How Our Government is Tracking and Databasing Your Every Move

Big Brother is Watching

The war on terror and cybersecurity are excuses that have spurred huge investments into the surveillance industry, which has become a war on “liberty and privacy.”


The Obama administration has moved forward with a Bush regime program to screen state computer traffic on private-sector networks, including those connecting people to the Internet, The Washington Post revealed July 3.

That project, code-name "Einstein," is related to the much-larger, ongoing and highly illegal National Security Agency (NSA) communications intercept program known as "Stellar Wind," disclorure way back in 2005 by The New York Times. Einstein will be tied directly into giant NSA data bases fed by information streamed to the agency by the nation's telecommunications providers.

Stellar Wind includes several components, one of which is a massive data-mining project run by the agency.  The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

AT&T, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the NSA will spearhead the aggressive new initiative by continuing to monitor the electronic communications of Americans, to detect malicious attacks launched against government web sites. Likely in part as a response to the Wikileaks fiasco which so embarrassed the US government.

This contradicts the President's Pledge, in which Obama said that the government will not continue Bush-era surveillance practices or include "monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic." 

Named the "flagship of the system" in our surveillance state's cyber defense arsenal, The Wall Street Journal reports that Einstein is "designed to protect the U.S. government's computer networks from cyberspies." According to the Journal, Einstein is being developed in three stages:

Einstein 1: Monitors Internet traffic flowing in and out of federal civilian networks. Detects abnormalities that might be cyber attacks. Is unable to block attacks.

Einstein 2: In addition to looking for abnormalities, detects viruses and other indicators of attacks based on signatures of known incidents, and alerts analysts immediately. Also can't block attacks.

Einstein 3: Still under development, Einstein 3 is based on technology developed for a National Security Agency program called Tutelage. It is supposed to detect and deflect security breaches. Its filtering technology can read the content of your email and other communications.

As readers of Antifascist Calling have already known for some time, telecom grifters like AT&T are private-sector partners of the National Security Agency and continue to be a key players in the agency's driftnet spying on Americans' electronic communications. As long ago as 2006, the AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that AT&T's Internet traffic that runs through fiber-optic cables was routinely provided to the NSA, including a complete copy of the Internet traffic that AT&T receives such as email, web browsing sessions and other communications sent by AT&T customers.

New Technology makes Wiretapping Obsolete

Given all of the new monitoring technology being implemented, the uproar over warrantless wiretaps now seems pointless. The technology now available for tracking, tracing, and databasing makes wiretapping almost obsolete.

Governments, aided by private companies, are gathering a mountain of information on average citizens who so far seem willing to trade liberty for supposed security. Here are just some of the ways the data is being collected:

GPS

Global positioning chips are now appearing in everything from U.S. passports, cell phones, to cars. More common uses include tracking employees, and for all forms of private investigation. Apple recently announced they are collecting the precise location of iPhone users via GPS for public viewing in addition to spying on users in other ways.

Internet

Internet browsers are recording your every move forming detailed cookies on your activities. The NSA has been exposed as having cookies on their site that don’t expire until 2035. Major search engines know where you surfed last summer, and online purchases are databased, supposedly for advertising and customer service uses. IP addresses are collected and even made public. Controversial websites can be flagged internally by government sites, as well as re-routing all traffic to block sites the government wants to censor. It has now been fully admitted that social networks provide NO privacy to users, while technologies for real-time social network monitoring are already being used. The Cybersecurity Act attempts to legalize the collection and exploitation of your personal information. Apple’s iPhone also has browsing data recorded and stored. All of this despite the overwhelming opposition to cybersurveillance by citizens.

RFID

RFID — Forget your credit cards which are meticulously tracked, or the membership cards for things so insignificant as movie rentals which require your SSN. Everyone has Costco, CVS, grocery-chain cards, and a wallet or purse full of many more. RFID “proximity cards” take tracking to a new level in uses ranging from loyalty cards, student ID, physical access, and computer network access. Latest developments include an RFID powder developed by Hitachi, for which the multitude of uses are endless — perhaps including tracking hard currency so we can’t even keep cash undetected. (Also see microchips below).

Traffic Cameras

License plate recognition has been used to remotely automate duties of the traffic police in the United States, but have been proven to have dual use in England such as to mark activists under the Terrorism Act. Perhaps the most common use will be to raise money and shore up budget deficits via traffic violations, but uses may descend to such “Big Brother” tactics as monitors telling pedestrians not to litter as talking cameras already do in the UK.

Computer Cameras and Microphones

The fact that laptops, contributed by taxpayers, spied on public school children (at home) is outrageous. Years ago Google began officially to use computer “audio fingerprinting” for advertising uses. They have admitted to working with the NSA, the premier surveillance network in the world. Private communications companies already have been exposed routing communications to the NSA. Now, keyword tools — typed and spoken — link to the global security matrix.

