Our Brave New World Of Snitches And Surveillance

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Our Brave New World Of Snitches And Surveillance
Zen Gardner
Before It's News

The tech industry giants continue to dutifully "lead the way" into a suffocating surveillance state in collusion with the nasty likes of the NSA, FBI, CIA, TSA and the DHS..to name a "phew". (Almost ran out of letters. Notice they're almost always 3?...hmmm. The Masons wouldn't have anything to do with all this, would they?)

This time a "non-profit group Parking Mobility, created by George Soros-funded organizations, created the Android, Blackberry and iPhone parking ticket app which encourages cities to adopt the program because they can 'generate revenue.'"

As if our well-being was the purpose for this indoctrination into self-policing. I mean, c'mon.



Deputizing Citizens As Parking Meter Snitches? There's An App For That

"Residents of Austin, Texas may soon have the power to issue parking tickets by taking a few photographs of someone else's car with their smartphones. A unanimous council voted on October 20 to explore the concept of deputizing vigilante meter maids using an iPhone app. Disabled advocates pushed the program at the council meeting in the hopes of guaranteeing easier parking. They were joined by others who were just interested in writing the $511 tickets.

The system requires a person take three photographs of the alleged violator -- one of the license plate, one of the windshield and one showing the car and the handicapped parking sign. The software sends the photos and the GPS location to the city so it can issue the expensive ticket.

'There's really no better enforcement tool than our citizens policing themselves,' Councilman Mike Martinez said. 'I think the merits of this program deserve our support.'" (Go here)

A New Run At An Old Plan and its Nasty Effects

Since a big run at installing a ramped-up snitch program last year, they seem to have since concentrated on spyware technology due to the blowback they got. But this clever re-introduction via the "handicapped" in an attempt to get it into every city under the guise of an income generator is pretty damn devious.

However it is taking its toll on the innocent. If you follow the news you'll examples continually of people using the

The Snitch Rollout

If you remember, last December we had a major snitch program roll-out. Walmart started running the DHS "If you see something say something" campaign which continues to leak into the social fabric, YouTube installed a Terror Alert Tag, and then Apple of course joined in as the first to publish this Nazi throwback Patriot App--just as patriotic as its predecessor, the freedom-extinguishing Patriot Act.

This was all on the heels of the first WikiLeaks uproar. Hmm. Funny how they had these programs ready to roll out. Wonder what they'll use for the next crank up? Watch for it.

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/our ... .html#more


Read Full Article with more links etc:

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1361/456 ... lance.html

Hey Kathy, I hope you don't mind if Americans report employers who hire illegals. (But the word 'snitch' is a prison term and should not be used to marginalize citizens who report crimes of any kind.)

$511 tickets? And this originates in Austin TX, the most liberal city in Texas? Are they trying to fund their retirement programs more efficiently?

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Originally Posted by Captainron

$511 tickets? And this originates in Austin TX, the most liberal city in Texas? Are they trying to fund their retirement programs more efficiently?

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I have to doubt the reality of these $511 tickets. This sounds like a left-wing piece of propaganda.

Sorry a snitch is a snitch is a snitch....Hiring an illegal is a criminal offense remember ILLEGAL is ILLEGAL...Parking in a wrong space isn't....reminds of some of the jerks who run neighborhood associations....they are in the same league as the TSA creeps. ( mod edit).

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Originally Posted by kathyet

Sorry a snitch is a snitch is a snitch....Hiring an illegal is a criminal offense remember ILLEGAL is ILLEGAL...Parking in a wrong space isn't....reminds of some of the jerks who run neighborhood associations....they are in the same league as the TSA creeps. ( mod edit)..

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This remains a nation of laws, both big laws and smaller laws, just laws and unjust laws. If you don't like a law, then work to change that law. Calling the people who operate neighborhood block watches a bunch of jerks ( mod edit) unjust and inflammatory. Nowadays such neighborhood associations are vital to protecting communities from gangs and flash mobs. (As to $511 tickets for illegal parking, I agree that is excessive, but if enough people become aware of that law, I am sure it can be reversed. That's the way things work in a society governed by the rule of law.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Achilles

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kathyet

Sorry a snitch is a snitch is a snitch....Hiring an illegal is a criminal offense remember ILLEGAL is ILLEGAL...Parking in a wrong space isn't....reminds of some of the jerks who run neighborhood associations....they are in the same league as the TSA creeps. ( mod edit)...

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This remains a nation of laws, both big laws and smaller laws, just laws and unjust laws. If you don't like a law, then work to change that law. Calling the people who operate neighborhood block watches a bunch of jerks ( mod edit) Nowadays such neighborhood associations are vital to protecting communities from gangs and flash mobs. (As to $511 tickets for illegal parking, I agree that is excessive, but if enough people become aware of that law, I am sure it can be reversed. That's the way things work in a society governed by the rule of law.)

