Free Republic

The NSA document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, stressed the risk of leaving games communities under-monitored, describing them as a "target-rich communications network" where intelligence targets could "hide in plain sight". Games, the analyst wrote, "are an opportunity!". According to the briefing notes, so many different US intelligence agents were conducting operations inside games that a "deconfliction" group was required to ensure they weren't spying on, or interfering with, each other. If properly exploited, games could produce vast amounts of intelligence, according to the NSA document. They could be used as a...

EX-OFFICIAL SAYS FBI CAN SECRETLY ACTIVATE AN INDIVIDUAL’S WEBCAM WITHOUT THE INDICATOR LIGHT TURNING ON The FBI can secretly activate a computer’s webcam to spy on an individual without turning on the indicator light, a former official revealed to the Washington Post in an article published Friday. According to the Washington Post’s account of what Marcus Thomas — former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico — said, “The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has...

A team of surveillance experts on Wednesday delivered preliminary recommendations to the White House on whether and how to amend U.S. spying policies. President Obama appointed the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, as it is officially known, as part of his response to global outrage over secret American surveillance programs. The panel's task is to advise the administration on how best to balance security needs against privacy concerns. The group briefed National Security Adviser Susan Rice, counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco and other staff from the National Security Council at the White House, according to NSC spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden....

This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them... Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on...

Cisco announced two important things in today’s earnings report: The first is that the company is aggressively moving into the Internet of Things—the effort to connect just about every object on earth to the internet—by rolling out new technologies. The second is that Cisco has seen a huge drop-off in demand for its hardware in emerging markets, which the company blames on fears about the NSA using American hardware to spy on the rest of the world. Cisco chief executive John Chambers said on the company’s earnings call that he believes other American technology companies will be similarly affected. Cisco...

The UK and US must do more to protect internet users' privacy, the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned as a survey of online freedoms is released. Berners-Lee warned that "a growing tide of surveillance and censorship" posed a threat to the future of democracy, even as more and more people were using the internet to expose wrongdoing. His remarks came before the second annual release of a global league table that classifies countries according to a set of freedoms. Since last year, the US has dropped from second place to fourth, while the UK...

(CNSNews.com) - Before the end of this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will decide whether or not to begin the rulemaking process to mandate that newly manufactured cars include what is being called “vehicle-to-vehicle” (V2V) communications technology that constantly broadcasts via radio wave the car’s location, direction, speed and, possibly, even the number of passengers it is carrying. “NHTSA expects to make a decision on V2V technology by the end of the year,” a spokesman for the agency told CNSNews.com. That point was reaffirmed by NHTSA Administrator David Strickland in testimony in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee...

A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has criticised the US government for ignoring guidelines surrounding the National Security Agency's (NSA) Prism programme for domestic surveillance of web users. FISC set out suggested regulations for the Prism programme, which spied on citizens' emails and web use for around 10 years before being shut down in 2011... "NSA exceeded the scope of authorised acquisition continuously during the more than [redacted] years of acquisition under these orders," wrote Judge Bates in a 117 page document. He added that guidelines stated that the government should only gather data on those for whom there was...

If all goes well, the UrtheCast dual camera system will blast off in a Progress supply ship on Nov. 25, 2013. This will be the world’s first ever high definition, live-streaming video platform of planet Earth from the International Space Station. “Imagine you have a nearly live Google Earth, but it isn’t four year old data – you have data that is being refreshed all the time, with videos coming down over interesting areas where interesting events are going on, showing you what is changing, what is going on,” said George Tyc, the Chief Technology Officer at UrtheCast, in an...

Government requests for data soared from 3,580 in 2009 to 10,918, Google said on Thursday -- and those are only the data demands the web giant is allowed to publish. A 2013 Transparency Report described on the Internet giant's Public Policy blog is the latest in an ongoing effort to provide a window into worldwide governmental efforts to tap into the digital profiles Google builds and the digital communications it relays. The report revealed a tremendous increase worldwide in government efforts to mine Google’s data.

