The Snooping Goes Beyond Phone Calls
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_22/b3986068.htm

How the government sidesteps the Privacy Act by purchasing commercial data

Furor and confusion over allegations that major phone companies have surrendered customer calling records to the National Security Agency continue to roil Washington. But if AT&T Inc. (T ) and possibly others have turned over records to the NSA, the phone giants represent only one of many commercial sources of personal data that the government seeks to "mine" for evidence of terrorist plots and other threats.

The Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans' finances, phone numbers, and biographical information, according to a report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Often, the agencies and their contractors don't ensure the data's accuracy, the GAO found.

Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules. The Privacy Act of 1974 restricts how federal agencies may use such information and requires disclosure of what the government is doing with it. But the law applies only when the government is doing the data collecting.

"Grabbing data wholesale from the private sector is the way agencies are getting around the requirements of the Privacy Act and the Fourth Amendment," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington and a member of the Homeland Security Dept.'s Data Privacy & Integrity Advisory Committee.

The Justice Dept. alone, which includes the FBI, spent $19 million in fiscal 2005 to obtain commercially gathered names, addresses, phone numbers, and other data, according to the GAO. The Justice Dept. obeys the Privacy Act and "protects information that might personally identify an individual," a spokesman says. Despite the GAO's findings, a Homeland Security spokesman denies that his agency purchases consumer records from private companies. The State Dept. didn't respond to requests for comment.

A number of lawmakers from both parties are calling for investigations of the role of phone companies and the NSA in domestic surveillance. BellSouth Corp. (BLS ) and Verizon Communications (VZ ) have denied turning over bulk call records to the agency, although their carefully worded statements contained some ambiguities. AT&T said that when it helps the government, it does so strictly within the law. On May 11, USA Today reported that the three telecom titans cooperated with NSA surveillance efforts.

But in the face of the uproar over the issue, others on Capitol Hill are pushing for more government data collection. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is drafting legislation to require ISPs to amass information about users' Web-surfing habits to assist government investigations. Executives at companies that fail to comply could be subject to up to a year in prison.

Other players in the information world that could get more attention in coming days are little-known firms that help telecom industry clients comply with government investigations. That's a small part of what a company called NeuStar Inc. (NSR ) does.

INCREASED PRESSURE
Based in Sterling, Va., NeuStar has developed a lucrative niche in the routing of millions of phone calls a day from one carrier to the next. "Nearly every telephone call placed is routed using NeuStar's system, and every telecommunications service provider is one of NeuStar's customers," the company's Web site states. NeuStar doesn't keep records of the calls it handles, a spokeswoman says.

Now NeuStar is seeking to profit from increased post-September 11 government pressure on telecoms to turn over data. Last year it acquired Fiducianet Inc., which helps phone company clients comply with "subpoenas, court orders, and law enforcement agency requests under electronic surveillance laws," according to a February, 2005, NeuStar press release. NeuStar says this part of its business accounts for less than 1% of total revenue. The company went public last June and reported 2005 revenue of $242.5 million.

NeuStar also provides services to federal agencies, but CEO Jeff Ganek says it hasn't done so for the NSA. The company has "absolutely nothing to do with any of the surveillance that's currently being discussed on Capitol Hill," Ganek stresses. All told, government contracts provide less than 2% of NeuStar's revenue, the company spokeswoman says. Government agencies sometimes seek NeuStar's help in identifying phone carriers that investigators plan to subpoena, she says, adding, "We do not provide any other information."

Dems want to see citizen-monitoring database
Pentagon has been keeping tabs on groups perceived as security threat
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15856195/

MSNBC | November 23, 2006
Lisa Myers

A year ago, an NBC News investigation revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon database that included information on antiwar protests and American peace activists.

Now, newly disclosed documents reveal new details on who was targeted and which other government agencies may have helped monitor Americans. At universities across the country, an antiwar group called Veterans for Peace has staged protests by setting up crosses for soldiers killed in Iraq. In New Mexico last year, the local paper described the event as a display of honor.

But a previously secret Pentagon intelligence report labeled that same event a "threat to military installations." The report lists the group's upcoming events and warns that while it's a "peaceful organization," there is potential that "future protest could become violent."

"No, we are not a threat to military installations," says Michael McPhearson, the leader of Veterans for Peace and a former Army captain whose son recently returned from Iraq. "We are not a threat to military installations. We're not trying to blow up anything or anything of that nature.

"It angers me that the rights I'm supposed to be protecting I can't exercise without the government looking at me and calling me the enemy," McPhearson says.

Pentagon documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provide new details on how even Quakers and churches came to be labeled "threats" worthy of the attention of the military.

"What's clear is that there's a proliferation of surveillance and targeting of Americans who have done nothing wrong, other than disagree with the government," Anthony Romero says. The documents also suggest for the first time that agents of the Department of Homeland Security played a role in monitoring antiwar activities. A DHS spokesman says agents merely disseminated public information about public events that could impact federal buildings.

The Pentagon admits it made a mistake in collecting information on 186 antiwar protests but claims the problem has been fixed.

That isn't good enough for Senate Democrats.

"I fully intend to ask what's in those databanks, because many of them go way beyond any legitimate needs for our security," says Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Congress wants to know not just what data was collected, but why and how it was to be used.

The Panopticon: A Mass Surveillance Prison For Humanity
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2006/110106thepanopticon.htm

Latest trends in Big Brother outstrip Orwell's worst nightmare

The Panopticon is defined as a prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen. This is an accurate description of the accelerating movement by western governments to erect giant, powerful, all-pervading mass surveillance, tracking and control grids that will keep all populations firmly under the baleful and watchful gaze of Big Brother.

We are still debating the NSA listening to foreign calls from the US when the NSA admitted twenty years ago that they were listening to domestic US calls under the Echelon program. This is de-classified and public but the media acts like they don't know about it.

Why is there even a debate about if they are tracking and tracing us when RFID transponders are going in cars nationwide to follow our every movement?

This system has already been partly implemented in Britain with barely a whimper of dissent.

You can call your cell phone company, ask them where you are and they will tell you down to a few feet. That is a federal operationthat's hooked into the NSA right at this moment and about to be hooked into every major police department and squad car.

Your name, everything about you, what you're doing, where you're going and the cop can punch in a few keys and use your phone as an audio sensor.

Major cities such as Austin, Texas installed gunshot detection microphones. The government assured us that they respect our privacy but the very companies installing them bragged about how they can listen to a kid on the street talking to his friend two hundred yards away.

And now, from Rochester New York to Austin Texas to Chicago, the government hasannounced that they are being used as microphones and they will be used to listen to us.

Consider today's BBC report concerning CCTV surveillance systems in an area of London which is planned to be expanded to include, just on its first implementation, tens of thousands of other citizens in other areas.

The government funded program, called ASBO TV, invites residents to pay £3.50 and have access to a TV channel that enables them to monitor 400 different CCTV surveillance cameras and report on suspicious or anti-social behavior, comparing suspects to an on-screen rogues gallery.

This combined with the government's encouragement for Londoners to report their neighbors for suspicious activity, of which potential signs of terrorism include owning a vehicle, living in a house or getting a refund on a credit card, fuse the infrastructure of a classic total surveillance state, with civilian tattle-tale squads forming the modern say Stasi. Meanwhile, posters at bus terminals inform Londoners that they are 'secure beneath the watchful eyes'of Big Brother.

