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.

Join or Die

So, if you are not completely convinced about the dangers of carbon emissions, then this is what the global elite has in mind for you. (By the way, carbon dioxide is a natural by-product of living; it is used by plants to grow and reconverted into oxygen.)



The real message send by this disturbing video is that you are not allowed to disagree. Regardless of the fact that many scientific studies are questioning the global warming from man-made carbon emissions narrative. The global elite pushing this campaign are also the people who wants to reduce the world's population drastically. What it comes down to is mass genocide: covertly at first, but if they are not actively resisted it will eventually become overt murders all in the name of "saving the planet".

10 Indications America is a Dictatorship

1. Rule by force, not by law



2. Crushing peaceful protest



3. Checkpoints



4. Citizen spy network



5. Executive orders



6. Control of regulatory agencies



7. President declares war unilatery



8. Torture



9. Gulags



10. Control over communications

Read the full article here to see how this is already the case in the United States.

Our World

The Casualties -- "War is Business"

War Is Business

No time to run, permission to go, times running in,
with troops, and bombs, and guns.
From the left and right, people are fighting,
screaming, shooting, fighting, hanging from the ground.

One, two, call the death squad.
War is business, war is business.

Arrogate, fall out, stand in line.

Why do our lives have to go with indecisions,
we have permission to take, to decide, to fight!
More and more fighting its making me sick.
We fought with them, the rich don't have to fight.

One two call the death squad,
War is business, war is business.

Death squad, collision, finish this.

As long as we are here you wont need to worry,
just close your eyes, decide, think on your own.
Can you hear bodies their fucking dead in the streets,
just close your eyes, and you will think and see.

One two call the death squad,
War is business, war is business.

Arrogate, fall out, stand in line

Bankrun 2010

Read more about the Bankrun -- aka "Break the Bank Day" (FB-group page) aka "Anti-banking Solidarity Movement" -- planned for December 7th, 2010.

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?

Banker's Song -- We Didn't See It Comin'

Over the last two years of the housing bubble, Wall Street bankers perpetrated one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history. -- ProPublica

You're being watched

Few people even consider the invasive nature of CCTV-cameras. This project dramatizes surveillance.

Atheism vs Atheism

Bill Maher and S.E. Cupp, two atheists, in opposition.

Drone Planes Headed for the USA

CIA officers say drones are doing more harm than good.

Numerous innocent Pakistani and Afghan people have been the victims of America’s drone planes. The UN has called these drone attacks illegal.While the CIA claims that these highly precise drones are used only to target enemies, it is a well established fact a great number of innocent civilians have been killed as well; for instance the 23 Afghan civilians killed in February. One estimate suggests that "approximately 30 per cent of the total reported fatalities" have been civilians.

But while concern over the drone attacks is growing, there is actually people that want to bring these vehicles of murder into home skies. "The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions" in the US, reports the Associated Press.

This just opens a can of worms in my mind. Surely it will be easier to hijack / hack an unmanned plane and fly it into a building. There's even concern, raised by other people, that the controller and the plane may lose contact and the planes plummet into buildings. Then there is the trouble with these pilotless planes flying in busy airspace, creating possible collisions with other planes, weather balloons, and the like. Not to mention that these planes -- some so small that they can enter a building through an open window -- will most definitely be used as an extension of CCTV spying on people.

This will be just one more, of the already ridiculously many, steps towards America becoming an Orwellian state. Welcome to the land of the free.

Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul and Abortion

I wrote about the ethics regarding the doctrine of the innate immortality of the soul before. I recently stumbled on this picture, although I can unfortunately not recall where anymore. It so fittingly supports my previous discussion that I just had to post it here.

Bad Vaccination Campaign

Now this type of advertising would just never work on me. Appealling to my herd-mentallity?!

Image from here.

Michelle Obama says Barak's Home Country is Kenya

Did I hear correctly? Barak Obamma's home country is Kenya?!



Did she mean his "ancestral home country," or did she actually mean his home country?

Reasons for believing in Democracy

...there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows. -- C. S. Lewis

Who's afraid of Google?

Critical Thinking

US Let Bin Laden Get Away For Justification of Iraq War

Global Warming?