I spy!!

 

                                                Image courtesy of Who What Why.

         The following extract is from Freedom News and refers to the U$A, but I don't for a minute think that it is only in that country that the surveillance culture is out of control, well as far as the public is concerned, but hasn't gone far enough as far as the powers that be are concerned. Here in the UK we are continually filmed, photographed by CCTV, tracked by our mobile phones and cash machines, and car number plate identification is everywhere. I go to a dance display of my grand daughter and I'm not allowed to take photos or film the kids, but the state can photograph kids running around and playing in the park, or just doing what kids do, and they do it with impunity. The state can only exist with control over the population and in their eyes that means more surveillance, more of your data available to their prying eyes. The existence of a state controlled surveillance system nullifies any possible semblance of a democracy. and makes a mockery of freedom.

From Firestorm Books

            

        The opening of our bookstore on Sunday had unexpected guests. Throughout the afternoon, a police drone hovered conspicuously over Haywood Road, directly in front of our shop. Occasionally it flew back to the nearby APD substation, only to be replaced a few minutes later. As we handed out homemade popsicles to celebrate our big day, some community members were alarmed. People wanted to know if the drone was ours. A neighbor arriving with her family asked if she and her children were being filmed.
         It seemed that our shop and the hundreds of people who visited it were being surveilled. While the quadcopter sat in the sky and stared creepily down at us, police cars drove by slowly. Sometimes the drivers appeared to be filming with their cellphones. One officer hollered unintelligibly at folks sitting on our patio. This wasn’t a covert operation—Asheville cops wanted to make sure our customers knew they were being watched.
        This bizarre abuse of power is worth talking about, not because it’s exceptional but because it’s increasingly normal. We live in a city where the surveillance capabilities of the police have greatly outpaced restraints, and elected officials ostensibly tasked with oversight are eager to appease a tough-on-crime audience. That’s an Asheville story, but it’s also a national story, with cities across the US being reshaped by a conservative backlash to the George Floyd Uprising and its call for a reckoning with the white supremacist roots of policing.

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

Kids.

       
           I wonder what George Orwell would make of today's society, with its total surveillance, quarantine, curfews, lockdowns, travel bans, alienation from those around us and vaccination certificates. Would he rewrite 1984 and date it 2020-21. It is difficult to imagine just how far we have walked down the obedience path, the submissive population, waiting for our next set of instructions. All for our own good of course, in the meantime the rich have increased their wealth and power, millionaires have become billionaires. Meanwhile we the ordinary people have suffered a shackling of our freedoms and are now faced with having to pay for this corporate plundering of the public purse, which was all organised and assisted by the state. We will face closures to social facilities and services as it is pointed out the we have to get the debt mountain down, not those who benefited massively from this pandemic.
        I tend to moan a lot about not enough anarchist pamphlets, serials, magazines, journals etc. on our streets, so I always like to publicise any I come across. The following is an extract from the new issue of "The Local Kids" which is free to download and distribute:

          Population management is now supposedly the responsibility of everyone. Obedience to the state has been dressed up as solidarity. More surveillance is called freedom. All in the name of a return to normal life that appears as a mirage in the desert. Should we rehash for the umpteenth time a comparison to 1984? Its author might have thought that it takes a continuous and considerate effort to see what’s right in front of your nose; can we truly say that? Is it difficult to see what’s going on? Or is it that we speak different languages and will find no common understanding of life?
        We could jump into the fray, unveil their lies, battle for the real meaning of words, uphold a correct perception of reality. But then we would be entering the realm of politics where we can only fight with words without radically changing the narrative. A stubbornness that can have its value to demonstrate the absurdism of society. But only by refusing to do politics can we challenge the power of this system over our lives. That also means that we cannot pretend to have solutions at hand for the crises we’re passing through. The existence of capitalism is based in the progressive destruction of the living conditions of all living beings.
       The blackmail has always been the same; we should do as they say or our own survival is at stake. We’re held hostages in the name of the economy, the nation, and now public health. Our health is instrumentalised in their disgusting game of politics – the legitimisation for an expansive surveillance; tracing whom we met, where we have been, where we will go to. Expanding control to a level where it becomes normal that going to the movies necessitates carrying the right certificates and surrendering our data. Triggering the most basic of fears – the fear of death, of loss – they mobilize obedience to fulfil their dirty dreams of authority: lockdowns, curfews, border closures.
      Seeing this summer which is marked by extreme weather, wildfires and floods – products of the exploitation of the planet – this will be more and more the reality of this society. There are no pragmatic proposals to be made. The wager stays the same, to refuse their game (false choices between quick and superficial fixes to real crises), to be lucid and sabotage the vicious cycle of domination.

