The Evaporation of Privacy and Freedom

For some time, I have been following the development of surveillance and data collection activities in Europe, the US and other countries. Collating varied articles on this broad topic is a slow process. At some point the information I collect reaches critical mass and I get to connect the dots to see if my guesses have had any semblance to the actual events (published for public consumption). What follows is a mosaic of the future materialising, bit by bit, before our very eyes. It transcends national boundaries.

The horizon of our global future now becomes visible through the dense fog of media. Now is the time to decide if what we see is what we want.

I will update this collection of articles about the legal, technological, and political forces creating a future where surveillance and control are the sole right and privilege of government. Many Americans will be surprised to learn that the DNA from every newborn is now required and stored in a national database.

Europeans may gasp when they realise that details such as their grocery purchases can be freely accessed by the US National Security Agency WITHOUT CAUSE. It is and extra-judicial process now.

The list which connects the web of government data retention (preventive retention of personal data) is indeed horrifying as well as the emerging technological advances to enable this. Hope you enjoy the dots and have a lovely time connecting them. I would enjoy any feedback. Related videos follow the articles.

Update July 12, 2009

The Electronic Police State

The legal perspective: data held for evidence of future crimes

RFID Panopticon

Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
January 26, 2008
It’s sold in the Washington Post — the CIA’s favorite newspaper — as a wonderful world of convenience come true for consumers:

“RFID-enabled refrigerators could warn about expired milk, generate weekly shopping lists, even send signals to your interactive TV, so that you see ‘personalized’ commercials for foods you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it without instruction… Companies say the RFID tags improve supply-chain efficiency, cut theft, and guarantee that brand-name products are authentic, not counterfeit. At a store, RFID doorways could scan your purchases automatically as you leave, eliminating tedious checkouts.”

Excuse me, but I’ll take the tedium.

The problem, critics say, is that microchipped products might very well do a whole lot more. Read more...

"Reality Mining" Inside Big Brother's Control Grid

By Daniel Taylor
Data mining is a practice long used by government agencies and companies like Choicepoint to collect a vast amount of information on individuals, trends, and other fields. Now, with the advent of new technologies, a new form of data collection is rising. This new field is called "reality mining". Social engineers, marketers, as well as government agencies with an interest in learning everything possible about you are eagerly anticipating its widespread use.

Reality mining is one of many facets stemming from a global sensor network that will monitor everything from the environment, subtle variations in human behavior, to everyday objects. It consists of an interconnected network of biometrics, machine vision, radio frequency ID tags, Global Positioning Systems, "geotagging", wireless sensors, "smart dust", and traditional surveillance equipment. This is a "system of systems". In short, everything is to be monitored in a digital real-time mirror of the real world. Read more...

Cyber Tsar to save America

30 May, 2009
President Barack Obama is creating a “Cyber Tsar” to safeguard America's cyber space security. The person who's going to take on the job has yet to be named. He or she will overlook the safety of government and military computer systems which have been subjected to hacker attacks.

Barack Obama says that right now the USA is ill-prepared to deal with any kind of cyber attack. Therefore, the country needs a “cyber superman” to handle such situations. Read more...

The Launching of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM).
Offensive Operations in Cyberspace

by Tom Burghardt
Global Research
July 1, 2009
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a memorandum on June 23 that announced the launch of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). A scheme by securocrats in the works for several years, the order specifies that the new office will be a "subordinate unified command" under U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).

According to the memorandum, CYBERCOM "will reach initial operating capability (IOC) not later than October 2009 and full operating capability (FOC) not later than October 2010."

Gates has recommended that this new Pentagon domain be led by Lt. General Keith Alexander, the current Director of the ultra-spooky National Security Agency (NSA). Under the proposal, Alexander would receive a fourth star and the new agency would be based at Ft. Meade, Maryland, NSA's headquarters. Read more...

Federal Authority Over the Internet?
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

Jennifer Granick April 10th, 2009

There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.

Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.

One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks. Read more...

Federal cybersecurity director quits, complains of NSA role

Rod Beckstrom quit the post after less than a year

By Jaikumar Vijayan March 8, 2009

Computerworld - In a move that highlights differences over who should be in charge of national cybersecurity efforts, the director of a federal office set up to protect civilian, military and intelligence networks has submitted his resignation after less than a year in the job.

Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), on Friday said he is quitting because of concerns over what he said is the National Security Agency's (NSA) domination of the nation's cybersecurity efforts. The NCSC was set up within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year to oversee and coordinate efforts to shore up the nation's defenses and responses to cyberthreats.

Beckstrom was appointed to lead the NCSC in March 2008 and was required to report directly to then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.

In a sharply worded letter to current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom on Friday noted that the NSA effectively controlled DHS cyberefforts "through detailees, technology insertions" and a proposed move of the National Protection and Programs Directorate and the NCSC to an NSA facility in Fort Meade. His letter, dated March 5, noted that allowing the NSA to control national cybersecurity efforts is a "bad strategy on multiple grounds."
Read more...

