DarkGovernment

UK Gets a Taste of American Eavesdropping

Plans for a massive expansion of ‘Big Brother’ state surveillance to cover every phone call, email, text message and internet visit in Britain were unveiled yesterday.

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed
that storing details of individuals’ communications was vital to prevent further terrorist atrocities.

Activities which will be subject to snooping for the first time include visits
to social networking sites such as Facebook, auction sites such as eBay, gaming websites and chatrooms.

Police and security services will not be
able to access the precise content but will know each site visited, and to whom and when a phone call, text message or email was sent.

If this sets alarm bells ringing, they could seek a Ministerial warrant to intercept exactly what is being sent, including the content.

The billions of pieces of data are likely
to be stored for a year or more. The cost
is estimated to be at least £1billion, and
could be far higher.

Last night MPs and privacy groups attacked the proposals as ‘Stalinist’, ‘Orwellian’ and a reversal of the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

One opponent said: ‘They are making us all suspects.’

A leaked memo written by sources close to the project revealed it was fraught with technical difficulties.

Officials are split between placing the vast amount of data to be collected on a huge central Government database or forcing service providers to store the information,
to be accessed on demand.

Currently, the option being worked on is to request data from the service providers, the memo reveals. They are likely to pass on extra costs to customers.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: ‘These proposals would mark a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain personal information on individuals.

‘Given the Government’s poor record on protecting data and running databases there
needs to be a full and proper debate.

‘The public will also be acutely aware of how, under this Government, surveillance powers designed to combat terrorism and serious organised crime have been used by local authorities to investigate things like fly-tipping. This would be absolutely unacceptable.’

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said: ‘The Government’s Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying.

‘Ministers claim the database will only be used in terrorist cases, but there is now a long list of cases from the arrest of Walter Wolfgang for heckling at a Labour conference to the freezing of Icelandic assets where anti-terrorism law has been
used for purposes for which it was not intended.

‘These proposals are incompatible with a free country and a free people.’

We’re watching you: An East German Stasi officer listens in on a couple in a scene from the Oscar-winning film The Lives Of Others. Jacqui Smith has unveiled plans for a massive expansion of state surveillance
Phil Booth, of the NO2ID privacy campaign, said: ‘This is the Stalinist vision which we always knew was on the agenda. Monitoring the entire population is a complete abhorrence, reversing the presumption of innocent until proven guilty and making us all suspects.’

But senior security and police services were adamant that, without the new powers, lives would be put at risk.

They said some investigations have already been affected by criminals who use technology to avoid detection, by plotting online through social networking sites or
interactive games.

‘Criminals are getting more sophisticated in using this technology and they are going to exploit it unless we do something,’ one source said.

Miss Smith yesterday admitted the public had reason to be concerned.

In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, she said: ‘Of course, even if there had not been events [data losses], the British public would have every right to be sceptical about a state activity that involves the collection of data.’

But she said that, without increasing their capacity to store data, the police and security services would have to consider a ‘massive expansion of surveillance’.

And she insisted: ‘There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the
phone or online.

‘Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through the database in the interests of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover
of counter-terrorist legislation.’
Source: Dailymail

See More: NSA Monitoring Capabilities

Tags: big brother, electronic surveillance, Jacqui Smith, NSA, spying, U.K., wiretapping

Big Brother Extends Reach in U.K.

A new generation of speed cameras that can track drivers for up to 30 miles and cannot be dodged are being tested by police.

The devices stop motorists evading a ticket by braking suddenly before a camera and then speeding up immediately afterwards. The new cameras could cover whole areas of cities or suburban housing estates, guarding any number of entry and exit points.

By ‘talking’ to each other down phone or internet lines, they calculate a car’s average speed – even if it makes a series of left and right turns down a variety of roads.

The cameras are already in use, but mainly on the motorways.

They are now likely to appear on rural and urban roads, spelling the end for the 6,000 yellow ‘Gatso-style’ box cameras currently in use.

 

Transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick yesterday told a road safety conference that the latest cameras would be a key weapon in the fight to reduce road casualties.

Supporters say they are ‘fairer’, have so far reduced casualties by 50 per cent and encourage a smoother traffic flow and safer, more consistent driving behaviour.

But critics say it is merely a new chapter in the Government’s war on motorists, who paid £106million in fines last year.

One system, costing £200,000 to £1million depending on the size of the area covered, could replace many fixed-point speed cameras.

But although the number of cameras might reduce, greater areas of the road network would be covered.

One of the providers of average speed cameras, SPECs, told the conference that the cameras could be networked together, could be forward or rear facing, could scan multiple lanes and cover areas from 250 yards to nearly 30 miles.

