Free Republic

In 1775, New Hampshire was the first colony to declare its independence from oppressive laws and taxes levied by the British crown. Now it may become the first state to declare its independence from an oppressive digital ID law concocted in Washington, D.C. New Hampshire's House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a remarkable bill, HB 1582, that would prohibit the state from participating in the national ID card system that will be created in 2008. A state Senate vote is expected as early as next week. The federal law in question is the Real ID Act (here's our FAQ on...

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists. Now UAVs may be landing in the United States. A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring. "We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United...

From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller plane to reach this fishing village on the state's southwestern edge, a place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine. This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil. People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that reason: to be left alone. So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras went up...

RFID: Europe Wants to Tag You From the desk of Elaib Harvey on Sun, 2006-03-12 20:45 Am I the only one who is a tad concerned about the new RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) Policy for Europe? I hope not. This year data retention legislation was introduced by the European Parliament and now we have the execrable Viviane Reding at a major conference in Hanover burbling about the Commission’s new consultation on the electronic tagging technology. Given that Commission Press Releases are normally bland to the point of ennui the following is quite something, “But their power to report their...

New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup. The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. .. The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said. .. But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the...

Dennis L. and Brenda F. Alford consider themselves law-abiding citizens. He is retired from Volvo Heavy Truck Plant and a greeter at the Wytheville Wal-Mart. She is a registered nurse at Carrington Place at Wytheville Birdmont Center. Imagine their surprise Wednesday morning when county and town law enforcement officers descended on their Locust Hill Road home. A search warrant was executed and eventually five two-way radios, four scanners, a computer, a power supply, radio tuners and an amplifier were seized. "They made us go in the living room and sit there," recalled Mrs. Alford. "They kept us under surveillance. It...

Here are the most important parts... but my blog post goes deep in to what seems to have happened here, etc. http://www.rightwinged.com/2006/01/fox_news_poll_on_electronic_su.html (from AP-Ipsos, a couple days ago) 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism. Agreeing with the White House, some 42 percent of those surveyed do not believe the court approval is necessary. (from Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll out today) By 58 percent to 36...

New York City is starting to monitor the blood sugar levels of its diabetic residents, marking the first time any government in the United States has begun tracking people with a chronic disease. Under the program, the city is requiring laboratories to report the results of blood sugar tests directly to the health department, which will use the data to study the disease and to prod doctors and patients when levels run too high. Some public health experts, ethicists and privacy advocates, however, say that the initiative raises serious concerns about confidentiality and is an alarming government intrusion into people's...

Courts may tag fathers who don't pay By Toby Helm, Chief Political Correspondent (Filed: 04/01/2006) Parents who refuse to pay child maintenance could be electronically tagged under a curfew system being considered by ministers. John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, confirmed yesterday that the Child Support Agency may be given powers to apply to courts to tag parents who failed in their obligations. "I am very much in favour of getting tough with people who are not meeting their responsibilities to their children," Mr Hutton said. Asked about tagging, he told Today on BBC Radio 4: "I have already...

The Boston Globe -- December 29, 2005 Leahy wants to know about Pentagon spying on protests COLCHESTER, Vt. --Sen. Patrick Leahy wants the Defense Department to give him the details about two Vermont anti-war protests that were monitored by government officials. Leahy, a Democrat, said Vermont had a long tradition of peaceful political protest. ...snip... "Besides, I told the Department of Defense, if they really want to hear Vermonters speak out against the war, they don't have to send a camera crew to snoop around Vermont, just turn on C-SPAN," Leahy said. "I do it on the Senate floor all...

MIAMI - Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant. Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats. "This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance...

WEST PALM BEACH — Police are rolling out surveillance cameras downtown and in the city's most violent neighborhoods, the first step in an ambitious plan to make West Palm Beach the most closely monitored city in South Florida.In the next month, four cameras are expected to be placed along Clematis Street and in troubled neighborhoods on the city's north side. Able to rotate 360 degrees and read a license plate a half-mile away, they will roll 24 hours a day and can be programmed to zoom in at the sound of gunfire. West Palm Beach police will test the first...