New Military Command for Cyberspace

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander is second from the left

By THOM SHANKER
June 23, 2009
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday ordered the creation of the military’s first headquarters designed to coordinate Pentagon efforts in the emerging battlefield of cyberspace and computer-network security, officials said.

Pentagon officials said Mr. Gates intends to nominate Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, currently director of the National Security Agency, for a fourth star and to take on the top job at the new organization, to be called Cybercom.

The new command’s mission will be to coordinate the day-to-day operation — and protection — of military and Pentagon computer networks. Currently, the Defense Department operates 15,000 separate computer networks and more than seven million individual computers or information-technology devices, officials said.

The Obama administration has undertaken significant efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and prepare for potential offensive operations against adversary computer networks. The first step was creating a position of White House director for cybersecurity issues.

But the plans raised concerns that respect for privacy, diplomatic rules and sovereignty may be harmed as the administration accelerates its efforts to detect and attack adversaries on global computer networks that disregard borders. Read more...

NSA Plans Massive
Data Center in Utah

July 5th, 2009
The Salt Lake Tribune

The National Security Agency was so confident that its nearly $2 billion plan for a new data center in Utah would be approved by Congress that it began designing the facility last November.

NSA budgeting documents also indicate that the design of the 1-million-square-foot center should be completed by February, with building to begin in June on a project that could mean thousands of construction jobs for a state that, like many others, has been stuck in a building lull.

President Barack Obama last week signed a spending bill that included $181 million for preparatory construction of the Camp Williams facility and tentatively agreed to two future phases of construction that could cost $800 million each.

The secretive agency released a statement Thursday acknowledging the selection of Camp Williams as a site for the new center and describing it as “a specialized facility that houses computer systems and supporting equipment.”

Budget documents provide a more detailed picture of the facility and its mission. The supercomputers in the center will be part of the NSA’s signal intelligence program, which seeks to “gain a decisive information advantage for the nation and our allies under all circumstances” according to the documents.

The agency is set up to collect intelligence on foreign threats, but it has been accused of also participating in the unwarranted monitoring of the communications of U.S. citizens.

A similar center is being constructed in San Antonio, Texas, and NSA documents indicate that the agency is also expanding its existing intelligence collection facilities in North Yorkshire, England, and Fort Meade, Md. The agency has been seeking to decentralize its operations in an effort to protect assets and find areas with the capacity to satiate the energy appetites of its enormous computer caches.

To that end, the initial phase of the project is expected to include more than $52 million in preparatory electrical work — much of that is likely to be spent connecting two large power corridors that run through Camp Williams to the construction site near the base airstrip. The next phases of the project will include $340 million in electrical work, according to the documents.

About $70 million has been budgeted for security, including vehicle inspection facilities, fencing, surveillance and separate visitor control centers for construction and technical personnel.

All NSA security measures will be in addition to security that the Utah National Guard already provides for the 28,000-acre Camp Williams facility.

“Physical and technical security of the construction site will be assured,” the budget documents promise.

While the project — and the ongoing operation of the center — will bring millions of dollars into the state, the Utah Guard doesn’t stand to make a penny.

Guard spokesman Hank McIntire said the state, which manages Camp Williams, would act as “a benevolent landlord.”

Citizens Education Project director Steve Erickson, who advocates for greater military oversight, was wary.

“If we’re going to be landlords,” he said, “we should act like a good landlord and have some rules that apply to the tenants to make sure they’re behaving.”

Regrettably, he said, that’s not likely to happen when dealing with one of the most secretive government agencies in the world.

“Finally, the Patriot Act has a home,” he sighed.


Here's a lovely little article on the privacy of one's medical history. Note is it written in 2002; no doubt progress has been made since then in its ability to access global personal medical data.

DoD Database Provides Global Tripwire for Bio-Terror

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON
Dec. 17, 2002 – DoD personnel are on the watch for possible bio-terrorism, scanning computer databases featuring outpatient treatment information gathered from more than 300 military hospitals and medical clinics worldwide.

That effort, called the Electronic Surveillance System for Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics, or ESSENCE, is helping DoD to detect both naturally occurring outbreaks of disease -- and potential bio-terrorism attacks, noted Army Dr. (Col.) Patrick W. Kelley. He is an epidemiologist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md.

ESSENCE started up in 2000 as a pilot program to monitor the medical health of service members, family members and military retirees living in metropolitan Washington, Kelley explained.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, he said, ESSENCE was expanded to include outpatient information from 313 Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard medical facilities around the world.

ESSENCE is on the front line of defense in the war against global terrorism, Kelley maintained. Its worldwide reach is important, he emphasized, because "infectious diseases have no borders and an attack on one country with a bio- terrorist agent could well be an attack on the globe."
Read more...

Don't relax if you are in Europe.
The EU is just a bit sneakier than the USA. Who has heard of

European Homeland Security EHSA?


Well, I invite you to visit their webpage.

It's really quite interesting when you investigate the links there.

This one

is, I am sure, a high priority budget item.