The Transportation Security Agency has quietly rolled out the Pre-Check program that allows frequent travelers to voluntarily submit to a background check, interview and fingerprints in exchange for a much faster experience through TSA checkpoints in airports. Is this program convenient for frequent travelers or something much more invasive? Since 2011, the TSA has tested the program at 40 different airports. It allows pre-screened travelers to proceed through TSA checkpoints without removing their shoes and belt. Light jackets can be worn and computers / liquids can remain in carry-on luggage. The program requires an $85 enrollment fee, but there is...

Citing the Heath and Human Services website, a report posted Wednesday at the Freedom Outpost says that under Obamacare, government agents can engage in "home health visits" for those in certain “high-risk” categories. Those categories include: • Families where mom is not yet 21; • Families where someone is a tobacco user; • Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities, and • Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

Google is beta-testing a program that tracks users’ purchasing habits by registering brick-and-mortar store visits via smartphones, according to a report from Digiday. Google can access user data via Android apps or their Apple iOS apps, like Google search, Gmail, Chrome, or Google Maps.If a customer is using these apps while he shops or has them still running in the background, Google’s new program pinpoints the origin of the user data and determines if the customer is in a place of business.Google gets permission to do this kind of tracking when Android users opt in to the “location services” option...

A friend went to help another friend who is running for the local School Committee. I'm being coy because my friend did a little undercover work and showed me screenshots of the software the candidate was using, something called VoteBuilder, "a partnership between the DNC and the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee." It was as sophisticated as anything I have seen while volunteering for Romney and McCain. The software provides the voter name, age, phone number, the voter's polling location, a script for the caller to read with questions like, "Do you need a ride to the polls?" Nothing revolutionary here,...

Dressed in Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman Halloween costumes. A Massachusetts woman was reportedly fired after racially insensitive images surfaced online of her sons dressed as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman for Halloween. Caitlin Cimeno reportedly posted photos of her sons, William Filene and Greg Cimeno, with the caption: "Happy Halloween from Zimmerman & trayvon (insert smiley face emoji here)," according to a piece by Myeisha Essex at BlackAmericaWeb. Following the outrageous post, members of the social media world not only tracked her down, but eventually also her employer, who told a caller that she no longer worked there, reports...

WASHINGTON — As America's road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car. The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America's major roads.

Hundreds are marching on the National Mall in Washington, DC to protest covert NSA surveillance operations on the anniversary of the Patriot Act. The organizers are planning to present Congress with a petition which has acquired over 570,000 signatures. Stop Watching Us is a collective of 100 public advocacy groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom Works, as well as individuals like Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose many of the NSAÂ’s surveillance procedures. The rally is scheduled to begin at 11:30 am local time on October...

When Bob Dylan sang “When you’ve got nothing you’ve got nothing to lose” he could hardly have imagined how true his words would ring almost fifty years later. Being against national photo ID cards was something the Right and the Left agreed on for privacy reasons. There was good reason to be against such cards in the past; but today they are a concern as meaningless as worrying about where to place a new telephone booth. After five years of the reign of King Barack during which he has used every agency in his control to spy on everyone in...

Germany said it believed that U.S. intelligence agencies may be spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, an intrusion that it said would constitute a “grave breach of trust” between the longtime allies. Ms. Merkel called President Barack Obama on Wednesday and made clear that such surveillance among allies would be “fully unacceptable,” her spokesman, Steffen [...]

What does gun control have to do with health care? As odd as it seems, Obamacare contains provisions that jeopardize gun ownership, especially for veterans. Anti-gun provisions were added to initial drafts of Obamacare legislation under the pretext of prohibiting people with mental illness – which can include PTSD - from owning guns. Fortunately, the NRA stepped in and got some of the worst language revised last December. Senate amendment 3276, Sec. 2716, part c. prohibits the creation of a firearms database and stops doctors from disclosing or collecting information relating to a patient’s firearms. Ironically, this provision was probably...