Loss of Privacy

From Democracy Now! You can read the transcript while watching the video.

Investors at the CIA and Google are backing a company called “Recorded Future” that monitors tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts in real time in order to find patterns, events and relationships that may predict the future. The news comes amidst Google’s so-called “Wi-Spy” scandal, that refers to revelations that Google’s Street View cars operating in some thirty countries snooped on private Wi-Fi networks over the last three years.

I hope I’m dead by the time these guys take over the world.

July 10, 2010, marks EFF’s 20th anniversary! To thank you for your support over these two decades, please enjoy this new animation created especially for us by celebrated cartoonist and free culture activist Nina Paley. This short cartoon highlights some of the reasons why EFF is here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.

Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?

Get all the details at EFF.

British police intend on keeping track of and gathering personal information suspected radicals and political activists in the UK. The initiative was intended to gather data on radicalization and recruitment into Islamic terrorist groups, but has now spread to other organizations.

Political activists who have no association with terrorism could now find themselves monitored by authorities mandated to discover information about their friends, family, neighbours, political beliefs, use of the internet and even psychological traits.

Police and security agencies have agreed to monitor “agents” who adhere to ideologies potentially involving violence. The documents define targets for the surveillance as people involved in “extreme right/left, Islamist, nationalist, anti-globalisation” groups.

Europol, a EU law enforcement agency, has been asked to produce a list of people involved in either promoting such groups, or in trying to recruit members.

The problem with these measures is that anyone can be identified as someone with ideologies potentially involving violence. It is far too broad a category.

The UK government has also been criticised over Prevent, a programme aimed at stopping Muslims being lured into violent extremism. The initiative was branded a mass surveillance project after it was found it was being used to gather intelligence on innocent people who were not suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Essentially, Prevent received a lot of bad press, as it should have, and the British government is now doing the same thing just under an EU directive.

Under the new, approved, EU scheme, states have acquired a 70-question list on “agents of radicalisation” under their watch. Much of the information presumes a high-degree of intrusive monitoring, obtainable only via covert surveillance techniques, such as phone tapping.

It is assumed, for example, that law enforcement agencies will obtain information about a person’s “feelings” about a group that could be “considered as the enemy”. One section asks for information about “oral comments” made by targets, while others ask about religious knowledge, behaviour, and socio-economic status.

Under “relevant psychological traits”, law enforcement agencies are asked to collate and share information on “psychological disorders, charismatic personality, weak personality, etc”. Another question asks: “Is there a prior relationship between the agents? Schoolmates, friends, relatives, shared time in prison, etc.”

Really? They’re going to ask about your feelings? If they do that, I would be added to the list because my answers would put me on a list of people who want to destroy the government.

This system, like so many others, will be set forth as a means to prevent terrorism and it will be abused. It’s been done in the past and it will continue to be done. British citizens need to continue to point out how these schemes only alienate communities, just as they did with Prevent. It can be stopped and, hopefully, governments will stop trying to implement such ridiculous programs.