Should Drones Be Used In American Airspace?

   Drones are becoming more and more a part of the way America does business – they have been used in modern day warfare to target those believed to be dangerous or a threat to the security of the United States, but very soon they will be a permanent fixture on America’s landscape. The FAA has been adopting new rules to expand the use of small drones domestically, and by 2013 UAVs are expected to dominate the country’s airspace. Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation brings his take on whether Americans should worry about what law enforcement is doing.

A polarizing debate is emerging over whether the unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as “drones,” should be allowed into U.S. airspace for use by local law enforcement and private businesses.

“No longer a tool used strictly by the military to take out terrorists overseas, drones of all shapes and sizes will soon be in our skies here at home for surveillance missions by local police departments, energy companies looking to build pipelines and farmers looking to feed thirsty crops,” CNET’s Jeff Glor reported Wednesday.

Drone technology may already be a billion-dollar industry, but as Ryan Gallagher blogged Tuesday for Slate, “One of the most significant barriers the industry faces is undoubtedly public opposition. There are critics on all sides of the political spectrum. In the United States, that includes not only campaign groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, but also libertarian Fox News firebrands.”

An industry trade group aimed to preempt the growing controversy by releasing the first-ever code of conduct for the operation of drone aircraft earlier this week. “The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said Monday that the recommendations for ‘safe, non-intrusive operation’ are meant to guide operators and reassure a public leery of the possibility of spy drones flying undetected over their homes,” Kevin Begos wrote for the Associated Press.

But as CBS News reported, the dialogue about domestic drone usage took an unexpected turn when news broke that a University of Texas professor and his students “were able to hack into (a civilian) drone’s GPS signals (and) later, in an exercise done in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security at White Sands, N.M., they were even able to make the drone land.”

ABC News columnist Lee Dye responded to the recent development and the security issues it inevitably raises by noting how soon drones are slated to dot American airspace: “There isn’t a lot of time to fix this problem. Congress has mandated that the Federal Aviation Administration come up with the rules to allow civilian drones in U.S. airspace by 2015. And after that, they could be everywhere.”

Wired’s Danger Room national security blog reported that the U.S. military is already operating 64 drone bases in America, with another 22 in the planning stages. (This map shows the Army is already operating drones out of Dugway, Utah, with plans in place for Special Operations Command to begin launching drones from Camp Williams at some future date.)

DRONES Over The U.S. – Maker wonders why people are so worried: http://youtu.be/CjdhqyUVFq8

Debate over use of drones in American airspace:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2183302850001/debate-over-use-of-drones-in-american-airspace/?playlist_id=938973798001

One-third of Americans fear drones — RT

One-third of Americans fear drones — RT.

21st Century Battlefield: Race Of Drones

21st Century Battlefield: Race Of Drones.

Professor: Drones Will Soon Be Able To Kill During War Without Human Assistance

Professor: Drones Will Soon Be Able To Kill During War Without Human Assistance.

Pentagon plans drone sales to 66 countries

One of several the US Navy’s Northrop Grumman MQ04C Broad Area Maritime Surveillance(BAMS) Unmanned Aircraft Systems(UAS) is seen in a hangar July 31, 2012 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. (AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)

TAGS: Accident, USA, War, Planes

 

The use of drones might be raising questions within the United States, but overseas the demand is mounting. The US Defense Departments says they are preparing to make unmanned aerial vehicles commercially available to 66 outside nations.

If approved by Congress and the US State Department, the Pentagon could soon be peddling the remote-controlled war machines that have become a hallmark of America’s overseas wars to dozens of its allies. It’s a not deal that’s likely to be cut without a sound, however, as the use of UAVs has become one of the most debated issues regarding the US military at home.

Last year, however, the DoD put together a list of 66 countries they hope they will be cleared to sell drones too, and today the Defense Department says they are just as eager as ever to get the ball rolling.

