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Beware of what you do, where you go, and who you know.
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We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. | Make Way for the Snitch State: The All-Seeing Fourth Branch of Government | https://t.co/BgWElAP9tN— The Rutherford Institute (@Rutherford_Inst) June 1, 2021
Make Way for the Snitch State: The All-Seeing Fourth Branch of Government
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors.
This government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend.
Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
This far-reaching surveillance has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum.
Indeed, long before the National Security Agency (NSA) became the agency we loved to hate, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration were carrying out their own secret mass surveillance on an unsuspecting populace.
Even agencies not traditionally associated with the intelligence community are part of the government’s growing network of snitches and spies.
Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the exterior of every piece of paper mail for the past 20 years, is also spying on Americans’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s law enforcement division, the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly using facial recognition technology, combined with fake online identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The agency claims the online surveillance, which falls outside its conventional job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is necessary to help postal workers avoid “potentially volatile situations.”
Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies—the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.—and make it accessible for all those in power. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine.
It’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.
We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.
All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have (Forbes refers to them as “(data) pipelines to our intimate bodily processes”)—the smart watches that can monitor our blood pressure and the smart phones that let us pay for purchases with our fingerprints and iris scans—are setting us. MORE.
Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors https://t.co/TMzbINwlIx by @dangoodin001
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) May 29, 2021
Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors
Via ArsTechnica
Amazon’s experimental wireless mesh networking turns users into guinea pigs.
f you use Alexa, Echo, or many other Amazon devices, you have only 10 days until you’re opted in to an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.
On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with neighboring Sidewalk-capable devices that don’t have connectivity. Sidewalk will also help your Amazon devices to a sliver of bandwidth from other Sidewalk users when you don’t have a connection.
By default, a variety of Amazon devices will enroll in the system come June 8. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk “is currently only available in the US.” The full list of devices that can act as Sidewalk bridges is Ring Floodlight Cam (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Wired (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Mount (2019), Echo (3rd gen and newer), Echo Dot (3rd gen and newer), Echo Dot for Kids (3rd gen and newer), Echo Dot with Clock (3rd gen and newer), Echo Plus (all generations), Echo Show (all models and generations), Echo Spot, Echo Studio, Echo Input, and Echo Flex.
The webpage also states:
What is Amazon Sidewalk?
Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices work better. Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers, Sidewalk can help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices to help find pets or valuables with Tile trackers, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home wifi. In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as smart security and lighting and diagnostics for appliances and tools.
How will Amazon Sidewalk impact my personal wireless bandwidth and data usage?
The maximum bandwidth of a Sidewalk Bridge to the Sidewalk server is 80Kbps, which is about 1/40th of the bandwidth used to stream a typical high definition video. Today, when you share your Bridge’s connection with Sidewalk, total monthly data used by Sidewalk, per account, is capped at 500MB, which is equivalent to streaming about 10 minutes of high definition video.
Why should I participate in Amazon Sidewalk?
Amazon Sidewalk helps your devices get connected and stay connected. For example, if your Echo device loses its wifi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router. For select Ring devices, you can continue to receive motion alerts from your Ring Security Cams and customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection. Sidewalk can also extend the working range for your Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as Ring smart lights, pet locators or smart locks, so they can stay connected and continue to work over longer distances. Amazon does not charge any fees to join Sidewalk.
Amazon has published a white paper detailing the technical underpinnings and service terms that it says will protect the privacy and security of this bold undertaking. To be fair, the paper is fairly comprehensive, and so far no one has pointed out specific flaws that undermine the encryption or other safeguards being put in place. But there are enough theoretical risks to give users pause.
Next, consider the wealth of intimate details Amazon devices are privy to. They see who knocks on our doors, and in some homes they peer into our living rooms. They hear the conversations we’re having with friends and family. They control locks and other security systems in our home.
Extending the reach of all this encrypted data to the sidewalk and living rooms of neighbors requires a level of confidence that’s not warranted for a technology that has never seen widespread testing.
Last, let’s not forget who’s providing this new way for everyone to share and share alike. As independent privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani puts it: “In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services)… now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber.”
Amazon’s decision to make Sidewalk an opt-out service rather than an opt-in one is also telling. The company knows the only chance of the service gaining critical mass is to turn it on by default, so that’s what it’s doing. MORE.
Microsoft President Warns 2024 Will Look Like Orwell's '1984' If We Don't Stop AI Police State https://t.co/3usdb70Jw2 pic.twitter.com/GPYZY0A1ot
— Blacklisted News (@BlacklistedNews) May 31, 2021
Microsoft President Warns 2024 Will Look Like Orwell’s ‘1984’ If We Don’t Stop AI Police State
Via Zero Hedge
George Orwell’s dystopian vision written in his book “Nineteen Eighty-Four” could become a reality by 2024 as artificial intelligence technology becomes the all-seeing eye, a top Microsoft executive warned Thursday.
