Big Brother is Watching You

[Leo Lyons]

It looks like you returned primarily to whine about me, and it was your very first post upon coming back. If that's the case, putting you on 'ignore' is uber easy. I have no interest in your childishness.

Awww ... you poor thin-skinned victim. If you had balls enough to admit you're full of bovine droppings, you would see my first post was in response to your ATTACK ON ME in my May post; wherein I questioned (whine?) your calling me a liar. See below.

Blah, blah, blah, whine, yack, yack.

So if someone has their information wrong, they're not wrong, they're a liar? How so typical of you; bless your heart.

It seems that everyone who's not of your immediate circle is out to attack you. Someday you're going to have to accept that some people are decent human beings and stop trying to see the bad that isn't there. Ignore, follow, I don't care. If you want to discuss issues, fine with me. If you want to make up shit, ignore my posts but gripe about me, I'll deal with that. Grow up man; you're not a teenie anymore.

[Vrede too]

Blah, blah, blah, whine, yack, yack.

Ignored. Buh-bye.

[Leo Lyons]

Blah, blah, blah, whine, yack, yack.

Ignored. Buh-bye.

Yeah, you told us about your Safe Place. Many Libs have one nowadays. (How come you popped your head out long enough to reply?)
:violent:

"I see dead people unsafe words!"

[Vrede too]

Leo Lyons, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
Display this post.

Nope.

[Leo Lyons]

Leo Lyons, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.
Display this post.

Nope.

Ha! Ha! 'Ol vrede done put a padlock on the door to his safe place! He must have lost the key!
(p.s. Vrede, tell Grannie Leo said Hey!)

"Nope" --- sure.

[Vrede too]

But again, it won't be just the FBI. The NYPD will demand it. The DEA will demand it. The TSA will demand it. A hundred other police agencies will demand it. Consider the Stingray phone tracker - a mass surveillance device developed for the military and intelligence communities "to catch the terrorists", but now in widespread use by local and state law enforcement agencies. Now consider that every other country's police agencies will demand this "custom OS" too.

A Stingray device sets up a fake cell site to do man-in-the-middle attacks. It lets you download personal data from people's phones, track people through their cell phones, and listen to calls.

Developed for the military and intelligence community, they're not in common use by local police forces. The LAPD used a Department of Homeland Security grant in 2006 to buy a StingRay for "regional terrorism investigations". However, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the "LAPD has been using it for just about any investigation imaginable." They've shown up in Canada and Britain and elsewhere.

The latest to make the news is Memphis. Their mayor's election campaign explicitly mentioned Stingrays and the secrecy surrounding them, but now supports them post-election.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has called the devices "an unconstitutional, all-you-can-eat data buffet." The police defend this not in court, but signing nondisclosure agreements stating that law enforcement officers must do everything up to swallowing their cyanide pills (let suspects walk, route FOIA requests through the FBI, engage in parallel construction, etc.) to prevent information about the technology from making its way into the hands of defendants, judges or peskily inquisitive members of the public.

Suppose the FBI gets their mandatory back door into everyone's devices. (This fight is about setting a precedent for other brands of phones too. Plus fitness trackers and all those "internet of things" devices showing up in people's homes and devices now standard in new cars, tracking enabled even when you don't buy the service.) Does anyone believe for an instant that the TSA, CIA, DEA, NYPD, LAPD and everyone else will demand it? And similar organizations in other countries?

Does anyone believe for an instant that it won't be leaked? Consider the data breach that gave Chinese hackers personal details on 21.5 million government employees.

On June 11, 2015, ABC News also said that highly sensitive 127-page Standard Forms (SF) 86 (Questionnaire for National Security Positions) were put at serious risk by the hack. SF-86 forms contain information about family members, college roommates, foreign contacts, and psychological information. At the time, OPM stated that family members names were not compromised. However, on June 13, 2015, OPM spokesman Samuel Schumach said that investigators had "a high degree of confidence that OPM systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former, and prospective federal government employees, to include U.S. military personnel, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated."
[...]
The stolen data included 5.6 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics expert Ramesh Kesanupalli said that because of this, secret agents were no longer safe, as they could be identified by their fingerprints, even if their names had been changed.

Other government agencies have had massive leaks too. The IRS has had multiple leaks of all the information needed for identity theft of huge numbers of citizens, repeatedly, even after declaring "all fixed!" We now know that Snowden wasn't the only one in the NSA leaking documents.