Public Sound Surveillance

This technology has come a long way from only being able to detect gunshots in public areas, to now listening in to whispers for dangerous “keywords.” This technology has been launched in Europe to “monitor conversations” to detect “verbal aggression” in public places. Sound Intelligence is the manufacturer of technology to analyze speech, and their website touts how it can easily be integrated into other systems.

Biometrics

The most popular biometric authentication scheme employed for the last few years has been Iris Recognition. The main applications are entry control, ATMs and Government programs. Recently, network companies and governments have utilized biometric authentication including fingerprint analysis, iris recognition, voice recognition, or combinations of these for use in National Identification Cards.

DNA

The DNA in the blood from babies has been taken for all people under the age of 38. In England, DNA was sent to secret databases from routine heel prick tests. Several reports have revealed covert Pentagon databases of DNA for “terrorists” and now DNA from all American citizens is databased. Digital DNA is now being used as well to combat hackers.

Microchips

Microsoft’s HealthVault and VeriMed partnership is to create RFID implantable microchips. Microchips for tracking our precious pets is becoming commonplace and serves to condition us to accept putting them in our children in the future. The FDA has already approved this technology for humans and is marketing it as a medical miracle, again for our safety.

Facial Recognition

Anonymity in public is over. Admittedly used at Obama’s campaign events, sporting events, and most recently at the G8/G20 protests in Canada. This technology is also harvesting data from Facebook images and surely will be tied into the street “traffic” cameras.

Digital Television

Did you know that with digital TV, the technology exists for them to watch you through that same TV? Yes, they could be watching your very living room! They could even watch your bedroom, should you be amongst the majority of Americans who also have a TV in front of their bed. I'm not saying that they are doing this. I'm just making you aware that the technology is already there for them to do so if they wanted to. Who is to say that someday in the future they won't? Or that some rogue agent or sick pervert somewhere in the middle of this info chain isn't already doing so?

All of this is leading to Predictive Behavior Technology — It is not enough to have logged and charted where we have been; the surveillance state wants to know where we are going through psychological profiling. It’s been marketed for such uses as blocking hackers. Things seem to have advanced to a point where a truly scientific Orwellian world is at hand. It is estimated that computers know to a 93% accuracy where you will be, before you make your first move. Nanotech is slated to play a big role in going even further as scientists are using nanoparticles to directly influence behavior and decision making.

What Happens Next?

But what happens next, after the data is processed and catalogued by the agency is little understood. Programs such as Einstein will provide NSA with the ability to read and decipher the content of email messages, any and all messages in real-time.

While DHS claims that "the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems," the Post reports that a debate has been sparked within the agency over "uncertainty about whether private data can be shielded from unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether the agency's involvement in warrantless wiretapping during George W. Bush's presidency would draw controversy."

A "Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for EINSTEIN 2" issued by DHS in May 2008, claims the system is interested in "malicious activity" and not personally identifiable information flowing into federal networks.

While DHS claims that "the risk associated with the use of this computer network security intrusion detection system is actually lower than the risk generated by using a commercially available intrusion detection system," this assertion is undercut when the agency states, "Internet users have no expectation of privacy in the to/from address of their messages or the IP addresses of the sites they visit."

When Einstein 3 is eventually rolled-out, Internet users similarly will "have no expectation of privacy" when it comes to the content of their communications.

While the total cost of rolling-out the Einstein 3 system is classified, The Wall Street Journal reports that "the price tag was expected to exceed $2 billion." And it is the American people who are footing the bill for the destruction of our democratic rights during the middle of a budget crisis, even while programs for the welfare of veterans, college students, pregnant mothers and the poor are being cut.

Do you believe we need this type of surveillance and data collection by our government? Do you believe it is more important we fund these types of surveillance programs versus social programs essential for the welfare of our most deserving as well as our most unfortunate citizens?

This is just the beginning. Big Brother has just realized the potential and possibilities open to their surveillance. Governments like those of the US, UK and other modern western societies will not let happen to them what happened to Gaddafi in Libya. They have the technology to spot and stop troublemakers, instigators and revolutionaries before it gets out of their control.

Written By: Tom Retterbush
Updated: 5-9-12
Email: tomretterbush@gmail.com

Sources

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts (nytimes.com)

Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms (washingtonpost.com)

Big Brother is Watching You: Pervasive Surveillance Under Obama (globalresearch.ca)

What Your Cell Phone is Telling Hackers, Thieves & Governments

How your cell phone can be secretly hijacked and used against you, by hackers, burglars, law enforcement and even our governments.

Imagine someone watching your every move, hearing everything you say and knowing where you are at every moment. If you have a cell phone, it is happening to you every day, even as you read these words. 

Smart phones do a lot these days: surf the Net, send e-mail, take photos... and spy on you.