Summer 2021

Free download, PDF (A4)

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Big Brother.

          Coming to a supermarket near you, biometric cameras that capture your every move, even eye movements. Supermarkets in France are introducing this new level of surveillance, which sends a photo to  security guard of any suspicious movement or action. So have no doubt they will eventually arrive here in the  UK. What's more there is no doubt that they will proliferate to our streets, bars, transport, bus-stops and stations, etc.. Do you think it is acceptable, when out for a stroll with the kids or meeting up with friends, that you should have your every personal movement recorded without your knowledge. Surveillance is one of the many cancers inherent within this state system, the state wants to know your ever move, where you are going, why, and should you be there or should you be somewhere else. The state needs to monitor, record and profile every individual, it can only survive by total control over the population, and surveillance is its best tool to back up its police/judicial/prison apparatus to guarantee the wealth, power and privileges stay where they are.

The following extract from Act For Freedom Now:

           Biometric video surveillance in our supermarkets
In order to detect theft, Carrefour, Monoprix, Super U and Franprix [and Intermarché] are experimenting with biometric analysis software to monitor our every move in their stores. The health crisis had already unleashed the desire of private companies for biometric surveillance: thermal cameras at company entrances, detection of physical distances in offices, tracking of eye movements for remote university exams… Several French companies are now proposing to automatically detect thefts in stores “in real time” thanks to biometric analysis software directly connected to the cameras already present in the stores [behavior detection software that then sends an immediate alert to the security guard’s smartphone with a copy of the images]. While the idea of automatically detecting theft in stores has already been tested in Japan, several French companies have not hesitated to develop their own software:
          “Anaveo”, a company of 320 people with a turnover of 70 million euros works in video surveillance for mass retail. Its “SuspectTracker” software promises to capture the flow of images from the cameras to analyze “suspicious behavior”, for example “gestures towards a stroller, backpack, trouser or jacket pocket”. Their presentation videos mention in passing that theft detection feeds into a database to further improve the algorithm.
         “Oxania, a start-up founded in 2019, has produced a “Retail Solutions” software that would be able to “recognize gestures associated with theft in real time, detect behaviors, dangerous situations, customer journey and much more”. The video presentation calmly assumes to make a biometric analysis of the behaviors of people present in the store (body heat, gestures, body …).
         And above all “Veesion”, a Parisian start-up that sells a “gesture recognition” product with “an algorithm that has several bricks that work together and can tell at any time if there has been a gesture that can be associated with shoplifting or not. There is a brick that locates the human, another that locates the limbs on this human body, another that locates the objects of interest, the shopping cart, a purse, a shopping cart, the shelf itself, the items that come off the shelf. And these bricks work together to give a probability of theft at each moment. Then, the store employees have a mobile app that receives the videos as soon as a suspicious gesture has been spotted”, explains Benoit Koenig, director of the company Veesion. (France Bleu, August 19, 2020). As a bonus, Veesion proposes to analyze “your flight history and [provide] personalized recommendations”.

source: Sans Nom
via: darknights.noblogs

Continue reading HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Disappearing.

The Met Police has announced that it’s rolling out facial recognition cameras across the UK capital in the hopes of tackling ‘serious crime’ Mirror Jan. 24, 2020.