Countless watchdog groups have condemned the use of drones, calling the aircraft responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians. As recently as this past weekend, a US-led drone strike in Yemen was reported to cause fatalities for no fewer than 13 civilians. Even so, adding UAVs to the wish-lists of other countries could be a consideration favored by much of Washington, especially those who have feared than planned budget cuts will nix billions from the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade.

Last year, US weapons exports amounted $66.3 billion worth of deals thanks to sales to the States’ allies, the largest figure ever to come through arms sales. Just last month, a Congressional Research Service report claimed that 2011 was “the highest single year agreements total in the history of the US arms export program,” and that trend could very well carry over, especially if UAVs are added to the list of inventory available to the allies.

To Reuters on Wednesday, Northrop Grumman Corp CEO Wes Bush says that the Obama White House is working to make it easier for his company and others to deal drones as part of their international arms exchange, but roadblocks remain in place, regardless.

“I wish we were further along in getting that done. It’s slow, it’s painful, but we’re doing the right things to move in that direction,” Bush tells Reuters.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency deputy director, Richard Genaille, told attendees at the ComDef 2012 conference, ”We don’t really have a comprehensive U.S. government policy” on drone exports, but one was indeed in the works.

“It hasn’t moved quite as fast as we would like, but we’re not giving up,” Genaille said.

In May, Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the state-run Anadolu Agency that the White House has expressed a “positive stance” over the sale of UAVs, and “They are trying to convince the Congress” before an agreement is made.

Last month, the US-based marketing firm Teal Group estimated that “UAV spending will almost double over the next decade from current worldwide UAV expenditures of $6.6 billion annually to $11.4 billion, totaling just over $89 billion in the next ten years.”

The Dangers Of Big Brother Recording Your Every Move

http://www.theblaze.com

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Recent doomsday reports alluding to an extensive government spying network and a fictional scenario in which domestic insurrection was crushed by the military have created a wealth of media hype and speculation, but they also raise valid questions of how to address these civil liberties issues before they become a reality.

Experts are saying the advanced surveillance systems revealed recently by Wikileaks isn’t quite as pervasive as reports might have you believe — yet. And an extremist uprising scenario posed by the Small Wars Journal is merely a work of fiction — for now.

Still, both are possibilities that these experts say should be taken seriously and evaluated in terms of the philosophical and legal challenges that technological advances will present for the government and law enforcement.

The debate was stoked recently by the Small Wars Journal with a report on July 25 assessing how the U.S. may need to prepare for domestic challenges such as “extremist militia motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement” taking over a South Carolina town, requiring military intervention to quash the uprising.

The scaremongering continued last week with a report by Wikileaks, claiming to have the scoop on “Trapwire” – an extensive system of surveillance software — complete with allegedly leaked emails that could lead one to believe the government had access to a host of spying cameras across the nation.

But just how concerned should you be about TrapWire’s facial recognition technology and the potential for Big Brother recording your every move? TheBlaze spoke with technology and military experts about TrapWire and the feasibility of surveillance technology such as this monitoring to the extent that has been speculated.

As a bit of background, Friday afternoon, TheBlaze reported Wikileaks had unleashed news of a surveillance program that used equipment “more accurate than modern facial recognition technology.”

This technology by the Virginia-based company TrapWire is meant to track suspicious activity at high-profile locations, which range from military bases to the White House to casinos and hotels in Las Vegas. The emails and several media reports allege that through this technology the “U.S. government is secretly spying on everyone,” as the Daily Mail put it.

A screenshot of the Virginia-based company TrapWire’s website.
Scot MacTaggart, the regional director of PSX, Inc., who heads up security engineering for the property surveillance company, said he considers the emails regarding TrapWire’s technology overhyped “marketing-speak.”
MacTaggart said facial recognition technology is still largely a failure that is only 60-7o percent accurate. This lack of accuracy, he said, is not good enough for serious applications of the technology.

“I find it hard to believe they could radically improve the facial recognition technology,” MacTaggart said, citing the fact that the idea has been around for decades and still isn’t being used in many applications.

