Hacking, Porcupines, and Robocalls

Why hacking and invading privacy matters.

Porcupines like salt.  Really like salt.

We're boiling our oceans.  As well as melting all the sea ice.  And killing all the fish.

Jeb Bush is meaner than he looks.  And things are going to get serious.

Since Sandy Hook there have been 72 mass shootings.

Christian pastor stunned by secular Scandinavians.

How to be polite. (It may save the world.)

A petition to sign to end robocalls.

What do data collecting agencies actually know about you?

Too much, actually.  And some of it is wrong...

What?

What privacy?

What reproductive control? New Mexico Bill Would Imprison Rape Victims Who Receive Abortions and Washington police failures on rape detailed in groundbreaking report but wait!.... uh... Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Are Not People In Malpractice Suit

What gun safety by knowledgeable gun owners?

What super viruses?

What deficit?

What part of the Grey Lady will be left?

What Sandy Hook conspiracy?

What American Dream?

Giving away your personal information for free

And you don't even know it:

Cruising through downtown San Francisco in his car with a $250 homebrew RFID reader setup consisting of a Symbol XR400 RFID reader and a Motorola AN400 patch antenna stuck to the side of his Volvo, he snagged the info off of two passports in just 20 minutes. The point, he says, is "mainly to defeat the argument that you can't do it in the real world, that there's no real-world attack here, that it's all theoretical." The range of his gear is about 30 feet, which is plenty of clearance.

But we KNOW you listened to this ad!

So you obviously want to buy our product!

A company called IMMI is perfecting software that goes in your cell phone and catches every snippet of audio you're exposed to, then automatically determines which ads you heard. And more!

To get a handle on the effectiveness of a given ad, IMMI's data can show, for example, when a panel member is exposed to a movie trailer on TV and whether that same consumer later goes to see the movie. Similarly, IMMI data can show if a panelist watching a promo for a TV program will later watch the show, either on TV or online. IMMI thinks it can expand that idea from films and TV shows to consumer products like shampoo or toothpaste. It is testing its technology with a national grocery store chain.

"We follow the same person from end to end," says Tom Zito, IMMI's chief executive.

I would recommend that IMMI start working on developing a cute, non-threatening mascot right now, because they are frankly talking about some scary shit. People volunteer to carry these phones for just $50 a month.

Now all your thoughts are belong to us.

(09-23) 17:06 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The Bush administration has overturned a 22-year-old policy and now allows customs agents to seize, read and copy documents from travelers at airports and borders without suspicion of wrongdoing, civil rights lawyers in San Francisco said Tuesday in releasing records obtained in a lawsuit.

The records also indicate that the government gives customs agents unlimited authority to question travelers about their religious beliefs and political opinions, said lawyers from the Asian Law Caucus and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They said they had asked the Department of Homeland Security for details of any policy that would guide or limit such questioning and received no reply.

"We're concerned that people of South Asian or Muslim-looking background are being targeted inappropriately" for questioning and searches, said Asian Law Caucus attorney Shirin Sinnar.

Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the new policies reflect "the realities of the post-9/11 environment."

Nice. We really need to get the Department of Homeland Security some black knee high boots and a flashy arm band. Jesus.

Update: 9/27: Phila of Bouphonia posts over at Echidne's, and has much more to say and says it better'n me.

Igor's revenge

Murray Waas reports on the website of the Atlantic that Alberto Gonzales is now telling investigators that he was being personally directed by President Bush when, as White House counsel, Gonzales made a much-discussed late-night visit in 2004 to the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, in order to get Ashcroft to certify that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program was legal.

I guess Abu Gonzales didn't like being thrown under the bus...

Excellent overview of FISA

Part one, part two and part three excellently well explained by David Kris for Balkinization.

The ACLU. Facts and myths.

It would be as if no illegal activity occurred at all...

Because we'll never know exactly what happened. House comes to compromise on telecom immunity.

Via TPM Muckraker, the Wall Street Journal:

Removing the final barrier to action on the measure, which has been hashed out in recent weeks by senior lawmakers in both parties, House Democratic leaders decided to allow a vote on the bill, despite the opposition of many in their party.

The new agreement broadens the authority to spy on people in the U.S. and provides conditional legal immunity to companies that helped the government eavesdrop after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to congressional aides in both parties.

Right. You guys pass this law and you've just announced corporations are more important than individual citizens and your oath to protect the Constitution is a lie.

And just an aside, a question I've not yet found the answer to. Because the Bush administration was listening in on Americans long before 9/11, why did 9/11 occur? Isn't this whole invasion of privacy issue about protecting America? So why weren't they listening to all the cell phone calls to Saudi Arabia and Yemen and realizing something was up?

Or could it be they were too busy listening for juicy items to blackmail Congress into following their commands? Maybe we could ask the telecoms this question when we get them up on the stand under oath .... OooHHHhhhhh....

One man stands up to protect our Constitution

And Congress tries to ignore him. Via Spocko of Spocko's Brain, Mark Klein and his stand for the 4th amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

And against telecom immunity:

Haven't found how to play the 'castfire' video yet, so go to Spocko's to see it.

So when they start aiming this at the master bedroom in your house

You'll be ok with it?

Motorists will be targeted by a new generation of road cameras which work out how many people are in a car by measuring the amount of bodily fluid it contains.

The latest snooping device on the nation's roads aims to penalise lone drivers who abuse car-sharing lanes, and is part of a Government effort to combat congestion at busy times.

