13 Ways the Government is Tracking You

April 9, 2012
By Bill QuigleyActivist PostPrivacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens. The Washington Post reported there are 3,984 federal, state and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism. Most collect information on people in the US. (Source)

Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people.

One. The National Security Agency (NSA) collects hundreds of millions of emails, texts and phone calls every day and has the ability to collect and sift through billions more. WIRED just reported NSA is building an immense new data center which will intercept, analyze and store even more electronic communications from satellites and cables across the nation and the world. Though NSA is not supposed to focus on US citizens, it does. (Source)

Two. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) has more than 1.5 billion government and private sector records about US citizens collected from commercial databases, government information, and criminal probes. (Source)

Three. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times recently reported that cellphones of private individuals in the US are being tracked without warrants by state and local law enforcement all across the country. With more than 300 million cellphones in the US connected to more than 200,000 cell phone towers, cellphone tracking software can pinpoint the location of a phone and document the places the cellphone user visits over the course of a day, week, month or longer. (Source)

Four. More than 62 million people in the US have their fingerprints on file with the FBI, state and local governments. This system, called the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), shares information with 43 states and 5 federal agencies. This system conducts more than 168,000 checks each day. (Source)

Five. Over 126 million people have their fingerprints, photographs and biographical information accessible on the US Department of Homeland Security Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT). This system conducts about 250,000 biometric transactions each day. The goal of this system is to provide information for national security, law enforcement, immigration, intelligence and other Homeland Security Functions. (Source)

Six. More than 110 million people have their visas and more than 90 million have their photographs entered into the US Department of State Consular Consolidated Database (CCD). This system grows by adding about 35,000 people a day. This system serves as a gateway to the Department of State Facial Recognition system, IDENT and IAFSIS. (Source)

Seven. DNA profiles on more than 10 million people are available in the FBI coordinated Combined DNA index System (CODIS) National DNA Index. (Source)

Eight. Information on more than 2 million people is kept in the Intelligence Community Security Clearance Repository, commonly known as Scattered Castles. Most of the people in this database are employees of the Department of Defense (DOD) and other intelligence agencies. (Source)

Nine. The DOD also has an automated biometric identification system (ABIS) to support military operations overseas. This database incorporates fingerprint, palm print, face and iris matching on 6 million people and is adding 20,000 more people each day. (Source)

Ten. Information on over 740,000 people is included in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) of the National Counterterrorism Center. TIDE is the US government central repository of information on international terrorist identities. The government says that less than 2 percent of the people on file are US citizens or legal permanent residents. They were just given permission to keep their non-terrorism information on US citizens for a period of five years, up from 180 days. (Source)

Eleven. Tens of thousands of people are subjects of facial recognition software. The FBI has been working with North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and other state and local law enforcement on facial recognition software in a project called “Face Mask.” For example, the FBI has provided thousands of photos and names to the North Carolina DMV which runs those against their photos of North Carolina drivers. The Maricopa Arizona County Sheriff’s Office alone records 9,000 biometric mug shots a month. (Source)

Twelve. The FBI operates the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (SAR) that collects and analyzes observations or reports of suspicious activities by local law enforcement. With over 160,000 suspicious activity files, SAR stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime but who are alleged to have acted suspiciously. (Source)

Thirteen. The FBI admits it has about 3,000 GPS tracking devices on cars of unsuspecting people in the US right now, even after the US Supreme Court decision authorizing these only after a warrant for probable cause has been issued. (Source)

The Future

The technology for tracking and identifying people is exploding as is the government appetite for it.

Soon, police everywhere will be equipped with handheld devices to collect fingerprint, face, iris and even DNA information on the spot and have it instantly sent to national databases for comparison and storage.
Bloomberg News reports the newest surveillance products “can also secretly activate laptop webcams or microphones on mobile devices,” change the contents of written emails mid-transmission, and use voice recognition to scan phone networks. (Source)

The advanced technology of the war on terrorism, combined with deferential courts and legislators, have endangered both the right to privacy and the right of people to be free from government snooping and tracking. Only the people can stop this.

Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He also serves as Associate Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He can be reached at Quigley77@gmail.com

Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You

From: Excerpts from an article from The End of America.

#1 In many areas of the United States today, you will be arrested if you do not produce proper identification for the police.

#2 The federal government has decided that what you and I share with one another on Facebook and on Twitter could be a threat to national security.

#3 New high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations.