     There is no doubt that we live in the surveillance society, and the means of that surveillance is ever growing with the advances in technology, from face recognition technology to sophisticate drones, you are being watched. Greater detail of you and your movements are being gathered, whether you are aimlessly wandering around your city, on a peaceful protest, picnic or picket, it is all being logged and a profile of you is being built. Perhaps these details will find there way to some advertising agency, but most likely, onto some state register for further use.

     Obviously we would rather not be followed, logged and profiled, without our permission, by some corporate or state body. So disappearing from their myriad of prying eyes is a very desirable aim. So with the increase in drones what steps can we take?

You are being watched over from on-high!

    The following article is from The Conversation:

Law enforcement drone over demonstrators June, 5, 2020, Atlanta.

           Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, “The Good Drone.” I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that’s within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.
        Over the past decade there’s been an explosion in the public’s use of drones – everyday people with everyday tech doing interesting things. As drones enter already-crowded airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to respond. The near future is likely to see even more of these devices in the sky, flown by an ever-growing cast of social, political and economic actors. Public opinion about the use and spread of drones is still up in the air, but burgeoning drone use has sparked numerous efforts to curtail drones. These responses range from public policies exerting community control over local airspace, to the development of sophisticated jamming equipment and tactics for knocking drones out of the sky. From startups to major defense contractors, there is a scramble to deny airspace to drones, to hijack drones digitally, to control drones physically and to shoot drones down. Anti-drone measures range from simple blunt force, 10-gauge shotguns, to the poetic: well-trained hawks. Many of these anti-drone measures are expensive and complicated. Some are illegal. The most affordable – and legal – way to avoid drone technology is hiding.
How to disappear
      The first thing you can do to hide from a drone is to take advantage of the natural and built environment. It’s possible to wait for bad weather, since smaller devices like those used by local police have a hard time flying in high winds, dense fogs and heavy rains. Trees, walls, alcoves and tunnels are more reliable than the weather, and they offer shelter from the high-flying drones used by the Department of Homeland Security.
      The second thing you can do is minimize your digital footprints. It’s smart to avoid using wireless devices like mobile phones or GPS systems, since they have digital signatures that can reveal your location. This is useful for evading drones, but is also important for avoiding other privacy-invading technologies.
     The third thing you can do is confuse a drone. Placing mirrors on the ground, standing over broken glass, and wearing elaborate headgear, machine-readable blankets or sensor-jamming jackets can break up and distort the image a drone sees. Mannequins and other forms of mimicry can confuse both on-board sensors and the analysts charged with monitoring the drone’s video and sensor feeds. Drones equipped with infrared sensors will see right through the mannequin trick, but are confused by tactics that mask the body’s temperature. For example, a space blanket will mask significant amounts of the body’s heat, as will simply hiding in an area that matches the body’s temperature, like a building or sidewalk exhaust vent.
       The fourth, and most practical, thing you can do to protect yourself from drone surveillance is to get a disguise. The growth of mass surveillance has led to an explosion in creative experiments meant to mask one’s identity. But some of the smartest ideas are decidedly old-school and low-tech. Clothing is the first choice, because hats, glasses, masks and scarves go a long way toward scrambling drone-based facial-recognition software. Your gait is as unique as your fingerprint. As gait-recognition software evolves, it will be important to also mask the key pivot points used in identifying the walker. It may be that the best response is affecting a limp, using a minor leg brace or wearing extremely loose clothing. Artists and scientists have taken these approaches a step further, developing a hoodie wrap that’s intended to shield the owner’s heat signature and to scramble facial recognition software, and glasses intended to foil facial recognition systems.
      These innovations are alluring, but umbrellas may prove to be the most ubiquitous and robust tactic in this list. They’re affordable, easy to carry, hard to see around and can be disposed of in a hurry. Plus you can build a high-tech one, if you want.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Open Prison.