Update July 10, 2009

NSA’s cyber-security grab is a
major expansion of web surveillance

By Wayne Madsen
Jun 26, 2009
With Time magazine reporting that President Obama has narrowed his top choice for the White House “cyber security czar” position to former Virginia Republican Representative Tom Davis, a leading backer of the Bush administration’s surveillance powers over the Internet, comes word from WMR’s sources that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been given a green light by the Obama White House to embark on a major effort to establish total surveillance over the Internet.

The decision is somewhat of a consolation prize to NSA director General Keith Alexander who made no secret of his desire to be named as Obama’s cyber security czar. However, it is anticipated that Davis is in lockstep with the NSA in ensuring the eavesdropping agency becomes the de facto lead organization for conducting spying on Internet users worldwide.

The NSA seeks to expand its surveillance powers over the Internet well beyond its current e-mail surveillance capabilities conducted by classified programs like Pinwale, first reported by WMR on December 4, 2005, and reported as an e-mail interception program on September 15, 2008. Using the cover of additional code-word programs, NSA is expanding its surveillance capabilities of the Internet by striking technical agreements with various software developers, hardware vendors, and service providers, including Microsoft, Intel, Google, and social networking services like FaceBook and Twitter. Read more...


VIDEOS

Witness - Security Threat
A really excellent and thorough look at the use of profiling and surveillance technology used to
analyse personal data. Also a bit scary. 36 min


Privacy is dead - Get over it.
The inside scoop from a security expert on our digital footprints (which we leave everywhere). Like having a magician reveal a secret of a magic trick. Captivating. You might feel naked after watching this.

All your info - now available to Gov't thru your ISP

I was quite relieved when Australia citizens managed to quash their government's proposal to make all Internet Service Providers spies for the government, ISPs Give Rudd Government Two Finger Salute. It appears that Europeans and Americans have not managed to live up to the Aussies in political fervor to protect citizen privacy rights on the internet.

So I guess we shall get what we deserve. Yes it now is legal for your ISP to keep every stroke of yourkeyboard for a year or longer. And, thanks to Mr. Sarkozy, the new team cheerleader for team USA, all data electronically held on EU citizens can be shared with the National Security Agency of the US, even if you are not a criminal, even if you are not a suspected terrorist, even if you are the re-incarnation of Mother Theresa. EU Privacy Rights to be Taken Away

OK? Well it even gets better. This effectively means that private commercial companies hold all sorts of personal data about every email, SMS or electronic communication make by every EU citizen. And in this day of grand outsourcing, who knows even in which country our data could be held.

• NSA’s Wiretapping of Americans being outsourced to Israeli Companies?!?!
• Australia: Private Intelligence Company Monitors Activists Online for Police

We are not yet sure about the security arrangements on this data to prevent its misuse, but what do we have to worry about if we have nothing to hide? I have blogged on this subject until I am sick inside of the complacency of the general population on the issue. Getting the word out is half the battle: getting people to pay attention to the seriousness of these incremental controls on every aspect of our private lives is the other half of the battle.

We must use word of mouth and tell each other about directives such as the one below if we are to be a democratically responsible citizenry. This goes for all countries...the Aussies did it. So can we. But we must start talking about it and keep on until this issue is addressed to our satisfaction. The writing is on the wall.

EU Data Retention Directive provokes
widespread condemnation

Critics speak out against law forcing ISPs
to record every email and SMS from 15 March

Ian Williams

computing.co.uk
Fri, 13 Mar 2009
Source
UK internet service providers will have to all store communication information from customers for a full year starting on 15 March, as part of the controversial EU Data Retention Directive (PDF).

Under the directive, details of every email, phone call and text message sent or received, including information such as IP address and time of use, will have to be recorded. Police and security experts will be able to request access to the information to help combat terrorism and cyber crime, but only with a court order.

Nonetheless, the move has sparked serious concerns from privacy groups, IT security firms and legal experts. Susan Hall, an ICT and media partner at law firm Cobbetts LLP, maintained that such a database is "the antithesis of what the whole internet is about". "There have been regular and well known cases when the police criminals' record database has illegally been accessed by 'insiders', using it to vet employees and do favours for friends," she said.

The directive has provoked criticism from EU member states over the cost of the operation, which is estimated at £46m over an eight-year period, as well as fears of privacy violation. "Given the numerous data breaches of late, it is hardly surprising that concern has been raised over these proposals," said Jamie Cowper, director of EMEA marketing at security firm PGP Corporation. "With public confidence about data security at an all time low, it is absolutely essential that ISPs take their obligations seriously.

If privacy violation is to be avoided, and the huge cost of this operation is to be justified, the security of the public's data must be watertight. "If the EU plans to roll out similar legislation to other sectors, they are going to have to demonstrate to the public that every step is being taken to defend their data.

If not, it is fair to say that we are just one data breach away from a major public backlash." Hall went on to ask: "The government is trying to impose liabilities on service providers, and for what? The theoretical possibility that it will stop terrorists?

