statism watch

by Todd Howe, We Are Change Toronto
June 30, 2011

Public Service Announcement: If you object to warrantless state surveillance of your online activities, visit http://stopspying.ca now and sign the OpenMedia.ca petition to stop the Harper government’s forthcoming ‘Lawful Access’ provision.

“If we understand the revolutionary transformations caused by new media, we can anticipate and control them; but if we continue in our self-induced subliminal trance, we will be their slaves.” – Marshall McLuhan

During a 1969 interview conducted during the dawn of the new age of electronic media, oft-cited futurist and tech critic Marshall McLuhan made the point that for our species, the market of information we call ‘culture’ is the frame we think within, a common set of ideas and symbols analogous to the air we breathe. Because this set of ideas is so all-pervasive and seemingly without boundaries, leaving us with little to compare and contrast it to, it slips into the background of our awareness.

One of the consequences of this reflexive inability to see the forest for the trees is that it’s precisely those technologies capable of causing social upheaval, of changing the ways people interact with their culture and with each other, that do much of their transformative work out on the liminal edges of awareness. And we tend to prefer it this way, McLuhan suggests — taking refuge in the familiar, numbing our responses to great change like trauma survivors might while technology extends the reach of our nervous system to new and unaccustomed horizons. All the while, we try bravely to take it in stride while the world is changed around us.

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By Dana Gabriel, BeYourOwnLeader
April 21, 2011

Without much fanfare and overshadowed by Canadians heading to the polls on May 2 for the fourth election in seven years, a controversial bill that would further comply with U.S. aviation security practices became law. The measure supports plans for a North American security perimeter and illustrates how the Canadian government is more interested in appeasing U.S. interests than protecting the privacy and freedoms of its own citizens.

In November of 2007, the Conservative government expressed concerns over privacy implications associated with the U.S. Secure Flight Program and filed objections with the Department of Homeland Security. They were urging an exemption on a measure that would require Canadian airlines to turn over information on passengers flying over the U.S. en route to other destinations. Despite their grievances being dismissed, they eventually caved in to U.S. demands. In a move to further bring Canada in line with American air travel security rules, Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act was introduced in Parliament on June 17 of last year. With little media attention, it passed through the House of Commons on March 2, 2011, by a vote of 246 to 34. On March 23, it received royal assent and became law. Under Bill C-42, Canadian airlines are required to send traveler information through the Secure Flight Program 72 hours before departure. The Transportation Security Administration checks the data against security watch lists which could result in passengers receiving extra screening or even being barred from boarding their flight.

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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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This appears to be based on the OpenID platform.

Related: China launches interview requirement, licensing for personal websites | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | First it’s ‘For the Children’: Microsoft working to ID you online

Joseph Menn, Financial Times
June 26, 2010

The White House set out a sweeping strategy to make online transactions more secure on Friday. The move is the most ambitious initiative to emerge from a cybersecurity policy intended to blunt the growing menace of online crime.

Howard Schmidt, president Barack Obama’s cybersecurity co-ordinator, who took up his duties in early 2010, released the strategy paper after 12 months of discussions led by the National Security Council and involving scores of private sector groups, critical infrastructure owners and privacy advocates.

The strategy seeks the creation of a system for identity management that would allow citizens to use additional authentication techniques, such as physical tokens or modules on mobile phones, to verify who they are before buying things online or accessing such sensitive information as health or banking records.

A set of standards would let multiple vendors offer authentication services, while people whose identities have been verified would be able to move from website to website without resubmitting information.

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Gotcha. You won’t experience this problem with non-proprietary, open source products. Users stuck with iPhones may wish to disable location services in protest against this move.

Related: Feds push for tracking cell phones | Calgary’s 911 centre to track cellphone callers to within meters | GPS tracking concerns Winnipeg city workers | Surveillance Shocker: Sprint Received 8 MILLION Law Enforcement Requests for GPS Location Data in the Past Year | Regulator will force cellphone companies to adopt GPS tracking system | Mobile phones to track carbon footprint using GPS | Global ‘Intelligent Transport’ initiative comes to your cellphone: Location data used to track traffic flow | Mobile Phone Users Secretly Tracked for Behaviorist Study

John Byrne, The Raw Story
June 22, 2010

The world’s largest technology company by market capitalization may soon rival the National Security Agency in its ability to track Americans using their cell phones.

Apple Inc. is now tracking the “precise,” “real-time geographic location” of iPhones, iPads and Macintosh computers — and has unwittingly gotten its customers to sign off on their being tracked by making a little-noticed modification to the language in its apps store.

The company’s “partners and licensees” will now be able to collect and store data about your location.

Apple’s new privacy policy comes in the wake of a new “Find my iPhone” app the company approved which allows users to recover their lost phones using AT&T’s location services.

Tracking digital consumers by location is nothing new. Websites routinely receive information about their users’ locations in order to serve relevant advertising. For example, Raw Story’s ad providers use information provided by readers’ Internet service providers to serve ads appropriate to the region in which they’re being read — for example, you might get an ad for a political campaign in your area. You can opt-out here.)

But Apple’s new terms and conditions allow it to store information about users’ exact locations, a level of privacy intrusion not heretofore seen. Websites can tell users’ locations down to a zip code, generally speaking, but they neither store nor track exact locations — which Apple and AT&T can do using triangulation down to about ten feet.

(AT&T, if you remember, was a participant in the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, which allows the US government to track the phone numbers called by its citizens abroad. A whistleblower said that AT&T in fact had its own spy room in San Francisco for the government.)