#4 More than a million hotel television sets all over America are now broadcasting propaganda messages from the Department of Homeland Security promoting the "See Something, Say Something" campaign. In essence, the federal government wants all of us to become "informants" and to start spying on one another constantly.

#5 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States.

#6 TSA VIPR teams are now conducting random inspections at bus stations and on interstate highways all over the United States.

#7 Thermal imaging face scanners are becoming much more sophisticated. Law enforcement authorities in the western world are getting very excited about "pre-crime" tools such as this that will enable them to "prevent crimes" before they happen.

#8 Another "pre-crime" technology currently being tested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is The Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) program.

#9 Sadly, "pre-crime" technology is even being used on our children. The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place "potential offenders" in specific prevention and education programs.

#10 Our children are being programmed to accept the fact that they will be watched and monitored constantly.

#11 The U.S. government is also increasingly using "polls" and "surveys" as tools to gather information about all of us.

the FBI is now instructing store owners to report many new forms of "suspicious activity" to them. According to the document, "suspicious activity" now includes the following....

*paying with cash

*missing a hand or fingers

*"strange odors"

*making "extreme religious statements"

*"radical theology"

*purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers

*purchasing meals ready to eat

*purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks

Do any of those "signs of suspicious activity" apply to you?

#13 In some areas of the country, law enforcement authorities are pulling data out of cell phones for no reason whatsoever.

#14 The government can spy on us and record our conversations seemingly without any limitation, but in many areas of the country it has become illegal to watch them or record them in public.

Read the full article here.

Facebook Privacy Breach

The Washington Post reported a few days ago on privacy breaches through Facebook and other concerns. Good grief! Me, and thousands of other people have been voicing these concerns for years now! The first post I wrote here regarding the disconcerting problems of Facebook was written in 2007. Should it really take years before the main news media wakes up to this?

Who's afraid of Google?

Facebook for Parents

"Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids"

Locational Privacy

Locational privacy (also known as "location privacy") is the ability of an individual to move in public space with the expectation that under normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use.

How much locational privacy do you have? How many CCTV cameras record your comings-and-goings everyday? Are your photo taken at the ATM every time you make a withdrawal? Is there a log at your local library of the books that you read -- and is this log really private? How safe are your surfing habits from Internet spying? Did you suddenly get spam mail, email, cell phone text messaging, after you signed up for a new account with a store, bank, or other service? Are your movements "tracked" via your cellphone, without you knowing?

Your Facebook Password for a Job

How strongly do you want that job? Strongly enough to give up your privacy? Applying for a job at the city of Bozeman, Montana, requires you to give your passwords to your blogs, Facebook and other social networking accounts and email accounts to the potential employer.

Is this even legal? If so, I can imagine how in the future employers may attempt similar invasion of privacy in order to see if you are a "...a child molester or had some sort of information out there on the Internet that kind of showed those propensities..."

Read the article at Cnet News.

Paranoid Arab Boy

Implanted with a chip from a distance

With this ID Sniper Rifle you can be implanted with a identity microchip from a distance and not even notice. It will feel like a mosquito-sting, and you will probably think that is all it was. Welcome to the brave new world of privacy infringement. Did I say privacy? What privacy?

CCTV Game

Starting tomorrow I'm going to begin to play a new game. I'm going to attempt to avoid being captured by CCTV cameras. Where I cannot avoid them, I'm going to use hats and baseball caps and other types of manoeuvring, turning away and covering up, to avoid unnecessary photos taken of me.

It is not that I'm camera shy, having anything to hide or suffer from major paranoia -- I am, however, against societies turning into Big Brother conglomerates and don't want to be a blind drone, mindlessly following the stream. There's not much I can do about it, I know -- but at least I can play the game, fully aware that it exists.

The past several years has seen a dramatic increase in CCTV surveillance of public space. Video cameras peer at us from the sides of buildings, from ATM machines, from traffic lights, capturing our every move for observation by police officers and private security guards that often act with very little public or legislative oversight. While the effectiveness of these devices in reducing crime is dubious at best, recent cases of misuse by public and private authorities serve to question the appropriateness of video monitoring in public space. [From i-See.]

We just don't know how often CCTV surveillance is abused -- with any of us being potential victims.

Instead of it bothering me too much, I'm going to make a game of it and turn "normal" outings into "extraordinary" cloak-and-dagger events. Who's joining in?

Another Reason for Disliking Facebook

I've ranted about the dangers of Facebook in the past -- but did you ever consider this...