"People applying for access to the database will, on the basis of what we've already seen happen with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, use a slippery slope argument: first arguing for using the information for sex offenders and other serious criminals, but ultimately using it to worry about parking tickets or whether children are entitled to be enrolled in the school they've applied to, as in the recent Poole Council case."

Hall also believes that these measures will have little discernable impact on the fight against terrorism, as the criminals involved will just find ways of bypassing the checks by using other people's unsecured Wi-Fi connections, hotspots or pay-as-you-go 3G modems. "It is also very interesting to note that the European Court of Human Rights ruled in January that a similarly sweeping DNA database, which contained genetic samples from thousands of citizens who had not been convicted of any crime, violated privacy rights," she said.

"Looking at the comments made in this recent case, the ISP database will run the UK government foul of the European Convention on Human Rights, and on this basis alone should be reconsidered. " Thus far, ISPs that have attempted to stop these laws being implemented, such as in Ireland and Slovakia, have been unsuccessful. With the deadline looming, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association claimed that most firms are prepared for the directive's implementation.

"We have made our members aware of what is required and, as far as we know, they will all be compliant," he said.

Related articles:
Are YOU a terrorist? Better check.
Bloggers: 1 step from censorship?
Cyber Eyes, Net Cops and Pleasure Chips
Internet freedom: Heads up bloggers
Barack Obama's 'Black Widow' : The Super Spy Computer
More Evidence of Pentagon War Against the Internet
Shhhhh - Cyber censorship sleeping

Bailiffs get power to use force on debtors

This is happening in England now but it won't be long until these types of laws govern many countries. It only makes sense: if private security firms and personnel are the future, what good are they if not given power over people and property. Very disturbing article.


December 21, 2008
Jon Ungoed-Thomas
The Times
The government has been accused of trampling on individual liberties by proposing wide-ranging new powers for bailiffs to break into homes and to use “reasonable force” against householders who try to protect their valuables.

Under the regulations, bailiffs for private firms would for the first time be given permission to restrain or pin down householders. They would also be able to force their way into homes to seize property to pay off debts, such as unpaid credit card bills and loans.

The government, which wants to crack down on people who evade debts, says the new powers would be overseen by a robust industry watchdog. However, the laws are being criticised as the latest erosion of the rights of the householder in his own home.

“These laws strip away tried and tested protections that make a person’s home his castle, and which have stood for centuries,” said Paul Nicolson, chairman of the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a London-based welfare charity. “They could clearly lead to violent confrontations and undermine fundamental liberties.”
Related
* Repossessions will rise 67% to hit 90s levels
* Think of debt not as a misfortune but as an opportunity
* Bailed-out bank menaces defaulters

Bailiffs have for hundreds of years been denied powers to break into homes for civil debt or to use force against debtors, except in self-defence. In a famous declaration, William Pitt the Elder, the 18th-century prime minister, said: “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown.” Ministers have now proposed bailiffs be given powers to physically remove debtors who try to defend their property, for example by draping themselves over a car or blocking the door of their home. Lord Bach, a junior justice minister, has assured the House of Lords that any new powers will be implemented only after a consultation and will not be used to search debtors’ pockets or to remove jewellery.

It emerged last week that Her Majesty’s Courts Service has already handed out guidance to privately employed bailiffs, pointing out that under legislation passed in 2004 they can already break down doors as a last resort to collect court fines.

Some restraint should be exercised, according to the “search and entry powers” guidelines. “If a person locks himself in their home, it might be reasonable to break open the door, but probably not to smash a hole in the wall,” it advises.

Details of the new guidelines were obtained under freedom of information laws. They say homes should not be broken into when nobody is in. Reasonable grounds for breaking down the door include the “movement of a curtain”, a radio being heard or a figure being spotted inside which “may be the offender”.

It is claimed these powers are already abused. In one case, an 89-year-old grandmother returned home to find a bailiff sitting in her chair having drawn up a list of her possessions. He was pursuing a parking fine owed by her son, who did not even live at the address.

* Have your say

So sorry to hear you have no weapons anymore. This will come to America soon

Bill, Bay Minette, USA

Whatever you think of the conservatives for god sake vote for them. This could happen to any one of us, a mistaken address, a previous owner in debt , a malicious person, we are all at risk from this legislation as a result of this incompetent government..

mark, maidsto

Things I read - December 5, 2008

Police are ordered to destroy all DNA samples taken from innocent people
The first time a court has actually stood up against the Draconian legislation of Great Britain to Big Brotherise its entire population.

Gates pushes US to embrace 'irregular warfare'
Read this article as: CIA budget will be doubled, if we can't bomb you, we'll get sneakier.

America's Secular Spiritualists
More Americans are ready to make sacrifices to live in a world of limits, and more are ready to be aware that we are not the only people on this earth, says John Zogby.
It seems scarcity invigorates the moral conscience of Americans. Well, just a few anyway.

Torture blamed for US deaths in Iraq
Former US interrogator in Iraq says torture policy led to deaths of three thousand American soldiers. How about that? Torture doesn't work, tends to piss people off and creates more death.

