Fascism

The American Surveillance State Is Here. Can It Be Evaded?

"On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Erected in secret, without any public input, these surveillance programs amount to an electronic concentration camp which houses every single person in the United States today." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe American Surveillance State Is Here. Can It Be Evaded?

European Court Backs Journalist Harassed Over Speed Camera Criticism

"Ilze Nagla's prime-time Sunday television news program infuriated the Ministry of the Interior with coverage of the bungled photo enforcement procurement that became a national scandal. The government wanted details of the contract to operate 160 speed cameras to be kept secret. The deal was handed to the German firm Vitronic, which would take a 35 percent cut of the tickets. At 9:30pm on May 11, 2010, Nagla's home was ransacked by a plain-clothes police officer who pushed his way through her door. Two other officers joined in the search of her residence, taking her laptop, hard drives, memory cards and flash drives." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEuropean Court Backs Journalist Harassed Over Speed Camera Criticism

A History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information Technology Sector

"Not only does it deny consumers more and better products and services, but they also may pay higher prices or higher taxes extracted by the corporate-government agreement. Moreover, economic growth slows as entrepreneurs pursue unproductive influence and capture activities rather than productive entrepreneurship. Cronyism also raises the specter of greater government control of the Internet and of the digital economy more generally. When policymakers dispense favors, they usually expect something in return. They may also become accustomed to having greater informal powers over the sector receiving favors." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information Technology Sector

Dr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Calls For NSA To Be Abolished

"Engineers and researchers like Bonneau have a unique and important role to play in fighting back against NSA oversteps. As Michael Hirsh noted in the Atlantic last month, tech companies have contributed enormously to wiring up Big Brother -- companies like Palantir Technologies, Eagle Alliance (of Computer Sciences Corp. and Northrup Grumman) and Booz Allen Hamilton. The only way the government gets to spy on everyone is when people who are intelligent and innovative enough to build scalable surveillance technologies decide to help them. Hopefully Bonneau’s example will inspire more cryptographers and security engineers to speak out." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Calls For NSA To Be Abolished

Oklahoma prosecutors return $21,227 more to Interstate 40 travelers

"District Attorney Jason Hicks agreed Thursday to return the funds in the three cases, dropping efforts to have the money forfeited to law enforcement use. Hicks is under fire for hiring a private company, Desert Snow LLC, to assist in his drug interdiction effort. After hiring the Guthrie company in January, his task force seized more than $1 million in the stops, mostly along a 21-mile stretch of I-40 in Caddo County. Hicks agreed to pay the company 25 percent of all forfeited proceeds from stops involving its trainers. Hicks said he does not plan to return nearly $850,000 seized in one stop in May. No one was arrested in that stop." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOklahoma prosecutors return $21,227 more to Interstate 40 travelers

Chris Martenson: Bankers Own the World – And are ultimately destroying it

"It wasn't that many decades ago that a list of the top companies with the most wealth and influence would have been dominated by companies that produced real, tangible products – that is, those that created wealth by adding value to goods by transforming resources into products. Companies like GE, GM, IBM, Exxon, and other industrial giants would have been the wealthiest, because, well, they create actual wealth. Today the top fifty companies in the 'super-entity' list of 147 from the above study is concerning. Out of the fifty, 17 are banks, 31 are an assortment of investment, insurance, and financial services companies, and only 2 are non-financial companies." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingChris Martenson: Bankers Own the World – And are ultimately destroying it

Pentagon to deploy huge blimps over Washington, DC for 360-degree surveillance

"A pair of high-tech Army blimps is coming to the greater Washington, DC area, and soon they will be able to provide the military with surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada. The airships are part of Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they’ll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls 'an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system' that relies on 'a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPentagon to deploy huge blimps over Washington, DC for 360-degree surveillance

Senator Wyden Warns Against the Surveillance State

"There are only two limitations to the growth of the surveillance state: practical and economic. From a practical standpoint, just who is going to sort through the nearly immeasurably large amount of data being collected? At present, as smart as computers are, and as sophisticated as the software that drives them is, it ultimately is going to take a human being to find the dangerous needle in thousands of haystacks. The manpower required to do that is incomprehensibly large and infinitely costly. The second limitation is economic: at some point deficits will become so large that funding them through debt will no longer be an option." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSenator Wyden Warns Against the Surveillance State

Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash

"On Wednesday, the house voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 'no' voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 'yes' voters. The investigation shows that defense cash was a better predictor of a member’s vote on the Amash amendment than party affiliation. House members who voted to continue the massive phone-call-metadata spy program, on average, raked in 122 percent more money from defense contractors than those who voted Wednesday to dismantle it." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash

Iowa Judge Rescues Sioux City Speed Camera Program

"The state of Iowa wants speed cameras off its freeways, but a local magistrate has other ideas. Woodbury County District Court Judge Jeffrey L. Poulson intervened and ordered Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia to continue issuing tickets until further notice. An expedited hearing is scheduled for Friday to decide whether the ticketing will be allowed permanently. IDOT District Engineer Tony G. Lazarowicz ordered the city to remove the cameras from a construction zone on Interstate 29 after city staff rejected more polite requests during the year. City officials are terrified of losing the revenue generated by the 29,697 tickets Redflex was able to issue last year." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIowa Judge Rescues Sioux City Speed Camera Program