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Wardriving, for those who may not know, is the practice of going around storing Wifi network info for later exploitation – precisely what Google was doing. And the reason they give?

The company says it uses the location of Wi-Fi networks to enhance location-based services on smartphones.

It’s just to help track your cellphone for location-based services. Oh, well, that’s okay then.

Related: Google, NSA may team up to probe cyberattacks | Google Street View goes live in Canadian cities | Google PowerMeter to track home energy usage in Toronto test drive | Britons block Google Street View van | Google Street View comes to Canada | Google Street View could care less about your privacy

Diane Bartz, Reuters
June 21, 2010

WASHINGTON — Connecticut’s attorney general will lead a multi-state probe of whether Google Inc. broke laws when it siphoned personal data off wireless networks around the world, which the Internet search leader has said was inadvertent.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said on Monday more than 30 states participated in a recent conference call on the issue. He said consumers have a right to know what information was collected, and whether U.S. states need to alter procedures to guard against such leaks in future.

Shares in Google slid 1.4% to US$492.81 in a relatively flat market.

In May, Google said its cars photographing streets around the world have for years accidentally collected personal data – which a security expert said at the time could have included email messages and passwords – sent by consumers over wireless networks.

“My office will lead a multi-state investigation – expected to involve a significant number of states – into Google’s deeply disturbing invasion of personal privacy,” Mr. Blumenthal said in a statement.

“Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information – which could include emails, Web browsing and passwords – Google may have collected, how and why.”

Mr. Blumenthal said Google has cooperated but “its response so far raises as many questions as it answers.”

“Our investigation will consider whether laws may have been broken and whether changes to state and federal statutes may be necessary,” he said.

The revelation marked the latest development in a privacy controversy surrounding Google. The company already faces an informal investigation over the matter by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, a variety of probes overseas, and class action lawsuits.

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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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Smart meters – a taxation and control trojan horse without peer. First it’s on a volunteer basis that you have the kill switch for your air conditioner installed. Then, once uptake passes a certain point, it’s mandatory. And the new carbon taxes are based on your minute-to-minute energy consumption, and the state energy company knows when your toaster is on and how many showers you have. It’s disgusting.

Related: Privacy commissioner outlines concerns surrounding Ontario’s Smart Grid plan | UK energy smart meter roll-out is outlined | Google PowerMeter to track home energy usage in Toronto test drive | ‘Smart meters’ set to boost prices, track your power consumption by time of day in Toronto | Google to enter market for energy use tracking

John Spears, Toronto Star
June 16, 2010

Utilities given standards to keep private information from leaking out in unauthorized ways

Picture this:

You sign up for an energy conservation scheme that lets your local utility shut down your air conditioner temporarily if the power grid is overloaded. Shortly afterward, you get a marketing call from an air conditioning company.

Or this:

You buy an electric car that you charge up every Sunday night, but never on Mondays because you always do an overnight trip. One Monday night, your home is burgled.

In fact, this doesn’t happen right now. Privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian wants to keep it that way.

The electricity system is gearing up to gather more and more information about customers and their habits through smart meters and smart appliances, she says.

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Welcome to the New World Order, Australia. But go ahead and rationalize, evade, retreat further into television, we’ll all wake up as slaves one day. Face tracking CCTV? This is precisely what George Orwell warned us about. Absolutely disgusting, WAKE UP. Resistance is mandatory, the alternative is neofuedal serfdom or worse. Maybe we should all review Martin Niemöller’s famous 1946 statement that condensed his feelings about the culpability of the German people as the Nazis seized power. Read it. Think.

“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Related: Ontario police forces seek access to driver’s-licence photos | Canadians to get biometric, RFID enabled passports in 2011, security experts voice concerns | Biometric ID Card for all US Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan | Australia to fingerprint, face-scan visitors from Muslim nations | | Privacy commissioner OKs Barwatch software | US: REALID tracking chip ID card resurrected by PASS initiative | India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards | BC Bars swipe patron IDs, collect data | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | Australian nightclub installs face-scanning security system | Alberta bars could collect names, photos under proposed bill | Let’s face it, soon Big Brother will have no trouble recognising you | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next | Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch suspects | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | Billboards that look back | Saskatchewan adopting US-mandated ID card, to include RFID chip, facial recognition | Tanks, Face-Scanning Cameras Part of ‘Discreet’ 2010 Games Security | Tokyo Vending Machines Learn New Trick: Facial Recognition | North American ID card in the works through SPP | Alberta privacy commission to rule on bar scans

Gemma Jones, The Daily Telegraph
June 3, 2010

THE New South Wales Government is quietly compiling a mathematical map of almost every adult’s face, sharing information that allows law enforcement to track people by CCTV.

Experts said yesterday few people realised their facial features were being recorded in an RTA database of drivers licence photos that the Government has allowed both state and federal police to access, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The federal body CrimTrac has asked NSW for its database so it can be mined nationally by police using the facial recognition information contained in it.

University experts in facial recognition said the correct match rate was as low as 90 per cent, meaning the names of people with faces sharing a similar structure to criminals could be returned in searches.

Dr Carolyn Semmler from the University of Adelaide said police wanted to eventually use facial recognition in smart CCTV cameras allowing people to be tracked anywhere there was a camera.

Some airports, such as Singapore, employ facial recognition technology and the US is considering using it at border crossings.

“Police hope that at some point an individual can be tracked,” Dr Semmler said yesterday.

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