Life at the Vice-president's residence.
A pictoral tour of the VPs lavish lifestyle...just goes to show you, evil pays off. Can't help comparing these images to those of the people who have been brutalised and raped by the vision of hegemony.

The New Arms Race: The Cost of Hegemony is Beyond Reach
By Paul Craig Roberts
Countries that live by debt, die by debt.

Whence Torture? An Early SERE Critic, Circa 1956
Torture didn't just arrive: it has been nurtured.

Bush's Parting 'FUCK YOU' to America
A very good read on the planned economic collapse of the USA.

Israeli "Auto Kill Zone" Towers Locked and Loaded
But the cameras are locked and loaded on Mexico.

If I had four trillion dollars
By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Perhaps we need a philosopher king afterall.

Links to Further Documents
Concerning the CIA
(for those few who want to know
what it really is and does)
CIA: Corruptly Insane Americans. Only for the strong of heart.

15 dirty cops snared in drug conspiracy sting

News you WANT to read

DNA database 'breach of rights'

Thousands of DNA samples from

innocent people are currently retained

Source
Two British men should not have had their DNA and fingerprints retained by police, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

The men's information was held by South Yorkshire Police, although neither was convicted of any offence.

The judgement could have major implications on how DNA records are stored in the UK's national database.

The judges said keeping the information "could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was "disappointed" by the European Court of Human Rights' decision.

The database may now have to be scaled back following the unanimous judgement by 17 senior judges from across Europe.

Under present laws, the DNA profiles of everyone arrested for a recordable offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are kept on the database, regardless of whether they are charged or convicted.

Discriminatory
The details of about 4.5m people are held and one in five of them does not have a current criminal record.

Both men were awarded £36,400 (42,000 Euros) in costs, less the money already paid in legal aid.

The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgement
Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary

DNA ruling resonates in UK
The court found that the police's actions were in violation of Article 8 - the right to respect for private and family life - of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It also said it was "struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention in England and Wales".

The judges ruled the retention of the men's DNA "failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests," and that the UK government "had overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard".

The court also ruled "the retention in question constituted a disproportionate interference with the applicants' right to respect for private life and could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society".

'Privacy protection'
The home secretary said: "DNA and fingerprinting is vital to the fight against crime, providing the police with more than 3,500 matches a month.

"The government mounted a robust defence before the court and I strongly believe DNA and fingerprints play an invaluable role in fighting crime and bringing people to justice.

"The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgement."

Solicitor Peter Mahy, who represented the men, said that the decision will have far-reaching implications.

"It will be very interesting to see how the UK government respond.

"The government should now start destroying the DNA records of those people who are currently on the DNA database and who are innocent of any crime."

Human rights group Liberty said it welcomed the court's decision.

Director Shami Chakrabarti said: "This is one of the most strongly worded judgements that Liberty has ever seen from the Court of Human Rights.

"That court has used human rights principles and common sense to deliver the privacy protection of innocent people that the British government has shamefully failed to deliver."

'Invasion of privacy'
Phil Booth, of the NO2ID group, which campaigns against identity cards, said: "'This is a victory for liberty and privacy.

"Though these judgements are always complicated and slow in coming, it is a vindication of what privacy campaigners have said all along.

"The principle that we need to follow is simple - when charges are dropped suspect samples are destroyed. No charge, no DNA."

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports on the ethical questions raised by recent advances in biological and medical research.

Its director, Hugh Whittall, said: "We agree wholeheartedly with this ruling. The DNA of innocent people should not be kept by police.

"People feel it is an invasion of their privacy, and there is no evidence that removing from the DNA database people who have not been charged or convicted will lead to serious crimes going undetected.

"The government now has an obligation to bring its own policies into line."

Rights breach claim
One of the men who sought the ruling in Strasbourg, Michael Marper, 45, was arrested in 2001.

He was charged with harassing his partner but the case was later dropped. He had no previous convictions.

The other man - a teenager identified as "S" - was arrested and charged with attempted robbery but later acquitted.

In both cases the police refused to destroy fingerprints and DNA samples taken when the men were taken in to custody.

The men went to the European Court of Human Rights after their cases were thrown out by the House of Lords.

They argued that retaining their DNA profiles is discriminatory and breaches their right to a private life.

The government claims the DNA profile from people who are not convicted may sometimes be linked to later offences, so storing the details on the database is a proportionate response to tackling crime.

Scotland already destroys DNA samples taken during criminal investigations from people who are not charged or who are later acquitted of alleged offences.

The Home Office has already set up a "contingency planning group" to look into the potential implications arising from a ruling in favour of the men.

Big Brother has arrived - Big time

SHHHHHHHHHH

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will come. I am not sure how I came upon George Orwell's 1984 in my daily reading last week. I remember of course from school, but I must have been skiving during that lesson. Moreover, at that stage in my life, I lacked the maturity to understand the concepts. So it is just as well I came across it this week and reviewed it.