The cameras work by sending an infrared beam through the windscreen of vehicles which detects the unique make-up of blood and water content in human skin.

The system's inventors believe it will catch out motorists who try to fool existing CCTV road cameras by placing mannequins in passenger seats or fixing photographs to windscreens.

It will at first be used to police car-sharing lanes in Leeds, but councils across the country have already expressed an interest in using them.

Professor John Tyrer, who headed the Loughborough University team which created the device, said it would reduce congestion.

"It allows you to automatically count people," he said.

"That pools through to the congestion charging, so they can charge differently or reduce the rates dramatically if you've got more people in the cars."

But motoring organisations claim the cameras are a further intrusion on private lives and say car-sharing lanes – which are already in operation in Birmingham and Leeds and are being built on the M1 in Hertfordshire – do not work.

Restore FISA

Glenn Greenwald and Firedoglake have a petition. Sign it.

What hangs in the balance with the FISA bill

As explained by the inestimable Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors.

Your passport will betray you

And will talk readily to strangers without you knowing:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Passport cards for Americans who travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean will be equipped with technology that allows information on the card to be read from a distance.

The technology was approved Monday by the State Department and privacy advocates were quick to criticize the department for not doing more to protect information on the card, which can be used by U.S. citizens instead of a passport when traveling to other countries in the western hemisphere.

The technology would allow the cards to be read from up to 20 feet away. This process only takes one or two seconds, said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department. The card would not have to be physically swiped through a reader, as is the current process with passports.

The technology is "inherently insecure and poses threats to personal privacy, including identity theft," Ari Schwartz, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement. Schwartz said this specific technology, called "vicinity read," is better suited for tracking inventory, not people.

The State Department said privacy protections will be built into the card. The chip on the card will not contain biographical information, Barrett said.

And the card vendor - which has yet to be decided - will also provide sleeves for the cards that will prevent them from being read from afar, she said.

Oh, I can hardly wait to find out which Bush crony will get the card vendor business!

It was just one small laptop...

Which had everyone's social security number and all their personal data...
The Top 10 Data Breaches of 2007

Resistance is futile

Besides, we've collected all your emails and phone conversations for years. What's the problem?

Chet Scoville of Vanity Press catches this quote and demands Kerr be fired:

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Corporations should be trusted? Just what planet is he living on?

Quick! Look while he's unGitmoed...

A judge who actually realizes what is at stake:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

[snip]

The ruling probably won't have any immediate affect on enforcement under the Patriot Act, according to legal experts who predicted the government would quickly appeal.

"But it's an important first step," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project.

Jaffer noted that the Patriot Act carries dozens of provisions and that several have been challenged - but that this is one of the first major rulings on Fourth Amendment rights.

"This is as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as you'll ever find," Jaffer said.

Garrett Epps, a constitutional law expert at the University of Oregon, said the ruling adds to the poor record that the Bush administration has piled up in defending the Patriot Act.

"It's embarrassing," Epps said. "It represents another judicial repudiation of this administration's terrorist surveillance policies."

A total surveillance society

Where no one dares stand out or question authority, where the type of person watching you becomes the difference between Gitmo and freedom....

Welcome to the brave new world:

"As you walk through a crowd, we'll be able to track you," said Professor Challapa. "These are all things that don't need the cooperation of the individual."

Since 9/11, some of the best scientific minds in the defence industry have switched their concentration from tracking nuclear missiles to tracking individuals such as suicide bombers.

[snip]

"And this idea about a total surveillance society," I asked. "Is that science fiction?"

"No, that's not science fiction. We're developing an unmanned airplane - a UAV - which may be able to stay up five years with cameras on it, constantly being cued to look here and there. This is done today to a limited amount in Baghdad. But it's the way to go."

[snip]

So far there is no gadget that can actually see inside our houses, but even that's about to change.

Ian Kitajima flew to Washington from his laboratories in Hawaii to show me sense-through-the-wall technology.

"Each individual has a characteristic profile," explained Ian, holding a green rectangular box that looked like a TV remote control.

Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is on the other side. His company, Oceanit, is due to test it with the Hawaiian National Guard in Iraq next year, and it turns out that the human body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up breathing and heart rates.

"First, you can tell whether someone is dead or alive on the battlefield," said Ian.

"But it will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking."

He glanced at me quizzically, noticing my apprehension.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It sounds very Star Trekkish, but that's what's ahead."

So how soon will this technology be used to contain free speech and stifle discontent? How soon will we lose all the freedoms we fought so hard to achieve?

Apparently the Department of Homeland Security needs to know

Scientists' sexual backgrounds or else the terrorists win...

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Twenty-eight senior scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging what they call the federal government's invasive background checks into their personal lives, including their sexual orientations.

At issue is a 2004 executive order signed by President Bush requiring federal agencies and facilities to institute an identification badge.

The plaintiffs -- all long-term California Institute of Technology employees -- allege the Bush administration is requiring them to consent to broad written waivers permitting investigators to obtain records from their past employment files.

Investigators will also be allowed to question the employees’ friends and associates about their emotional and financial well-being, as well as their sexual histories, according to Dan Stormer, one of their attorneys.

"They're being required to give up every personal record they have," Stormer said. "It's just a despicable incursion into constitutionally protected rights."

Snuggly the Security Bear

Has teeth...
Via Steve Bates at The Yellow Doggerel Democrat, Mark Fiore explains what NSA can do now with the new FISA update.