DC Court of Appeals Decides That Police Stingrays Require a Warrant

Sen. Wyden Confirms Cell-Site Simulators Disrupt Emergency Calls

[Vrede too]

The Game is Rigged: Congress Invites No Consumer Privacy Advocates to its Consumer Privacy Hearing

The Senate Commerce Committee is getting ready to host a much-anticipated hearing on consumer privacy—and consumer privacy groups don’t get a seat at the table. Instead, the Committee is seeking only the testimony of big tech and Internet access corporations: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Charter Communications, Google, and Twitter. Some of these companies have spent heavily to oppose consumer privacy legislation and have never supported consumer privacy laws. They know policymakers are considering new privacy protections, and are likely to view this hearing as a chance to encourage Congress to adopt the weakest privacy protections possible—and eviscerate stronger state protections at the same time.

It is no coincidence that, in the past week, two leading industry groups (the Chamber of Commerce and the Internet Association) have called for federal preemption of state data privacy laws in exchange for weaker federal protections. For example, laws in California and Illinois require companies to have user consent to certain uses of their personal information (Nevada and Minnesota have these requirements for Internet access providers), while the industry proposals would only require transparency. That means that companies would be allowed to collect information without your permission as long as they tell you they’re doing it. The upcoming hearing at the Senate Commerce Committee may be the launch pad for this strategy of undoing stronger state laws....

:cussing:

[Vrede too]

How the FBI Silences Whistleblowers

As FBI Whistleblower Terry Albury Faces Sentencing, His Lawyers Say He Was Motivated by Racism and Abuses at the Bureau

[Vrede too]

The CIA's communications suffered a catastrophic compromise. It started in Iran.

So, the CIA got a bunch of its own people killed and ruined many networks while no one has yet IDed any deaths caused by Snowden or Manning who were being dragged over the coals at the same exact time.

[O Really]

To paraphrase Monty Python, "those responsible for sacking those responsible [should be] sacked." How did the formerly formidable CIA get to be so incompetent? Couldn't be too much money/resources spent on chasing tails in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. and not enough to assure the US had an intelligence operation second to none?

[Vrede too]

To paraphrase Monty Python, "those responsible for sacking those responsible [should be] sacked." How did the formerly formidable CIA get to be so incompetent? Couldn't be too much money/resources spent on chasing tails in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. and not enough to assure the US had an intelligence operation second to none?

I'm not sure how one would measure relative levels of CIA incompetence over time. Guatemala, Iran historically, the Contra terrorists, 9/11 and Cuba come to mind.

[Vrede too]

Emails Show How Amazon is Selling Facial Recognition System to Law Enforcement
Broad coalition demands that Amazon stop selling dragnet surveillance tool to the government, citing privacy and racial justice concerns

Sign the petition now to tell Amazon:

“Stop helping the U.S. government spy on millions of innocent people. Honor our right to privacy by immediately ending the U.S. government's access to the Rekognition program."

[Vrede too]

Big Brother is Watching You at your invitation, even Ukranian Big Brother.

For Owners of Amazon’s Ring Security Cameras, Strangers May Have Been Watching Too

[Vrede too]

Feds share terrorist watchlist with 1,400 private groups
Critics say list is overbroad and mismanaged, and that large numbers of people wrongly included suffer routine difficulties

[O Really]

Feds share terrorist watchlist with 1,400 private groups
Critics say list is overbroad and mismanaged, and that large numbers of people wrongly included suffer routine difficulties

OK, so let's say a few people are on the list because they're some fed's ex-wife, and that a few are there because their name is the same or like some real suspected evil-doer, and that some are there because of errors or misunderstandings calling out "Hi, Jack!" to their friend in the airport, and some are there for real events that were later explained or dropped... do we know what the real criteria is for getting on the "watch list"?

Because it would have been nice if some of these people that shoot up public places and - afterward - everybody says "we all knew that guy was a nut but couldn't do anything" had been on a list that caused extra scrutiny.

[Vrede too]

OK, so let's say a few people are on the list because they're some fed's ex-wife, and that a few are there because their name is the same or like some real suspected evil-doer, and that some are there because of errors or misunderstandings calling out "Hi, Jack!" to their friend in the airport, and some are there for real events that were later explained or dropped... do we know what the real criteria is for getting on the "watch list"?

Because it would have been nice if some of these people that shoot up public places and - afterward - everybody says "we all knew that guy was a nut but couldn't do anything" had been on a list that caused extra scrutiny.