Since then, I see 1984 everywhere. Newspeak; what better term for our 'terrorist, anti-terrorist' redefinition of society. We no longer have un-constitutional laws which invade our dignity and rights; we have 'anti-terrorist' laws. Much of the time, the news of the world seems like an impossible mire of random puzzle pieces that don't fit together; but every once in a while a few pieces fit. And I get a tiny glimpse of the big picture. For real.

Here are the three puzzle pieces that fit this week:

• Executive Order NSPD 59 (USA) which makes legal the holding of biometric information of everyone.
• EU order to hold data on its MS citizens.
• Manufacturing contract between USA and China to produce high resolution facial recognition security systems.

Some time ago, I came across a piece of EU news, that citizens data was to be made available to USA Homeland Security. After writing a few letters to my Member of the European Parliament, we succeeded in putting the issue on the parliament agenda. Here is a copy of the submitted amendment.

Amendment 42
Diana Wallis and Silvana Koch-Mehrin
on behalf of the ALDE Group

Joint motion for a resolution
PPE-DE, ALDE, UEN
Commission’s Legislative and Work Programme for 2009
Joint motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68 a (new)

Joint motion for a resolution Amendment
68a. Recognises that sharing data and information is a valuable tool in the international fight against terrorism, but also stresses the importance of safeguarding human rights and fundamental freedoms; regrets, in this context, that current negotiations between the EU and the US on concluding a data protection agreement, within the High-Level Contact Group, have taken place in camera without any transparency or democratic oversight and without any involvement of the European Parliament or of national parliaments and thus of European citizens; therefore insists that the Commission bring these negotiations to a natural close and make an appropriate legislative proposal to the Council and Parliament;

Why would the EU give away its citizen's data to the USA? Cui bono? I can certainly understand why the Commission would not want us to vote on it; noone I have spoken to is in favor of this subrosa agreement made by unelected officials.

I came across another news item from May of 2008 this week, which makes this little agreement have sense; this Executive Order is from the USA.

"Big Brother" Presidential Directive: "Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security"

My guess is that very few people are aware of this order which has been passed behind closed doors without Congressional approval. The full text of the order can be viewed at the above url, following here are excerpts from the article defining the 'Universal Enemy'. I highly recommend a reading of the entire text of the order.

In a carefully worded text, NSPD 59 "establishes a framework" to enable the Federal government and its various police and intelligence agencies to: "use mutually compatible methods and procedures in the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information of individuals in a lawful and appropriate manner, while respecting their information privacy and other legal rights under United States law."

The Directive recommends: "actions and associated timelines for enhancing the existing terrorist-oriented identification and screening processes by expanding the use of biometrics".

The stated intent of NSPD 59 is to protect America from terrorists, but in fact the terms of reference include any person who is deemed to pose a threat to the Homeland. The government requires the ability:

"to positively identify those individuals who may do harm to Americans and the Nation... Since September 11, 2001, agencies have made considerable progress in securing the Nation through the integration, maintenance, and sharing of information used to identify persons who may pose a threat to national security.


The Directive is not limited to KSTs, which in Homeland Security jargon stands for "Known and Suspected Terrorists":

"The executive branch has developed an integrated screening capability to protect the Nation against "known and suspected terrorists" (KSTs). The executive branch shall build upon this success, in accordance with this directive, by enhancing its capability to collect, store, use, analyze, and share biometrics to identify and screen KSTs and other persons who may pose a threat to national security.

The executive branch recognizes the need for a layered approach to identification and screening of individuals, as no single mechanism is sufficient. For example, while existing name-based screening procedures are beneficial, application of biometric technologies, where appropriate, improve the executive branch's ability to identify and screen for persons who may pose a national security threat. To be most effective, national security identification and screening systems will require timely access to the most accurate and most complete biometric, biographic, and related data that are, or can be, made available throughout the executive branch."

NSPD 59 calls for extending the definition of terrorists to include other categories of individuals "who may pose a threat to national security".

In this regard, it is worth noting that in the 2005 TOPOFF (Top officials) anti-terror drills, two other categories of individuals were identified as potential threats: "Radical groups" and "disgruntled employees", suggesting than any form of dissent directed against Big Brother will be categorized as a threat to America.

In a previous 2004 report of the Homeland Security Council entitled Planning Scenarios, the enemy was referred to as the Universal Adversary (UA).

This project is due to be implemented one year from May 2008:

Implementation

(19) Within 90 days of the date of this directive, the Attorney General, in coordination with the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, the DNI, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, shall, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, submit for the President's approval an action plan to implement this directive. The action plan shall do the following:

(a) Recommend actions and associated timelines for enhancing the existing terrorist-oriented identification and screening processes by expanding the use of biometrics;

(b) Consistent with applicable law, (i) recommend categories of individuals in addition to KSTs who may pose a threat to national security, and (ii) set forth cost-effective actions and associated timelines for expanding the collection and use of biometrics to identify and screen for such individuals; and

(c) Identify business processes, technological capabilities, legal authorities, and research and development efforts needed to implement this directive.