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Yes but just not any ones law.....


Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

Big Brother Recruits an Army of Snitches

Written by Gary North on March 8, 2012


There is a new cell phone application. It allows anyone with a smart phone to record anything suspicious and send it to the Department of Homeland Security.

There is a pilot program in West Virginia. It will spread.

Here is where it gets interesting. The DHS is using regional centers to collect and maintain this information. They are called Fusion Centers.

I did a search on “fusion centers.” I got this. This appears on the Wikipedia entry.

A fusion center is a information sharing center, many of which were created under a joint project between the Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Justice‘s Office of Justice Programs between 2003 and 2007.

They are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Justice, US Military, and state and local level government. As of July 2009[update], the Department of Homeland Security recognized at least seventy-two fusion centers. Fusion centers may also be affiliated with an Emergency Operations Center that responds in the event of a disaster.

The fusion process is an overarching methodology of managing the flow of information and intelligence across levels and sectors of government to integrate information for analysis. That is, the process relies on the active involvement of state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies—and sometimes on non–law enforcement agencies (e.g., private sector) – to provide the input of raw information for intelligence analysis. As the array of diverse information sources increases, there will be more accurate and robust analysis that can be disseminated as intelligence.

It adds this:

. . . a long line of fusion center and DHS reports labeling broad swaths of the public as a threat to national security. The North Texas Fusion System labeled Muslim lobbyists as a potential threat; a DHS analyst in Wisconsin thought both pro- and anti-abortion activists were worrisome; a Pennsylvania homeland security contractor watched environmental activists, Tea Party groups, and a Second Amendment rally; the Maryland State Police put anti-death penalty and anti-war activists in a federal terrorism database; a fusion center in Missouri thought that all third-party voters and Ron Paul supporters were a threat; and the Department of Homeland Security described half of the American political spectrum as “right wing extremists.”

Now the general public will be enlisted as volunteers in reporting suspicious activities to local fusion centers.

For details, click the link.
Continue Reading on Wired.com


Here's the article from the link above

Angry Birds, Meet Jailbirds: New App Helps You Snitch on Your Friends

By Spencer Ackerman
Email Author
March 2, 2012 |
10:30 am |


In less time than it takes to play a turn in Words With Friends, smartphone users can report a “suspicious person” to the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security.

The domestic counterterrorism agency’s West Virginia branch, in association with the West Virginia governor’s office, unveiled a new mobile app called the Suspicious Activity Reporting Application this week. “With the assistance of our citizens, important information can quickly get into the hands of our law enforcement community allowing them to provide better protection,” Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said in a statement. The app is available in the Apple App Store and the Android Market.

I downloaded it onto my phone. The interface is simple. After informing you that you should dial 911 for an actual emergency and asking if you want to submit your geolocation information, the app is fundamentally a camera function. You can annotate the image you capture with date and location (if you didn’t enable the auto-geolocation function); additional details like a “Subject’s” name, gender, eye color, “hair style” and more; and vehicle information if applicable. And you can submit your own information, allowing the authorities to contact you, or choose to submit it anonymously.

Once you click the green “Submit Report” bar, the picture you’ve snapped and the information you’ve recorded goes to the West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center, a partnership between state law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. “The longer you wait the less accurate eyewitness information becomes and evidence fades,” the fusion center’s director, Thom Kirk, said in the statement.

This isn’t the first time that law enforcement has branched out into mobile applications. Kentucky’s state homeland security division launched “Eyes and Ears on Kentucky” for the iPhone last year. Its interface is different, but its functionality is the same.

On its face, there’s nothing about the app that protects either the civil liberties of citizens or the busy schedules of West Virginia homeland security operatives. You don’t have to affirm that you have evidence of a crime, or even a suspected crime, to send information to the Fusion Center. Nor is it clear how long the Fusion Center can keep information on U.S. citizens or persons sent to it through the app. (More broadly, the guidelines for the nationwide network of homeland security Fusion Centers don’t spell out so-called “minimization” procedures for any of the information they collect.)

In other words, there’s nothing in the app to stop you from snapping a picture of your annoying neighbor and sending it to the attention of federal and state counterterrorism agents in West Virginia, who can keep information on your neighbor’s face, body and perhaps his vehicle for an unspecified period of time.

It’s also unclear why West Virginia thinks its citizens need app-based suspicious activity reporting. A February study from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University found that not a single plot or alleged plot involving Muslim-American terrorism occurred in the state in 2011. (.PDF) A Washington Post investigative project in 2010 found that West Virginia was one of only 15 states that has no terrorism convictions in state or federal courts since 9/11 and ranked 36th in states receiving federal homeland-security cash in 2009.

