Loss of Privacy

Filed under “Duh,” the US State Department has issued a warning to all US residents that they should not expect any kind of privacy when they head to China this summer for the Olympics.

“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations,” the fact sheet says. “All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.”

What’s worse, even the State Department fears that their electronics could be hacked into by the Chinese.

ABC News was granted exclusive access to the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Timothy Keating, as he met with top Chinese military leaders in January. Keating told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that even his staff members leave their electronic devices behind for fear that the Chinese could hack into them.  It’s our assessment that the Chinese have the capability to penetrate our electronic systems. We would rather they not do that,” Keating said.

Even more frightening is the fact that China is increasing its censorship, not only on its own people, but on visitors as well.

The State Department’s fact sheet also warns that Americans may not be able to access certain portions of the U.S. Embassy’s Web site while within China, a sign of China’s growing ability to restrict Internet access to sites it sees as challenges to its rule.

Americans traveling in China are encouraged to register first with the U.S. embassy through its Web site. However, according to the fact sheet, “Since this registration system site is not always available from within China, registering before you leave home is highly recommended.”

So, basically, when you leave your hotel room, take anything with you that you don’t want the Chinese messing with.  If you want to keep it private, keep it with you.  If you have sensitive information on your laptop, PDA, etc., leave it home.  If you think you’re being watched, spied upon, or bugged, you probably are.

Not content with angering many of its customers by throttling and tracking their Internet usage, Comcast now wants to put special cameras into customers’ homes so that it can tell who’s in the living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

While this is eerily reminiscent of 1984, we could still have the right to put some black, electrical tape onto the camera’s lens, as well as outright refuse to have anything to do with Comcast in our homes.  Unfortunately, as with most cable companies, they have a monopoly in the area, which means a refusal of Comcast is a refusal of TV and the Internet for most.

Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.

If it can recognize forms, it can recognize what those forms are doing in the living room as well.  Do we really want that type of technology in our homes?

While Michael Chertoff and the US government continues to extol the virtues of REAL-ID, states continue to step over the line of rebellion, joining the ever-increasing numbers of states who are refusing to implement REAL-ID in their state.

…the major problem with Real ID is that local DMV and law enforcement officials will have access to an unprecedented amount of sensitive information on anyone with a Real ID; scanned copies of any documents used to establish identity, like birth certificates, bank statements, pay stubs, property tax bills, and so on, not to mention driving histories from other states. Now imagine all of that data in the hands of a crooked sheriff who’s fighting off a reformist challenger in a hotly contested election. Do you really want to live in that world?

You don’t.  I don’t.  Now, California doesn’t either.  The state of California has taken a huge step away from REAL-ID, making it ready to jump off the government food train and reject REAL-ID.  California has asked for an extension, to comply with the law, however, there is no indication that they will eventually comply with the law in 2010 when the extension runs out.

This has left Montana Governor, Brian Schweitzer, declaring victory over the government.  Montana originally sent a letter to Chertoff explaining the security measures already in their driver’s licenses, to which the DHS interpreted as a request for an extension, which was granted.  This comes after the DHS had already stated that Montana ID cards would be rejected.

Schweitzer emphasized that his state’s licenses already contain holograms, secure digital photographs and a magnetic stripe on the back. But says he has no intention of sharing his state’s residents’ data with the federal government, as required by Real ID.

After the recent debacle involving people snooping into the passport information of presidential hopefuls, does anyone really believe that REAL-ID is going to be secure?

Californians, on the other hand, wondered if they were going to face patdowns at the airports similar to those that residents of Montana have endured.  They were given a reprieve when the federal government granted their extension.

“California’s request for an extension is not a commitment to implement Real ID, rather it will allow us to fully evaluate the impact of the final regulations and precede with necessary policy deliberations prior to a final decision on compliance,” DMV director George Valverde wrote.

For now, Californians can breathe easier.  They also have the ACLU, AARP and the Identity Project on their side.  Ad for rebel states, such as New Hampshire, the DHS intends to play hardball, with the possibility of rejecting their state IDs as soon as May, 2008.