The exact same program was announced for the US years ago in the New York Times. The difference is that in the US they plan to force people to watch the system either over their computer or cable system. It will be classified as 'public service' to pay for speeding tickets and eventually as a mandatory function of your civil defense Homeland Security draft duties.

Starting at two hours a week and, if you wish to be paid, upwards of twenty hours a week, you will monitor the cameras for signs of terrorism and also, as admitted in the New York Times piece, for crime.

The latest artificial intelligence systems, for example DARPA's gait analysis program, which made headlines in 2003 for claiming to be able to identify terrorists by the way they walk, are not yet perfected and the involvement of the general population gives Big Brother the added advantage of pounding into people the feeling that their behavior is being monitored at all times and that if they step out of line in any way they will face the consequences. This in turn makes people self-regulate their actions to the point where exercising even basic freedoms becomes a potential precursor to being disappeared. In addition, using a method called the Delphi Technique, the general public are more likely to support the idea because they are hoodwinked into believing that they are involved in it and are part of the power structure. Therefore they feel their time is invested in the common security of everyone.

In effect, by an incessant demand that people report any suspicious behavior, they’re creating terrorist cadres that don’t exist to justify police state legislation under the guise of protecting the public.

And they’re shifting the surveillance grid into areas where its not mechanized, to become self-regulating.

Because if you pound it into people that everything they’re doing is constantly being monitored, which is part of the motivation behind the NSA spying furor, it has the effect of making the people regulate their own behavior and have absolutely no confidence to exercise their innate freedoms.

By announcing all this they’re shaping individual behavior, which means that they don’t have to worry as much about what slips past their surveillance grid, because people are cowering in fear of speaking out or being active in any way.

And for the elite that self-regulatory little brother syndrome is going to be ultimately more successful for them, because a dictatorship by fiat rather than force is something that’s far easier to package and sell to the wider population.

The government has been caught using chemical and biological weaponson the American people ad on the British people. They cannot be trusted to do anything and they have no moral authority. We have former and current Bush administration advisors advocating torturing children. Statistically, governments have been found to engage in more criminal activity than the general member of the public. It is not because we have something to hide that we don't want this. It is because we don't trust the government on the basis that history and common sense shows that they do this to enslave and abuse populations. Corrupt people want more power and control.

A government engaging in escalating criminal actions and becoming more and more secretive should not be watching and tracking us as if we're all criminals. The same goes for CCTV surveillance. That's not freedom. Would you let a convicted murderer and pedophile watch your child 24/7?

The often peddled mantra of 'why should you care if you have nothing to hide?' is manifestly ridiculous in light of the fact that we have a government that has everything to hide and yet we're the ones under suspicion.

We are told by the government to make our lives completely transparent or go to jail while the government itself becomes more secretive than ever before.

Why should they know everything about us when they won't tell us anything about them?

Would you walk up to a gang of criminals and give them your credit card and PIN number?

The British government told us that the ID card would make our information more secure. Blair said this would protect, not infringe our liberties. And how did they propose paying for it? By selling the information of 44 million British citizens to private companies. How secure is that?

High level dictators will put in thousands of viceroys and minions who will all set up their own petty little empires in your neighborhood and make your life a living hell.

This control grid is being implemented not just so it is there in place but so they can abuse us further. The more we put up with and become acclimatized to it, even more control will be layered on top. This control grid is being constructed so they can enforce mandatory psychological testing and drugging, now a proposed federal law, to be done nationwide under the New Freedom initiative. It is so they can enforce conscription and the national draft, it is so they can enforce their feudal land grabs under zoning laws.

They did not ask us if we wanted any of this. They install the surveillance grid and then claim that we agreed to it. They were erecting license plate readers in Indiana six years ago and now they are going in nationwide. London is already fully covered with an automatic tracking and taxation camera control grid.

Small towns in Florida were already running scans on cars three years ago and that program has vastly expanded across the country. They put the system in place and then announce it. Notice how they put the cameras in first and stated that they were just for traffic. Then they announce that squad cars were going to be hooked into the camerasand now it's happening.

They did not ask us, but retroactively, when we do hear about it in polls, almost everybody is against it but they just don't care. In Texas we beat the law that would have put RFID tags in inspection stickers, after polls showed a 95 per cent plus opposition to the plan. And what happens? The Texas Department of Transportation announce that they are going to put two million in this year without even asking. The law was defeated but they are just going to go ahead and do it anyway because they are criminals.

There are no ifs, ands and buts about it. We have criminals announcing that they are watching us and that they want to institute yet more expansive and wide ranging systems of surveillance.

GPS surveillance systems in cars are about to become mandatory and are in all new cars as standard. The British government has announced a taxation by mile program that will track every car on every British road. The exact same systems are going in the UK, the US, Germany and western Europe, betraying the organized global design of this movement.

They have told us that our digital cable boxes and TIVO systems are recording what we watchto create psychological algorithms which are stored on government databases. These systems track what we watch, for exactly how long we watch it, and what our psychological score is based on those factors.

Imagine having millions of your choices over the years stored on centralized government databases. It's already happening.

Similarly, supermarket loyalty cards hold the same data and Walmart in league with the Defense Department has ordered all major supermarket chains to switch from barcode to RFID tracking so that every purchase you make emits a radio frequency from the store shelf, to your home, to the landfill.

The introduction of the national ID card and blanket surveillance and recognition systems in the UK and US is one step further towards the mandatory implantation of ID chips in all citizens. Does this sound outlandish? Implantable chip technology has been in existence for a decade and discussions on ID chipping humans is in the news regularly. Tommy Thompson, the former Health and Human Services Secretary in the Bush administration, promised to have a chip implantedand is now touring the country lauding the virtues of ID chips. During the the confirmation hearings for John Roberts Jr., George W. Bush's nominee for Supreme Court chief justice, Roberts was questionedby Senator Joseph R. Biden on whether he would rule against a mandatory implantable microchip to track American citizens.

No matter how diabolical and unbelievable it appears to the rational thinking person, the government's of the west are doing it.

Cameras in school bathrooms, security blimps in major cities watching us as we step out of the door. Surveillance systems used on insurgentsin Iraq are here.

This is systematic. They built the electrically wired cage around us and then they turned it on. The state is doing all this for the moment when they take your pension funds, private property, and guns because you won't be able to resist. Big Brother will be two steps ahead at all times and there will be nowhere to hide.

A once free people are being totally enslaved and they have no idea as it brazenly unfolds in front of their very eyes.

"As Long As You're Not Doing Anything Wrong, You Have Nothing To Worry About"

the ability to define what is right and wrong is the essence of power. To make the people believe in their hearts, that doing this or that is wrong, is absolute power. One is domination of behavior, one is domination of the will.

Reading all that seriously made me sick to my stomach. Great posts. The movies are a real eye opener, as well.

GPS Surveillance Creeps into Daily Life
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3886

by Catherine Komp

Public-interest advocates say cell phone surveillance is becoming cheaper and more pervasive, but companies and governments are lagging behind in establishing policies to protect the right to privacy.

Nov. 14 – For $5.99 per month, you can turn a cell phone into a surveillance device and track when your target leaves home, where he or she travels and at what speed. You can even detect how much battery power is left on the phone. Marketed as "virtual eyes" on your kids or employees, the service also allows you to construct a virtual "fence" so that you can receive electronic alerts if the phone’s carrier crosses into forbidden areas.