      We should have learned by now that in this manipulative system the state doesn’t always need physical constraints, a conditioned mind is prison bars enough, to make the individual feel they are free and part of a free and normal society. To the conditioned mind the prison walls are invisible, the illusion of freedom appears so real it is accepted. To keep the illusion alive, the system has its prison warders in the shape of the education system, the media, corporate advertising and state propaganda, that is usually enough to keep the majority of the population reasonably content in their illusion of freedom, and to shape their needs and desires. For those who don't accept this illusion of freedom, then there is always the more brutal loaded judicial system and prison cages of repression.
     We have in most cases willingly assisted in our own enslavement by the embracing modern technology. Not that the technology itself is inherently enslaving, but our acceptance of the belief that the corporate world’s control and development of such technology is progress. Progress, an ambiguous word that can conceal an illusion. Technology has bound us to the owners and developers of that technology. One example, in the not too distant past, games were usually very simple and also very enjoyable. All they required was a ball, a couple of sticks, something to throw, a bat etc. nothing complicated, but enjoyed my millions across the planet. Today games are complicated apparatus that we could never make on our own, to enjoy the new “games” we have to put ourselves in the hands of the corporate bodies that own and control that technology, and with their dictate of progress they will be outdated and you will need to buy into the new and much more sophisticated model. You are on the technology gravy train, not as an enjoyer of the gravy, but as the producer of the gravy, for the few in control to lap up.
     As long as growth is seen as progress, increase in consumption will be necessary, and the powers that be will devise, through their usual conditioning endeavours, ways and means to put new and costly products as symbols of happiness, success and status. A quote from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, encapsulates that line of thought. When asked why are the works of William Shakespeare are banned, the controller replies, ‘Because it’s old; that’s the chief reason. We haven’t any use for old things here’. ‘Even when they’re beautiful?’. ‘Particularly when they’re beautiful. Beauty’s attractive, and we don’t want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones’”. I think Huxley has thrown us a warning there, as did Orwell, we ignore them at our peril.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Freedom Of Thought!!

       Freedom of thought is a fundamental human right unimpeded by coercion or force of any kind. Or it should be, but this freedom is always under attack, words are a means of expressing that right of freedom of thought, but words are attacked and attempts made to remove certain words, political correctness, is one such attack, we lose words at our peril, words lost are a diminishing of the ability to express that "freedom of thought". Be very wary of those who tell you certain words are bad and should not be used.

Wikipedia:

       The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that thought is inherently embedded in language, would support the claim that an effort to limit the use of words of language is actually a form of restricting freedom of thought.[citation needed] This was explored in George Orwell's novel 1984, with the idea of Newspeak, a stripped-down form of the English language alleged to lack the capacity for metaphor and limiting expression of original ideas.

      From Lucas Swaine Freedom of Thought as a Basic Liberty

      Freedom of thought has been lauded in political theory and celebrated in human rights discourse. But what kind of freedom is it? I propose that freedom of thought deserves status as a basic liberty, given the significance of thought to human life, the fundamental importance of freedom of thought in establishing and sustaining crucial rights and freedoms, and the value of being able to develop and experience one’s thoughts without undue influence from others. 

The usual words of calm wisdom from Not Buying Anything:

        Cars can be freedom machines in a way, I admit, and I have had my share of incredible moments blasting across the face of the Earth in a variety of internal combustion conveyances. But those days have been over for Linda and I since we began voluntarily limiting how much we used our vehicle. We made this decision as the rest of the world was speeding around a blind corner and on into the 2000s.
        Since then we been driving less and less and less. Overall, we have found it has not had a noticeable negative effect on our quality of life. That is because cars are sold as freedom machines, but they can only provide freedom of movement. What is the use of having an unlimited freedom to move, if we don't also have the unlimited freedom to think?
       Socrates knew that we cannot find ourselves without first thinking for ourselves. Without this freedom, we are lost.

So, do we have the freedom to think in our societies?

        Freedom of thought is the freedom to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of coercion or force to think differently.

That does not describe the world I know.

      Our freedom of expression has always been limited through censorship, arrests, book burning, and pervasive propaganda. This has destroyed any semblance of freedom of thought that we may feel we still have left.
      Educator John Dewey, himself a deep thinker, thought a lot about freedom of movement vs freedom to think, and this is what he said,

     "The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worthwhile.
       The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity."