The cameras photograph a number-plate as a vehicle enters the speed restriction zone, and then again when it leaves.

The system then calculates the car’s average speed between the two points.

If it is higher than the speed limit, the driver is automatically sent a fixed penalty fine and receives three points on their licence.

Mr Fitzpatrick said: ‘Trials have shown very good results. Wherever there are average speed camera signs, traffic moves at a uniform speed and crashes reduce.’

Approval for the new generation of cameras is imminent. It will be up to local authorities to decide whether to buy the system.

˜ Electronic signs that sense when a car is speeding and switch traffic lights further down the road to red, forcing it to stop, are to be introduced in Britain.

The system, already in use as a traffic calming measure in Spain, will be installed on Camden High Street in North London.

Tags: big brother, cameras, privacy, spying, traffic camera, U.K.

RFID Fears and Myths

In an effort to dispel some of the privacy concerns surrounding radio frequency identification technology (RFID), the Information Technology Association of America has issued a white paper covering what the technology is and is not capable of.

The report “RFID Myths and Urban Legends,” available from the ITAA Web site, cites some of the benefits of the technology, including identity management, supply-chain efficiency, pharmaceutical tracking, food safety/recall, security, and stock control. RFID has the potential to have profound impact on industry.

As you know, RFID is an automated data-capture technology. The technology consists of RFID tags, RFID readers, and a data collection and management system. Because RFID can be used for personal identification, there are privacy and security concerns regarding the technology. The ITAA white paper is a useful resource to counter some of these concerns in your company by correcting misinformation:

* Companies and governments plan to track you using RFID.

Not true because an RFID tag has no awareness of geographical data. An RFID tag must be within 10 to 30 feet of a reader – outside of that range, tags don’t emit a signal. “Big Brother” type surveillance would require billions of readers and antennas within that range.

* RFID creates a database in the sky.

When it’s so difficult for companies to integrate their disparate sources of data, is it really realistic to believe there will be a single database that tracks all your purchases? RFID doesn’t change the way information is used or stored.

* RFID will spur drive-by reads.

RFID requires direct line of sight within the 10- to 30-foot range. It does not work through walls, so it’s highly unlikely someone could park at the curb to find out what’s in your medicine cabinet unless your lawn was dotted with readers.

* RFID can lead to identity theft.

The tags do not usually contain personally identifiable information. Rather, they transmit unique identifiers that function like license plates. You’d need access to a database that should be secured with encryption and all the other usual standard forms of protection.

Tags: big brother, privacy, rfid, rfid tag, spy spying

Spy Camera Numbers Skyrocket

There has been a revolution in the surveillance industry with new manufacturers supplying the market with spy cameras and surveillance equipment that has lower production costs and increased technological advances. But at what point does the legal act of surveillance become a sinister breach of privacy or illegal spying?

Shenzhen, China, — There is no doubt that the surveillance industry has advanced incredibly in the last five years. Electronics manufacturers are now making spy gadgets and surveillance equipment that are much more technologically advanced and are more available and affordable than they were in the 1990’s.

The market has responded in kind with sales of spy surveillance cameras skyrocketing in what are very uncertain times with employers especially showing increasing interest in keeping an eye on workers.

According to the American Management Association, more than 50% of the 523 managers it interviewed in a survey carried out some form of surveillance on their staff.

But at what point does acceptable surveillance become unacceptable spying and does the use of spy surveillance cameras or hidden spy cameras represent a breach of privacy?

It’s likely to be a question more workers ask themselves as more employers use surveillance more in the workplace.

According to Chinavasion’s PR Manager Rose Li, interest in outdoor surveillance cameras is still strong but interest in items like hidden spy cameras, wireless spy cameras and spy cameras with hidden earphones has soared.

“Sales for hidden spy cameras have definitely soared,” said Rose Li. “It’s not just that technology has given consumers the ability to hide cameras that can record sound, customers are actually demanding these products, often to spy on their nannies and other child care specialists.”

However, depending on where they are, people using these cameras may already be breaking the law.

Laws in the US forbid employers from putting recording devices where people change or recording information about people without telling them.

In the UK laws forbid employers from recording an employee with a surveillance camera, or any other kind of surveillance equipment without getting their written consent first.

Most countries disallow audio recordings of employees taken without their knowledge to be used in a court of law.

According to Chinavasion’s Rose Li when buying spy cameras and spy gadgets the onus is on shoppers to know what the rules are in their country, regardless of any ethical issues.

“Online vendors can’t be expected to know which countries will allow a jammer or wireless spy camera and which countries will allow it.”