He also noted the extreme bandwidth that would be needed to transfer the large amount of data picked up by the cameras and the need for a “tremendous” data center to store it. Ray Cavanagh, a vice president for the firm Crescent Guardian, Inc., expressed similar thoughts and said managing the amount of data would be “unfathomable.”

“Where would a respository of data like this sit?” Cavanagh said, also noting that he too considered facial recognition software still in its infancy. “Even if there were one, it would have to be updated continually.”

Dan Stynchula, a consultant for AEgis Technology Group, also said that he realizes the facial recognition technology isn’t perfect, but he believes the data center to house this information could very well be one owned by the government.

A data center large enough to store all this, Stynchula speculates is the one under construction by the National Security Agency in Utah. Although he acknowledges this is assumptive, he calls it an “informed hypothetical.”

Where does Stynchula think storage of this information could lead?

“A system like this could generate a large stream of revenue,” he said, pointing out that constant surveillance could record a variety of offenses, identify the person via facial recognition and send them a fine in the mail.

But looking down the road, the infrastructure set up to monitor people becomes more disconcerting, Stynchula said, when you think of changing views toward protection of civil liberties. He noted that with centers storing this data, it could open the door for retrospective prosecution.

On the other hand, Cavanagh said for those who are concerned about privacy from surveillance technology, “I would ask them if they’ve ever shopped online.” He points out that people were concerned about privacy with regard to online shopping as well but now many use it.

“People need to recognize that technology is not the evil here,” Cavanagh said. “Can technology be used for evil purposes? Of course. Technology is not inherently evil though. We need to look at how we can harness it to make the world a better place.”

Overall, Stynchula said these reports at least serve the purpose of starting the conversation in society.

“Where do we as a society want to draw the line?” Stynchula questioned. “What will we allow these agencies to do outside the Constitution?”

With regard to the fictional scenario of extremists taking over in South Carolina, this was presented in an article published in the well-respected Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.”

The authors are retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas.

The article imagines a extreme members of the Tea Party taking control of Darlington, S.C. in May 2016, “occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council and placing the mayor under house arrest.” The rebels also set up checkpoints on Interstate 95 and Interstate 20 patrolling for people in the United States illegally.

The article has been criticized by many. The Washington Times, for example, called it a “cartoonish and needlessly provocative scenario“ that ”is a choppy patchwork of doctrinal jargon and liberal nightmare.”

Sill, combining this fictional scenario with the recent leak regarding TrapWire, the government having a network in place to sense civil unrest before a situation like this were to take place seems to go hand-in-hand.

Brandon Webb who operates the website SOFREP (the Special Operations Forces Report) and is a former Navy SEAL told TheBlaze setting up systems like this to thwart terrorist attacks are a valid necessity, provided “strict privacy laws that prohibit the unauthorized spying on American citizens” are followed.

In terms of a civil uprising, here’s what Webb wrote:

I think that there is a legitimate concern that an “Occupy” type of movement could gain serious traction and there are some in government who worry that it will not be quite as peaceful. The article in the Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future.” talks about civilian insurrection and a military response.

This is very troubling to hear as a citizen and veteran who has served in combat to protect civil liberties. Especially concerning is that SOFREP has received and confirmed anonymous reports that the U.S. Military and Private Military Companies (PMC’s) were used offensively during the Katrina disaster and riots. This is unacceptable in my view.

He continued saying that while the government “needs to wake up and smell the unrest,” it needs to look at why people are unhappy and start taking care of people’s concerns.” He said, if “we ignore this too long … we’ll have our own version of the Arab Spring, albeit a more peaceful “Tea Party version, I imagine.”

Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know – Drones: Part 2

Published on Jul 20, 2012 by HowStuffWorks

Drones, Part 2: Drones Go Domestic

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have changed the nature of war. But where are they flying, and what are they doing? The answers might surprise you. Tune in to learn the Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know about drones in the second part of this series.

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http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-they-dont-want-you-to/

 

 

 

Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know – Drones: Part 1

Drones, Part 1: Targeted Killings

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, have fundamentally changed the nature of warfare. But who controls them? What are they doing, and why? Tune in to learn more Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know about drones.