(20) Within 1 year of the date of this directive, the Attorney General, in coordination with the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, the DNI, and the heads of other appropriate agencies, shall submit to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, a report on the implementation of this directive and the associated action plan, proposing any necessary additional steps for carrying out the policy of this directive. Agencies shall provide support for, and promptly respond to, requests made by the Attorney General in furtherance of this report. The Attorney General will thereafter report to the President on the implementation of this directive as the Attorney General deems necessary or when directed by the President.

Of particular interest is article 17:

(17) The Secretary of State, in coordination with the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the DNI, shall coordinate the sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information with foreign partners in accordance with applicable law, including international obligations undertaken by the United States.

The last clue comes from Naomi Klein article on China where Szenzhen has become the new surveillance model for America. The following excerpt can be found here.

Police State 2.0 might not look good from the outside, but on the inside, it appears to have passed its first major test. In Guangzhou, an hour and a half by train from Shenzhen, Yao Ruoguang is preparing for a major test of his own. "It's called the 10-million-faces test," he tells me. Yao is managing director of Pixel Solutions, a Chinese company that specializes in producing the new high-tech national ID cards, as well as selling facial-recognition software to businesses and government agencies. The test, the first phase of which is only weeks away, is being staged by the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing.

The idea is to measure the effectiveness of face-recognition software in identifying police suspects. Participants will be given a series of photos, taken in a variety of situations. Their task will be to match the images to other photos of the same people in the government's massive database. Several biometrics companies, including Yao's, have been invited to compete. "We have to be able to match a face in a 10 million database in one second," Yao tells me. "We are preparing for that now."
The companies that score well will be first in line for lucrative government contracts to integrate face-recognition software into Golden Shield, using it to check for ID fraud and to discover the identities of suspects caught on surveillance cameras. Yao says the technology is almost there: "It will happen next year."

When I meet Yao at his corporate headquarters, he is feeling confident about how his company will perform in the test. His secret weapon is that he will be using facial-recognition software purchased from L-1 Identity Solutions, a major U.S. defense contractor that produces passports and biometric security systems for the U.S. government. To show how well it works, Yao demonstrates on himself. Using a camera attached to his laptop, he snaps a picture of his own face, round and boyish for its 54 years. Then he uploads it onto the company's proprietary Website, built with L-1 software. With the cursor, he marks his own eyes with two green plus signs, helping the system to measure the distance between his features, a distinctive aspect of our faces that does not change with disguises or even surgery. The first step is to "capture the image," Yao explains.

Next is "finding the face." He presses APPLY, telling the program to match the new face with photos of the same person in the company's database of 600,000 faces. Instantly, multiple photos of Yao appear, including one taken 19 years earlier — proof that the technology can "find a face" even when the face has changed significantly with time. " It took 1.1 milliseconds!" Yao exclaims. "Yeah, that's me!"

In nearby cubicles, teams of Yao's programmers and engineers take each other's pictures, mark their eyes with green plus signs and test the speed of their search engines. "Everyone is preparing for the test," Yao explains. "If we pass, if we come out number one, we are guaranteed a market in China." Every couple of minutes Yao's phone beeps. Sometimes it's a work message, but most of the time it's a text from his credit-card company, informing him that his daughter, who lives in Australia, has just made another charge. "Every time the text message comes, I know my daughter is spending money!" He shrugs: "She likes designers."

Like many other security executives I interviewed in China, Yao denies that a primary use of the technology he is selling is to hunt down political activists. "Ninety-five percent," he insists, "is just for regular safety." He has, he admits, been visited by government spies, whom he describes as "the internal-security people." They came with grainy pictures, shot from far away or through keyhole cameras, of "some protesters, some dissidents." They wanted to know if Yao's facial-recognition software could help identify the people in the photos.

Yao was sorry to disappoint them. "Honestly, the technology so far still can't meet their needs," he says. "The photos that they show us were just too blurry." That is rapidly changing, of course, thanks to the spread of high-resolution CCTVs. Yet Yao insists that the government's goal is not repression: "If you're a [political] organizer, they want to know your motive," he says. "So they take the picture, give the photo, so at least they can find out who that person is."

Until recently, Yao's photography empire was focused on consumers — taking class photos at schools, launching a Chinese knockoff of Flickr (the original is often blocked by the Great Firewall), turning photos of chubby two-year-olds into fridge magnets and lampshades. He still maintains those businesses, which means that half of the offices at Pixel Solutions look like they have just hosted a kid's birthday party. The other half looks like an ominous customs office, the walls lined with posters of terrorists in the cross hairs: FACE MATCH, FACE PASS, FACE WATCH.

When Beijing started sinking more and more of the national budget into surveillance technologies, Yao saw an opportunity that would make all his previous ventures look small. Between more powerful computers, higher-resolution cameras and a global obsession with crime and terrorism, he figured that face recognition "should be the next dot-com." Not a computer scientist himself — he studied English literature in school — Yao began researching corporate leaders in the field.