Your privacy is strictly respected. Provided by the company AccuTracking, this service is just one of dozens integrating the Global Positioning System (GPS) into everyday life. The system uses satellites to determine the locations of GPS-enabled devices.

From brightly colored cell phones and watches designed to help parents shadow the movements of children, to enhanced mapping websites allowing managers to monitor traveling employees through mobile devices, corporations are cashing in on GPS surveillance technology.

But as these increasingly inexpensive products rush onto the market, public-interest groups are raising privacy concerns. Youth-rights’ activists, workers’ advocates and domestic-violence experts say public dialogue is needed to illuminate the consequences of this $20 billion-per-year industry.

"The problem is people are making these acquisitions of technology without hearing the tradeoff, hearing the downside, hearing the flipside of the discussion," said Lillie Coney, associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

"The problem is people are making these acquisitions of technology without hearing the tradeoff, hearing the downside, hearing the flipside of the discussion."EPIC and other groups say surveillance technology is outpacing policies to reign in possible abuses. "It’s imperative that there be more rules established for companies that sell these types of devices, the companies that provide the services," Coney said.

From Public Service to Public Surveillance

The Federal Communications Commission requires nearly all cell phones have GPS technology embedded to help emergency responders pinpoint 9-1-1 callers who may not be able to explain their exact location.

But corporations have quickly found profitable uses for GPS. An Internet search for "GPS tracking" reveals dozens of services promising real-time tracking of vehicles, equipment and people.

Nextel and Sprint market a "Mobile Locator," which lists a user’s real-time location either by address or via a web-based map. The service also displays "points of interest" –banks, restaurants, and gas stations, for example – positioned around a user’s location.

Verizon is hawking a service called "Chaperone," which notifies a customer via text message when a family member enters or leaves geographically defined "child zones."

"If we raise kids with no expectation of privacy, then they’re going to become adults and voters and people of influence in society with no expectation of privacy."Toys ‘R’ Us has partnered with Wherify Wireless to sell the "Wherifone," described by the company as "destined to be on children's wish lists this year."

In a press statement promoting the device, Wherify promises it will give "on-the-go parents the peace of mind of being able to quickly locate and communicate with their young children, while also controlling who they can call and how much it will cost."

While acknowledging the benefits of such technology in emergency situations, some groups are concerned about the "extreme methods" taken by adults to monitor young people. Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, said that while parents’ motivations may be "pure," they are "actually doing more harm than good."

"It affects the trust and relationship between parents and teens," Koroknay-Palicz told The NewStandard. "It sends a very clear message from parents that they don’t trust the kids, and they have to monitor them constantly."

Koroknay-Palicz also sees long-term consequences of this monitoring.

"If we raise kids with no expectation of privacy, then they’re going to become adults and voters and people of influence in society with no expectation of privacy," he said. "All the expectations of privacy are going to be eroded by the population of adults who grew up with no privacy and don’t see the problem with trading away privacy."

Coney of EPIC agreed that parents are buying the "safety and security" sales pitch without evaluating the bigger picture, including who else has access to the tracking data.

"A parent might think this is a means to know where their child is," Coney told TNS, "but it also may be recorded and retained by the person or the entity that provides the service, and they may use it for their own purposes, because there are no laws out there to… prohibit that from happening."

The Boss is Watching

Privacy experts say they have no idea how many judges have erroneously granted the government’s requests for warrants to track cell phones. Workers’ advocates are also concerned about the increasing use of GPS surveillance in the "mobile" workplaces of truck drivers, couriers and sales people. Previously, tracking technology was fixed in a vehicle or location – places from which employees could leave. But now companies can use GPS-equipped devices to monitor an employee during breaks, lunch hours, and potentially after their work is complete.

Additionally, many of the millions of workers in transportation-related occupations must acquiesce to GPS surveillance in order to keep their jobs.

"GPS has the ability to really give an employer a fully fleshed-out picture of an employee’s private life," said Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the Princeton, New Jersey-based National Workrights Institute. "It’s perhaps the greatest threat to privacy that we’ve seen yet by monitoring."

Several privacy experts interviewed by TNS said there are virtually no laws requiring employers to inform workers that they are being tracked by satellite, or to guarantee workers can turn off GPS technology when they leave work.

Legislation introduced in 2000 would have required employers to disclose when they were electronically monitoring workers. But the bills, introduced by Senator Charles Schumer (D–New York) and Representatives Bob Barr (R–Georgia) and Charles Canady (R–Florida), won no additional co-sponsors and died in committee.

Misuses of Technology
Last February, in an article for the UK-based paper The Guardian titled "How I Stalked My Girlfriend," reporter Ben Goldacre described the ease with which he was able to register his partner’s cell phone with a surveillance service. Having access to her phone for just a few minutes allowed him to surreptitiously delete the warning message, "For your own safety, make sure that you know who is locating you." He was able to follow her real-time movements on the web for a small fee.

But Goldacre’s experiment had already been put to nefarious use by people in the United States. One of the first reported cases of a stalker using GPS occurred in 2000, when Robert Sullivan, who was later convicted of stalking, planted a device in his wife’s car in Colorado to follow her movements.

Similar cases have been reported in Arizona, California, Washington and Wisconsin, in which women suddenly noticed their ex-partner or spouse showing up wherever they were – work, the store, or on a date.

Sandy Bromley, program attorney with the Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime, said GPS is one of the reasons it is becoming more difficult for people to "go underground" and escape their abusers.

Bromley said the Stalking Resource Center recommends that states expand existing stalking statutes to include language that is inclusive of technology to facilitate prosecution of stalking crimes that use electronic surveillance.

Watching the Watchers

Privacy advocates are also concerned about government access to GPS data and whether it is being obtained legally. Groups cite the example earlier this year of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps as good reason to engage in dialogue about the ever-growing "surveillance society."

"We may have the government knowing all the time whether the cell phone in some instances is on or off [and] where [a person] is located at any one time," said Law Professor John Soma, executive director of the University of Denver-based Privacy Foundation. "That is troubling – very troubling."

Warrantless cell-phone tracking by law enforcement has been scrutinized in the courts. A number of judges have denied the federal government’s requests to track cell phones without showing probable cause.

The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 forbids telecommunications companies from providing geographical information about their customers to law enforcement without a warrant.

But privacy experts say they have no idea how many judges have erroneously granted the government’s requests for warrants. In August 2005, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in New York issued one of the first public rulings against a government request for a tracking warrant, but said he had previously granted similar applications “without questioning the legal basis for doing so or suggesting that there might be none.”

In closing his ruling, Orenstein wrote, "Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late."

Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the privacy-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes the “structural problem" of court proceedings that are decided through a closed, “ex-parte” process, in which only the government appears before a judge to make its case without a public interest representative.

"It’s a very stealthy situation," Tien told TNS. "Protection of privacy often can be very, very hard because those who are threatening it can operate very, very much in the background, and we don’t necessarily have any way of knowing what they’re doing. And that not only applies to a stalker or to someone in a company, but also to law enforcement."

Re Talon:

FOI Talon files here:
http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file242_27459.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/washington/21protests.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

The head of the office that runs the military database, which is known as Talon...