Tags: big brother, privacy, spy, spy cam, spycam, spying

Is Government Monitoring Becoming Too Extreme

Monitoring and surveillance of employees and customers by big business is now commonplace.

Some German shoppers already have their purchases tracked

It’s increasingly a feature of our daily lives, because businesses have found that it makes good business sense. But is corporate snooping out of control?

In Britain, we are all familiar with the CCTV cameras that have sprung up across our city centres and transport networks.

We generally accept that they are there to counter crime and help monitor traffic flows on our busy roads.

But how many of us realise that when we travel about, each of us is captured, on average, 300 times a day on CCTV, and should we be concerned?

Of course, if we look up, we can see the CCTV cameras. We know they’re there.

But are they just the visible tip of a much larger and more deep-rooted surveillance society?

‘Surveillance capital’

Dr Kirstie Ball of the Open University certainly thinks so. She believes that most of the surveillance and monitoring of our movements is hidden.

“It’s everywhere, absolutely everywhere,” she says.

“As we move throughout cities, throughout our jobs and lives, there are technologies and devices everywhere which capture our movements, capture our activities, which are then stored on databases as evidence of what we’ve been doing.”

She is far from being alone in this view. “In Britain, we are saturated in a world of surveillance,” says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International and a fellow of the London School of Economics.

CCTV cameras are now widespread in the UK

“Britain has to be the surveillance capital of the Western world.”

For most of us, surveillance conjures up images of spies in trenchcoats standing in the rain on gloomy street corners, and of Big Brother government telling us how we should think and behave.

But the kind of surveillance that worries privacy campaigners today concerns us as customers of big business. Customers are constantly monitored and tracked, mostly without realising it.

Secret devices

Take the Oyster card, for example, which millions of us use each day to pay for our journeys when travelling on London’s tubes and buses. Not only do the cards record payment, but they can also track travellers’ journeys across the city.

At the RAC’s national breakdown centre, callers can be accurately located within seconds, thanks to the signals transmitted by their mobile phones.

An RAC patrolman reveals that many hire cars are now fitted with secret tracking devices, allowing rental companies to follow the movements of their customers.

Businesses have always watched over their employees Open University: Who’s watching you work?

“It used to be that surveillance was a bolt-on feature of society,” says Mr Davies. “Now surveillance is part of the infrastructure. It’s a design component.”

For business, monitoring can mean greater efficiency in the work place. Bosses can see what is happening in real time and thereby identify what can be improved - or even, if they choose to, which employees are doing their job well and which ones are not.

A prime example of the highly-monitored work place is the call centre, where sophisticated software is used to log and analyse every second of agents’ working lives.

Rufus Grig - who runs Callmedia, a company that makes computer software for call centre operations - explains to the Money Programme the extent of workplace monitoring. The call centre, he says, “can be a terrifically highly-monitored environment”.

Efficiency check

In the warehouse operations that supply products to shops and supermarkets, more and more workers are required to wear computers which instruct them on the tasks they need to perform, as well as monitoring and recording every step they take.

Wincanton, one of Britain’s biggest logistics companies, uses computer technology in many of its big distribution centres across Britain.

Surveillance is now creeping into the way we shop

The firm has found that if properly used, the technology can bring big benefits for the company and workforce. But this has not been the experience everywhere.

Eddie Gaudie, from the GMB union, explains that some businesses closely monitor the productivity of their workers all day long.

He says: “At any time of the day, it’s monitored down to the last minute, even in seconds.”

Companies insist that these tracking technologies help to boost efficiency and cut costs, which is all to the customers’ benefit.

“You can buy this argument that this is all for our own good,” says Mr Davies. “I don’t. Because what I believe about surveillance is that ultimately it is used against individuals, not for them.”

No privacy

One new technology could mean there will soon be nowhere to hide for any of us. The big high street retailers are experimenting with putting tiny computer chips in their merchandise.

These chips are called Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Potentially, they could be used to track the products and the people who buy them, out of the shops and into their homes.

Dutch clubbers can have electronic trackers inserted in their bodies

One day, RFID chips could be on everything we buy, and it may not stop there.

Similar chips are also being implanted in patients in American hospitals, to act as minute ID cards and to track them through the medical system.

A world where everything and everybody can be tracked at any time, day or night, is a prospect which fills some observers with horror.

“You won’t be able to hide from the system by closing your door or closing your curtains or hiding behind a wall,” says privacy campaigner Christopher McDermott.

“The X-ray eyes of the state and of big corporates will be able to see through those, and will be able to see right into your very personal and private life.”

Has business become the real Big Brother?

Tags: big brother, monitoring