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http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-they-dont-want-you-to/

 

Boeing to Market Israeli UAVs

Israel’s Elbit Systems soars in the international market with a new agreement with Boeing to market the company’s Hermes UAVs.

 IsraelNationalNews

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 7/11/2012, 9:18 AM

Hermes 900

Elbit

Israel’s Elbit Systems has soared into the international market with a new agreement with Boeing to market the company’s Hermes UAVs, American military and defense media reported Monday.

The companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the Farnborough Air Show in London. The agreement covers marketing and sales of Elbit’s Hermes 450 and 900 UAS product lines.

The agreement gives Elbit a long-desired stronger foothold in the U.S. market.

Its Hermes 450 UAV are exported to several countries, including Britain, Singapore, Georgia and Brazil. It also is a principle part of the IDF’s counterterrorist operations.

The larger Hermes 900 can carry larger payloads for extended missions and is often used for ground support and maritime patrol missions.  “This partnership further expands and enhances Boeing’s longstanding relationship with Elbit Systems to include unmanned products,” said Debbie Rub, Boeing Missiles and Unmanned Airborne Systems vice president and general manager.

She said the Hermes UAVs will help Boeing supply needs by the United States and its allies.

Boeing and Elbit recently announced other strategic agreements relating to advanced fighter avionics and long-term cooperation providing helmet-mounted display sights for all Boeing’s fighter planes.

Boeing earlier this year chose Elbit’s Brazilian subsidiary to provide large cockpit displays for the F-15 and the F-18 fighters.

14 Incredibly Creepy Surveillance Technologies That Big Brother Will Be Using To Spy On You

Posted by truther

Most of us don’t think much about it, but the truth is that people are being watched, tracked and monitored more today than at any other time in human history.  The explosive growth of technology in recent years has given governments, spy agencies and big corporations monitoring tools that the despots and dictators of the past could only dream of.  Previous generations never had to deal with “pre-crime” surveillance cameras that use body language to spot criminals or unmanned drones watching them from far above.  Previous generations would have never even dreamed that street lights and refrigerators might be spying on them.  Many of the incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that you are about to read about are likely to absolutely astound you.  We are rapidly heading toward a world where there will be no such thing as privacy anymore.  Big Brother is becoming all-pervasive, and thousands of new technologies are currently being developed that will make it even easier to spy on you.  The world is changing at a breathtaking pace, and a lot of the changes are definitely not for the better.

The following are 14 incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that Big Brother will be using to watch you….

#1 “Pre-Crime” Surveillance Cameras

A company known as BRS Labs has developed “pre-crime” surveillance cameras that can supposedly determine if you are a terrorist or a criminal even before you commit a crime.

Does that sound insane?

Well, authorities are taking this technology quite seriously.  In fact, dozens of these cameras are being installed at major transportation hubs in San Francisco….

In its latest project BRS Labs is to install its devices on the transport system in San Francisco, which includes buses, trams and subways.

The company says will put them in 12 stations with up to 22 cameras in each, bringing the total number to 288.

The cameras will be able to track up to 150 people at a time in real time and will gradually build up a ‘memory’ of suspicious behaviour to work out what is suspicious.

#2 Capturing Fingerprints From 20 Feet Away

Can you imagine someone reading your fingerprints from 20 feet away without you ever knowing it?

This kind of technology is actually already here according to POPSCI….

Gaining access to your gym or office building could soon be as simple as waving a hand at the front door. A Hunsville, Ala.-based company called IDair is developing a system that can scan and identify a fingerprint from nearly 20 feet away. Coupled with other biometrics, it could soon allow security systems to grant or deny access from a distance, without requiring users to stop and scan a fingerprint, swipe an ID card, or otherwise lose a moment dealing with technology.