The latest Talon documents showed that the military used a variety of sources to collect intelligence leads on antiwar protests, including an agent in the Department of Homeland Security, Google searches on the Internet and e-mail messages forwarded by apparent informants with ties to protest groups.

Mr. Baur was responding to the latest batch of documents produced by the military under a Freedom of Information Act request brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. The A.C.L.U. planned to release the documents publicly on Tuesday, and officials with the group said they would push for Democrats, newly empowered in Congress, to hold formal hearings about the Talon database.

“I don’t believe it,” said the leader, Michael T. McPhearson,

a former Army captain (LOL) who is the executive director of Veterans for Peace, a group in St. Louis.

Mr. McPhearson said he found the references to his group in the Talon database disappointing but not altogether surprising, and he said the group continued to use public settings and the Internet to plan its protests.

[color="Red"]Ben Wizner,
a lawyer for the A.C.L.U. in New York,

said the new documents suggested that the military’s efforts to glean intelligence on protesters went beyond what was previously known. If intelligence officials “are going to be doing investigations or monitoring in a place where people gather to worship or to study, they should have a pretty clear indication that a crime has occurred,” Mr. Wizner added.

The leader of one antiwar group mentioned repeatedly in the latest military documents provided to the A.C.L.U. said he was skeptical that the military had ended its collection of material on war protests.

“I don’t believe it,” said the leader, Michael T. McPhearson, a former Army captain who is the executive director of Veterans for Peace, a group in St. Louis.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Secret Pentagon Documents Classify
Central Coast Group as a "Threat"
Santa Barbara Chapter of Veterans for Peace
revealed to be a Pentagon surveillance target

Friday, November 24, 2006

New details tonight about a secret Pentagon database used to monitor anti-war protests and activists. Recently-disclosed documents reveal that some of the surveillance targets include an organization with ties to the Central Coast.

Secret Pentagon documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provide details of how the organization called "Veterans for Peace" was considered a threat.

Every Sunday for the past three years, members of the Santa Barbara Chapter of Veterans for Peace place a cross in the sand near Stearns Wharf for every American soldier killed in Iraq.

(MSNBC video here)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15856195/

First started in Santa Barbara, the "Arlington West" display has been copied by other chapters of Veterans for Peace in communities all across the country. It's intended to honor and acknowledge those who have lost their lives and to reflect upon the costs of war.

The actions of this veterans organization have not gone unnoticed at the Pentagon. A previously secret intelligence report calls the group a "threat to military installations." The report lists the group's upcoming events and warns that while it's a "peaceful organization," "there is potential that future protests could become violent."

"As to attacking any base or anything else, that is ridiculous," says Veterans for Peace group member Ron Dexter. "We support the troops one hundred percent."

Ron Dexter isn't surprised by the revelations that the Department of Homeland Security is checking up on his organization.

"If we aren't investigated by the government, we probably aren't doing our job," says Dexter. "That is pretty radical, but anybody who has been a real threat to what government wants to do, they are going to check on them and try to stop them."

The documents also suggest for the first time that agents of the Department of Homeland Security played a role in monitoring anti-war activities.

The Pentagon admits it made a mistake in collecting information on anti-war protests, but claims the problem has been fixed.

At least one Senate Democrat wants to investigate not just what data was collected by the Pentagon, but why and how it was used.

Word on the street ... they’re listening
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2087-2471987%2C00.html

POLICE and councils are considering monitoring conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras, write Steven Swinford and Nicola Smith.

The microphones can detect conversations 100 yards away and record aggressive exchanges before they become violent.

The devices are used at 300 sites in Holland and police, councils and transport officials in London have shown an interest in installing them before the 2012 Olympics.

The interest in the equipment comes amid growing concern that Britain is becoming a “surveillance society”. It was recently highlighted that there are more than 4.2m CCTV cameras, with the average person being filmed more than 300 times a day. The addition of microphones would take surveillance into uncharted territory.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that a full public debate over the microphones’ impact on privacy will be needed before they can be introduced.

The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken. Background noise is filtered out, enabling the camera to focus on specific conversations in public places.

If the aggressive behaviour continues, police can intervene before an incident escalates. Privacy laws in Holland limit the recording of sound to short bursts. Derek van der Vorst, director of Sound Intelligence, the company that created the technology, said: “It is technically capable of being live 24 hours a day and recording 24 hours a day. It really depends on the privacy laws in a particular country.”

Last month Martin Nanninga of VCS Observation, the Dutch company marketing the technology, gave a presentation to officials from Transport for London, the Metropolitan police and the City of London police about the CCTV system. Nanninga is to return next year for further discussions.

“There was a lot of interest in our system, especially with security concerns about the Olympic Games in 2012. We told them about both our intelligent control room and the aggression detection system,” Nanninga said.

In Holland more than 300 of the cameras have been fitted in Groningen, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Locations include city centres, benefit offices, jails, and even T-Mobile shops. The sensitivity of the microphones is adjusted to suit the situation.

Police and local council officials are still assessing their impact on crime, although in an initial six-week trial in Groningen last year the cameras raised 70 genuine alarms, resulting in four arrests.

Harry Hoetjer, head of surveillance at Groningen police headquarters, recalled an incident where the camera had homed in on a gang of four men who were about to attack a passer-by. “We would not normally have detected it as there was no camera directly viewing it,” he said.

Last Friday a Sunday Times reporter visited the office of Sound Intelligence in Groningen to test the system. The reporter stood in the control centre with a view of an empty room on one of a bank of monitors. Van der Vorst entered the room, out of sight of the camera, and began making aggressive noises.

The camera swivelled to film him and an alarm went off in the control room, designed to alert police to a possible incident. “The cameras work on the principle that in an aggressive situation the pitch goes up and the words are spoken faster,” said van der Vorst. “The voice is not the normal flat tone, but vibrates. It is these subtle changes that our audio cameras can pick up on.”

Public prosecution services can use them in court as evidence. The Dutch privacy board has already given its approval to the system.

According to a spokesman for Richard Thomas, Britain’s information commissioner, sound recorded by the cameras would be treated under British law in the same way as CCTV footage. Under the commissioner’s code of practice, audio can be recorded for the detection, prevention of crime and apprehension and prosecution of offenders. It cannot be used for recording private conversations.

Graeme Gerrard, chairman of the chief police officers’ video and CCTV working group, said: “In the UK this is a new step. Clearly there is somebody or something monitoring people speaking in the street, and before we were to engage in that technology there would be a number of legal obstacles.

“We would need to have a debate as to whether or not this is something the public think would be a reasonable use of the technology. The other issue is around the capacity of the police service to deal with this.”

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

The FBI is apparently using a novel surveillance technique on alleged Mafioso: activating his cell phone's microphone and then just listening.

Bottom line:
While it appears this is the first use of the "roving bug" technique, it has been discussed in security circles for years.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone."

An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

FBI's physical bugs discovered
The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

"They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard
This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

Ghosts in the Machine: Encounters with the NSA
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=691
By Charles Sullivan

Quite some time ago, I am not sure exactly when, the thought police (National Security Agency) clandestinely moved into my computer. It did so without my permission and in violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The prying eyes of government are watching my every move, noting my every keystroke and monitoring my every electronic transmission and telephone conversation. They became visible to me one day when I did a trace route from the Windows command line of my home computer. Since then we have been peering at each other with eyes that do not blink.

