No surveillance without oversight

Given the FBI's record of fallibility – and without genuine safeguards for citizens – this $1bn biometrics project is alarming

Biometrics/Wikimedia image

Jay Stanley
Guardian

The FBI recently announced that its Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) has "reached its initial operating capacity". This vast new biometrics project, for which Lockheed Martin won a $1bn contract in 2008, encompasses not only fingerprints but also, possibly, such biometrics as iris scans, face recognition, bodily scars, marks and tattoos.

Such a system raises a number of concerns from a civil liberties perspective. Many types of biometrics are of particular concern because they allow individuals to be tracked secretly and at a distance. For instance, facial recognition may allow a person to be tracked by various CCTV cameras across a city. Worse, in the future, this may be automated and done by computers.

The FBI is rushing ahead with this system in a larger context that is very troubling. Since 9/11, we've repeatedly seen the government throw together new identity and tracking systems without building in the necessary protections to make sure innocent people aren't caught up in them. A good example is aviation watchlists. Countless travelers have found themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare – improperly listed as suspected terrorists, hassled, arrested or worse, and with no way to clear their names in the eyes of the government's secretive security bureaucracies. The problem is not just errors and mistaken identification, or the lack of due process or rigorous procedures for keeping the lists accurate, but also the possibility that government bureaucrats have used a "when in doubt, thrown a name on the list" approach.

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Homegrown terrorism: the threat of Homeland Security and spy agencies

Dees Illustration

Marti Oakley, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

We should have stormed the streets when TSA was set loose in our airports to assault travelers, but we didn’t. Instead, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of us mewled that TSA was “only trying to keep us safe”.  These assaults have nothing to do with our safety; we are being systematically trained to comply, to submit.  Now, because so many of us did comply, TSA is setting up shop in our train stations and courthouses among other public places and is expanding their assaults on US citizens.

The government has now openly declared war on its own citizens.  Think I’m wrong?

While the globalists at the federal level pretend to be in conflict about spending and the uber scary national debt and deficit spending, the global elite that control the government had no problem borrowing millions upon million of dollars to purchase 500 roving surveillance vans. The Z Backscatter vans range in cost from $729,000 to $825,000  that will invade your person, x-ray you, facially imprint you and scan and record your iris.  You can be walking down a street, attending a sports event, or just sitting in a park or your own home and you can be scanned.  Have you figured out who the government is hunting yet?  Who they are after?  I would advise not leaving your home without very dark and large sunglasses and a big hat to pull down over your face.

And the cost of these 500 police state vans?

• 500 @ 729,000 each = 364,500,000.  That’s on the low side.
• 500 @ 825,000 each= 412,500,00 million on the high side.
• 5 employees per van at an average government wage of 45,000 per year = 112,500,000

The startup costs for unlawfully invading your privacy and person and conducting a warrantless search?  If all the vans were purchased for 729,000 each and you add in just the average labor costs=477,000,000

At 825,000 each plus labor== 525,500,000.


So congress is suggesting that food stamps to the poor be cut along with education, heating assistance and Social Security…….but they can afford these vans?

These costs do not include operating expenses, insurance on the vans and employees or unexpected cost overruns, expenses and other hidden costs associated with violating your constitutional rights.  These costs are just the estimates for this year.  These vans are just one source of the homegrown terrorism activities in our country.

How many of you have seen the ads for the national guard, showing young men in a room surrounded by huge screens sitting at a console that looks like a huge gameboard?  The script on the ad says something to the effect of  “GI Joe is operating a drone for surveillance 651 miles away.  But he drives only 2.1 miles to get to his home.” ( I’m paraphrasing there, of course.)  Then shows the young GI pulling up in the driveway of a very nice looking home and heading for the door.  Did any of you stop to think where the drones were being used?  Who GI Joe was spying on?  I bet a fair number of you immediately thought GI Joe was spying on some terrorist camp in Afghanistan or Iraq, didn’t you?  It couldn’t possibly be that he was spying on Americans…..could it?

The cost of one drone? 30,000 each and the government and many cities are ordering huge numbers of them for use in America.  Wonder who they are spying on?

