Watch what you say around your toaster: The current state of U.S. surveillance

It is not a conspiracy theory to say that Americans are losing their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms at an alarming rate. “Losing” isn’t quite the right word. They are being taken from us by the U.S. government in the name of security. Whether or not you have ever committed a crime in your life, whether you have everything or nothing to hide, you are probably being monitored by our government in one way or another.

I’m no terrorist. Why me, you ask? Because they can, and here’s how:

• Police can track you and your car through an automated license plate reader (ALPR), which is now being used by many U.S. law enforcement agencies.
• Elementary school students might soon be required to wear a garment with a microchip in it to track their movements. It’s happening now in select schools around the country.
• Secret government documents, published by the media in 2013, confirm the NSA obtains full copies of everything that is carried along major domestic fiber optic cable networks. It is intercepting and storing virtually all digital communications on the Internet.
• The government takes photos of the envelopes of every piece of “snail mail” that is sent.
• Nearly two-thirds of the American public – 197.4 million people – live within a “constitution-free zone” within 100 miles of land and coastal borders. The safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution do not apply in these areas.
• Surveillance cameras, traffic cameras and surveillance drones have become ubiquitous. By 2020, about 30,000 unmanned drones are expected to be deployed in the United States for the purpose of surveillance and law enforcement.
• The U.S. government is currently running at least 30 separate mass surveillance programs (There are probably many others that are secret).
• Your cell phone and vehicle location can be monitored by “Stingrays,” false cell phone towers containing sophisticated spyware that can capture your cell phone calls.
• It was recently revealed that Ancestry.com gave Idaho police DNA samples they had received for genealogical searches of family histories. The police had no warrant or court order for the DNA.
• It goes without saying the government is likely capturing your cell phone conversations, but the FBI now has equipment that can activate your phone’s microphone and listen to your conversations when you think the phone is off.
• Customs officials can search your computer or other electronic devices for no reason.
• Government agents have been caught attaching GPS devices to cars of people who have not committed or been charged with any crime.
• Children at schools around the country are conducting security drills that would simulate a lockdown, bomb threat, active shooter or terrorist attack.
• Special high-tech streetlamps are being installed in American cities that can be used as surveillance cameras or to record personal conversations.
• The FBI, the Pentagon, Homeland Security and at least 40 other agencies routinely spy on and infiltrate peace groups like the War Resisters League, Code Pink, and United for Peace and Justice, as well as the Occupy movement.
• The TSA is moving beyond airport security and is now conducting inspections at subway stations, bus terminals, ports and highway rest stops.
• Privacy International, a group that monitors the surveillance policies of nations around the world, ranks America as one of the most invasive and abusive surveillance states on the planet.
• The government has the ability to spy on you through your computer’s webcam or microphone.
• In 2013, leaked NSA files revealed that tech companies (Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) had cooperated with US authorities to facilitate monitoring of people’s use of their applications, like email and social media platforms.
• “Black boxes” are currently installed in between 90% and 96% of all new cars. And starting in 2014, all new cars will include black boxes that can track your location.
• Our government has the ability to spy on you through “smart appliances” connected to the Internet. We now have to watch what we say in front of our toasters.
• The government is currently testing a surveillance system called FAST that, when installed, measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject. It’s called a “Pre-crime” sensing device.

The Deep State doesn’t care about you or your laws

Still unconvinced we’re living in the midst of an Orwellian nightmare? With the introduction of Apple’s new iPhone 6 that includes an improved encryption system, the FBI went on a whine-spree about how dangerous this was to national security that they couldn’t easily hack the phones. It culminated last week with an appearance by FBI Director James Comey at the Brookings Institute where he declared in a speech that Apple was creating an environment where America “…is no longer a country governed by the rule of law.”

It’s ridiculous to even have to point out this Orwellian double-speak to anyone over the age of five. Imagine, there are actually people out here who don’t think the government should be able to listen in on their conversations. They think that it might actually be against the law and unconstitutional. So a company does something to try and reassure a very nervous public that its phones are less likely to be bugged by the government, and the government reacts as if this is high treason.

Simply put, our government no longer believes that Americans have a right to privacy. The Constitution? Fuggetaboutit. We have secret courts that hand out secret rulings that say anything we want to do is okay. The unelected Deep State is not concerned with what Americans want or the rule of law, it’s sole concern is its own survival.

War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Ignorance is strength.

