Whatever you say, Kyle...

5 Unbelievably Creepy Surveillance Tactics

Since the erosion of Americans’ civil liberties depends on high levels of public apathy, some of the most dangerous privacy breaches take place incrementally and under the radar; if it invites comparisons to Blade Runneror Orwell, then someone in the PR department didn’t do their job. Meanwhile, some of the biggest threats to privacy, like insecure online data or iPhone GPS tracking, are physically unobtrusive and therefore easily ignored. And it’ll be at least a year or two until the sky is overrun by spy drones. 

So when a method of surveillance literally resembles a prop or plot point in a sci-fi movie, it helps to reveal just how widespread and sophisticated commercial and government monitoring has become.  Here are five recent developments that seem almost unreal in their dystopian creepiness. 

Senate Panel: Homeland Security Data Centers Mainly Terrorize Citizens

The Senate concludes that when all the privileged details of the investigations were considered, there was no sign that the pricey data centers were successful at fighting any known terrorist plot.

So what did the data centers accomplish?  According to the panel the legacy is mostly negative.  They claim the Fusion centers — whose objective is ostensibly to share national intelligence with state/local law enforcement and analyze potential terrorist threats — in the end mostly ended up violating U.S. citizens’ civil liberties.

(Source: anandtech.com)

4 Government and Private Entities Conspiring to Track Everything You Do Online and Off

Americans’ personal privacy is being crushed by the rise of a four-headed corporate-state surveillance system.  The four “heads” are: federal government agencies; state and local law enforcement entities; telecoms, web sites & Internet “apps” companies; and private data aggregators (sometimes referred to as commercial data warehouses).

How Your Movements Are Being Tracked, Probably Without Your Knowledge

License plate readers are getting set up at a brisk pace across the country.

America's Surveillance State Breeds Conformity and Fear

Once the government is able to monitor everything we do and say, we will be unable to fight back.

I Spy An Occupy: Obama’s DHS Surveils Legit Protesters

If recent documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) are any indication, the Occupy Movement continues to be monitored and curtailed in a nationwide, federally-orchestrated campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Mass Arrests Likely at Political Conventions: 6 Historical Precedents

Clinton’s law designates political conventions National Special Security Events, a category of state security that virtually dooms the exercise of First Amendment Rights.

Why Is the Government Collecting Your Biometric Data?

EFF’s Jennifer Lynch discusses the expansion of biometric data collection, the growth of databases and the impact on increased surveillance.

13 Ways You Can Be Tracked By the US Government

Privacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens. The Washington Post reported there are 3,984 federal, state and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism. Most collect information on people in the US. Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people.

Activists fight "cyber-security" bill that would give NSA more data

By granting firms who share information broad immunity from other provisions of law, Congress may be effectively changing any number of other statutes. Dempsey described it as a “blunt instrument,” and warned it could become a loophole for circumventing any number of important privacy protections.

(Source: Ars Technica)

How America's Security-Industrial Complex Went Insane

If no one knows if our security-industrial complex is making us safer, why have we built it? Why are we still building it, at breakneck speed?

The Department of Homeland Security is trying to hack into your Xbox. Should gamers be worried?

Who knows whether  some violent trash talk by a teenage video gamer will trigger an alarm in a government surveillance computer?

SWAT Teams and Campus Spies? 7 Ways the Homeland Security State Has Taken Over Our Universities

Since 9/11, the homeland security state has come to campus just as it has come to America’s towns and cities, its places of work and its houses of worship.