         While we have driven around our cultural obsession with cars and freedom of movement, we have found our grey matter has been thrown in the slammer. We didn't notice because we have been stuck in traffic.
In recent years I have been willing to give up a large part of my freedom of movement. However, I will not compromise my freedom to think for myself, something on which all other freedoms are based.
        You can't be yourself if you can't think for yourself. And if you can't be yourself, you can't be free.

Freedom of thought wins.

         The time I used to spend driving and being mobile, I now spend blasting around the infinite space between my ears. I would like this to continue, unimpeded by outside forces.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Beware The Cop In Your Pocket.

       This is a re-hash of something I wrote about some time ago, but think it is worth repeating. It is impossible to deny that as far as the state is concerned, we are living in glass bowl. We are monitored every where we go, with CCTV, facial recognition and cameras in every pub, shop, bus, train, shopping mall, library, etc. and so it goes on. However their is another tool in the state's  widespread surveillance, that little gadget most of us carry everywhere, the mobile phone.  

       You’re heading out the door, ooops, better not forget my phone, perhaps it should be, ooops, better not take my phone!! One thing that we should always be aware of, you’re never alone with a phone. The phone is a conduit into the nitty-gritty of your personal life, an archive of your life. In it are all those personal texts, emails, photos, contacts, personal details etc. As you walk about your business that simple little gadget in your bag/pocket monitors your movements, and can pinpoint you down to the metre. On the pretext of being able to send you all your emails and texts, the phone company keeps a very accurate record of all your whereabouts at all times, you are continually monitored. Your phone contains transcripts of years of private conversations, data on all your friends associates and partners, your phone is your personal “black-box” and can be used against you in a court of law. Your phone is a cop in your pocket.
       Let’s not forget “Stingray”, a devise that the powers that be, can set up anywhere, in a vehicle, in any street, in a public park,  and it imitates a genuine phone mast, all the phones in the area are tricked to sending all their transmissions to this phoney mast, the information from the phones is scooped up, sorted, stored then with in minutes, the original signal is sent to the nearest genuine mast to continue its journey, and you are unaware that anything has happened. “Stingray”, can swoop up thousands of mobile phone data in minutes in one fell swoop, just by a vehicle sitting quietly in a street.
      Heading out, oops must remember to take the cop from my pocket and leave the creep in a drawer. Where ever you go, what ever you do, never forget the cop in your pocket.

 Hi, I'm your friendly cop.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Trust And False Narratives.

        Where is the truth, how do we find it in the smoke and mirrors of the state propaganda mouthpiece, the mainstream media? How many of us live the false narrative of the state, seeing "our people" as special, better, different, while those "others" over there are in some way inferior, to be treated with suspicion and to be feared. The appalling treatment of migrants is one living proof of the result of this poisonous narrative. Wars are built on false narratives, otherwise would the bus driver want to go overseas to kill the shop assistant, or the gardener want to kill the plumber from over there? States can't exist without a false narrative, how else would they keep their wealth, power and privileges, while the rest of us struggle from week to week? How else would they get their citizens to send their sons and daughters across the sea to kill some other parents' sons and daughters? Our system is built on false narratives. One way to see through the false narratives is to abolish borders, see all humanity as our brothers and sisters, see our differences and admire at the variety, live with a system of mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation and seeing to all our people's needs, free from the profit motive. Put an end to wealth accumulation, privileges, and power over another. A difficult job, but do you see an alternative?

              An interesting extract from from Tony Kevin, (retired Australian diplomat.) 

Truth, Trust and False Narratives

          Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
          Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people’s minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people’s beliefs within your own national communityas it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
       The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.
         The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
          We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear, to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear: these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.

Read the full article HERE:

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The Omnipresent Surveillance State.