I am astonished that so many manifestations of a police state have managed to crowd into the narrow confines of my hard drive. Disease thrives in dark places. According to the NSA, I could pose a threat to national security because I have been exposing the government’s criminality. So, in order to save myself hardship further down the road, I hereby confess to having a previous encounter with the law. Sometime in the 1970s, I think it was, I got a ticket for an expired parking meter, which was my single recorded offense over nearly fifty-three years of existence. It must be this nearly forgotten incident that makes me a hardened criminal, extremely dangerous; a menace to national security—a terrorist threat.

Will my new status require me to man a sand bag bunker in the front yard?

At least I am in good company with other suspected terrorist organizations including librarians, that most militant breed of non-conformists, Mennonites and Quakers. Waging peace, waging justice, is apparently a threat to national security in a criminal regime bent on war and occupation. My office, like much of the Middle East, is now an occupied territory. The news is like the discovery of a malignant tumor. I could disappear as completely as a wisp of smoke.

Over the years I have participated in anti-war demonstrations and have committed acts of civil disobedience; but I have never been charged with a crime and have yet to be arrested for any offense. I rarely even swat a bothersome fly. But I am being watched, preemptively, in case I get a dangerous thought. These appear to be the only kind of thoughts I have.

For all I know, the FBI, the CIA and the military may even be hiding in the bushes outside my door. My small office may be bugged with electronic listening devices or miniature cameras, and my every movement monitored by unmarked vans parked down the road, just out of sight. The NSA has more than a hundred satellites in synchronous earth orbit, at least one of them spying on U.S. citizens like me. I almost feel like apologizing to the tax payers for costing them so much money, but I do not believe it is my fault.

While it troubles me that the NSA is lurking in my computer, it does not deter me from exercising my constitutional rights of free speech and, more specifically, speaking truth to power. I am not paranoid or afraid. I have not armed myself. I go on doing what has to be done. I stand behind my words and have every intention of continuing for as long as I draw breath. Truth still matters and someone has to protect it.

I marvel that I, a man in my fifties of relatively small physical stature, command so much respect from the most powerful government ever assembled. To think that an innocuous figure like me with a long history of non-violence can have so many governmental forces marshaled against me at tax payer expense is both astonishing and appalling. I don’t know whether to be indignant or flattered.

One naturally wonders why the government is watching me. The government knows that I am not a terrorist and do not pose a threat to national security. They fear me because I have power and I exercise it frequently. Each of you has similar power and I urge you to exercise it freely. Truth is the enemy of corrupt power and that is what the government fears. Shady government has made a mockery of national security and rendered the concept moot. The truth is that we have long been an occupied nation.

And you, dear reader, may be complicit in my crimes by reading these most dangerous of words and responding to them with equally dangerous words of your own manufacture. There are almost certainly ghosts in your machines too and you cannot shake them out. But do not allow them to deter you from doing what must be done. Now is not the time to fall silent. It is a time, like all times, to stand up and be counted; a time to keep truth and hope alive in the hearts of humankind. More than ever, it is a time to live the word, to be the word.

Once again, as so many times throughout history, we bear witness to who America’s so called law enforcement agencies and the military are really working for: the same ones it has always served—the ruling Plutocracy. As always, high level law enforcement is on the side of the oppressors, not the oppressed; the purveyors of injustice, not the just. It has traditionally been on the wrong side of morality, always against the people.

The Plutocracy cannot withstand the probing light of truth; it requires the cover of darkness to do its gruesome work. Its continued existence is dependent upon deception and lies. If the people knew and understood what is being done to them and their families, they would not support this criminal cabal, and it would soon collapse into the dust bins of history. No one would serve in the military. That is why it must operate behind closed doors, safely beyond the pale of public scrutiny. That is why it feels compelled to spy upon its own citizens and treat them like criminals.

The Plutocracy has every reason to be paranoid and afraid. In the right hands truth can be a dangerous thing.

Media Cranks Up Hard Sell of Biometric and RFID Microchipped Future
http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m28704&hd=&size=1&l=e

I don’t watch a lot of television. But no sooner did I flip on MSNBC last night a coiffured talking head appeared gabbling about the insecurity of ATM machines.

If we are to believe Algorithmic Research, an Israeli company, there is a flaw in the average ATM regarding PINs, account numbers, encryption, and decryption, that is to say there is a window of opportunity to snatch this information—over the internet, of course—by an unscrupulous hacker.

Mind you, nobody has actually exploited this alleged flaw and stolen information, MSNBC admits, but it is conceivable, never mind the Secret Service, responsible for this sort of crime, and the American Bankers Association dismiss it as unlikely.

It is also conceivable "al-Qaeda" will attack, as we are told on a nearly weekly basis, but the fact they have not over the last five years never seems to get worked into the equation.

Not to worry, though. Biometric authentication, according to the MSNBC talking head, will save us.

In a day not too far off in the future, fingerprint analysis, iris recognition, voice recognition or combinations of these technologies will come to the rescue. DieBold, the friendly voting machine folks, are working on this for us. Standard Bank in South Africa has fingerprint verification ATMs manufactured by DieBold in use and the company is fast at work figuring out what technology works the best. Once they do, you may see biometric ATMs in your neighborhood.

According to Citibank, biometric ATMs "have been tailored to meet the needs of the under-banked, lower income segment" and will feature "voice-enabled navigation facility aimed at illiterate customers," Moneycontrol reports. "Citibank plans to establish a network of 25 to 35 such ATMs within a year," for now in Mumbai and Hyderabad.

But Citibank it isn’t simply targeting "illiterate customers" in rural areas of India. "The latest—and arguably biggest—player to enter the biopayment game is none other than Citibank Singapore, which has been quietly distributing fingerprint readers to area businesses for the past month," reports Portalino. "Right now only Clear Platinum card holders have the option of going biometric, and since this group includes heavy representation from the tech-savvy 25 to 34-year-old demographic, it seems that Citibank is taking the right approach to ensure widespread adoption."

Note how forking over your biometric data is characterized as an "option," a lifestyle choice for the sake of convenience.

Surrendering to Big Brother is now cool, as even James Bond, in the remake of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, has himself a microchip—for the sake of safety, of course. In the film, this little device saves Bond’s life. It will save your life, too, as you can now be scanned like a cocker spaniel.

Lest we believe America has been left out of the biometric loop, consider the following: "Although biometric payment systems are still pretty rare… recent trials at stores like Albertsons and Cub Foods and even the school lunch line would seem to indicate that more pervasive rollouts are just around the corner."

Increasingly, it would seem that if you want to eat, you will be forced to surrender your biometric data. Acceptance begins at the grade school lunch line.

Acceptance, however, does not seem to be much of a problem. "Ever get to the supermarket only to realize you forgot your wallet? For the more than 3.3 million consumers who’ve signed up for biometric technology, that’s no longer a problem," reports ParadeNet, the internet version of Parade magazine. "Customers at several retailers can now literally pay by touch. By placing their finger on a scanner at the checkout and entering their home phone number, these tech-savvy shoppers can deduct the cost of a carton of milk directly from a bank account or credit card."

Again, it is "tech-savvy" to get plugged into the Big Brother Matrix.

In Chicago, climbing aboard the biometric bandwagon, according to TMCnet, will make the Christmas season less stressful.