Currently IDair’s primary customer is the military, but the startup wants to open up commercially to any business or enterprise that wants to put a layer of security between its facilities and the larger world. A gym chain is already beta testing the system (no more using your roommate’s gym ID to get in a free workout), and IDair’s founder says that at some point his technology could enable purchases to be made biometrically, using fingerprints and irises as unique identifiers rather than credit card numbers and data embedded in magnetic strips or RFID chips.

#3 Mobile Backscatter Vans

Police all over America will soon be driving around in unmarked vans looking inside your cars and even under your clothes using the same “pornoscanner” technology currently being utilized by the TSA at U.S. airports….

American cops are set to join the US military in deploying American Science & Engineering’s Z Backscatter Vans, or mobile backscatter radiation x-rays. These are what TSA officials call “the amazing radioactive genital viewer,” now seen in airports around America, ionizing the private parts of children, the elderly, and you (yes you).

These pornoscannerwagons will look like regular anonymous vans, and will cruise America’s streets, indiscriminately peering through the cars (and clothes) of anyone in range of its mighty isotope-cannon. But don’t worry, it’s not a violation of privacy. As AS&E’s vice president of marketing Joe Reiss sez, “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be.”

You can see a YouTube video presentation about this new technology right here.

#4 Hijacking Your Mind

The U.S. military literally wants to be able to hijack your mind.  The theory is that this would enable U.S. forces to non-violently convince terrorists not to be terrorists anymore.  But obviously the potential for abuse with this kind of technology is extraordinary.  The following is from a recent article by Dick Pelletier….

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to understand the science behind what makes people violent, and then find ways to hijack their minds by implanting false, but believable stories in their brains, with hopes of evoking peaceful thoughts: We’re friends, not enemies.

Critics say this raises ethical issues such as those addressed in the 1971 sci-fi movie, A Clockwork Orange, which attempted to change people’s minds so that they didn’t want to kill anymore.

Advocates, however, believe that placing new plausible narratives directly into the minds of radicals, insurgents, and terrorists, could transform enemies into kinder, gentler citizens, craving friendship.

Scientists have known for some time that narratives; an account of a sequence of events that are usually in chronological order; hold powerful sway over the human mind, shaping a person’s notion of groups and identities; even inspiring them to commit violence. See DARPA proposal request HERE.

#5 Unmanned Drones In U.S. Airspace

Law enforcement agencies all over the United States are starting to use unmanned drones to spy on us, and the Department of Homeland Security is aggressively seeking to expand the use of such drones by local authorities….

The Department of Homeland Security has launched a program to “facilitate and accelerate the adoption” of small, unmanned drones by police and other public safety agencies, an effort that an agency official admitted faces “a very big hurdle having to do with privacy.”

The $4 million Air-based Technologies Program, which will test and evaluate small, unmanned aircraft systems, is designed to be a “middleman” between drone manufacturers and first-responder agencies “before they jump into the pool,” said John Appleby, a manager in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s division of borders and maritime security.

The fact that very few Americans seem concerned about this development says a lot about where we are as a nation.  The EPA is already using drones to spy on cattle ranchers in Nebraska and Iowa.  Will we eventually get to a point where we all just consider it to be “normal” to have surveillance drones flying above our heads constantly?

#6 Law Enforcement Using Your Own Cell Phone To Spy On You

Although this is not new technology, law enforcement authorities are using our own cell phones to spy on us more extensively than ever before as a recent Wired article described….

Mobile carriers responded to a staggering 1.3 million law enforcement requests last year for subscriber information, including text messages and phone location data, according to data provided to Congress.

A single “request” can involve information about hundreds of customers.  So ultimately the number of Americans affected by this could reach into “the tens of millions” each year….

The number of Americans affected each year by the growing use of mobile phone data by law enforcement could reach into the tens of millions, as a single request could ensnare dozens or even hundreds of people. Law enforcement has been asking for so-called “cell tower dumps” in which carriers disclose all phone numbers that connected to a given tower during a certain period of time.

So, for instance, if police wanted to try to find a person who broke a store window at an Occupy protest, it could get the phone numbers and identifying data of all protestors with mobile phones in the vicinity at the time — and use that data for other purposes.