        I, like many others have scribbled away, in anger, at the ever growing threat from the  onslaught of surveillance that is relentlessly entwining every fibre of our existence. It is spreading like a plague, it is insidiously multiplying in the background, growing in sophistication and increasing the state's power over us all. Worse still, it now works with and for the corporate juggernaut. It trolls your personal habits, likes and dislikes and targets you with consumer crap. What the corporate world knows about you will be shared with the state's policing agents. This will be building up a very detailed picture of you, you will be monitored, profiled and assessments made of your loyalty to the state's aims. You are all guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you will continue to be monitored and profiled until the day you die. 

     We have sleep walked into George Orwell's 1984, and we still haven't rubbed our eyes to wake up to this reality, time is running out.

     The following is an extract from a very detail article on the surveillance subject by John W. Whitehead. Though it refers to America, we would be naive in the extreme to harbour the thought that some how we are different in this country, we are not. The spider's web of surveillance, is at this moment monitoring and profiling you and yours. I recommend you read the full article.

The Omnipresent Surveillance State:

--------Here’s what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it’s not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you think that is being tracked and targeted. We’ve already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime legislation that cracks down on so-called “hateful” thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on various subject matter.

Say hello to the new Thought Police.
     Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly, control the populace, and it’s not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.

No information is sacred or spared.
       Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, “citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability.”
       Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).

Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.

      “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”—Orwell

So where does that leave us?          We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us on a daily basis.
        It won’t be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police with their army of futuristic technologies.
       To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government’s roaming eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
      Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.

So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?

We’re running out of options.
       As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’ll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions offered up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form of renewed vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
      Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in Brave New World Revisited: “Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.”

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

At Home, Watch What You Say!!

       Is your computer listening to you? It is quite a thought, locked away in the privacy of your home, and your every word is being noted!

This from Act For Freedom Now:

        Recently, as I was reading the report on the hearings of the trial that we are facing following the Turin investigation “Scripta Manent”, staged by prosecutor Roberto Sparagna, I noticed an explanation regarding the keylogger (or Agent Elena, as the miserable Naples ROS called it).
      A text that appears in some sites says that a keylogger was allegedly used to intercept off-line comments during RadioAzione live recordings. That would be nice, but unfortunately the reality is different.
      The keylogger was a proper bug, sent to my PC via internet through a virus, and it was capable of intercepting everything around my computer. It was sufficient for the computer to be connected to the internet and the miserable ones were able to hear all audio nearby (no video because the webcam has always been blocked out).
      So, because I have my PC in my bedroom they listened not only to radio off-line comments but even more… everything in fact!
     Moreover it was used to create screenshot sequences of my desktop while I was writing texts or translating those of other comrades, which were subsequently published in the RadioAzione website. All this for six years in a row, in spite of the fact that I formatted my PC on a number of occasions.
      I really wanted to make this clarification because the way it was described in the text in the trial report it could be misunderstood. We could all have a keylogger in our PC (even if it costs them 120 euros per day… unless they inflated the invoices contained in the investigation papers) and so it’s better to know how it works.
      Therefore my advice to those who think they could have one of those installed in their computer is to switch it off when they are not using it, and avoid talking in the area where it is connected.
      Erroneously I had linked an external mic to a mixer, as I thought that if it was on “Mute” it wouldn’t intercept the audio, but it was pointless. Through keylogger they activate the mic inside the computer.
      Remember to disconnect the internet before you write a text or translate one.

Somma Gioacchino (RadioAzione)

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All Guilty In The Eyes Of The State.

         Guilty, guilty, guilty, yes, you are all guilty. We no longer live in a society where, if you have done nothing wrong, you can go about your business free from surveillance. It is no longer a matter of the state watching the “bad guys”, you are all suspects. The minute you walk down the street, wait for a bus, buy a train ticket, walk into a pub, you are monitored. Stay at home, surf the net, follow social media, they know what your looking at, use your mobile and they know where you are, who you are contacting and when. The state and its institutions are working at total control, control over your every movement, why you are there, who are you with, should you be there, you are all suspects, to be watched and profiled. Let's not forget "stingray", a mobile or fixed apparatus that can suck up information from up to 10,000 mobile phones at one fell swoop, without you being aware. Your crime, moving about and interacting with people.  