Other people posting things about you on Facebook. Take for instance this guy, who literally has his most humiliating moments photographed and posted on Facebook.

Joe the Plumber has no Privacy

Barack Obama and Joe the Plumber. Photo by Jae C. Hong, for the Associated Press.

Joseph Wurselbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber”, has become an interesting mascot during the election race in the US. As an icon for the average middle class American, Joe the Plumber has been used by both Barack Obama and John McCain in their debates – especially the third debate on 15 October 2008.

Joe isn’t anybody unusual. He just happened to be someone who asked Obama a question [See YouTube-Video] about taxes, and then McCain took "Joe the Plumber" as a “face” for the typical American that would be affected by Obama’s suggested tax changes. [Here is more on Joe and the Obama-McCain debate.]

Now what interests me is not that the candidates are hijacking Joe the Plumber as a symbol for the middle class, but rather the sinister privacy breaches.

“State and local officials are investigating whether state and law-enforcement computer systems were used illegally to obtain personal information about "Joe the Plumber",” reports the Columbus Dispatch. The New York Times ads: “The illegal access case is just one of four similar incidents involving Wurzelbacher's information after the plumber shot into the news following McCain's repeated use of his name to highlight a point about Obama's tax plans.”

Here’s this guy; haphazardly his name is used by some politicians for their own agendas. And then suddenly, although quite innocent himself, he has “illegal” background checks done on him. Who is doing it? Of course both the McCain group and the Obama group are accusing each other. But that is not my issue; to me the real issue is that such privacy violations are happening all the time in America. It is just accidental that we actually heard about it in this case.

Indeed, Joe the Plumber is really an icon for the typical middle-class American; the typical American whose privacy is at stake.

Google and Privacy

Internet Security

Even after many security updates to some of the chief browsers, we are still in harms way. This according to the following article.

It is disturbing how few people take their Internet Security seriously and even more disturbing when the internet security specialists tell us:

• "I wouldn't tell you not to use the internet, but I would certainly never tell you you're safe, which is a pretty horrible thing to say to someone"
• "I have very low confidence in any of the browsers' ability to keep me safe"
• "I really don't think people are in a good position from a technology perspective to defend themselves with what they're given by default in a browser."

And these are just the threats from crackers and miscreants. Where is the safety from our own governments and other countries' governments?

Paranoia: Savvis

Our computers are constantly bombarded with servers trying to access our systems, where they glean some of our data. I’m not sure what they are looking for; maybe the websites we visit? Most web users are oblivious to this fact because it all happens in the background.

In any case, this morning I was showered with access attempts by Savvis-Incorporated. I have PeerGuardian2 installed which blocks access from various servers to my computer. This morning PeerGuardian2 was without stopping denying requests from Savvis to my computer from 00:59:42 until I eventually gave permission at 14:14:46, just so that the assault could stop. My system was really slow and I was desperately searching for a solution.

Now why do Savvis request access to my system? Savvis is an international communication and data corporation. Are they trying to find dirt on people in order to extort them like their co-founder was recently found guilty off?

The interesting thing is that I’m blocked (somehow) from opening their website: http://www.savvis.net

I had to use a proxy browser to access their website under a fake IP.

In my own silly little retaliation here is some of their information. I suggest you use a program to block their IP-address from getting access to your system too.

Here is the IP-address of Savvis’ server: 216.34.181.97

And some more personal information:

OrgNOCHandle: NOC99-ARIN
OrgNOCName: SAVVIS Support Center
OrgNOCPhone: + 1-888-638-6771
OrgNOCEmail: ipnoc@savvis.net

OrgTechHandle: UIAA-ARIN
OrgTechName: US IP Address Administration
OrgTechPhone: +1-888-638-6771
OrgTechEmail: kelli.coburn@savvis.net

Of course, I’m paranoid, so don’t listen to a word I say.

No more privacy on YouTube

I can’t believe I’m stumbling onto this news only now a month later. And by chance! Why is the world so quiet about it? People are being fettered and they don’t even struggle—or notice!

A federal court ordered Google at the beginning of July to make available all “records of every video watched by YouTube users, including their login names and IP addresses”, to Viacom.

This means, a third party have complete access to everything you have ever watched on YouTube. Viacom (an international multimedia conglomerate), representing many of the film studios, will be able to legally prosecute you for watching sections of their movies on YouTube.

This third party now knows your viewing habits, your interests, and possibly even guess your political and religious views. They have your login name; which you likely use also on other services as well, so they can probably spy on you on the other platforms you use too. Why should they have access to such private detail? And why are people so nonchalant about it?

