Archive for the 'Surveillance' Category
Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says
April 21st, 2009Chinese newspeak. Via: New York Times: “Ma,” a Chinese character for horse, is the 13th most common family name in China, shared by nearly 17 million people. That can cause no end of confusion when Mas get together, especially if those Mas also share the same given name, as many Chinese do. Ma Cheng’s book-loving […]
Phoenix: Radar Camera Employee Murdered
April 21st, 2009Via: Arizona Republic: It has come under attack from protesters, politicians and even a pickax-wielding resident, but sentiment against Arizona’s photo-enforcement program had not turned to bloodshed until Sunday night. Doug Georgianni, 51, of Cave Creek, was shot and killed while sitting in a van alongside the highway and monitoring cameras that snap photos of […]
NSA Wiretap Recorded Jane Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC; Gonzales Intervened
April 20th, 2009The most remarkable thing, in my opinion, is that everyone concerned was talking about this stuff over the phone?! But wait for it… Alberto Gonzales intervened. Oh man, this is fantastic. True bipartisanship! Via: Congressional Quarterly: Rep. Jane Harman, the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap […]
Raytheon Will Run Narus Insight on Government Networks
April 17th, 2009This is mainly a thought criminal detection system for people who work for the government. Yes, it also does traffic management, but Narus has the biggest stick in the playground when it comes to surveillance. Their Semantic Traffic Analysis technology is a purpose built hardware and software package designed for real time operations on the […]
NSA’s Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress
April 16th, 2009Captain Obvious, is that you? Via: New York Times: The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, according to government officials. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, […]
White House Approves Costly, New Spy Satellites
April 8th, 2009Via: Houston Chronicle: The Obama administration on Tuesday approved the purchase of pricey new spy satellites and will buy more commercial imagery from the private sector to plug immediate gaps in satellite coverage. … Defense giant Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, Md., is almost certain to win the secret multibillion-dollar contract for the two new high-altitude […]
New and Worse Secrecy and Immunity Claims from the Obama DOJ
April 7th, 2009Via: Salon: When Congress immunized telecoms last August for their illegal participation in Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, Senate Democratic apologists for telecom immunity repeatedly justified that action by pointing out that Bush officials who broke the law were not immunized — only the telecoms. Here, for instance, is how Sen. Jay Rockefeller justified telecom immunity […]
Ahead of G20 Summit, Council Told to Switch Off Illegal CCTV Network
March 31st, 2009Via: Guardian: The security operation at this week’s G20 summit was thrown into chaos last night when it emerged that the entire network of central London’s wireless CCTV cameras will have to be turned off because of a legal ruling. The Department for Transport (DfT) has ruled that Westminster council’s mobile road cameras – a […]
British Government Wants to Install “Communication Box” to Track Vehicles Across Europe
March 31st, 2009Via: Guardian: The government is backing a project to install a “communication box” in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal. Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant “heartbeat” revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will […]
Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries
March 29th, 2009You don’t find this out by reading the New York Times piece below, but in The Snooping Dragon: Social-Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement we read the following: The OHHDLstarted to suspect it was under surveillance while setting up meetings between His Holiness and foreign dignitaries. They sent an email invitation on behalf of His […]