We have been carefully trained to believe that some boogey man working as a terrorist from some far away place is out to get us.  9/11 cemented this fear in most people’s minds even though the whole government conspiracy theory has been so thoroughly debunked, and no reasonable person could conclude that some madman in a cave with a laptop orchestrated that event.  For you who still cling to the conspiracy theory that Osama Bin Laden, a known CIA asset, was responsible for that attack, never fear.  At any given moment Bin Laden will be resurrected and will convey a threat from his grave and will send a video to Homeland Security to disperse to every news station in the country.  I personally think it is wonderful that Bin Laden’s warm and fuzzy feelings towards what is now known as Homeland Security have extended beyond his death. Even death does not keep Bin Laden from sending greetings whenever Homeland Security is about to expand its police state.  Who knew they were so close?  By the way, the FBI has still never charged Bin Laden with 9/11.  I wonder why?

Apparently the globalists fear of the American people is reaching epic proportions.  We have Fusions Centers, data mining, dna collection, iris scanning, facial imprinting, drones, spy vans, snitches and individual dossiers on every person being assembled with any and all information that can be collected about you whether true or not.  They don’t’ care.  Its true if they say it is and every bit of it is to be used to assemble a criminal case against you should they decide to do so. In a police state we are all felons, as any activity we engage in, can be criminalized at the convenience of the government at any time. And, if they had no intentions of using data they collect about you against you, they wouldn’t be so actively engaged in collecting it.

As if the co-opting of Wal-Mart in the snitch and report campaign wasn’t enough, The Stool Pigeon Protection Act was just introduced by Pete King (R) NY, along with several other neo-con crazies.
:To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide immunity for reports of suspected terrorist activity or suspicious behavior and response.:

What this means to those out there with no sense of loyalty or morality is that you can snitch and report without repercussion.  Heck, the worst that can happen to you is the government will publish your name if the pressure on them becomes too great.

Amazing how this piece of police state garbage shows up when 22 million people are out of work and many on the verge of losing their homes.  Thousands of families are living in shelters and we are hemorrhaging jobs to third world countries.  This Stool Pigeon Protection Act, will pay you 1,000 for snitching, reporting, or fabricating a story about one of your neighbors, family members or even someone you never even met.  Doesn’t matter.  It’s the act of training you to snitch and report that is important.

We do have an epidemic of homegrown terrorists and terrorism.  We do have radical groups operating in this country and we need to be wary of them.  Homeland Security represents a clear and present danger to the continuance of the sovereign but united (50) states and the citizens of those states.  Anyone who slaps on a government badge and accepts a paycheck with full knowledge that their job will involve violating your rights and the Constitution of the people of the United States, should be considered a domestic terrorist.  Any agency who is unlawfully and actively spying on, data mining, intimidating or violating your Constitutional rights should be considered a radical extremist group and domestic terrorists.

Claiming that you work for the government is no excuse.  Just following orders is no excuse.  You know what you are doing and you know that it is wrong on many levels.  So while I agree with the idea that there are radical extremist groups and homegrown terrorism, I would argue what that actually entails and where it actually is coming from.

Personally I believe every time we encounter a TSA agent, a roving surveillance van or drone, or just see anything that looks to be coming from government, we should all call in on the tip line and report it, demand our $1000 snitch payment and then go shopping.

______________________________________________
Cost of Drones                                                                    
http://news.cnet.com/Drone-aircraft-may-prowl-U.S.-skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html
Stool Pigeon Protection Act http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/stool-pigeon-protection-act/
Cost of Surveillance X-ray scan vans http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/19/x-ray-vans-security-measure-invasion-privacy/

Marti Oakley is a political activist and former op-ed columnist for the St Cloud Times in Minnesota. She was a member of the Times Writer’s Group until she resigned in September of 07. She is neither Democrat nor Republican, since neither party is representative of the American people. She says what she thinks, means what she says, and is known for being outspoken. She is hopeful that the American public will wake up to what is happening to our beloved country . . . little of it is left.  Her website is The PPJ Gazette   

Recently by Marti Oakley: 
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