Thursday 10-27-11

This is absolutely mind-boggling. Put your mouse on any one of the thousands of
people and click twice. Keep the mouse on the person and keep clicking twice. (or
use scroll wheel ) Face Recognition in a Crowd This is the crowd before the
riot. Put your cursor anywhere in the crowd And double-click. Keep double
clicking and see what happens. This is a great tool for law enforcement. This
is the photo taken by Port Moody photographer Ronnie Miranda that Appeared in our
Tri-City News last Friday (24-June). When you open this up, check the left hand
side where you can upsize the Photo, and click on the Yellow print "view with
GigaTag".This is actually scary. You can see - perfectly - the faces of every
single Individual - and there were thousands! Privacy? Just think what the police
and the military have at their Disposal.

http://www.gigapixel.com/image/gigapan-canucks-g7.html

If you could trust them to do only for the reasons they say, i would still not think it was good idea, but...

'Rogue websites' bill introduced in US House

US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.
The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.

The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US law enforcement to unilaterally shut down websites, including foreign sites, without due process.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said the bill "helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.

"Rogue websites that steal and sell American innovations have operated with impunity," Smith said in a statement.

"The online thieves who run these foreign websites are out of the reach of US law enforcement agencies and profit from selling pirated goods without any legal consequences," he said.

"The bill prevents online thieves from selling counterfeit goods in the US, expands international protections for intellectual property, and protects American consumers from dangerous counterfeit products," Smith said.

Howard Berman, a Democrat from California who co-sponsored the legislation, said it is "an important next step in the fight against digital theft and sends a strong message that the United States will not waiver in our battle to protect America's creators and innovators."

The House Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing on the bill on November 16.

The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said the House bill "raises serious red flags.

"It includes the most controversial parts of the Senate's Protect IP Act, but radically expands the scope," the CDT said in a statement. "Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs.

"Internet Service Providers would face new and open-ended obligations to monitor and police user behavior," the CDT said. "Payment processors and ad networks would be required to cut off business with any website that rightsholders allege hasn't done enough to police infringement.

"The bill represents a serious threat to online innovation and to legitimate online communications tools," it said.

The Obama administration has come in for some criticism for shutting down dozens of "rogue websites" over the past year as part of a crackdown known as "Operation in Our Sites."

US authorities in November, for example, shut down 82 websites selling mostly Chinese-made counterfeit goods, including golf clubs, Walt Disney movies, handbags and other items.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.64f335a63a0a239e61cf0891c65a0c44.a81&show_article=1

Don't particularly link this site, but usually it has truth behind what they say

New Street Lights To Have “Homeland Security” Applications

UPDATE: Presumably in response to this article being linked on the Drudge Report, the company behind ‘Intellistreets’, Illuminating Concepts, has now pulled the video from You Tube entirely, presumably nervous about the negative publicity that could be generated from concerns about street lights being used for “Homeland Security” purposes – their words, not ours. We have added an alternative version of the clip below, but it may be subject to removal at any time. The video is still available on the company’s website.

RELATED: Promo Video For DHS-Backed ‘Spy Street Lights’ Pulled From You Tube

New street lights that include “Homeland Security” applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding.

The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.

According to the company’s You Tube video of the concept, the primary capabilities of the devices include “energy conservation, homeland security, public safety, traffic control, advertising, video surveillance.”

In terms of Homeland Security applications, each of the light poles contains a speaker system that can be used to broadcast emergency alerts, as well as a display that transmits “security levels” (presumably a similar system to the DHS’ much maligned color-coded terror alert designation), in addition to showing instructions by way of its LED video screen.

The lights also include proximity sensors that can record both pedestrian and road traffic. The video display and speaker system will also be used to transmit Minority Report-style advertising, as well as Amber Alerts and other “civic announcements”.

With the aid of grant money from the federal government, the company is about to launch the first concept installation of the system in the city of Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Using street lights as surveillance tools has already been advanced by several European countries. In 2007, leaked documents out of the UK Home Office revealed that British authorities were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.

Dutch police also announced last year that they are developing a mobile scanner that will “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons”.

So-called ‘talking surveillance cameras’ that use a speaker system similar to the Intellistreets model are already being used in UK cities like Middlesborough to bark orders and reprimand people for dropping litter and other minor offenses. According to reports, one of the most common phrases used to shame people into obeying instructions is to broadcast the message, “We are watching you.”

The transformation of street lights into surveillance tools for Homeland Security purposes will only serve to heighten concerns that the United States is fast on the way to becoming a high-tech police state, with TSA agents being empowered to oversee that control grid, most recently with the announcement that TSA screeners would be manning highway checkpoints, a further indication that security measures we currently see in airports are rapidly spilling out onto the streets.

The ability of the government to use street lights to transmit “emergency alerts” also dovetails with the ongoing efforts to hijack radio and television broadcasts for the same purpose, via FEMA’s Emergency Alert System.

The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with the recent announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones using a special chip embedded in the receiver. The system will be operational by the end of the year in New York and Washington, with the rest of the country set to follow in 2012.

The notion of using the street lights as communication tools to broadcast “alerts” directly from the federal government is also consistent with Homeland Security’s program to install Orwellian ‘telescreens’ that play messages by Janet Napolitano and other DHS officials in Wal-Mart stores across the country.

The fact that the federal government is funding the implementation of ‘Intellistreets’ comes as no surprise given that the nation’s expanding networks of surveillance cameras are also being paid for with Department of Homeland Security grants.

http://www.infowars.com/new-street-lights-to-have-homeland-security-applications/


Update on one of the latest perverts at the TSA (from Drudge), but was not fired, just moved to another job, probably with a raise.

TSA removes security screener for note telling passenger to 'get your freak on'

A Transportation Security Administration airport security worker has been removed from checking baggage because of a note with sexual implications he left for a passenger at Newark's Liberty International Airport.

Jill Filipovic, a New York blogger who is also a lawyer, tweeted Monday that a note was left in her bag — which contained a sex toy, according to reports — that said "get your freak on." The note was written on a TSA notice of inspection form, leading Filipovic to believe it was written by someone at airport security.

TSA said on its blog Tuesday that it had conducted an investigation into the incident and removed the employee that was responsible from duty. ...

(excerpt)

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/189991-tsa-removes-screener-for-telling-passenger-to-get-your-freak-on-