FOX News rewriting Bush era history

All written history is subjective to a point. As humans, we can’t help but bring our biases and prejudices to accounts of the past, even when it comes to what we choose to leave out. A problem arises, however, when you try to revise well-established historical evidence for purely ideological reasons. This was the work of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in 1984, but there is a parallel organization operating right now with the same agenda as Orwell’s fictional government office, and it’s name is FOX News.

Examples of FOX News’ historical revisionism are too numerous to list, but the latest foray into turning the past on its head is a recent interview with former president George Bush. As if being broadcast from a television studio in the bowels of the Ministry of Truth, sycophant Brian Kilmeade praised Bush for his handling of the Iraq war and focused on a Bush comment that there would be problems if the military left Iraq too soon. Treating him as if he was a wise political sage instead of the man who opened the Pandora’s Box of death and destruction in the Middle East, Kilmeade and FOX News ignored reality altogether, never broaching the subject of WMDs or the missing billions of dollars or the devastated country he handed over to Obama in 2008.

It’s just one more example of why regular viewers of FOX News are the least well-informed consumers of television news.

Cameron speech does Big Brother proud

This is a disturbing development. In a speech at the U.N. yesterday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that 9/11 and 7/7 truthers, and others who hold what he considers “extremist” views, are just as dangerous as the violent ISIS. He goes on to compare those holding extreme non-violent views with Nazis and Klu Klux Klansmen.

In his speech, Cameron said:

“We must be clear: to defeat the ideology of extremism we need to deal with all forms of extremism - not just violent extremism.”

It’s possible Cameron may walk back some of his comments after the inevitable backlash, but the thought process here is truly Orwellian. It harkens back to the blog I wrote yesterday about the Denver school board member who wants U.S. history to be taught with a more positive, patriotic spin. Who decides these things? Who decides whether a history book for high schoolers includes an honest discussion of slavery or not? Who decides which non-violent views are extremist? It’s our glorious leaders.

In Cameron’s world, you can be labeled an extremist for simply disagreeing with what your government says or does. If I say I don’t buy into the official version of events on 9/11, I’m as dangerous as a knife-wielding ISIS member.

And, after he’s identified the enemy, how exactly is Cameron going to combat non-violent extremist views? Will the extremists be imprisoned? Sent to re-education camps? Labeled as mentally ill?

Cameron’s U.N. speech was fear mongering at its most appalling spiced with totalitarian inclinations. It laid bare both the elite’s growing anxiety at the worldwide threats to Western hegemony and the reactionary, undemocratic response to those threats. Big Brother would be proud.

2013

I want to write a sequel to Orwell’s 1984. I’m going to call it 2013. Clever, huh?  Basically, it’s set in a country where the citizens are under the influence of very subtle and sophisticated mind control techniques that, like a drug, lull them into believing they live in the greatest country in the world, when in fact the government is very evil and corrupt.  

I’ve been jotting down some notes about this fictional country. It’s an updated version of Oceania, where the techniques used to control society are much more modern and sophisticated. Here are some thoughts:

• Although the government does not control the media outright, the major media channels—newspapers, magazines, television, radio—are all owned by a small group of companies that tightly monitor content. Despite the appearance of a free flow of information, messages are limited to those that support unfettered capitalism, corporate ideology and the status quo. Alternative views and dissenting voices are marginalized and ridiculed. 
• A huge, bloated military establishment is sold to the people as necessary for the country’s defense. It is unpatriotic to criticize the defense industry or its budget. Small-scale wars are fought continuously around the world to justify the trillions of dollars spent on the military.
• Whistleblowers, those who speak out against government and corporate abuses and excesses, are punished.
• Groups opposing the status quo are treated as terrorist organizations.
• The richest 1% of the population, the true elites, control the vast majority of the country’s wealth.
• Elections are tightly controlled so that only candidates who support the status quo and the aims of the capitalist elites are considered serious contenders to be the country’s leader.
• Leaders of the country claim the right to kill suspected enemies anywhere in the world at anytime.
• Intelligence agencies routinely monitor citizens by tapping telephones, intercepting Internet communications and mail, and infiltrating organizations based on nothing more than hunches and guesses. Presumption of innocence no longer exists.
• The government operates behind a thick veil of secrecy, which people are told is necessary for the country’s defense.

So what do you think? Too outlandish? I realize it is a stretch to create a country like this where the citizens would allow such treatment and not rise up in revolt, but stranger things have happened.