The Prying Eyes Of The State Are Everywhere.

 

         I have often spouted off about the "Big Brother" constant surveillance society of modern living. Everybody is watched, shopping, going to and from work, attending any event, traveling by bus or train, having a coffee in town, you are monitored, profiled and logged. let's not forget Stingray, a device that can swoop up the data from 1,000 mobile phones in one fell swoop. However it doesn't stop there, if you happen to one of those fair minded people that see the injustices and inequalities around you, and speak your mind, then you will come under a more thorough and sinister surveillance. Planted bugs, hidden cameras, undercover two-faced spies, and much more from the hi-tec world, in use by the state apparatus. Anarchists have always been high on the state's list of those meriting that more sinister surveillance. Actively working against injustice and inequality, makes you a threat to their authority, a possible risk to their control over the population, so, in the twisted mind of the demented authoritarians, you need to be constantly monitored, and if possible, silenced.  

This from Act For Freedom Now:

SPIES AT WORK

           For almost thirty years, amidst investigations being opened and closed (often without the investigated ones even knowing about it), we can say that anarchists from Trento and Rovereto have been systematically spied on. Of course they were and are not the only ones, considering the omnipresence of electronic surveillance. But various investigations against anarchists, quite poor in judicial results, served to control those who disturb power’s plans in a more selective and shameless way. Bugs in homes, self-managed places, cars have been found many times since the end of the nineties. Not to mention landlines and mobile phones under control and cameras in front of houses. On one occasion a bug was found in none the less than a rucksack. For the operation ‘Ixodidae’ (which in 2012 led to the arrest of two anarchists and later to a trial against eight comrades accused of ‘subversive association with intents of terrorism’, which ended in nothing), Trento prosecutors had spent over a million euros for video and audio tapping.
        Bugs with GPS have also been recently found in two cars. But obviously all this isn’t enough for Digos and ROS carabinieri (and the prosecutors who give them authorization, if there is any). Rebel life must be spied on minute after minute. So last week a micro camera was found in the kitchen-living room in a comrades’ home. A step not to be overlooked.
       Privacy – not only that concerning words but also bodies and gestures – turned into material for investigation to be set up and dismantled at their leisure.
        We don’t want to resigned to the Big Brother (we don’t mean the TV show).
          We don’t think the problem is only ours’, but it is everyone’s.
        It is necessary to react to these attacks on freedom with solidarity.
       It is necessary to say to spies and their filthy manoeuvres, strong and clear,

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

       Tuesday 23rd January, 6pm, Piazza Pasi in Trento: public exhibition of the recently ‘found items ‘
Anarchists

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

State Manufactured Terrorists.

 

        History tells us that the case posted below is far from unique, nor confined to America, we in this country have recently had the cases of undercover police steering groups in particular directions, leading to arrests. Universal surveillance, covert police, and secret service agents, are all part of the state apparatus, and make it very simple to manufacture terrorists, which in turn leads to a call for more policing, strengthening the state's control over the population. Keeping the population in a constant state of fear of an evil enemy infiltrating the fibre of our society allows for more draconian measures to "protect" the population, in so doing slicing away at the few freedoms we have.

This from Its Going Down:

         On the Friday before Christmas, “Breaking news alerts” came out on the 24-hour mainstream news cycle that a 26 year old Modesto, CA man was arrested on a federal charge of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The alleged plan was a mass casualty attack on Pier 39, a ranking candidate for San Francisco’s most well-known tourist trap. Pressed suits full of melodramatic reporters were on hand to remind everyone to stay safe and vigilant, more aptly to remind everyone of the set of vague and ill-defined external threats that are perpetually meant to keep a population, as any victim of abuse, in anxious compliance. Even the acting mayor of the city assured San Franciscans that “our way of life,” would not be assuaged, and of course promised more police.       

           It’s a story that ties up nicely and advances the ever growing paternal and nativist narrative about mysterious dangers that the new regime, in all its clumsiness, is alone equipped to protect us from. I was sitting in a laundromat just across the water from Pier 39 when the story broke, and what struck me instantly was how razor thin the shell game was. Even the highly publicized facts of this case say something bleak and concerning about the status of contemporary popular ideology, and the State’s hunger to fuel paranoia and to target anyone who fits, even in the most tangential way, into a criminalized category.

         Lay the order of events out chronologically, add a basic understanding of FBI counter-surveillance practice, what you have is not a story of domestic radicalization and terrorism. Rather, what emerges is a story of surveillance, thought policing, targeting, and media fear mongering. Our only goal in this short intervention is to expose that layer of the story that is still in the process of coming to light or being buried, and to raise important questions that are left strategically open in the story that is being told.

 “The FBI started watching Jameson in September after becoming aware of social media activity in which he “liked” or “loved” posts about terror attacks and ISIS, the affidavit said. Undercover employees of the FBI posed as supporters of ISIS and contacted Jameson, the affidavit said.”

Here’s an example of a post that the FBI apparently found concerning. Posts like this were flagged as terrorist sympathy and made Jameson’s Facebook page the subject of surveillance, and ultimately made him the target of a months long entrapment campaign.

What We Know

           According to CNN and multiple AP and MSM news outlets, Everitt Aaron Jameson, a 26-year-old Muslim convert from Modesto, California became the subject of FBI interest in September. From CNN:
          The affidavit avoids a direct admission of this, but media sources confirm that the FBI initiated contact with Jameson. Agents were posing to be senior members of ISIS. The agent who ultimately met with Jameson in person (the only such meeting) identified himself as an immediate subordinate of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. There was apparently no communication whatsoever between Jameson and any member of any foreign terrorist organization.
          Communications between undercover agents and Jameson throughout the Fall were vague at best. Jameson expresses his willingness to use or donate resources for “the cause,” the meaning of which is never expressed in any of the communications in court record. He makes vague references to Western colonialism saying things like, “the kuffar (loosely translated to “unbeliever”) deserve everything and more for the lives they’ve taken. He uses Arabic pejoratives like this against the US.
            What is being described as a “terror plot” in the media amounts to some vague suggestions that Jameson made in a single, in-person meeting with an undercover agent. He suggested a strategy in the broadest sense. Concrete plans were not reached. Relevantly however he indicated a willingness to die. We’ll revisit this.
           Jameson attempted to back out of the alleged plot on what appear to be moral and conscientious grounds two days before his arrest saying, “I also don’t think I can do this after all. I’ve reconsidered.”

Jameson’s Family Tells a Drastically Different Story
          He and his father (a self-identified Pentecostal) would argue amiably about their respective religious beliefs. His father even quotes him as saying, “yeah Dad, we all believe in the same God.”
          Jameson’s family, in conversation with the Modesto Bee, tell of Jameson as a distraught young man. He had lost his two young children to Child Protective Services after their mother Ashley was incarcerated. They divorced in 2016, and after a long battle with CPS Jameson once and for all lost custody of their children three months ago. Incidentally around the same time he became the target of a federal investigation.
       His father reports that he was frequently suicidal. Authorities also confirmed that he was held on suicide watch when taken into custody. Despite struggling with depression, he maintained a close relationship with his family. He shared his difficulties with his father, and his religious convictions with many in his family. His faith even made him the subject of teasing. Days before his arrest Jameson and his father even attended a Raider game in Oakland.
        Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, the veracity of the facts presented in the court affidavit and in the subsequent media storm, brief though it was. Jameson is still far from a picture of a terrorist master mind. At worst a slightly unstable man, he likely saw himself as having little to lose. He was in a position highly vulnerable to the kind of manipulation that we know the FBI to be capable of. We also know that his suggestions of violence were loose, ill formed, and abstract. He assumed guidance and direction from the FBI agents who were the actual architects of the alleged plot. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, when lofty fantasizing about violence started to feel like something real Jameson easily saw that this path was not for him.
         No matter how the dots of this story connect, we are forced to recognize the shallow simplicity of seeing this man as a terrorist threat. Consider further how Islam is portrayed in the media. Consider what a white Muslim, with no family history or traditional relationship to the religion, in one of California’s most conservative counties, might come to understand about the meaning of being Muslim. As we alluded above, his family jokingly nicknamed him ISIS. Consider how suggestible such a person might be to the perception of being sought from across the globe for service to his faith.
FBI Entrapment: The Public Strategy
         This struck me as an extraordinarily obvious case of FBI entrapment. According to Federal guidelines (Section 645 of the US Attorney’s Manual), entrapment takes place when one is A) induced to commit a crime by state officials, and B) one has no prior disposition to commit such a crime. No doubt Jameson’s prosecutors will cite his hastily crafted suicide note as evidence of his predisposition, however observers must ask what would possibly have motivated him to any kind of fantasies of violence if not the interference of undercover agents. Moreover, and not to sound too conspiratorial or alarmist, speculating about one’s internal attitudes with respect to violence, and punishing those with certain attitudes basically amounts to a case of thought policing.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Locked In A Cage Of Cameras.

         Our cities and towns are festooned with CCTV cameras, your every move is recorded, where you were, who you were with, what you were up to, all data stored for use by the state. Dates, times, and frequency of visit to this and that, without your consent, you are under total surveillance. You would be a rather naive fool if you thought this was all for your protection. Each city and town in this country spends millions of pounds of public money on installing and manning this state surveillance monster, no austerity there. Its main purpose is control, and protection of the established power structure. We pay to protect our over lords and masters' power and privileges.

      Communities are well capable of looking after themselves, if they come together, and organise how they want their community to be shaped, they don't need big brother to do that for them. We have allowed ourselves to be slowly trapped in a cage of a million cameras, each camera is a bar in your cage, our over lords and masters are not going to open the cage door and let us be free, we will have to do that ourselves, assuming you wish to be a free individual in a free society, rather than a possible suspect to be monitored and controlled. 

         This from Act For Freedom Now:

        Yesterday, 13.12 (ac.ab), we decided to honor the night by interfering with our neighbourhood by destroying 4 cameras on Zaimis Street. One of the reasons we live in Exarchia is certainly the avoidance of technofascism and avoiding being watched on a continuous basis without our will.
          We do not want security cameras to protect property, which will end up in the hands of the police in case of thivery.
      We promote autonomous patrols, communication between residents and solidarity. And we would like to tell you that the cameras you put,put them in your house or they will end up broken as yesterday and tomorrow. With a small walk we saw around 20 cameras …!
           Our move is in solidarity to the hunger strikers Nikos Maziotis Pola Roupa,to the tortured by security forces arrested on December 6, and people who realize that a free neighbourhood is won by struggle.
       Autonomous Politically Conscious Residents of the Neighbourhood of Exarchia.

Digital Anonymity.

 

        Some helpful information from a workshop at The Athens Insurrection Festival. We all use it, the Internet, we all know that it can be a powerful tool in our hands, but we also know that it can be a powerful tool for the state. This info is to try to add to your advantage, but limit the the advantage that the establishment has over you.

       As activists we must know the dangers of the cyberspace, and learn how to protect our privacy. Avoiding the use of telecommunication tools is not an option. But either we own the technology we use or the technology owns us.
      Here are some basic concepts and tips from yesterday’s workshop. We publish this info and ask you to help spread it because information wants to be free

Download the info PDF HERE: 

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

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?

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

 

Return Fire.

        The autumn 2016, 4th volume, of the excellent magazine, Return Fire, is available to read or download for free. It comes accompanied by a supplement. Once again, 100 pages of passion, commentary, proposals and interview material. The supplement, Caught in the Net, is a survey of critical perspectives on what information age technology is doing to our cognitive abilities, our health more generally, and our capacity to rebel. It comes as a separate document, of another 28 pages. Both colour and greyscale cover options are available, for further reproduction and distribution. 

Magazine Return Fire, can be read and/or downloaded HERE:

Supplement, Caught In The Net, can be read and/or downloaded HERE:

       The following is a copy of one article from Return Fire, of local interest to us here in Scotland. 

        The Scottish Prison Service, [SPS] has confirmed that it used IMSI, International Mobile Subscriber Identity catchers (aka “stingrays”) at two prisons in Scotland. This is the first confession of official stingray use by UK authorities, though they are almost certainly being used elsewhere in the country as well. The SPS are using both mobile and static stingray devices at HMP Shotts in Lanarkshire and HMP Glenochil near Alloa. The SPS spent more than £1.2 million spying on both prisons. It appears that the SPS were trialing stingray tech at Shotts and Glenochil before potentially rolling it out to other prisons. While stingrays can be used to snoop on conversations or otherwise gather intelligence, it appears that in this case the SPS were using IMSI catchers to stamp out mobile phone use at the prisons (it’s supposedly a crime to use a mobile phone in prison). IMSI catchers work by tricking nearby mobile devices to connect to them, rather than an official base station. The stingray can then be used to triangulate the user’s location, or to simply block the connection [ed. – or record calls]
       Somewhat amusingly, despite the rather expensive roll out, it seems the system wasn’t all that effective at finding phones or blocking calls. “Prisoners have developed innovative countermeasures to current Arrangements. The SPS recovered significantly fewer mobile phones at HMP Shotts in 2014 (282) than in 2013 (352). “Some of this decline is due to the increased introduction of smartphones which use 3G technology, these 3G smartphones transmit on very low power levels and so are more difficult to accurately detect and locate.”
        Back in 2010, when the prisoner phones only used 2G, 1417 handsets were tracked down at Shotts alone. The report notes that the SPS wanted to use stingray tech at HMP Edinburgh, but it lost out to the rural prisons for two reasons. First, the UK’s mobile carriers had already started rolling out 4G in Edinburgh. Second, if they had used IMSI catchers at HMP Edinburgh, which is within Edinburgh’s urban area, there would’ve been a “high risk” of interfering with mobile users outside the prison. There have been various reports of stingray use by the UK authorities as far back as 2011, but this is the first time that it’s ever been confirmed.
       Last year, the mainstream media reported that it had found widespread use of IMSI catchers across London, after fake mobile masts where discovered. Over in the USA apart from the usual monitoring of criminal/terrorist elements, it is now becoming common for major protests to be spied upon in case of an outbreak of disorder.
         Obviously the fear of uprisings such as those which occurred around the UK in 2011 [ed. – see Return Fire vol.1 pg 61] & in Baltimore & Ferguson [ed. – see Return Fire vol.3 pg 76 ] in the US are on both governments minds. The state might try justify the use of IMSI to tackle crime or terrorism but increasingly this technology can be used to quell disorder ed.[– and has been noted so far at demonstrations in Germany and Turkey as well, including a body­worn type for agents walking amongst the crowd]. What is also apparent from the information gathered by the media is that the technology can be used not only to track but to listen into phone calls, not just of the specific targets but also the general population in the vicinity, as can be seen when HMP Edinburgh was rejected for Stingray tests. Surveillance technology is vastly increasing around prison island, it does not shock us that they would be tested in actual prisons first, the most concentrated form of oppression, the testing ground for many forms of control through out society.
         The prison system was the first place to test the idea of unpaid work, then it was rolled out into society for jobseekers. New glass apartment blocks resemble more a prisoncomplex with security doors and CCTV in every corner, the difference is that the gullible upstanding citizens imprison themselves. It will not be long before IMSI becomes a norm just as much as CCTV did, further limiting the possibility of dissent in this corner of the world.

        What is clear is that there needs to be a backlash against the prison be a backlash against the prison society, that it can never be society, that it can never be reformed and will involve a reformed and will involve a complete eradication of the technology that makes it possible. The ultimate culprits are those companies that make it possible.
       In the mean time, attack the prison society at its sources and maintain a vigilante security culture with phones. The police state is tracking & listening, let’s claw out their eyes & cut off their ears!

How Stingray works, HERE and HERE.

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

A Crime Called Freedom.

 

        The biggest strike of prisoners in America's history is still going on, but still no big deal in the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. But prisons exist in all countries, not just the USA, and all serve the same purpose, to maintain control over the population and maintain the existing power structure that keeps the wealth and power in the hands of the same cabal of parasites in country after country.

        America is currently in the midst of the biggest prison strike in the nation’s history. Inmates in approximately 12 states in approximately 12 states and 29 facilities have taken part in the strike to protest free prison labor. Organizers have estimated that about 24,000 inmates have taken part. The strike, which began Sept. 9 on the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising, was organized in large part by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC).

        More on prisons and the prison society that we live in, and seem to tolerate with silent acquiescence. An audio section from Os Cangaceiros, (The gravediggers) A Crime Called Freedom,

       "If we sack the banks, it's because we have recognized money as the central cause of all our unhappiness. If we smash the windows it's not because life is dear, but because commodities prevent us from living at all costs. If we break the machines it is not because of a wish to protect work, but to attack the slavery of salary. If we attack police it's not to get them out of out neighborhoods, but to get them out of our lives. The Spectacle wished to make us appear dreadful. We intend to be much worse."

The Gravediggers, Paris, May 1980

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

Hello Lamp Post, What Kind Of Day Have You Had?

 

        It seems that the citizens of the fair city of Bristol are to be part of a large and very expensive experiment. They are soon to be enmeshed in a web of connectivity, an invisible spider's web of waves and pulses. The City council with the help of hi-tec giants, universities and pots of money will be working together to create a magic world of an all joined up society. Lamp posts, bus stop and other inauspicious objects will become points of communication. The latest face recognition and crowd analysis will be employed, the powers that be boast of the wonderful benefits, stating that it could mean that if there was an accident, the emergency services could be notified before you can reach for your phone. Of course they don't mention that with all that face recognition and crowd analysis, that other service, the one with the riot shields and truncheons could arrive before you can reach for your phone. Another feature they seem to be getting carried away with is, you will be able to communicate with the said lamp posts and bus stops and have some sort of conversation, and others will be able to hear and see what has been going on there, swapping information. Doesn't it sound wonderful, you will be able to communicate with everybody without actually meeting anybody. So when you tire of watching crap TV or playing with your game consul, you can walk down the high street and have a conversation with a lamp post, or perhaps your fancy is a nice bus stop, this they say is connecting the city!! 

      What it boils down to is a super surveillance system where there is no hiding place, no need to came face to face with another human being, or are you naive enough to think that all this money and effort is being spent for the benefit of the citizens of the fair city of Bristol. If it is successful, in the eyes of the powers that be, it will be rolled out across the country. The perfect controllable society, where people can function in isolation, always being observed and recorded, a system where decisions are made by algorithms, computers and faceless individuals. Welcome to the world of connectivity. 

This from 325:

       City authorities and allied technological entrepreneurs are working to kit out Bristol with a city-wide ‘digital fabric’ of the very latest in sensor and connectivity technology, to make it the world’s first open ‘programmable city’. A high-speed fibre-optic network (making use of disused cable ducting owned by the council) is being combined with a new ‘city operating system’ that will power an experimental network. In the coming spring of 2016, 1,500 sensor-equipped lampposts are being launched around the city; the vast majority of Bristol will be covered in a Radio Frequency (RF) mesh. This is predicted to revolutionise the way that emergency response, traffic management and other municipal services are handled, and track certain vehicle locations, with eventual alleged trickle-down ‘benefits’ such as informing residents of parking spaces and air pollution (ahem, from those parking spaces) in an increasingly mechanised and technified environment.-------

And there is more:

---------The sensors will collate vast amounts of raw data, which the council is already equipt with various ‘Big Data’ processing platforms to analyse; Bristol has already opened up almost two hundred of the city’s data sets on traffic flows and energy use, crime trends, targeted advertising, generating new innovative businesses, as well as encouraging citizens to interact with the city in new, digitalised ways. ‘Acoustic detection sensors’ have also been mentioned; similar uses have been made of microphone-equipt lampposts in major cities of the United States, with audio recording and gunshot detectors linked straight to police targeting ‘high crime areas’, to be combined with surveillance video. As opposed to the reactions which their use in obtaining convictions have earned across the Atlantic, as a precursor to the Bristol Is Open initiative the PAN innovation team began a four-week project in Bristol during 2013 called Hello Lamp Post, to introduce smart-city technologies more ‘softly’. The project’s co-creator, Ben Barker, was featured in media at the time. “Smart cities, where technologies play an important role, tend to be perceived as high on efficiency yet low on warmer, human elements, Barker explains. “Our starting point was a desire to use the city’s existing infrastructure to encourage human interaction through storytelling and story sharing.” ” In a bizarre mix between Artificial Intelligence and a chat forum, users were offered the opportunity to ‘communicate’ with street furniture like lampposts, postboxes, and bus stops via text message by using the repair numbers found on these objects as SMS codes. The object would “wake up” and respond in kind with a series of text messages, “sharing interesting content about that specific location left by others who’ve come before”.

The full, well worth reading article, can be found HERE:

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

Stand, Hand On Heart, "Land Of The Free".

        Got the article below from comrade Loam, thanks friend. It is from Information Clearing House. However, you would be an idiot if you thought that it was only in America, "The Land Of The Free" that the prying eyes of the state followed you everywhere, listened to your ever word, and built a profile on their sneakily stolen snapshots of your life. Modern technology makes it possible and easily accessible to any state and its minders, and they use it massively.

By John W. Whitehead

       April 26, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Ron Paul Institute"- In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death.
        However, where many Americans go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
         In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, all you really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
        With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.
         It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.
        What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks—all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
         While this may sound like a riff on a bad joke, it’s a bad joke with “we the people” as the punchline.
        The following activities are guaranteed to get you censored, surveilled, eventually placed on a government watch list, possibly detained and potentially killed.
Laugh at your own peril.
       Use harmless trigger words like cloud, pork and pirates: The Department of Homeland Security has an expansive list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats such as SWAT, lockdown, police, cloud, food poisoning, pork, flu, Subway, smart, delays, cancelled, la familia, pirates, hurricane, forest fire, storm, flood, help, ice, snow, worm, warning or social media.
Use a cellphone: 

     Simply by using a cell phone, you make yourself an easy target for government agents—working closely with corporations—who can listen in on your phone calls, read your text messages and emails, and track your movements based on the data transferred from, received by, and stored in your cell phone. Mention any of the so-called “trigger” words in a conversation or text message, and you’ll get flagged for sure.
Drive a car: 

       Unless you’ve got an old junkyard heap without any of the gadgets and gizmos that are so attractive to today’s car buyers (GPS, satellite radio, electrical everything, smart systems, etc.), driving a car today is like wearing a homing device: you’ll be tracked from the moment you open that car door thanks to black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems that can monitor your speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and even your seatbelt use. Once you add satellites, GPS devices, license plate readers, and real-time traffic cameras to the mix, there’s nowhere you can go on our nation’s highways and byways that you can’t be followed.
Attend a political rally: 

        Enacted in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.
Express yourself on social media: 

        The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.
Serve in the military: 

          Operation Vigilant Eagle, the brainchild of the Dept. of Homeland Security, calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”
Disagree with a law enforcement official: 

         A growing number of government programs are aimed at identifying, monitoring and locking up anyone considered potentially “dangerous” or mentally ill (according to government standards, of course). For instance, a homeless man in New York City who reportedly had a history of violence but no signs of mental illness was forcibly detained in a psych ward for a week after arguing with shelter police.
Call in sick to work: 

          In Virginia, a so-called police “welfare check” instigated by a 58-year-old man’s employer after he called in sick resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. All of this was done despite the fact that police acknowledged they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining the man, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.
Limp or stutter: 

         As a result of a nationwide push to certify a broad spectrum of government officials in mental health first-aid training (a 12-hour course comprised of PowerPoint presentations, videos, discussions, role playing and other interactive activities), more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported for having mental health issues by non-medical personnel. For instance, one 37-year-old disabled man was arrested, diagnosed by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having “mental health issues,” apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.
Appear confused or nervous, fidget, whistle or smell bad: 

           According to the Transportation Security Administration’s 92-point secret behavior watch list for spotting terrorists, these are among some of the telling signs of suspicious behavior: fidgeting, whistling, bad body odor, yawning, clearing your throat, having a pale face from recently shaving your beard, covering your mouth with your hand when speaking and blinking your eyes fast.
Allow yourself to be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun, such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane, for instance: 

         No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. John Crawford was shot by police in an Ohio Wal-Mart for holding an air rifle sold in the store that he may have intended to buy. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy’s toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe’s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest. Another police officer repeatedly shot 70-year-old Bobby Canipe during a traffic stop. The cop saw the man reaching for his cane and, believing the cane to be a rifle, opened fire.
Appear to be pro-gun, pro-freedom or anti-government: You might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you: express libertarian philosophies:

        Exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views; read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books; show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies); fear an economic collapse; buy gold and barter items; voice fears about Big Brother or big government; or expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties.
Attend a public school: 

         Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.” Additionally, as part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the FBI—the nation’s de facto secret police force—is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist” as part of its “Don’t Be a Puppet” campaign.
Speak truth to power: 

          Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government’s war crimes and the National Security Agency’s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon who were being singled out for daring to speak truth to power. These men and others like them had their phone calls monitored and data files collected on their activities and associations. For a little while, at least, they became enemy number one in the eyes of the US government.

 There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be. Yet as this list shows, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention. All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.

Reprinted with permission from the Rutherford Institute.

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

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Stared At By A Thousand Prying Eyes.

        In our present society, surveillance is now an all very intrusive fact of life. Our cities are festooned with CCTV cameras, in shops, shopping malls, on transport vehicles, and all around our streets. They are capable of face recognition and profiling, but still they want more. So we have “Stingray”, a system, it can be fixed or mobile, that captures all the data on mobile phones of up to 10,000 people in one area, at one fell swoop. It cannot be targeted at one person, so you are all guilty and worthy of surveillance. You don't know your data has been stolen and you have no idea who will use it, or how it will be used, still they call it democracy.
        Now there is another tool soon to be available to the armoury of the state snoopers. A car that can scan faces up to 600 metres away while travelling at 75 mph. A very sophisticated piece of surveillance equipment, it can determine gender, age, and race of each face and compare this to a database alerting the driver when there is a match.
       So you go to meet a friend in town, your every movement is filmed, your mobile phone data is stolen, your face is profiled and compared to some mysterious secret database, You meet your friend, who has been through the same process, then it is repeated on your way home. Who is watching you, who is going through your personal details, who is making assumptions about you based on this stolen data? An open and free society, capitalist style.

Stingray, Wikipedia:

           The StingRay is an IMSI-catcher with both passive (digital analyzer) and active (cell site simulator) capabilities. When operating in active mode, the device mimics a wireless carrier cell tower in order to force all nearby mobile phones and other cellular data devices to connect to it.[4][5][6] The StingRay family of devices can be mounted in vehicles,[5] on airplanes, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.[7] Hand-carried versions are referred to under the trade name KingFish

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Surveillance Society, Big Brother, Alive And Well.

           A science fiction story, imagine if law enforcement organisations could with one fell swoop, gather up all the data on 10,000 mobile phones in one area, all at once, without any phone user knowing a thing about it. All your text, photos, emails, notes, contacts, personal details, the lot, while you sit at your desk, sip your coffee, travel to and from your work. Silently, invisibly, pouring all your personal stuff into a law enforcement data centre, to be pried over by faceless bureaucrats.  

 

       Sadly it is not a science fiction story, it is called "Stingray" and it is happening here and now, and no law enforcement organisation will talk about it, why? The ever increasing surveillance society, the prying eyes of the state looking ever deeper into our personal lives, with no hint of discussion, all are guilty in the piercing vision of the state. So, right now, who knows all your personal details, who is scrutinising all your contacts, what unknown shadowy smutty mind, is making inferences on your texts? You have a right to know, you are being denied that right.

This from Open Media:

      Governments around the world are using highly secretive technologies to spy on our cell phones — spying devices that are capable of listening to your calls and sucking up every single piece of sensitive, personal information in your phone.¹

       These invasive devices are called “Stingrays”, and they trick your cell phones into giving away your most sensitive information – without your consent.

       It’s time to put a stop to this. Take a stand today: Demand safeguards to protect us from Stingray surveillance. If enough of us speak up, decision-makers will be forced to listen.

Stingrays can’t be targeted at just one person — instead they sweep up data from entire neighbourhoods.² They’re being used to eavesdrop on innocent individuals, and can capture the sensitive data of up to 10,000 people at a time.³ You don’t have to do anything wrong to be a victim. And if you have been spied on, you won’t even know.

       What’s worse: Law enforcement is keeping the use of this irresponsible tool under a veil of secrecy. Despite evidence that suggests their prevalent use, countries like Australia, the U.K,. and Canada are refusing to even acknowledge their existence — making it impossible to hold an informed debate.⁴

       But the use of Stingrays by police forces around the globe is slowly being revealed. In the U.S., the NYPD recently admitted it has used Stingrays over 1000 times.⁵ We know they’re also being used in other countries including France, Germany, and Australia.^6,7,8

        Experts are challenging this new bulk surveillance and adding your voice will give them the leverage they need to succeed — will you speak up right now, and help us put a stop to Stingray surveillance?

We can’t afford to wait until Stingray use is too widespread to stop. We have to act now.

       Stingrays have been under the radar for too long. It’s time for us to speak out and demand decision-makers put a stop to irresponsible Stingray surveillance.

Thank you for speaking up for our digital privacy,

Laura, on behalf of your OpenMedia team

     P.S. We need your help to ensure that law-makers act quickly, by showing that we have a groundswell of support to make action happen. Will you take action NOW?

Footnotes

[1] What is a Stingray and why should I care? Source: OpenMedia
[2],[3] The Secret Surveillance Catalogue. Source: The Intercept
[4] Phone Hackers: Britain's Secret Surveillance. Source: Vice
[5] NYPD has used Stingrays more than 1,000 times since 2008. Source: NYCLU
[6] France has adopted in July 2015 the possibility for the intelligence services to use IMSI Catchers with a very weak oversight. Source: Re/code
[7] Behind the curve: When will the UK stop pretending IMSI catchers don't exist? Source: Privacy International.
[8] Special investigation: Bugged, tracked, hacked. Source: Channel 9

More on Stingray HERE:

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Joining Acts To Words.

          Today we live in a world of multifaceted wars, there is the global war of the oppressors against the oppressed, then there are those wars between oppressors. These latter wars are the most bloody and destructive, as states destroy cities, towns and villages, killing millions, and washing the land in rivers of blood. All this destruction, blood and fury, in an attempt to be the dominant oppressor on the planet.
          The war of the oppressor against the oppressed is all encompassing, it affects the entire world's population of ordinary people. It is an ongoing daily war, to extract as much bounty from the people as is humanly possible. More and more the oppressed are organising and fighting back against this brutal exploitation, and the oppressors are feeling the pain. In an attempt to keep control of this rising hatred of the oppressor, we are seeing our societies becoming more militarised. Here in the supposedly democratic and free opulent West, we feel increase legislation, the tightening of security, the increase in surveillance, the presence of guns at airports and elsewhere. All this is to to create a garrison in defence of the corporate world's domination over our lives. It is not there to protect the people, it is there to protect commerce and property.
          This massive increase in militarisation is delivered with an instruction label that tries to make it easily digestible and acceptable to the public at large, attempting to make it appear as a good government's duty of care. However, even the most subservient mind is beginning to feel the noose tighten around their world. This tightening will continue as long as we tolerate the present economic system. We can start by refusing to fight in the wars between oppressors, and join the army of those who fight the oppressors.

 

 

       Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.

Read the full article HERE: 

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