The curious part of all this is that New Hampshire files for an extension, but claims they will not comply and are thus denied an extension and then threatened by the DHS.  California files for an extension, but claims that they will not comply and are given an extension.  Yet again, the federal government is harassing the little guy, hoping that they can convince California to stay in and, thus, be able to harass all the other states into compliance.

More states need to be outspoken against REAL-ID.  They need their governors to be just as loud as  Brian Schweitzer.  REAL-ID is already being shoved onto the back burner.  We need to keep up the pressure to get it there permanently.  REAL-ID isn’t about protecting us from anyone.  It’s about government control over its own citizens and its citizens need to step up and be heard.

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer thinks REAL-ID sucks edited.  So do I.

“We’re putting up with the federal government on so many fronts, and nearly every month they come out with another hare-brained scheme … to tell us that our life is going to be better if we just buckle under on some other kind of rule or regulation. And we usually just play along for a while. We ignore ‘em for as long as we can. We try not to bring it to a head but if it comes to a head we found that it’s best to tell ‘em to go to Hell and run the state you wanna run your state.

…this time around they’ve really got a hare-brained scheme… almost all those hijackers on 9/11 would have qualified for a Real ID.”

We still need to fight against REAL-ID.  It has successfully been rallied against, going from an national ID to be implemented in 2008 to a driver’s license with extra security, to be implemented by sometime in 2012 or 2014 or whenever the next extension is.

Surveillance cameras caught a rapist on camera again, and, again, the police have failed to catch him.

A 19-year-old woman was raped at knifepoint inside the Van Dyke houses in Brooklyn early Thursday – a housing complex with more than 200 cameras supposedly monitored around the clock by the NYPD.

Sources told the Daily News that at least one video camera recorded the rapist grabbing the young woman and pulling her into an elevator.

The suspect hustled the young woman out of the elevator and raped her in a stairwell landing of the Brownsville complex, sources said. The actual sexual assault was not caught on video, police said.

So, the woman was grabbed and forced into a stairwell, yet the police failed to recognize, or even see, that this was unusual behavior.  Worse yet, there are no cameras in the stairwells.  If this place is such a problem that they need 200 cameras monitoring the area, why are the stairwells not covered?

The police response was that, even if they saw it happen, the rape still would have occurred before they could arrive.  This is even worse when you consider that this same man is a suspect in a rape that occurred in the complex on March 6th.  While that is a horrible thought, you surely can dispatch some officers to catch the guy either in the act or as he’s trying to flee.  Instead, they did nothing.  Nothing!

In both cases, the man wielded a knife and dragged his victim to a stairway landing. Both times he made similar threats, saying, “Don’t scream, don’t fight or I’ll stab you,” sources said.

The 30-year-old victim told police she recognized the man from the neighborhood, which is why her guard was down.

What horrified residents was that in both cases, the rapist, if not the violent attack, was caught on video. The suspect who raped the woman March 6 was on camera for nearly 30 minutes, sources said.

The police also claim that the pictures flash once every 7 seconds and that the work is tedious and mind numbing.  If this has you horrified, it gets even better….or worse if you actually live in this place.

The video monitors are staffed mostly by cops who are on medical leave or face disciplinary action and cannot carry a weapon.

So, the citizens have it ingrained into them that they police are there to protect them and that they shouldn’t dare carry a weapon to protect themselves.  Then, at least two rapes have been caught on tape and nothing is done about it.

These officers who are facing disciplinary actions probably aren’t the most attentive at their jobs.  However, because they still need to be paid while reviews of their actions are underway, they are placed in supposedly non-threatening jobs.  They don’t want to be there, so they do their jobs half-assed, yet the public is reassured that they are being protected.  New York needs to loosen their overly tight restriction on weapons and let the people start protecting themselves again.  Then we’ll see just how many rapists wander this housing complex.

EDIT: The police have nabbed a suspect.