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond.

The cameras are “similar to other ones we’ve deployed in the past,” Drummond said. “They’re going to be very recognizable. They will be clearly marked with ‘police’ on them.”

Drummond said the installations will occur over the next few weeks, with the first cameras going up Friday along Adelaide St. The exact locations will be disclosed to the public once they are installed, Drummond said.

Police will use the CCTV cameras to record and “relay visual information about an event unfolding in a given area over time.”

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Related: Waterloo firm creates ‘flying robot spies from the skies’ for global law enforcement market | UK Police use spy drone for first domestic arrest — without airspace clearance | Future police: Meet the UK’s armed robot drones | UK police plan to use military-style spy drones | US Domestic Espionage Alert: Spy Drone Discovered | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | Kandahar spy blimp raises privacy concerns | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | 250-Foot Long Hybrid Airship Will Spy Over Afghanistan Battlefields in 2011 | Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights | Remote-controlled planes could spy on British homes | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | U.S. set to launch Predator drones to monitor Manitoba border | Military Tech on the Home Front: Predator drones to begin surveillance of Canada-US border | Hoverdrone to be deployed to Iraq | Kids to Help Create Drones, ‘Fuzzy’ Line to Be Drawn between Military and Civil Spheres | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Unmanned spy planes to police Britain | Austin police testing unmanned spy drones | Nunavut taken aback by military plan for drone patrols | U.S. to patrol Manitoba border with drone aircraft

Tim Eaton, The Austin-American Statesman
May 10, 2010

FAA says it’s working on approval that would allow the flights.

After years of political pressure from Texas politicians, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Monday that he expects the federal government to deliver unmanned aircraft to watch over the border with Mexico by this fall.

Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, said he has had discussions with top officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s office of air and marine operations, and they agreed to the timetable, subject to Federal Aviation Administration approval to allow the surveillance planes – often referred to in the political vernacular as “Predator drones” – to fly over Texas.

Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said the administration is “working as quickly as we can on this.”

Cuellar said the FAA told him that regulators’ main concern has been with Texas’ heavy airplane traffic – both private and commercial.

If approved, the unmanned aircraft in Texas would add to the federal government’s existing border effort, which includes a handful of other unmanned aircraft, 20,000 Border Patrol agents, about 650 miles of border fence and 41 mobile surveillance systems, according to Customs and Border Protection.

The plane, which is made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and officially called a Predator B, is able to spot illegal border activity and send images in real time to border officials.

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Everything must be added to the control grid now, according to officials, on the strength of one criminal act. Are you ready to be judged by software? And this is an international push, with the EU also pushing an integrated system to monitor for ‘suspicious behavior’, and Ottawa opening tenders for the high-tech lock-down of Parliament Hill, complete with surveillance and biometric tracking.

Related: Massive fortress Ottawa in the works | Public Safety Canada announces national plan to centralize operations in state of emergency | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex | Military challenge: Make spy data more accessible | NYC Residents Furious over Invasive Surveillance Grid | Security officials to scan D.C. area license plates | Vision 2015: Consolidation of U.S. Intelligence Into Global Intel Network | Secretive Canadian spy agency to get $62-million HQ

AFP
May 4, 2010

NEW YORK – New York officials say they could stop attacks like the attempted Times Square car bomb by expanding a controversial surveillance system so sensitive that it will pick up even suspicious behavior.

New York is already a heavily policed city, with 35,000 officers and a counterterrorism bureau — the first of its kind in the country — partnering the FBI.

But Saturday’s failed terrorist bomb in the Times Square tourist hot spot has provided the authorities with a new argument for expanding a sometimes controversial security blanket of cameras, sensors and analytical software.

The system “will greatly enhance our ability and the ability of the police to detect suspicious activity in real time, and disrupt possible attacks,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.

The high-tech system, modeled on the “ring of steel” in London’s financial district, is already in service in lower Manhattan, where Wall Street and the World Trade Center reconstruction site are located.

Headquartered at 55 Broadway, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative goes far beyond the traditional hodgepodge of police cameras, such as the 82 devices installed around Times Square.

Instead, an integrated system maintains an unblinking eye, not just watching, but constantly collecting license plate numbers and video of pedestrians and drivers, as well as detecting explosives and other weapons.

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So you can expect to see little hoverdroids buzzing around filming everyone and a company in Waterloo is responsible for this? What the hell were they thinking? It does only have a flight time of twenty minutes – so far – but regardless, this device will inevitably be used to tip the balance of power between the citizen and the state. See video of your new robotic overlord in action here. Read about its little PR coup in making an actual arrest in the UK which was itself illegal, as it turned out – here.

Flashback: UK Police use spy drone for first domestic arrest — without airspace clearance | Future police: Meet the UK’s armed robot drones | UK police plan to use military-style spy drones | US Domestic Espionage Alert: Spy Drone Discovered | US Air Force confirms new ‘Beast of Kandahar’ drone | Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | UN: Drone attacks may violate international law | Kandahar spy blimp raises privacy concerns | US drone ’shot down over Somalia’ | Canada’s military peers into future, sees drone patrols, draft, insurgency | 250-Foot Long Hybrid Airship Will Spy Over Afghanistan Battlefields in 2011 | Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum | Homing chips are CIA’s latest weapon against ‘al-Qaida’ targets hiding in Pakistan’s tribal belt | CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise | Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights | Remote-controlled planes could spy on British homes | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | U.S. set to launch Predator drones to monitor Manitoba border | Military Tech on the Home Front: Predator drones to begin surveillance of Canada-US border | Hoverdrone to be deployed to Iraq | Kids to Help Create Drones, ‘Fuzzy’ Line to Be Drawn between Military and Civil Spheres | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Unmanned spy planes to police Britain | Austin police testing unmanned spy drones | Nunavut taken aback by military plan for drone patrols | U.S. to patrol Manitoba border with drone aircraft

The Globe and Mail
April 22, 2010

Aeryon Labs of Waterloo, Ont., sells its small, nearly silent remote-controlled device to law enforcement worldwide

A flying robot manufactured by Aeryon Labs, based in Waterloo, Ont., was recently used by a Central American police force to bust a drug trafficker in a well-protected compound.

It’s just one application for the Aeryon Scout, described by the company as “an easy-to-use, battery powered, unmanned aerial intelligence gathering system.”

The robot measures a mere 80 cm by 80 cm, and it carries on-board camera equipment, controlled remotely using a simple touch-screen interface on a computer tablet.

Watch the Scout in action.

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