surveillance

The f-word is fascism.

The first amendment matters. Should matter. Apparently not so much to the Justice Department and Democratic President Barack Obama.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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James Petras and Robin Eastman Abaya in “The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition” take on the tragic phenomenon of our ever-expanding police state first under Bush and now Obama, along with why so many Americans have remained, especially under Obama, so very passive about the ominous threat to all of us and/or our progeny. Read below the fold...

Bill Quigley has taken a hard and well-researched look at Obama’s continuation and escalation of what Quigley terms the “draconian domestic civil liberties intrusions pioneered under the Bush administration” (involving freedoms of speech, of assembly of association, to privacy, to a fair trial, of religion, etc.).

Quigley's article is a strong rejoinder to so much of the myopic, Obamacrat hype about Obama being the lesser of two evils. He only appears to be the lesser of two evils in the hypocritical talk Obama talks and guaranteed will be talking much more of in his ever-intensifying “Lucy and the football” campaign mode. Read below the fold...

You'd better have good credit "Myspace Tom!"

Creditcards.com:

In their quest to identify creditworthy customers, some are tapping into the information you and your friends reveal in the virtual stratosphere.

[...]According to Nielsen Online, 67 percent of the global online population uses Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or a similar social media network to stay in touch with friends, grow their business or just have fun. If you’re among them and your settings are turned to “public,” who you’re talking to and what you’re discussing is available to those wanting to sell their wares — and that includes banks and other credit issuers.

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EFF:

Today the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency released 162 pages of intelligence oversight reporting in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by EFF in July.

The reports, made to a presidential advisory committee called the Intelligence Oversight Board, detail intelligence activities that the agencies "have reason to believe may be unlawful."

EFF is reviewing the documents now and has posted them on our website. Some of our initial finds include reports that:

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Twitter Tapping

The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era. ...

... In October, the F.B.I. searched the New York home of a man suspected of helping coordinate protests at the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh by sending out messages over Twitter.

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Press TV:

European Union governments have given in to the pressure and appear set to make a last-minute agreement with the United States to allow its intelligence agencies to monitor bank accounts and transactions across the bloc.

Actually, the EU has been clandestinely allowing US intelligence agencies to have access to these financial records since 2001, allegedly to fight terrorism.

However, EU citizens were outraged when this invasion of privacy was revealed in 2006.

Now, however, interior ministers and security officials of the 27-member bloc are going to meet on November 30 to make a decision on legally allowing the United States to have access to bank data across the EU.

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Behold another Mandos movie review to brighten your day.

Last night I saw "Echelon Conspiracy". Verdict: OMG! Worst. Script. Writing. Since. Attack. Of. The. Clones. My eyes! My eyes! I tried hard but I cannot find a way in which it does not suck.

Fortunately, it is the kind of bad that makes it an ideal candidate for geek movie nights. As you can tell from the title, it's a techie surveillance-paranoia movie, and in fact it is a knockoff of "Eagle Eye". "Eagle Eye" was no "Slumdog Millionaire", not least because it stars that annoying Sunni LePoulet guy, but it had a plot twist that was worth the price of admission. "Echelon" tries, but it is completely deus ex machina and weak. Read below the fold...

Law Enforcement Looks to Video Surveillance Networks

2008 may have been The Year of the Large-Scale Wireless Video Surveillance System, as several cities and their police departments joined the growing market, while others expanded existing systems.

These systems stream high-resolution video to monitoring stations and police squad cars from cameras strategically located throughout downtown areas or other high-priority, high-crime districts. The cameras can prove valuable to police and prosecutors for capturing and convicting criminals and as a crime deterrent.

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And if they do, I'm sure the Democrats would never grant them retroactive immunity for them anyhow. Sure, Bush, Reid, Pelosi, and Obama did just that for the telcos with FISA [cough] reform, but the two situations are completely different. For some reason. But isn't technology swell? The great Walter Pincus: Read below the fold...

Candidates' Web Sites Get to Know the Voters

Any two people interested in whether Amanda Beard is dating fellow Olympian Michael Phelps, and who clicked on the Boston Herald tidbit that raced around the Web last week, got the same piece of gossip.

Rumored galpal Amanda Beard on Phelps: No Thanks!

What was different was the political ads that appeared -- or didn't -- beside the story.

Readers who had visited Barack Obama's Web site received as many as three Obama ads alongside the gossip. "Help Elect Barack Obama President of the United States" and "Visit the Barack Obama Website," the ads said.

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I'll just let Diane say it:
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All your social networking belong to us:
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Missed this the first time round, back in October Slashdot:

"According to a USA Today story, the terror watch list has swollen to 755,000 with 200,000 people per year being added since 2004. Adding about 548 people daily every day of the year does not seem to lend itself to a manual process with careful deliberation given or double checking being done for each person added. It seems to suggests that data is being mined from somewhere to automatically add names to the list."

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Modified rapture.

The detail is still coming, but it looks like Leahy managed to get the FISA reform bill to the Senate Floor without the immunity section, through some tricky procedural maneuvering (perhaps in combination with Spector). Pure speculation, but good for a limited happy dance. Read below the fold...