“We’re currently looking at our other services to see what else makes sense to move to the mobile platform,” the state’s homeland security director, Jimmy Gianato, said in the statement. It might not be long before the Department of Homeland Security — which has been exploring new spy tools derived from the military — follows suit on a national level.

Spencer Ackerman is Danger Room's senior reporter, based out of Washington, D.C., covering weapons of doom and the strategies they're used to implement.
Follow @attackerman and @dangerroom on Twitter.

Big Brother Recruits an Army of Snitches

Tuesday, March 6, 2012
CrimePush: yet another citizen spy application for smartphones
Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Recently I reported on the concerted effort to bring citizen spying into the digital age with applications on smartphones which can be used to report “suspicious activity” to local homeland security fusion centers.

This has expanded even more thanks to the hard work of individuals like 25-year-old Eman Pahlevani, a student at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Pahlevani launched an application last month called CrimePush after several months of development with his brother and a friend.

The application allows users to send in reports in the form of text, pictures or video directly to local law enforcement after police dispatch centers set up their accounts with CrimePush.

After the dispatchers have registered, users of Android-based devices and Apple iPhones within the given area are able to download the application dedicated to that location and start sending in tips, no matter how erroneous.

Interestingly, Pahlevani claims that at least one county in every single state in the United States had expressed interest in using the application in just the first three weeks after launching it.


He said that he has been getting a great deal of support from his professors, saying, “They’ve all given me a lot of feedback of: ‘It’s going to be a game changer for people who want to report crime and get information to police.’”

While this might be true, it’s also going to be a game changer for police officers who are inundated by false reports, misleading information, maliciously submitted reports and so on.

In a question and answer session with the Concord Monitor out of Concord, New Hampshire, Pahlevani revealed that he decided to turn his idea into a mobile application to appeal to young people, or as he put it, “this generation growing up with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We thought this would be a good way to open up lines of communication between the younger generation and police authorities.”

It’s also a great way to condition people into reporting every little thing to police, especially when the federal government classifies just about everything as an indicator of possible terrorism.

Pahlevani said that users are able to choose from nine kinds of crime in the app when submitting their crime report, although it is unclear what these categories are in the article. However, I was able to locate a screenshot from the application (shown above) which shows the following categories: theft, threat, altercation, sexual abuse, medical, accident, vandalism, drugs and harassment.

He told the local news outlet that police and sheriffs across the nation have been requesting that they be integrated and they have been customizing the application for every county that has expressed interest.

Pahlevani boasted that 300-500 counties across America are trying to get integrated with them right now, but he did not say how many counties are already integrated into the system.

He said that while he is offering this to counties for free for now, this is going to become a for-profit endeavor.

After they get enough counties and police districts involved in using the application, he plans on forcing them to pay a licensing fee of $1,000 per year per county, something which he claims is “an extremely nominal fee.”

Sure, it might be nominal if one county was using it, but when you consider the fact that there are 3,141 total counties and “statistically equivalent entities” in the United States as of January 1, 1990, the “extremely nominal fee” starts to add up, although it would remain free for users.

Obviously this is not being done purely out of the kindness of their hearts, as evidenced by an advertisement (screenshot here in case it is removed) for a Vice President of Business Development offering “$65,000 – $85,000 first year commissions.”

It gets even more interesting when he brings up the possibilities that these could be used in schools, further criminalizing our children and making the public education system an even more efficient school-to-prison pipeline.

“We also are working right now with high schools and middle schools because superintendents in different counties and principals want to use this with students between periods,” Pahlevani said, “so if they go from class to class and they see a fight or they see a drug deal … they can just send it directly to school authorities.”

All of this is just intended to encourage what some might call snitching, which I prefer to call voluntary citizen spying.

The most absurd part is that there is no incentive given to the users other than the good feeling they might get from reporting what they think might be criminal activity to the “authorities.”

Furthermore, this is a massive waste of police time and resources. People could report their unfriendly neighbor or their ex-mate with whom they had a less-than-amicable break up in order to have the police kick down their door and hassle them.

I do not see any real reason for applications like this to exist. If there is an emergency or an actual crime, it would be much faster and more efficient to just call 911 directly rather than opening an application, choosing a type of crime, typing some report out or snapping a picture.

Hopefully young people won’t be silly enough to snatch this up and start accepting this type of society just because it’s a cool application on their shiny new iPhone or Android device.

This article first appeared at EndtheLie.com. Read other contributed articles by Madison Ruppert here.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm -- 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com



Activist Post: CrimePush: yet another citizen spy application for smartphones