How people get on the list is certainly a concern and has been for years, as is how one gets their name removed when it never should have been there in the first place. However, those issues are then compounded by the topic of this article - how very many far flung entities can and do secretly discriminate against those either erroneously on the list or who have a similar name to someone on the list. Giving the list to a hospital, for example, is not going to ever prevent a terrorist act, it's just going to cause discrimination that is earned or entirely unfair, usually against Muslims. We all know that LEOs have not pursued the greater threat - white, male, often Christian, cons - with the same enthusiasm. At least a 'background check'-like system like we have for guns requires sellers to submit a name to the list for checking, not cast the names out there to 1400 different entities with 1400 different versions of confidentiality and quality control.

[O Really]

Giving the list to a hospital, for example, is not going to ever prevent a terrorist act, it's just going to cause discrimination that is earned or entirely unfair.

Here's a story on hospital "security" for you...
So yesterday, Lady O had to go for a minor procedure at NCH Healthcare, which is, by all known ratings, a very good place and one we've been really satisfied with. Good records tech - you get your data (insurance, etc.) in once at any facility, and it's instantly available to anybody else in the system. So if your PC says to get blood drawn or some other test, when you contact the facility, they know who you are and what the request is for. Maybe most places are like that now, but we didn't get the same from Mission facilities. Anyway, when you go into the main hospital entrance, there's a double security line - one for those with ID to scan, the other for visitors/patients. Staffing the line looks like at least one real cop. Have to show photo ID, they scan it and make a temp badge for you, showing where you're authorized to be in the building. Sounds good, eh?

So I drop Lady O off at the door and go park the car (they also have valet service available that I avoid like the plague from back in the days when I drove cars tempting to ummm "test" in the parking lot) and have roaming golf carts to bring you back to the building from the parking. I go to the security line, give them my ID and they ask where am I going. The only place I knew for sure then was "Admissions" so that's what they put on my badge. But still, so far, so good. From Admissions, I went with the volunteer and Lady O up to the Outpatient check-in, and then went along with her to the prep room. Nobody noticed or cared that my badge said "Admissions". Then I left the building, taking my temporary badge with me. I returned later, did not go through the visitor line, but waved my badge in their general direction. No problem. At that point I was loose in the hospital, no escort, no record of my entry. Got up to the recovery center, and the entry door required a doorbell push and to identify yourself for entry. I pushed the doorbell, but did not get a quick answer. In the meantime, somebody pushing a cart came by, swiped open the door and I followed her in. No questions, no problem. Still wearing my "Admissions" badge clipped on my waist and not really visible.

IMNVHO, they might want to review security procedures if it matters. But maybe it doesn't. Maybe the risk of somebody coming in to kill off a patient or shooting up the facility is low enough that a "pretend screening" is sufficient. I dunno. What's your experience in hospital security?

[Vrede too]

... IMNVHO, they might want to review security procedures if it matters. But maybe it doesn't. Maybe the risk of somebody coming in to kill off a patient or shooting up the facility is low enough that a "pretend screening" is sufficient. I dunno. What's your experience in hospital security?

The ones I worked in never even had that level of security screening for general visitors, though that may have since changed. It's tricky - every patient and visitor is already burdened by their reason for being there, and ideally hospitals ought to be the most neutral and open of zones in whatever "wars" we have going on.

In one ER I worked in we tried a badge system for visitors, it failed miserably. However, access was always controlled with locked doors and a buzzer. Pardee in Hooterville has an escort system for ER visitors, not for the rest of the hospital. They bring you to your loved one, but don't stay with you, and you're pretty free to wander once inside. I always thought that it was oppressive and inefficient, but it seemed effective for initial access.

There is no such thing as real data security in a hospital, too many legit reasons for dozens of people to access your info. The best you can hope for is a successful lawsuit when your confidentiality is inevitably breached. That's one reason that this terror list sharing bugs me - potentially inaccurate and devastating info. in the hands of people that don't really give a damn.

[O Really]

Seems like the top priority for reformers ought to be to get an effective and reasonably timely process for getting people off the list who were put there wrongly - or rightly but with now resolved issues. I like the idea of a watch list, and recognize that if it casts a wide enough net to be at all effective, it will occasionally catch some that shouldn't be there. But there ought to be a fairly speedy way off the list.

[Vrede too]

Seems like the top priority for reformers ought to be to get an effective and reasonably timely process for getting people off the list who were put there wrongly - or rightly but with now resolved issues. I like the idea of a watch list, and recognize that if it casts a wide enough net to be at all effective, it will occasionally catch some that shouldn't be there. But there ought to be a fairly speedy way off the list.

Some people can be very negatively effected without ever knowing that being on the terror watch list is the reason. I can see this widespread sharing of the list leading to discrimination in housing, finance, employment, etc., and I'm sure there are restrictions on telling the victim why.