If you drive in metropolitan Baltimore and use a cellular phone, somebody might be "watching" as you come and go. A Canadian company is monitoring the flow of vehicle traffic in the area by using an emerging technology that tracks the constant stream of data generated by drivers' cell phones as they communicate with towers in the network. Advertisement Maryland highway officials are excited. They plan to use the technology to help traffic move more smoothly. But privacy advocates worry that the system could lead to bigger headaches than a Beltway backup. ...But Kevin Bankston, staff attorney for the Electronic...

SANTA ANA – The traditional police practice of rounding up the usual suspects will take a 21st-century twist under a new program announced Friday that combines satellite monitoring of 40 Orange County parolees with computerized crime reports. State parole officers using GPS devices will track the daily movements of high-risk sex offenders paroled in Orange County and compare their travels with the locations of crimes committed in the sheriff's jurisdiction. If the parolee comes within 500 feet of a crime reported that same day, the individual's parole officer and the sheriff's investigations unit will be alerted. The two-year pilot program...

EU elites are using the cover of recent terror attacks to take away our freedoms. by Bruno Waterfield The idea of freedom has captivated the European imagination for centuries. New York's Statue of Liberty, which became a world symbol for the search for a better life, was presented to America by the French. The engineer was Gustave Eiffel, creator of the Paris tower landmark, and his statue was entitled 'Liberty enlightening the world'. The statue embodied the high regard in which the idea of freedom was then held. As the US National Park Service approvingly notes, it 'is one of...

Today my manager just gave me a listing of my internet activity for the month of July, which was given to him by our MIS department. This was a first time for him and I and we discussed my online activity. While it was quite active, he was cool about it and said he didn't know why it was given to him but for me to take it to heart. Before anyone starts flaming me about surfing FR while at work, keep in mind that that does not interfere whatsoever in my job performance. Considering my job, there are periods...

RICHMOND -- Virginia's sex-offender registry is plagued with problems and cannot account for nearly 250 offenders, a preliminary analysis of the registry by the state's newly formed Sex Offender Task Force has found. Missing photographs, incorrect addresses and dated information are just a few of the issues the state faces in its effort to revamp the registry, members of the Virginia State Crime Commission's task force were told at the force's first meeting yesterday.

NEW YORK - Major League Baseball says it's not investigating Barry Bonds but merely monitoring the ongoing government probe involving the San Francisco Giants slugger. The New York Daily News, citing unidentified major league sources, reported on Sunday that "MLB security officials are convinced that Bonds may be at risk of conviction over allegations of tax fraud, and are conducting their own probe into Bonds relationships and activities." "There's nothing new. There's no investigation," baseball spokesman Rich Levin told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Nothing has changed. We're monitoring the federal investigation, as we have from the very beginning." Bonds'...

U.N. May Suspend Food Aid to N. Korea The U.N. said Wednesday international donations to North Korea are dwindling because the Stalinist country restricts monitoring of food aid. The World Food Program (WFP) warned it may have to suspend food distribution to millions of North Koreans within a couple of weeks. WFP Asia director Tony Banbury, who recently returned to China after a visit to North Korea, wrote on the U.N. website Wednesday, "Already obliged to stop providing enriched vegetable oil to more than 900,000 elderly people, funding shortfalls will force WFP next week to suspend distribution of vegetable oil...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Customers of a German supermarket chain will soon be able to pay for their shopping by placing their finger on a scanner at the check-out, saving the time spent scrabbling for coins or cards. An Edeka store in the southwest German town of Ruelzheim has piloted the technology since November and now the company plans to equip its stores across the region. "All customers need do is register once with their identity card and bank details, then they can shop straight away," said store manager Roland Fitterer. The scanner compares the shopper's fingerprint with those stored...