Orwellian

UK Information Commissioner Blasts License Plate Readers

"The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on Wednesday ordered a review of Hertfordshire Constabulary's use of the technology in Royston, the first town in England to adopt the technology. All six possible routes into and out of the town are covered by license plate cameras creating what police like to call a 'ring of steel.' The system keeps a log of the movements of all automobiles, something the commissioner found unnecessary. 'It is difficult to see why a small rural town such as Royston, requires cameras monitoring all traffic in and out of the town 24 hours a day,' ICO enforcement chief Stephen Eckersley said in a statement." Continue reading →

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TSA: Give Us Fingerprints, Web History and You Can Keep Your Shoes On

"In order to participate in the ‘PreCheck’ TSA program, you will need to allow them to reach down into the proverbial pants of your personal life as well. Under PreCheck, you are required to not only present your fingerprints to the TSA in person and pay a fee of $85, but the agency is also looking to gather all forms of your data as well — which reports state includes your web history and online data. With the help of a third party organization, the TSA seeks to ‘pre-screen’ (think pre-crime) individuals based on their activity in order to determine if they are worthy of bypassing the most minimal of security checkpoints." Continue reading →

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Plan To Defund NSA Phone Collection Program Defeated

"A controversial proposal to restrict how the National Security Agency collects telephone records failed to advance by a narrow margin Wednesday, a victory for the Obama administration, which has spent weeks defending the program since media leaks sparked international outrage about the agency’s reach. Lawmakers voted 217 to 205 to defeat the proposal. Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who as head of the House rarely votes on legislation, voted against the amendment." Continue reading →

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Japanese companies using ‘banishment rooms’ to push employees to resign

"While business circles are trying to make it smoother and easier for companies to let go of employees (with full benefits of course) they feel lack initiative and drive and are not a good fit, it’s having a reverse effect on employers. Those who want to fire certain workers but cannot bring themselves to do so are using 'banishment rooms' to indirectly force them to resign on their own. Basically, banishment rooms are departments where companies transfer surplus employees and give them menial or useless tasks or even nothing to do until they become depressed or disheartened enough to quit on their own, thus not getting full benefits, unlike if they were actually let go." Continue reading →

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How Putin Uses Money Laundering Charges to Control His Opponents

"The crux of Putin's ability to punish dissenters revolves around Russia's financial intelligence unit, Rosfinmonitoring. Putin created Rosfinmonitoring--under the direct control of the president and placed it in the charge of a fiercely loyal subordinate, Viktor Zubkov (also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the natural gas and oil giant Gazprom). Rosfinmonitoring, and the laws criminalizing money laundering (Russian Federal Law No. 115-FZ ), were established on the recommendation of the U.S. and European powers, who sought to institutionalize a global anti-money laundering regime in the 1990's and early 2000's." Continue reading →

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TV station uses copyright law to erase embarrassing broadcast

"A San Francisco Bay Area television station that became world famous for a humiliating gaffe during a news broadcast about a deadly plane crash is apparently trying to erase the event through copyright law. While Campbell and the station quickly issued an apology, that did not stop clips of the broadcast from flooding video-sharing sites and social networks. But the Fox TV affiliate has arrived at a novel solution to its embarrassing moment: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires Web sites to remove copyrighted material at the copyright holder's request." Continue reading →

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Democrat seeks to defund Obama’s expansive war powers

"Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) amendment would prohibit the use of funds pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) effective on December 31, 2014. The Bush and Obama administrations have used the AUMF as a legal justification for vast electronic surveillance and targeted drone strikes against suspected terrorists. The AUMF has also been used to deploy troops to various countries — including Ethiopia, Djibouti, Georgia, Kenya, Somalia, and Yemen — and justify indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay." Continue reading →

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Federal report: E-Verify errors could wrongly exclude Americans from jobs

"Reports published by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reveal that the so-called E-Verify programme, which allows employers to check whether new workers are properly documented, is so inaccurate that if replicated across the country it could wrongfully exclude more than 200,000 people from the workforce. With more than one in 10 employers using E-Verify to weed out applicants before making a job offer, the potential for abuse is greatly increased. It is possible for applicants to be turned away from a post without ever finding out that they have been wrongly flagged as unauthorised on the database." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFederal report: E-Verify errors could wrongly exclude Americans from jobs

US tech firms say they are losing business over NSA surveillance

"Revelations about the US government’s vast data collection programs have already started hurting American technology firms, according to an industry survey released this week. The Cloud Security Alliance said 10 percent of its non-US members have cancelled a contract with a US-based cloud provider, and 56 percent said they were less likely to use an American company. In the survey, 36 percent of US firms polled said the revelations would make it more difficult for their company to do business outside the United States, while 64 percent said it would not." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS tech firms say they are losing business over NSA surveillance