"One of the most frustrating things that occur at holiday time is the over-crowded stores and long wait times in line just to make it out of the store. However, thanks to Pay By Touch’s biometric payment solution, shoppers now have a fast and secure way of moving through those shopping lines…. And for any customer who used or enrolled in their biometric payment system between November 1 and December 31, 2006 Pay By Touch will also enroll them into a drawing to win a year of free groceries."

Free groceries?

No doubt this one is designed to lure in the "under-banked, lower income segment" facing a bleak Christmas, as every passing holiday season becomes more and more bleak as the American labor market is slowly but surely walmartized or sent over to the corporate slave plantation in China.

"In continuing to spread the holiday cheer, Pay By Touch will also donate $10,000 dollars to The Greater Chicago Food Depository, a non-for-profit food distribution and training center aimed at ending hunger in the community."

No word if they are required to surrender biometrics at the door.

Britain, Sweden, Greece, Germany, and other nations are jumping on the biometric bandwagon. It’s all the rave. It’s "tech-savvy" and cool.

Even Disneyland wants your fingerprints. Scanning of fingerprints at entrance turnstiles outside of the Magic Kingdom "enhances the experience of the park," according to Disney IT security. For now, "customers, who still have concerns about using their fingerprints, can choose to continue using a photo ID card as a form of identification," reports ZDNet. No guarantees down the road, however, as in the near future all turnstiles will have scanners, designed to enhance the Disney experience, of course. Not scanning will de-enhance the experience, as you will likely be relegated to the end of the line.

It seems the biometric folks are covering all angles. For instance, if you forget your house keys, no problem. "While locks and alarm systems have been used in the past to help protect the home from unauthorized intruders, now biometric technology is introducing the first consumer available, biometric deadbolt lock for doors that ensures authorized entry and eliminates the need for keys," explains TMCnet.

Of course, this gets the "tech-savvy consumer" prepared for biometric technology everywhere, not only at the airport but the grocery store and bank. Biometric will connect to every possible aspect of life that requires a transaction or security requirement.

It’s a small step from a biometric ATM card to a subdermal microchip.

James Bond aside, the idea of "getting chipped" like a Hereford heifer is scary to some people.

In order to overcome this natural aversion, VeriChip Corporation has introduced the VeriMed RFID microchip "designed to provide immediate access to important health information on patients who arrive at an emergency department unconscious, delirious or unable to communicate," according to a press released posted on Yahoo Finance.

Applied Digital, the parent company of VeriChip, manufactures "unique and often proprietary products [that] provide identification and security systems for people, animals, the food supply, government/military arena, and commercial assets. Included in this diversified product line are RFID applications, end-to-end food safety systems, GPS/Satellite communications, and telecomm and security infrastructure, positioning Applied Digital as the leader in identification technology."

Seems Applied Digital is positioned to cash in on the coming electronic panopticon,"a police state characterized by omniscient surveillance and mechanical law enforcement," as Charlie Stross characterizes it.

Applied Digital, Citibank, Disney, and other corporate behemoths may attempt to sell us on biometric convenience and safety, but the eventual use of these technologies will ultimately fall in the domain of surveillance and control.

"Surveillance need not even stop at our skin," with the collection of fingerprints and iris scans, Stross notes, because "the ability to monitor our speech and track our biological signs (for example: pulse, pupillary dilation, or possibly hormone and neurotransmitter levels) may lead to attempts to monitor thoughts as well as deeds. What starts with attempts to identify paedophile predators before they strike may end with discrimination against people believed to be at risk of 'addictive behavior’—howsoever that might be defined—or of harboring anti-social attitudes," for instance disagreeing with the government.

"A Panopticon Singularity is the logical outcome if the burgeoning technologies of the singularity are funneled into automating law enforcement. Previous police states were limited by manpower, but the panopticon singularity substitutes technology, and ultimately replaces human conscience with a brilliant but merciless prosthesis."

It will not take another forty years to realize the panopticon singularity—it is right around the corner, beginning with the Real ID Act in 2008, a biometric scheme approved by our wonderful "representatives" that will be implemented and supervised by the Orwellian Ministry of Homeland Security, a massive federal bureaucratic boondoggle created to protect us from non-existent "al-Qaeda" terrorists. It makes perfect sense Real ID was slipped into a $82 billion military spending bill.

In Philip K. Dick’s short story, Minority Report, set in 2054, as realized by Steven Spielberg in his 2002 film, everyone is automatically eye-scanned and tracked in public, thus not only allowing the police state to keep tabs on every individual, but also target them for odious marketing efforts. It is a prefect marriage of corporations and the state, both fascist in character, as Mussolini described fascism as corporatism and vice versa.

As 2006 winds down, we are enduring increasing efforts to sell us on the Panopticon Singularity, as envisioned by Stross, based on the work of Jeremy Bentham. Our rulers seem to have taken a page from another science fiction story, Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky, depicting the concept of "ubiquitous law enforcement."

James Bond and his microchip may be portrayed on screen as cool and the Jacobs family of Boca Raton, Florida, may be heralded by the corporate media as the "Chipsons" (a lame take on the Jetsons), but the reality of a biometrically scanned and chipped future is almost too hellish to imagine, far worse than anything Steven Spielberg could possibly dream up.

But, hey, at least you won’t have to wait in line at Disney World.

Top 10: The best, worst... and craziest uses of RFID
http://networks.silicon.com/lans/0%2C39024663%2C39164446%2C00.htm

Children:
Japanese authorities decided to start chipping schoolchildren in one primary school in Osaka a couple of years ago. The kids' clothes and bags were fitted with RFID tags with readers installed in school gates and other key locations to track the minors' movements.

Legoland also introduced a similar scheme to stop children going astray by issuing RFID bracelets for the tots.

Pub tables:
Thirsty students can escape the busy bar and still get a pint thanks to RFID tables that deliver orders remotely.

The high-tech bar is fitted with touchscreens so students can get a round in, order a taxi or even chat-up someone at the next table. See snaps of the RFID bar here.

Fulham Football Club:
Fulham FC has started issuing RFID-enabled smartcards to fans to cut queues at the turnstiles and increase safety around the stadium.

Around 20,000 of the smartcards have been issued to mainly season ticket holders and club members and contain data on matches each cardholder has paid for. See shots of the technology around the stadium here.

Air passengers:
It was also suggested by boffins at University College London that air passengers should be RFID-tagged as they mingle in the departure lounge to improve airport security.

silicon.com's audience called the idea, amongst other things, Orwellian, intrusive and detrimental to airport security. Click here to see the Best of Reader Comments on the story.

Tanks:
RFID has also made an appearance in the army to try and reduce casualties from 'friendly fire' incidents.

Last year Nato's Operation Urgent Quest exercise tested the potential of a number of combat identity systems under battlefield conditions. See photos of RFID in action here.

Hospital in-patients:
In an effort to trim clinical errors, hospitals in New York and Germany have been tagging their patients. Visitors to the hospitals are given RFID-chipped wristbands to wear which are scanned by medical personnel to bring up their records and make sure the patients are given the correct dosages of drugs.

Blood:
The same clinic which tags its patients is also tagging blood. No vampire-pleasing effort this, rather the Klinikum Saarbruecken is using the tags to make sure the right blood reaches the right patient. Nurses will be able to scan the tags using reader-equipped PDAs or tablet PCs and check that the blood data matches the information held on an RFID-tagged bracelet worn by the patient.