The one thing they can do that phone companies don't tell you is, how your trusted cell phone spies on you. As long as you carry your phone, that handy gadget keeps a record of everywhere you go, including a record the government can then get from your telephone company anytime it so chooses.

This gives criminals information as to where you are, how long before you will be able to make it home and how long they have to burglarize your house. This gives hackers clues to use towards identity theft, bank fraud, account hijackings and other scams. As worrisome as these criminal activities may seem, they pale in scope and magnitude in the damage that potential law enforcement and government attacks could cause to you as a person.

Not long after the bush administration's warrant-less wiretapping scandal just a few short years ago, another federal snooping affair took place that received no public attention, because Bush's blunter diverted all the attention from the public eye. Whether this diversion was orchestrated or not, Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers' cell phones, sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact.

Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional clash between President Obama's Justice Department and civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the government's relentless intrusion into the private lives of citizens. There are numerous other fronts in the privacy wars; such as the content of e-mails, for instance, and access to bank records and credit-card transactions. The Feds can now quietly, discretely get all that information at the drop of a hat.

But cell-phone tracking is among the more unsettling forms of government surveillance, invoking KGB like images of Big Brother secretly following your movements through the small device in your pocket.

How many of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones even know that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint can track their devices in real time, all the time? Most don't have a clue. The tracking is possible because either the phones have tiny GPS units inside or each phone call is routed through towers that can be used to pinpoint a phone's location to areas as small as a city block. This capability to trace ever more precise cell-phone locations has been spurred by a Federal Communications Commission rule designed to help police and other emergency officers during 911 calls. But the FBI and other law-enforcement outfits have been obtaining more and more records of cell-phone locations -- without notifying the targets or getting judicial warrants establishing "probable cause," according to law-enforcement officials, court records, and telecommunication executives.  

There is little doubt that such records can be a powerful weapon for law enforcement.  Prosecutors say they need these records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials.

Jack Killorin, who directs a federal task force in Atlanta combating the drug trade, says cell-phone records have helped his agents crack many cases, such as the brutal slaying of a DeKalb County sheriff: agents got the cell-phone records of key suspects -- and then showed that they were all within a one-mile area of the murder at the time it occurred, he said. In the fall of 2008, Killorin says, his agents were able to follow a Mexican drug-cartel truck carrying 2,200 kilograms of cocaine by watching in real time as the driver's cell phone "shook hands" with each cell-phone tower it passed on the highway. "It's a tremendous investigative tool," says Killorin. And not that unusual: "This is pretty workaday stuff for us."

However many federal magistrates, whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties, were actually spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors "were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device," said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. "And I started asking the U.S. Attorney's Office, 'What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?' " 

The law is unclear about how easy it should be for the government to get its hands on this locational data, which can reveal whether you've been going to church, attending a Tea Party rally, spending the night at a date's house or visiting a cancer-treatment center. A federal appeals court ruled last week that in some cases the government may need a search warrant. And while that's a step forward, it's not good enough. The rule should be that the government always needs a warrant to access your cell-phone records and obtain data about where you have been.

When you carry a cell phone, it is constantly sending signals about where you are. It "pings" nearby cell-phone towers about every seven seconds so it can be ready to make and receive calls. When it does, the phone is also telling the company that owns the towers where you are at that moment; data the company then stores away indefinitely. There is also a second kind of locational data that phone companies have, thanks to a GPS chip that is embedded in most smart phones now. This is even more accurate; unlike the towers, which can only pinpoint a general area where you may be, GPS can often reveal exactly where you are at any given moment within a matter of meters.

Spying on You in the Name of "Emergency Services"

In the name of improving emergency services, the Federal Communications Commission will require phone companies to meet several benchmarks in 2012 for how closely they can pinpoint a caller's location. "About 90% of Americans are walking around with a portable tracking device all the time, and they have no idea," says Christopher Calabrese, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, that they could be or are being tracked by federal, state or local law enforcement agencies.

Not surprisingly, law enforcement has found this sort of data extremely handy. Prosecutors are increasingly using cell-phone records to show that a suspect was near the scene of a crime, or not where he claimed to be.

The federal government's position is that it should be able to get most of this data if it decides it is relevant to an investigation, with no need for a search warrant. If the government needs a warrant, it would have to show a judge evidence that there was probable cause to believe that the cell-phone user committed a crime — an important level of protection. Without this requirement, the government can get locational data pretty much anytime it wants.

It is not hard to imagine that the government could also one day use cell-phone data to stifle dissent. Cell-phone records could tell them who attended an anti government rally. It could also tell them who is going into the opposition party's headquarters or into the home of someone they have questions about. Cell-phone data may be the most efficient way ever invented for a government to spy on its people — since people are planting the devices on themselves and even paying the monthly bills. The KGB never had anything like it.

