Found this at the Precursor Blog, “In 2006, Google acquired a leading company in facial recognition, and Google is using it now to help simplify the tagging and organization of people’s rapidly growing archives of digital pictures through its Picassa photo application.”
Add this to the money quote from the USA Today article:
“I don’t like it at all,” says Rob Williams, who blogs for the Techgage website. “Google knows what I search for, where I live and how much time I spend on websites. Now they know what my friends look like, too. That’s just too much.”
ALARMING! ALL CHICAGOANS LISTEN UP CAUSE I’M TYPE-YELLING AT YOU!
Mayor Daly announced on Sept. 9th (Seriously-how did I miss this?) that he will be installing 2,000 remote-control cameras and motion-sensing software to spot crimes or terrorist acts “as they happen” for Chicago.
Let’s be realistic here. It will not be terrorism being spotted but drunks running around in Wrigleyville. Crime ridden area cameras will simply be shot out. As for “terrorist threats”, the only threat Chicago has faced was a sadly botched scheme in 2006. Not worthy of $5 million dollars of taxpayer money so that the government can play Peeping Tom.
Where’s the money coming from? The Department of Homeland Security of course with the intention of tracking all “suspicious” activity. This is so enraging. No there is no “expectation” of privacy on a public street, but I sure as hell don’t expect government surveillance either!
Opposition to red light cameras is building in Tennessee and Washington. Eyeman is continuing with his initiative to take away the “profit motive” that is usually behind such plans. “If it was all about safety, they’d be increasing the duration of yellow lights,” he said.
As for Tennessee, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research issued a policy paper yesterday which placed more doubt to why governments are so keen to install red light cameras. Here a bit of the story featured in The Newspaper:
The report’s authors obtained data from the city of Chattanooga and determined that accidents increased at some intersections and declined at others between January 2006 and 2008. The authors contend that this shows photo enforcement systems deliver no demonstrable safety benefit. Instead, the report showed that cities have ignored proven engineering alternatives such as increasing the duration of the yellow period at traffic lights beyond the ITE’s bare minimum standard. In at least one case, Chattanooga was caught using yellows so short that they violated the law and forced a judge to order $8800 in refunds.
Read up or pay up people because these cameras are on their way to becoming a national standard. That is unless you like being fined and enjoy the creepy feeling of knowing the government is watching.
Mu-wahahahaha. Chertoff admitted it! Here is a quote from his speech about how the REAL ID will stop underage drinkers not terrorists!
“But while this has done something to deal with the issue of forgery and counterfeiting, it’s certainly not a complete solution because time and again, I certainly have seen intelligence that tells me that sophisticated criminals and sophisticated terrorists spend a great deal of time learning to fabricate and forge even these improved cards. The net effect of this may be that it’s going to be harder for people on campus here to get a drink when they’re under 21, but unfortunately it’s not going to be that much harder for the most sophisticated dangerous people to counterfeit an identity card.”
I guess that it means that the government just wants to collect data on law abiding Americans. Maybe that’s why L-1 Identity Solutions is so big on promoting the commericial end of REAL IDs.
I’m beginning to wonder if Americans understand the U.S. Constitution actually places limits on government rather than the people. …I am always taken aback when I hear Democrats and Republicans quibble over which one is violating the Constitution, as if either of them actually care. Republicans completely ignore privacy rights and start wars without a declaration. Democrats point to comma placement in the second amendment as proof you shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun.
Two personal yahoo accounts for Sarah Palin were hacked today. Check it out here.
The accounts included family photos, contact lists and state communication. Quite the dilemma. Your thoughts? I’m torn between screaming “privacy rights violation!” to “Right to know laws violated!”
This past weekend I got to see free-market principles in action. Well…to be honest it might have been through buzzed, happy eyes but it was witnessed never the less! It went something like this:
Me: “So…how has driving been since they added that surcharge?”
Driver: “Awful! All it did is cut into my tip. I never see any of it. If the city or union really wanted to help me out they make the rides cost less. That way I wouldn’t spend half my day driving around hoping to pick up people. It’s just gotten too expensive.”
Me: “So you are saying the unions are hurting you?”
Driver: “Yeah! Trust me don’t get a job like this one. You find yourself a nice sugar daddy to take care of you.”
God, I love direct democracy. It’s like the “A-HA!” surprise for politicians. And here is one for residents in Longview, Washington. To quote:
Proposed by conservative political activist Tim Eyman, Initiative 985 would open carpool lanes during non-peak hours, require cities to synchronize traffic lights and increase funding for emergency roadside assistance. To help fund the initiative’s mandates, cities would be required to deposit all fines generated by red-light camera infractions into the state’s “Reduce Traffic Congestion Account,” rather than into the cities’ general expense funds.
Politicians are suddenly wary of the initiative now that red light revenue wouldn’t be going towards the general fund (aka blank check) and now have to rethink if red light cameras are “worth it.”
Got to love it when it becomes obvious they were never worried about citizens safety in the first place. Might want to keep an eye on their other programs as well with an attitude like that.
It’s all fun and games until it’s you under surveillance right? Well the NSA has developed a program specifically to track those journalist and bloggers who venture to talk about the department. Below are excerpts from an article revealing the program:
“NSA maintains a database that tracks unofficial and negative articles written about the agency. Code named ‘FIRSTFRUITS,’ the database is operated by the Denial and Deception (D&D) unit within SID [Signals Intelligence Division]. High priority is given to articles written as a result of possible leaks from cleared personnel.
According to those familiar with FIRSTFRUITS, Bill Gertz of The Washington Times features prominently in the database. Before [NSA Director Michael] Hayden’s reign and during the Clinton administration, Gertz was often leaked classified documents by anti-Clinton intelligence officials in an attempt to demonstrate that collusion between the administration and China was hurting U.S. national security. NSA, perhaps legitimately, was concerned that China could actually benefit from such disclosures.
In order that the database did not violate United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18, which specifies that the names of ‘U.S. persons’ are to be deleted through a process known as minimization, the names of subject journalists were blanked out. However, in a violation of USSID 18, certain high level users could unlock the database field through a super-user status and view the ‘phantom names’ of the journalists in question. Some of the ‘source’ information in FIRSTFRUITS was classified — an indication that some of the articles in the database were not obtained through open source means. In fact, NSA insiders report that the communications monitoring tasking system known as ECHELON is being used more frequently for purely political eavesdropping having nothing to do with national security or counter terrorism.
In addition, outside agencies and a ‘second party,’ Great Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are permitted to access the journalist database,. FIRSTFRUITS was originally developed by the CIA but given to NSA to operate with CIA funding. The database soon grew to capacity, was converted from a Lotus Notes to an Oracle system, and NSA took over complete ownership of the system from the CIA.
Tens of thousands of articles are found in FIRSTFRUITS and part of the upkeep of the system has been outsourced to outside contractors, such as Booz Allen, which periodically hosts inter-agency Foreign Denial and Deception meetings within its Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility or ‘SCIF’ in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. Currently, in addition to NSA and GCHQ, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) routinely access the database, which is, in essence, a classified and more powerful version of the commercial NEXIS news search database.
In addition to Gertz, other journalists who feature prominently in the database include Seymour Hersh of The New Yorke,; author and journalist James Bamford, James Risen of The New York Times, Vernon Loeb of The Washington Post, John C. K. Daly of UPI, and this journalist [Wayne Madsen].