       The state is always expanding the breadth and depth of its intelligence agencies, they are able to expand their information collection beyond actual suspects, to mass surveillance. Yes, no matter your life style, you are a suspect. DNA and other information can be shared between agencies, foreign and domestic, without you being aware, without you having done anything wrong. We live under a regime of stop-and-search, camera surveillance, face recognition, and profiling, at every turn. National security is used to put an ever more heavily armed presence on our streets, once there, they don’t ever go back in the box. Here in the UK, we now accept heavily armed police parading parts of our cities. Of course all the information collected by this stop and search, monitoring, profiling and camera surveillance and other spying techniques, will be used against those people who resist this growing strangle hold of the state over the population. The growing repressive state, spawned from the "national emergency" does not guarantee less terror attacks, quite the contrary. What it does guarantee is innocent sections of society excluded, and the protection of those with large financial interests, big business and government institutions. 

          Who can blame an entire population that is classed as suspect, to turn from passive bystander to perpetrator. I carry the blame, therefore, why not the spoils of the crime?

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We Know What You're Doing, ALL Of You, ALL Of The Time!!

       As the "Competition of Liars" sometimes called the General Election, hots up, and the various liars get their knickers in a twist about how to out spin each other, the topic of "austerity" is never far from their lips. No matter how they bandy the word about, none of them will mention the billions wasted on the attempt at total surveillance of the citizens of this country.

       Until the revelations of Edward Snowden emerged just a few years back in 2013, British citizens had no idea as to the level of state surveillance they were subjected to. The government, without due process, debate or permission installed a massive taxpayer funded spying system via its domestic agency GCHQ, to tap into internet cables and build an enormous and detailed database of the communications of every man, woman and child in the country with little to no legal oversight. An ID system is no longer relevant, they have far more information than an ID card could ever store.

        The amount of your tax money that is swallowed up in GCHQ is staggering, with the lie that it is all about protecting us from those nasty foreigners. However, the truth is that billions pounds are gobbled up peeking into the actions of your everyday life. You are permanently under their microscope, listened to, watched and profiled, all of us.

        GCHQ’s 360 degree full spectrum bulk collection data system was constructed in brazen and arrogant defiance of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Britain’s parliament never debated or approved this massive construction programme as it would for any national infrastructure project. Every phone call, no matter the device is recorded, every image, website visited, personal details such as medical and financial records, contacts, everything private to you is no longer private.

        In this insane economic system, money means quality, hence the quality of health care, eduction, social services, etc., are all deteriorating due to the lack of money being spent on them. When we look at how much is being spent on prying into your personal affairs, you scratch your head and realise the true priorities in this state.

       Although no-one truly knows the costs of UK state surveillance systems over its own population, it is estimated that the cost to the taxpayer just for the storage of all this data exceeds £20 million a month. And whilst GCHQ’s individual budget isn’t public knowledge, its funding comes from the Single Intelligence Account (SIA), which by all accounts has now reached something in the order (£18 billion as at 2015) £20 billion plus.
     One can only guess that provision for GCHQ’s funding is exponentially increasing in an age of austerity where the NHS is in chaos, emergency services such as the fire-brigade and ambulance services to name just two are being stripped bare or privatised. People are dying at the hands of the state and yet we are told there is no money to pay for these vital services. And yet the taxpayer is still funding bank-bailouts, wars in far-off lands that pose zero threat to national security and a new architecture of state surveillance constructed that would make the East German Stasi blush three decades ago.

       £20 million a month just to store who you phoned last week, where you shopped yesterday, what pub you went to at the weekend. Think of an extra £20 million a month on mental health care?
         Is this the type of society you want? Do you honestly think any one of the political bandwagons standing in this "Competition of Liars" will demolish this insidious prying spy system? Don't be so naive, look at history, we are still struggling for equality, we are still struggling for a decent standard of living, our actions are under ever increasing surveillance, despite the fact we have had the full spectrum of political parties, each wearing the crown for varying periods. The system is loaded against us, it is the system we have to change, not the crown prince or the label on the box.  
Read the full article from Tarcoteca HERE:

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Surveillance Society.