The U.S. government already appears to be sweeping up a lot of data from completely innocent people. The ACLU recently told Congress of a case in which, while looking for data on a suspect, the FBI apparently used a dragnet approach and took data on another 180 people. The FBI has said that if it does happen to gather data on innocent people in the course of conducting an investigation, it keeps that information for as long as 20 years.

Last week, the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit pushed back. A federal magistrate judge, in a good and strong decision, had ruled that the government must always get a warrant if it wants cell-phone data. The appeals court scaled that back a bit, ruling that magistrate judges have the power to require the government to get a warrant, depending on the facts of the particular case.

The fight over cell-phone tracking is similar to one now going on in the courts over GPS devices, specifically whether the government needs a warrant to place a GPS device on someone's car. Cell-phone tracking is of far bigger consequence, however, because there is a limit to how many GPS devices police are going to put on cars. Nine out of 10 of us have cell phones that will do the tracking for the government.

The House of Representatives has been holding hearings on this issue and related ones, and a Senate hearing next week is likely to consider it further. It is time for Congress to act. It should amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (introduced so well in the blockbuster movie Enemy of the State, starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight as far back as the 1990's) to make clear that information from our cell phones about where we are and where we have been is deeply private and that without a search warrant, the government cannot have it. In theory!

But don't forget that this is the United States of America. While there is no better place on earth to live, you are never any more free than what "They" allow you to believe you are at any given moment. All you can do is live out your life, raise your family and find some form of some happiness.

You may try to affect the change that is important to you in the short time you are here. It is certainly worthwhile (and patriotic) to be distrustful of Government, but I refuse to live under the thumb or watchful eye of my government. The first step in making them understand they work for us is to just refuse to play the game or let them dictate the Narrative in the first place.

Google is a prime example of why you have a lot more to fear from Corporate America than you ever did from the .gov. That is saying a lot. Corporations are a lot more free to abuse and damage you than the .gov will. A day is coming where every 'questionable' thing you ever did on the Internet or bought with a credit/debit card will be made available for a fee. At first it will be used for pre-employment screenings and to expose political enemies, eventually it will be offered to anyone for a small fee.

For more ideas on how to become an activist, check out my ActionActivist.com blog and download, How to Coordinate a Campaign for Change, one of the many free ebooks available at Assetebooks.com, then join the fight in a proactive fashion, to bring about the much needed change.

Tips on How to Protect Yourself from Cell Phone Espionage 

Keep a close eye on your cell phone so that others never get an opportunity to download information such as spy software when you're not looking. It's important to install a security password on your phone to restrict anyone else from using it.

And while some Spyware marketers claim their products can be used on any make and model of cell phone, high-end cell phones that include Internet access and online capability are particularly vulnerable to Spyware tapping. To limit the ability of others to download certain types of spyware onto your phone, choose a cell phone that is not Internet-accessible.

Remove the battery from your cell phone when it's not being used and, for sensitive phone calls, he suggests making them on a newly-purchased cell phone that comes with a pre-paid month-to-month service plan.

Based on my investigation, here are some subtle, but obvious signs that could suggest your cell phone is being secretly tapped: 

• Cell phone battery is warm even when your phone has not been used
• Cell phone lights up at unexpected times, including occasions when phone is not in use
• Unexpected beep or click during phone conversation

You could be doing the Cell Phone Espionage Yourself

It is easy for anyone, even someone with no technical skills, to do some spying today. Its as easy as downloading free cell phone tracking and espionage software or applications.

During the course of my investigation I came across several options, including some free downloads I am listing here for you to try:

FlexiSPY spyphone software directly onto a mobile phone and receive copies of SMS, ... Catch cheating wives or cheating husbands, stop employee espionage, ... FREE Android Spy Phone software lets you secretly read Call Records, ... felixspy.com

Buddyway.com - Free GPS cell phone tracking system & mobile phone locator. ... Download our free mobile application! welcome to free phone tracking system ... Buddyway.com

Secret Online Poker Spy Software 01:02 ... Spy On People Using A Free Mobile Phone Tracker 01:10 ... Laser Espionage Microphone (how-to) 01:41 ... metacafe.com 

Maybe you should spy on them? It's the only way you're going to find out if they're spying on you!

Written By: Tom Retterbush

Updated: 2/4/12 

Email: tomretterbush@gmail.com

Who's Spying On You?
The Looming Threat to Your Privacy, Identity, and Family
It's not paranoia; we ARE being watched. Today, thanks to technology and new media--cell phone GPS, backscatter scanners, online financial transactions, cloud-stored medical records, Facebook and Twitter--our every activity can be quietly monitored. And now that inexpensive gene sequencing seems imminent, even our bodies' secrets may be up for grabs. This groundbreaking investigation shows how America's privacy is under assault--and what we can do to protect ourselves.  
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