If personal information can be handed around so easily, can we have any sense of privacy left? US Government is giving more and more companies the legal authority to spy on ordinary citizens. To what end? Of course they don't call it spying...

It is true that Viacom may not have such malicious intend, but that is not the real issue. The real issue is that personal data is being handed around more and more easily and doing so under a "legal"-charade. Government, instead of protecting its citizens, is bowing before wealthy companies.

The result is forthright rebellion. Many of the boards I've read on the topic people are reacting against Viacom in a rebellious way. Some posters said that they are now determined more than ever to boycott Viacom, by deliberately pirating Viacom pictures. Laws should make sense. These laws do not. The governments are in effect now causing millions of lawbreakers (i.e. criminals), because they are not re-evaluating laws, and changing them to adapt with the times.

For more detail on the Google-Viacom case view these sites:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9983511-7.html
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2008/07/ongoing-analysis-of-youtube-viacom.html
http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2008/07/04/privacy-falls-into-youtubes-data-tar-pit.html

And this YouTube video, if you dare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJbCWJNQUYI

Also download and listen to Lawrence Lessig's audio book, Free Culture, on Copyright Law and the Internet: http://www.archive.org/details/free-culture-audiobook

Dear American Citizen. Your phone is tapped and there's nothing you can do about it.

A friend send me the link to an article reporting on the new “Spy Bill” that has been passed by the US Senate. Basically the bill gives immunity to all telephone companies from past, present and future spying for government. In other words, telephone companies cannot be sued for tapping possible terrorists. This is all nice, if only potential “terrorists” weren’t such an elusive concept. With a little spin-doctoring anybody can be made out to be a potential terrorist. Have you criticised the president lately? You’re a potential terrorist. Do you know any Muslims? You’re probably a terrorist. Are you questioning America’s involvement in Iraq? Most likely you’re a terrorist. Do you adhere to the idea that God’s laws are above a country’s laws? Yip, you’re definitely a fanatical zealot terrorist.

The president said that the bill will “protect Americans’ civil liberties”. What about the Bill of Rights that guarantees an individual’s right to privacy?! Does the Bill of Rights stand for anything anymore?

A future without privacy

This tongue-in-cheek YouTube video is prophetic.

The Collapse of Sweden’s Freedom

What on earth happened to Sweden?! This is a Big Brother nightmare! And the worst thing about it is that it happened so silently that most of the international community is still oblivious to such dreadful violations on liberty.

A lawhas been passed that allows the tapping of all international communication (including email correspondences).

As one blogger lists, the Swedes can now look forward to the following intrusions:

• the FRA will NOT be required to obtain a court order to undertake surveillance of citizens’ communications.
• the FRA will be at liberty to snoop: read emails, eavesdrop on phone conversations, investigate what websites citizens are visiting, create sociograms to map out a citizen’s social network/linkages with friends
• the creation of a society in which innocent people will be fearful of what they can say and who might be listening in
• despite saying that only cross-border communications will be monitored, some internet servers are located abroad and the FRA one presumes would check all communications to establish whether they have “crossed the border”. Let’s be honest here: there are no clear borders when it comes to a global communications network. So if a Swedish citizen let’s say emails someone in Denmark, then the Danish citizen becomes trapped in the FRA dragnet surveillance. Sweden is a member of the EU and EU values (to some extent) privacy - will the EU be happy to be dragged into Sweden’s attack on privacy? Already questions are being asked. Benoît Hamon, a member of the European Parliament from France, has a whole list of questions the Swedes might wish to answer. Go here to the European Parliament site to access Hamon’s question on the remit of the FRA.
• all telephone and internet operators will be required to attach a cable to the FRA’s supercomputer so that there will be a record of ALL emails, conversations, sms, faxes, internet searches conducted by Swedes.
• EVERY Swedish citizen will be caught in this general snooping - not just suspected terrorists or criminals
• 20 hubs will apparently be installed across Sweden by the FRA to help collect communications data for this massive snooping and data-mining project. The FRA is saying it will only monitor international traffic against 250,000 criteria and that it will filter out domestic stuff - yeah, right.

The FRA, by the way, is a private organisation – which in itself is a scary thought.

Once while standing in a bookshop someone asked me out of the blue if I think George Orwell’s book “1984” is still relevant. My quick answer was, yes, look at the USA and North Korea.

And now, look at Sweden. . .