Perhaps you should not be using your cell phone so much anyway.  After all, there are more than 500 studiesthat show that cell phone radiation is harmful to humans.

#7 Biometric Databases

All over the globe, governments are developing massive biometric databases of their citizens.  Just check out what is going on in India….

In the last two years, over 200 million Indian nationals have had their fingerprints and photographs taken and irises scanned, and given a unique 12-digit number that should identify them everywhere and to everyone.

This is only the beginning, and the goal is to do the same with the entire population (1.2 billion), so that poorer Indians can finally prove their existence and identity when needed for getting documents, getting help from the government, and opening bank and other accounts.

This immense task needs a database that can contain over 12 billion fingerprints, 1.2 billion photographs, and 2.4 billion iris scans, can be queried from diverse devices connected to the Internet, and can return accurate results in an extremely short time.

#8 RFID Microchips

In a previous article, I detailed how the U.S. military is seeking to develop technology that would enable it to monitor the health of our soldiers and improve their performance in battle using RFID microchips.

Most Americans don’t realize this, but RFID microchips are steadily becoming part of the very fabric of our lives.  Many of your credit cards and debit cards contain them.  Many Americans use security cards that contain RFID microchips at work.  In some parts of the country it is now mandatory to inject an RFID microchip into your pet.

Now, one school system down in Texas actually plans to start using RFID microchips to track the movements of their students….

Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.

District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students — and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.

#9 Automated License Plate Readers

In a previous article, I quoted a Washington Post piece that talked about how automated license plate readers are being used to track the movements of a vehicle from the time that it enters Washington D.C. to the time that it leaves….

More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.

With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

#10 Face Reading Software

Can computers tell what you are thinking just by looking at your face?

Don’t laugh.

Such technology is actually being actively developed.  The following is from a recent NewScientist article….

IF THE computers we stare at all day could read our faces, they would probably know us better than anyone.

That vision may not be so far off. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab are developing software that can read the feelings behind facial expressions. In some cases, the computers outperform people. The software could lead to empathetic devices and is being used to evaluate and develop better adverts.

#11 Data Mining

The government is not the only one that is spying on you.  The truth is that a whole host of very large corporations are gathering every shred of information about you that they possibly can and selling that information for profit.  It is called “data mining“, and it is an industry that has absolutely exploded in recent years.

One very large corporation known as Acxiom actually compiles information on more than 190 million people in the U.S. alone….

The company fits into a category called database marketing. It started in 1969 as an outfit called Demographics Inc., using phone books and other notably low-tech tools, as well as one computer, to amass information on voters and consumers for direct marketing. Almost 40 years later, Acxiom has detailed entries for more than 190 million people and 126 million households in the U.S., and about 500 million active consumers worldwide. More than 23,000 servers in Conway, just north of Little Rock, collect and analyze more than 50 trillion data ‘transactions’ a year.

#12 Street Lights Spying On Us?

Did you ever consider that street lights could be spying on you?

Well, it is actually happening.  New high tech street lights that can actually watch what you do and listen to what you are saying are being installed in some major U.S. cities.  The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com….

Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.

#13 Automated ISP Monitoring Of Your Internet Activity

As I have written about before, nothing you do on the Internet is private.  However, Internet Service Providers and the entertainment industry are now taking Internet monitoring to a whole new level….

If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration.

Spying On Us Through Our Appliances

Could the government one day use your refrigerator to spy on you?

Don’t laugh.

That is exactly what CIA Director David Petraeus says is coming….

Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will ‘transform’ the art of spying – allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.

‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,’ said Petraeus.

‘Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters -  all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.’

Petraeus was speaking to a venture capital firm about new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously  ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.

For many more ways that Big Brother is spying on you, please see these articles….

“Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You“

“30 Signs That The United States Of America Is Being Turned Into A Giant Prison“

The things that I have written about above are just the things that they admit to.

There are also many “black box technologies” being developed out there that the public does not even know about yet.

So how far will all of this go?

Has Big Brother already gone way too far?

Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below….

#theamericandream