The National Patient Safety Agency in the UK is also considering a similar move.

Suits:
Marks and Spencer has long been associated with being at the forefront of flogging ladies' undies. It's also now at the forefront of item-level tagging, having chipped some of its men's clothes. The retailer has avoided questions of privacy protection by attaching the tag to a label on the suit that can be cut off.

M&S has now extended the trials nationwide.

Passports:
One of the more controversial applications is soon-to-be mandatory use of RFID in passports. The US is leading the way in deployments and the UK isn't far behind.

As well as the obvious privacy fears that surround such rollouts, experts have questioned how secure the passports are with some claiming to have cracked and cloned them already.

Books:
The first item-level rollout in Europe has already taken place in Dutch book store BGN. Each of the books in BGN's Almere store is chipped and a second store, in Maastricht, will soon go the same way, allowing the retailer to track each book from its central warehouse to the shop floor.

Nike+ IPod = Surveillance
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0%2C72202-0.html?tw=wn_technology_5

If you enhance your workout with the new Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, you may be making yourself a surveillance target.

A report from four University of Washington researchers to be released Thursday reveals that security flaws in the new RFID-powered device from Nike and Apple make it easy for tech-savvy stalkers, thieves and corporations to track your movements. With just a few hundred dollars and a little know-how, someone could even plot your running routes on a Google map without your knowledge.

The Nike+ iPod gives runners real-time updates about the speed and length of their workouts via a small RFID device that fits into the soles of Nike shoes, and broadcasts workout data to a small receiver plugged into an iPod Nano.

While this setup sounds convenient and cool, it didn't sit well with Scott Saponas, a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle. After enjoying his Nike+ iPod for a few months, Saponas began to suspect there might be other, more nefarious uses for the gear.

He brought his concerns to University of Washington computer science professor Yoshi Kohno and fellow graduate students Carl Hartung and Jonathan Lester. After just a few weeks of tinkering, the four researchers discovered that the Nike+ iPod is, as Kohno put it, "an easy surveillance device."

The first problem is that the RFID in the shoe sensor contains its own on-board power source, essentially turning your running shoe into a small radio station capable of being received from up to 60 feet away, with a signal powerful enough to be picked up from a passing car.

Compare this with the roughly 3-centimeter to 10-inch read range of a typical consumer-grade RFID, such as the kind you find in smart tags in Gap clothing or in credit cards, which is passively powered by the reader.

Additionally, the sensor will reveal its unique ID to any Nike+ iPod receiver. With a quick hardware hack that Kohno said "any high school student could do in the garage," the researchers hooked a Nike+ iPod receiver up to a Linux-based "gumstix" -- a tiny, $79 computer that could easily be hidden in door frames, in trees next to jogging trails or in a pocket.

In their report, the researchers detail a scenario in which a stalker who wants to know when his ex-girlfriend is at home taps into her Nike+ iPod system. He simply hides the gumstix device next to her door, and it registers her presence as she passes by in her Nike shoes. If he adds a small "wifistix" antenna to the device, it can transmit this information to any nearby Wi-Fi access point and alert him to her presence via SMS or by plotting her location on Google Maps.

A thief could use a similar set-up to case several houses at once, figuring out when Nike-wearing owners are at home and when they aren't.

Neither Apple nor Nike had comments at press time.

Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Lee Tien says the Nike+ iPod is a harbinger of things to come. "We're going to see more devices like this in the next few years," he said. "This isn't just a problem with the Nike+ iPod per se -- it's a cautionary tale about what happens when companies unwittingly build a surveillance capacity into their products."

UC Berkeley RFID researcher David Molnar agreed with Tien, adding, "This shows a need for independent oversight and investigation of these technologies before they go to market. These things happen because the people building devices don't think about privacy implications."

Molnar also speculated about how easy it would be for a company to build their own tiny readers and deploy them in a large environment, selling the data stream to those who would track spouses or teens, or collect information about how many people wearing Nikes visit malls or movie theaters. "Given that there are no laws about skimming data in California right now, it would be perfectly legal to do it there," he said.

The researchers, for their part, just want to see Apple, Nike and other manufacturers fix the problem. They offer a simple solution in their report, which is to build the sensors to speak to only one reader.

"Using relatively standard cryptographic techniques, you could make it very difficult to listen to broadcasts from somebody else's sensor," said Kohno. He hastened to add that he doesn't believe Apple and Nike purposefully designed the sensors to be surveillance-friendly. "I just think companies should be as aware of privacy issues as they are of safety issues," he said. "Too often, they aren't."

A generation is all they need
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165705809111&call_pageid=968867495754

One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society's resistance to the loss of privacy

By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits.

Most people anticipate such a prospect with a sense of horrified disbelief, dismissing it as a science-fiction fantasy. The technology, however, already exists. For years humane societies have implanted all the pets that leave their premises with a small identifying microchip. As well, millions of consumer goods are now traced with tiny radio frequency identification chips that allow satellites to reveal their exact location.

A select group of people are already "chipped" with devices that automatically open doors, turn on lights, and perform other low-level miracles. Prominent among such individuals is researcher Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England; Warwick is a leading proponent of the almost limitless potential uses for such chips.

Other users include the patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, many of whom have paid about $150 (U.S.) for the privilege of being implanted with an identifying chip that allows them to bypass lengthy club queues and purchase drinks by being scanned. These individuals are the advance guard of an effort to expand the technology as widely as possible.

From this point forward, microchips will become progressively smaller, less invasive, and easier to deploy. Thus, any realistic barrier to the wholesale "chipping" of Western citizens is not technological but cultural. It relies upon the visceral reaction against the prospect of being personally marked as one component in a massive human inventory.

Today we might strongly hold such beliefs, but sensibilities can, and probably will, change. How this remarkable attitudinal transformation is likely to occur is clear to anyone who has paid attention to privacy issues over the past quarter-century. There will be no 3 a.m. knock on the door by storm troopers come to force implants into our bodies. The process will be more subtle and cumulative, couched in the unassailable language of progress and social betterment, and mimicking many of the processes that have contributed to the expansion of closed-circuit television cameras and the corporate market in personal data.

A series of tried and tested strategies will be marshalled to familiarize citizens with the technology. These will be coupled with efforts to pressure tainted social groups and entice the remainder of the population into being chipped.

This, then, is how the next generation will come to be microchipped.

It starts in distant countries. Having tested the technology on guinea pigs, both human and animal, the first widespread use of human implanting will occur in nations at the periphery of the Western world. Such developments are important in their own right, but their international significance pertains to how they familiarize a global audience with the technology and habituate them to the idea that chipping represents a potential future.

An increasing array of hypothetical chipping scenarios will also be depicted in entertainment media, furthering the familiarization process.

In the West, chips will first be implanted in members of stigmatized groups. Pedophiles are the leading candidate for this distinction, although it could start with terrorists, drug dealers, or whatever happens to be that year's most vilified criminals. Short-lived promises will be made that the technology will only be used on the "worst of the worst." In fact, the wholesale chipping of incarcerated individuals will quickly ensue, encompassing people on probation and on parole.

Even accused individuals will be tagged, a measure justified on the grounds that it would stop them from fleeing justice. Many prisoners will welcome this development, since only chipped inmates will be eligible for parole, weekend release, or community sentences. From the prison system will emerge an evocative vocabulary distinguishing chippers from non-chippers.