 

        We all know the state spies on its citizens, we all know that the state passes legislation that it doesn't want it citizens to know about, we all know, or should know, it does all this with one aim , control over our lives. To hold onto its power it needs to know where you are, what you're up to, and be able to intervene and stifle any form of dissent. "Big Brother" is not a story of fiction, in today's society, it is a reality. We are surrounded by profiling, face recognition, CCTV, spied on, monitored, infiltrated by undercover agents, and there is a constant drive by the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, to manufacture our opinions, to mould our perception of reality to their liking.     

       All of these things are not exceptions, they are the norm of our modern way of life, who are they protecting?

       As far as the state is concerned, nothing is personal in this surveillance society, the state claims the right to be privy to ever aspect of your personal life. Your right to privacy is something the state doesn't recognise and will continually attempt to find ways to circumvent that right. All of this is to protect the established power, and protect its wealth and privileges. No matter where we are in this "Big Brother" society, the state will always try to take us further along that route. We must fight to put a stop to this whole malignant, repressive state apparatus, it is in the interest of us all to do so.

This from Open Media:

       Leaked docs reveal the UK Home Office’s secret plan to gain real-time access to our text messages and online communications AND force companies like WhatsApp to break the security on its own software. This reckless government plan will make all of us more vulnerable to attacks like yesterday's ransomware assault against the NHS.

Act now

        A shocking leak scooped by our friends at Open Rights Group has made this information public.¹ Home Secretary Amber Rudd has made it very clear that she thinks no one should get to use safe and secure messaging apps.² Now she has set on the path to make her wish come true.

       Yesterday a massive ransomware attack hit the NHS, blocking off access to patient data and endangering lives. This horrific story tells us why companies need to be able to develop security software without any backdoors that can be exploited this way.³

     Can you speak up right now and send Amber Rudd a powerful message to defend our privacy and online security?

      The Government’s proposals will force tech companies and Internet providers to allow “near real time” access to all your private online communications.⁴ Clearly, the only information Amber Rudd believes should stay hidden is the Government’s own powers! We need to make it clear that secretive laws that break our tech and strip away our privacy have no place in a democracy.

       What's even more worrying is that the Home Office is not expecting to hear from the public. They planned to keep this entire process secret — including a “consultation” they didn’t publicly announce, even to tech businesses!⁵

           Because of this secrecy, we now have fewer than 10 days to get our voices on the record — we don’t have a moment to lose!

Tell Home Secretary Amber Rudd: Encryption keeps us safe. Do not weaken everyone’s security by creating backdoors that hackers and malicious actors can exploit.

       The UK Home Office already has some of the most aggressive surveillance powers in the world. This is nothing more than a power grab for even more invasive powers — but if enough of us speak up we can stop this. They won’t be expecting a big reaction in so little time — can you speak up now?

Thank you for helping us fight back!

Ruth

       P.S. Strong encryption saves lives⁶ — Vulnerable groups will have their safety compromised if services like WhatsApp and Signal are forced to build backdoors. Lawyers will lose client confidentiality, victims of police misconduct will be spied on, journalists will be unable to protect sources, and domestic abusers could be gifted further ways to exploit tech vulnerabilities to spy on their partners.⁷ Can you add your voice to save the tools and technologies that keep us safe?

Footnotes

[1] LEAKED Draft Statutory Powers, Source: Open Rights Group

[2] Investigatory Powers: 'Real-time surveillance' in draft update, Source: BBC

[3] NHS cyber-attack: GPs and hospitals hit by ransomware. Source: BBC

[4] Winning the debate on encryption — a 101 guide for politicians. Source: Privacy International

[5] Plans for extensive Government spying powers revealed in leaked report. Source: Telegraph

[6] Encryption saves lives. Source: Jon Camfield

[7] This Software Company May Be Helping People Illegally Spy On Their Spouses. Source: Forbes

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk