http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-06/guest-post-drones-america-they-are-already-here
Guest Post: Drones In America? They are Already Here...
Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of the most important organizations we have in America today. While most of the country lays fast asleep to the dangers of the encroaching surveillance state, the EFF is always vigilantly at work on the front lines. In their latest article, they show that military drones are already flying all over these United States and, using information received from a FOIA lawsuit they provide important details on what is flying and where. You may be shocked at some of their conclusions. From the EFF:
These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and—for the first time—three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
The records show that the Air Force has been testing out a bunch of different drone types, from the smaller, hand-launched Raven, Puma and Wasp drones designed by Aerovironment in Southern California, to the much larger Predator and Reaper drones responsible for civilian and foreign military deaths abroad. The Marine Corps is also testing drones, though it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don’t know much about its programs.
Perhaps the scariest is the technology carried by a Reaper drone the Air Force is flying near Lincoln, Nevada and in areas of California and Utah. This drone uses “Gorgon Stare” technology, which Wikipedia defines as “a spherical array of nine cameras attached to an aerial drone . . . capable of capturing motion imagery of an entire city.” This imagery “can then be analyzed by humans or an artificial intelligence, such as the Mind’s Eye project” being developed by DARPA. If true, thistechnology takes surveillance to a whole new level.
While LIDAR can be used to create high-resolution images of the earth’s surface, it is also used in high tech police speed guns—begging the question of whether drones will soon be used for minor traffic violations.
However, once again, the records do not show that the FAA had any concerns about drone flights’ impact on privacy and civil liberties. This is especially problematic when drone programs like Otter Tail’s appear on first glance to be benign but later turn out to support the same problematic law enforcement uses that EFF has been increasingly concerned about.It’s been over a year and a half since we first filed our FOIA request with the FAA, and we’re still waiting for more than half of the agency’s drone records. This is unacceptable.
Like with any new technology, drones can be put to good use or to evil use. Just like nuclear power can harness energy or destroy humanity altogether, drones could do a lot of good, but the problem is that the government is clearly moving more and more towards a surveillance state so we must be extra careful. Stay vigilant.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/newly-released-drone-records-reveal-extensive-military-flights-us
Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in US
http://www.infowars.com/sheriffs-crowd-control-spy-drone-suspended-after-privacy-uproar/
Sheriff’s ‘Crowd Control’ Spy Drone Suspended After Privacy Uproar
Last minute protests prevent drone purchase
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Dec 5, 2012
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Dec 5, 2012
A county Sheriff’s department in California that planned to buy and operate a surveillance drone has been forced to suspend the idea, and possibly scrap it altogether after privacy advocates fought tooth and nail in opposition.
The Oakland Tribune reports that the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in earlier this week to prevent the Alameda County Sheriff’s office from acquiring the drone using grant money from the California Emergency Management Agency.
“…the Sheriff’s Office was asking the supervisors on Tuesday to approve a $31,646 grant to help pay for a drone, indicating that the department was far closer to acquisition than they had led the public to believe.” the newspaper reports.
As County supervisors prepared to vote on accepting the grant money Tuesday, ACLU attorney Linda Lye said that the proposal would pave the way for police “spying,” adding that the sheriff is “not taking privacy issues seriously.”
The latest protests, following months of sustained opposition from civil rights attorneys and anti-drone activists including The Electronic Frontier Foundation, prompted the sheriff’s department and County board supervisors to rethink and postpone the plan.
Undersheriff Richard Lucia told supervisors that the department will wait until the plan has been “fully vetted publicly” and explicit authorization has been provided to proceed with the drone purchase.
Describing the inclusion of the drone plan on the agenda of the regular board meeting as “an oversight”, Lucia said that the $31,646 in grant money would either be sent back to Cal EMA or be used for something else should supervisors block the drone acquisition.
The Sheriff’s department wants to become the first law enforcement agency in the state to officially deploy technology previously used to hunt insurgents in Afghanistan.
Sheriff Gregory Ahern of Alameda County says he wants a 4-foot wing span, 4-pound drone, armed with a live camera.
Despite official assurances that the drone would only be used for search and rescue efforts, the Sheriff has previously suggested that the drone could be used to hunt for marijuana farms, and “track suspects with guns,” referring to such operations as “proactive policing.”
The device can also be fitted with thermal imaging devices that would allow police to see inside buildings, as well as license plate readers and laser radar.
An internal memo from the Sheriff’s Office dated July 20 also indicated that the department identified uses for the drone, including monitoring barricaded suspects, investigative and tactical surveillance, intelligence gathering, tracking suspicious persons and overseeing large crowd control disturbances.
After Congress passed the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization earlier this year, requiring the FAA to permit the operation of drones weighing 25 pounds or less, observers predicted that anything up to 30,000 spy drones could be flying in U.S. skies by 2020.
As we reported in October, the Department of Homeland Security announced in a solicitation that it would be testing small spy drones at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, signaling that the devices will be used for “public safety” applications in the near future.
Much larger drones are already being used in law enforcement operations across the country. The most infamous case involved the Brossart family in North Dakota, who were targeted for surveillance with a Predator B drone last year after six missing cows wandered onto their land. Police had already used the drone, which is based at Grand Forks Air Force Base, on two dozen occasions beforehand.
Police departments are also attempting to get approval to use surveillance blimps that hover over cities and watch for “suspicious activity.”
The U.S. Army recently tested a football field-sized blimp over the city of New Jersey. The blimp can fly for a period of 21 hours and “is equipped with high-tech sensors that can monitor insurgents from above.”
Recently released FAA documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that the FAA gave the green light for surveillance drones to be used in U.S. skies despite the fact that during the FAA’s own tests the drones crashed numerous times even in areas of airspace where no other aircraft were flying.
The documents illustrate how the drones pose a huge public safety risk, contradicting a recent coordinated PR campaign on behalf of the drone industry which sought to portray drones as safe, reliable and privacy-friendly.
Infowars.com is announcing the first ever drone mob event on Saturday, December 8, 2012 at Zilker Park, 2100 Barton Springs Road, in Austin, Texas.
and verizon going whole hog on spying on its customers - phones and your tv in their game plan.....
http://www.inquisitr.com/368043/verizon-to-start-spying-on-customers-to-improve-ad-selection/
Verizon Wireless will soon start spying on its customers.
The telecom giant recently updated its privacy policy, allowing the company to share more data with advertisers, and several customers have equated the change with spying.
Verizon said:
“A local restaurant may want to advertise only to people who live within 10 miles, and we might help deliver that ad on a website without sharing information that identifies you personally.”Getting customers connected with local businesses sounds like a good idea, but several people are concerned about Verizon’s spying practices. According to iDigital Times, the tracking function is enabled by default on Verizon phones.
If you don’t want to let Verizon use your data for marketing purposes, you can log into your account and go to Verizon’s privacy center. On that page, you should find a button that allows you to opt out of the program.
http://www.examiner.com/article/verizon-spying-on-customers-soon-learn-how-to-opt-out
Verizon is spying on its customers soon. The company recently updated its privacy policy to include language that amounts to sharing data with advertisers. Although Verizon certainly hasn't admitted that its planned actions are equal to spying, its customers are making that connection. According to an Oct. 18, 2012 report by Inquisitr, "Getting customers connected with local businesses sounds like a good idea, but several people are concerned about Verizon’s spying practices."
Why is Verizon spying on customers? The company wants to present its valued consumers with targeted advertisements based on its users' browsing history and physical location, which will be monitored via GPS. According to a Verizon statement, "A local restaurant may want to advertise only to people who live within 10 miles, and we might help deliver that ad on a website without sharing information that identifies you personally."
Fortunately, consumers do have a choice when it comes to this perceived invasion of privacy. Customers who don't want Verizon spying on them can simply visit www.vzw.com/myprivacy to update their privacy preferences.
And verizon will use your TV for following your conversations .... just to provide better ads ????? how dumb do they really think we are ????
Verizon Patents Eavesdropping Using Your TV For Ad Targeting
Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the 1984-was-not-a-design-manual dept.
from the 1984-was-not-a-design-manual dept.
MojoKid writes with news of the latest and greatest idea brought to you by a marketing department. From the article:"It's a patent that sounds like a plot description for a science-fiction movie or the result of Apple's Siri and Google's AdSense mating. With it, Verizon could program its set-top boxes to survey a room to determine relevant ads to display either on your television or mobile phone. Sound a bit scary? It kind of is. Verizon's new technology can work a variety of ways. For starters, it can listen in on conversations — whether it be with someone else in the room or on the phone — and pick out keywords that would aid it in its duties. In reality, it's simple stuff in this day and age, but that doesn't make it any less off-putting. Imagine arguing with your significant other and then seeing marriage counseling ads on the TV — or better, cuddling and then seeing ads for contraceptives."
And as we point out at every opportunity, this is not some “post-9/11 reality”. Spying on Americans – and most of the other attacks on liberty – started before 9/11.
Senator Frank Church – who chaired the famous “Church Committee” into the unlawful FBI Cointel program, and who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – said in 1975:
Th[e National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. [If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A.] could enable it to impose total tyranny ….
We can debate whether or not dictators are running Washington. But one thing is clear: the capacity is already here.TechDirt points out:While the Stasi likely wanted more info and would have loved to have been able to tap into a digitally connected world like we have today, that just wasn’t possible.That’s true. The tyrants in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Stasi Eastern Europe would have liked to eavesdrop on every communication and every transaction of every citizen. But in the world before the internet, smart phones, electronic medical records and digital credit card transactions, much of what happened behind closed doors remained private.(And modern tin pot dictators don’t have the tens of billions of dollars necessary to set up a sophisticated electronic spying system).In modern America, a much higher percentage of your communications and transactions are being recorded and stored by the government.
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