Microsoft President Brad Smith told BBC’s Panorama George Orwell’s 1984 “could come to pass in 2024” if government regulation doesn’t protect the public against intrusive artificial intelligence surveillance.
“I’m constantly reminded of George Orwell’s lessons in his book ‘1984.’ You know the fundamental story … was about a government who could see everything that everyone did and hear everything that everyone said all the time,” Smith said on BBC while chatting about China’s use of artificial intelligence to monitor its citizens.
“Well, that didn’t come to pass in 1984, but if we’re not careful, that could come to pass in 2024,” Smith continued.
“If we don’t enact the laws that will protect the public in the future, we are going to find the technology racing ahead, and it’s going to be very difficult to catch up.”
He warned that Orwell’s view of a government spying on its citizens around the clock is already a reality in some parts of the world.
Artificial intelligence-led totalitarianism, such as in China, has wiped away the freedoms of its citizens and transformed them into obedient members of the state. A social credit score keeps citizens in check.
To prevent such a dystopia in the West, lawmakers need to act now, explained Smith.
In 2019, the billionaire investor Peter Thiel insisted that artificial intelligence was “literally communist.”
He said artificial intelligence concentrates power to monitor citizens. These surveillance tools know more about a person than they know about themselves.
Artificial intelligence is a crucial tool for governments to adopt an Orwellian state of surveillance and control. MORE.
No Safe Spaces in Biden's America—Cartel Border Crime Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You. https://t.co/sHBcNT3sMF
— Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) June 2, 2021
No Safe Spaces in Biden’s America—Cartel Border Crime Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You
Via True Pundit
It’s the not-so-secret dirty little secret the Biden administration doesn’t want Americans to know: Biden’s southern border policies are making all Americans less safe, no matter how far away from the border we live.
In March, Joe Biden vaguely told reporters he’d visit the southern border “at some point,” but he has yet to make the trip. Kamala Harris has also neglected to visit the border even as Biden tasked her with stemming the so-called “surge of migration” there. By contrast, numerous Republican members of Congress have visited sections of our border, as PJMedia reported here and here.
When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren’t actively deflecting from the chaos at the border, or blaming Trump, they’re downplaying its severity. They certainly don’t treat it as a crisis impacting everyday Americans because it’s, you know, at the border.
The truth is, our unsecured southern border is absolutely bleeding crime and chaos into the United States itself as my PJ Media colleague Stephen Green reported on Friday. That crime, however, doesn’t simply stop at the towns along the border itself.
One case in point is California’s Antelope Valley.
Officially made up of thirteen cities and many other sparsely populated areas, the Antelope Valley is located in the high desert of northern Los Angeles County. The vast valley lies some 200-300 miles away from the U.S. border with Mexico. Sadly, even several hundred miles of separation have provided the residents no protection from Biden’s broken border policies. MORE.
WHO Renames COVID-19 Variants To Avoid Stigmatizing Countries https://t.co/KzOJMewXIf pic.twitter.com/QZidWfGIA4
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) June 1, 2021
WHO Renames COVID-19 Variants To Avoid Stigmatizing Countries
Via The Daily Wire
COVID-19 variants will now be named after the Greek alphabet to reduce confusion among the general population and to avoid potentially stigmatizing regions of the world from which they emerge, the World Health Organization announced Monday.
The new system will cover the several variants of concern as well as any variants of interest. The variant of concern from Britain, also called B.1.1.7 by scientists, will now receive the WHO designation of “alpha.” The variant from South Africa, B.1.351., has been designated “beta,” the variant from Brazil, also called P.1 by scientists, has been designated “gamma,” and the variant from India, B.1.617.2, has been designated “delta.”
“No country should be stigmatized for detecting and reporting variants,” said Maria Van Kerkhov, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19 said Monday, reports Axios.
The World Health Organization website, similarly, says scientists settled on the naming system in a search for “easy-to-pronounce and non-stigmatising labels” for variants.
“The established nomenclature systems for naming and tracking SARS-CoV-2 genetic lineages by GISAID, Nextstrain and Pango are currently and will remain in use by scientists and in scientific research,” reads the SARS-CoV-2 variant website at the WHO. “To assist with public discussions of variants, WHO convened a group of scientists from the WHO Virus Evolution Working Group, the WHO COVID-19 reference laboratory network, representatives from GISAID, Nextstrain, Pango and additional experts in virological, microbial nomenclature and communication from several countries and agencies to consider easy-to-pronounce and non-stigmatising labels for VOI and VOC. At the present time, this expert group convened by WHO has recommended using labeled using letters of the Greek Alphabet, i.e., Alpha, Beta, Gamma, which will be easier and more practical to discussed by non-scientific audiences.” MORE.
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