Although the chips will be justified as a way to reduce fraud and other crimes, criminals will almost immediately develop techniques to simulate other people's chip codes and manipulate their data.

The comparatively small size of the incarcerated population, however, means that prisons would be simply a brief stopover on a longer voyage. Commercial success is contingent on making serious inroads into tagging the larger population of law-abiding citizens. Other stigmatized groups will therefore be targeted. This will undoubtedly entail monitoring welfare recipients, a move justified to reduce fraud, enhance efficiency, and ensure that the poor do not receive "undeserved" benefits.

Once e-commerce is sufficiently advanced, welfare recipients will receive their benefits as electronic vouchers stored on their microchips, a policy that will be tinged with a sense of righteousness, as it will help ensure that clients can only purchase government-approved goods from select merchants, reducing the always disconcerting prospect that poor people might use their limited funds to purchase alcohol or tobacco.

Civil libertarians will try to foster a debate on these developments. Their attempts to prohibit chipping will be handicapped by the inherent difficulty in animating public sympathy for criminals and welfare recipients — groups that many citizens are only too happy to see subjected to tighter regulation. Indeed, the lesser public concern for such groups is an inherent part of the unarticulated rationale for why coerced chipping will be disproportionately directed at the stigmatized.

The official privacy arm of the government will now take up the issue. Mandated to determine the legality of such initiatives, privacy commissioners and Senate Committees will produce a forest of reports presented at an archipelago of international conferences. Hampered by lengthy research and publication timelines, their findings will be delivered long after the widespread adoption of chipping is effectively a fait accompli. The research conclusions on the effectiveness of such technologies will be mixed and open to interpretation.

Officials will vociferously reassure the chipping industry that they do not oppose chipping itself, which has fast become a growing commercial sector. Instead, they are simply seeking to ensure that the technology is used fairly and that data on the chips is not misused. New policies will be drafted.

What might Hitler, Mao or Milosevic have accomplished if their citizens were chipped, coded, and remotely monitored?

Employers will start to expect implants as a condition of getting a job. The U.S. military will lead the way, requiring chips for all soldiers as a means to enhance battlefield command and control — and to identify human remains. From cooks to commandos, every one of the more than one million U.S. military personnel will see microchips replace their dog tags.

Following quickly behind will be the massive security sector. Security guards, police officers, and correctional workers will all be expected to have a chip. Individuals with sensitive jobs will find themselves in the same position.

The first signs of this stage are already apparent. In 2004, the Mexican attorney general's office started implanting employees to restrict access to secure areas. The category of "sensitive occupation" will be expansive to the point that anyone with a job that requires keys, a password, security clearance, or identification badge will have those replaced by a chip.

Judges hearing cases on the constitutionality of these measures will conclude that chipping policies are within legal limits. The thin veneer of "voluntariness" coating many of these programs will allow the judiciary to maintain that individuals are not being coerced into using the technology.

In situations where the chips are clearly forced on people, the judgments will deem them to be undeniable infringements of the right to privacy. However, they will then invoke the nebulous and historically shifting standard of "reasonableness" to pronounce coerced chipping a reasonable infringement on privacy rights in a context of demands for governmental efficiency and the pressing need to enhance security in light of the still ongoing wars on terror, drugs, and crime.

At this juncture, an unfortunately common tragedy of modern life will occur: A small child, likely a photogenic toddler, will be murdered or horrifically abused. It will happen in one of the media capitals of the Western world, thereby ensuring non-stop breathless coverage. Chip manufactures will recognize this as the opportunity they have been anticipating for years. With their technology now largely bug-free, familiar to most citizens and comparatively inexpensive, manufacturers will partner with the police to launch a high-profile campaign encouraging parents to implant their children "to ensure your own peace of mind."

Special deals will be offered. Implants will be free, providing the family registers for monitoring services. Loving but unnerved parents will be reassured by the ability to integrate tagging with other functions on their PDA so they can see their child any time from any place.

Paralleling these developments will be initiatives that employ the logic of convenience to entice the increasingly small group of holdouts to embrace the now common practice of being tagged. At first, such convenience tagging will be reserved for the highest echelon of Western society, allowing the elite to move unencumbered through the physical and informational corridors of power. Such practices will spread more widely as the benefits of being chipped become more prosaic. Chipped individuals will, for example, move more rapidly through customs.

Indeed, it will ultimately become a condition of using mass-transit systems that officials be allowed to monitor your chip. Companies will offer discounts to individuals who pay by using funds stored on their embedded chip, on the small-print condition that the merchant can access large swaths of their personal data. These "discounts" are effectively punitive pricing schemes, charging unchipped individuals more as a way to encourage them to submit to monitoring. Corporations will seek out the personal data in hopes of producing ever more fine-grained customer profiles for marketing purposes, and to sell to other institutions.

By this point all major organizations will be looking for opportunities to capitalize on the possibilities inherent in an almost universally chipped population. The uses of chips proliferate, as do the types of discounts. Each new generation of household technology becomes configured to operate by interacting with a person's chip.

Finding a computer or appliance that will run though old-fashioned "hands-on"' interactions becomes progressively more difficult and costly. Patients in hospitals and community care will be routinely chipped, allowing medical staff — or, more accurately, remote computers — to monitor their biological systems in real time.

Eager to reduce the health costs associated with a largely docile citizenry, authorities will provide tax incentives to individuals who exercise regularly. Personal chips will be remotely monitored to ensure that their heart rate is consistent with an exercise regime.

By now, the actual process of "chipping" for many individuals will simply involve activating certain functions of their existing chip. Any prospect of removing the chip will become increasingly untenable, as having a chip will be a precondition for engaging in the main dynamics of modern life, such as shopping, voting, and driving.

The remaining holdouts will grow increasingly weary of Luddite jokes and subtle accusations that they have something to hide. Exasperated at repeatedly watching neighbours bypass them in "chipped" lines while they remain subject to the delays, inconveniences, and costs reserved for the unchipped, they too will choose the path of least resistance and get an implant.

In one generation, then, the cultural distaste many might see as an innate reaction to the prospect of having our bodies marked like those of an inmate in a concentration camp will likely fade.

In the coming years some of the most powerful institutional actors in society will start to align themselves to entice, coerce, and occasionally compel the next generation to get an implant.

Now, therefore, is the time to contemplate the unprecedented dangers of this scenario. The most serious of these concern how even comparatively stable modern societies will, in times of fear, embrace treacherous promises. How would the prejudices of a Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, or of southern Klansmen — all of whom were deeply integrated into the American political establishment — have manifest themselves in such a world? What might Hitler, Mao or Milosevic have accomplished if their citizens were chipped, coded, and remotely monitored?

Choirs of testimonials will soon start to sing the virtues of implants. Calm reassurances will be forthcoming about democratic traditions, the rule of law, and privacy rights. History, unfortunately, shows that things can go disastrously wrong, and that this happens with disconcerting regularity. Little in the way of international agreements, legality, or democratic sensibilities has proved capable of thwarting single-minded ruthlessness.

"It can't happen here" has become the whispered swan song of the disappeared. Best to contemplate these dystopian potentials before we proffer the tender forearms of our sons and daughters. While we cannot anticipate all of the positive advantages that might be derived from this technology, the negative prospects are almost too terrifying to contemplate.