He learned that face recognition is highly controversial, with a track record of making wrong IDs. A few companies, however, were scoring much higher in controlled tests in the U.S. One of them was a company soon to be renamed L-1 Identity Solutions. Based in Connecticut, L-1 was created two years ago out of the mergers and buyouts of half a dozen major players in the biometrics field, all of which specialized in the science of identifying people through distinct physical traits: fingerprints, irises, face geometry. The mergers made L-1 a one-stop shop for biometrics. Thanks to board members like former CIA director George Tenet, the company rapidly became a homeland-security heavy hitter. L-1 projects its annual revenues will hit $1 billion by 2011, much of it from U.S. government contracts. In 2006, Yao tells me, "I made the first phone call and sent the first e-mail." For a flat fee of $20,000, he gained access to the company's proprietary software, allowing him to "build a lot of development software based on L-1's technology." Since then, L-1's partnership with Yao has gone far beyond that token investment. Yao says it isn't really his own company that is competing in the upcoming 10-million-faces test being staged by the Chinese government: "We'll be involved on behalf of L-1 in China."

Yao adds that he communicates regularly with L1 and has visited the company's research headquarters in New Jersey. ("Out the window you can see the Statue of Liberty. It's such a historic place.") L1 is watching his test preparations with great interest, Yao says. "It seemed that they were more excited than us when we tell them the results." L-1's enthusiasm is hardly surprising: If Yao impresses the Ministry of Public Security with the company's ability to identify criminals, L-1 will have cracked the largest potential market for biometrics in the world.

But here's the catch: As proud as Yao is to be L-1's Chinese licensee, L-1 appears to be distinctly less proud of its association with Yao. On its Website and in its reports to investors, L-1 boasts of contracts and negotiations with governments from Panama and Saudi Arabia to Mexico and Turkey. China, however, is conspicuously absent. And though CEO Bob LaPenta makes reference to "some large international opportunities," not once does he mention Pixel Solutions in Guangzhou. After leaving a message with the company inquiring about L-1's involvement in China's homeland-security market, I get a call back from Doni Fordyce, vice president of corporate communications.

She has consulted Joseph Atick, the company's head of research. "We have nothing in China," she tells me. "Nothing, absolutely nothing. We are uninvolved. We really don't have any relationships at all." I tell Fordyce about Yao, the 10-million test, the money he paid for the software license. She'll call me right back. When she does, 20 minutes later, it is with this news: "Absolutely, we've sold testing SDKs [software development kits] to Pixel Solutions and to others [in China] that may be entering a test." Yao's use of the technology, she said, is "within his license" purchased from L-1.

The company's reticence to publicize its activities in China could have something to do with the fact that the relationship between Yao and L-1 may well be illegal under U.S. law. After the Chinese government sent tanks into Tiananmen Square in 1989, Congress passed legislation barring U.S. companies from selling any products in China that have to do with "crime control or detection instruments or equipment."

That means not only guns but everything from police batons and handcuffs to ink and powder for taking fingerprints, and software for storing them. Interestingly, one of the "detection instruments" that prompted the legislation was the surveillance camera. Beijing had installed several clunky cameras around Tiananmen Square, originally meant to monitor traffic flows. Those lenses were ultimately used to identify and arrest key pro-democracy dissidents. "The intent of that act," a congressional staff member with considerable China experience tells me, "was to keep U.S. companies out of the business of helping the Chinese police conduct their business, which might ultimately end up as it did in 1989 in the suppression of human rights and democracy in China." Pixel's application of L-1 facial-recognition software seems to fly in the face of the ban's intent.

By his own admission, Yao is already getting visits from Chinese state spies anxious to use facial recognition to identify dissidents. And as part of the 10-million-faces test, Yao has been working intimately with Chinese national-security forces, syncing L-1's software to their vast database, a process that took a week of intensive work in Beijing. During that time, Yao says, he was on the phone "every day" with L-1, getting its help adapting the technology. "Because we are representing them," he says. "We took the test on their behalf."

In other words, this controversial U.S. "crime control" technology has already found its way into the hands of the Chinese police. Moreover, Yao's goal, stated to me several times, is to use the software to land lucrative contracts with police agencies to integrate facial recognition into the newly built system of omnipresent surveillance cameras and high-tech national ID cards. As part of any contract he gets, Yao says, he will "pay L-1 a certain percentage of our sales." When I put the L-1 scenario to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security — the division charged with enforcing the post-Tiananmen export controls — a representative says that software kits are subject to the sanctions if "they are exported from the U.S. or are the foreign direct product of a U.S.-origin item." Based on both criteria, the software kit sold to Yao seems to fall within the ban. When I ask Doni Fordyce at L-1 about the embargo, she tells me, "I don't know anything about that." Asked whether she would like to find out about it and call me back, she replies, "I really don't want to comment, so there is no comment." Then she hangs up.

You have probably never heard of L-1, but there is every chance that it has heard of you. Few companies have collected as much sensitive information about U.S. citizens and visitors to America as L-1: It boasts a database of 60 million records, and it "captures" more than a million new fingerprints every year. Here is a small sample of what the company does: produces passports and passport cards for American citizens; takes finger scans of visitors to the U.S. under the Department of Homeland Security's massive U.S.-Visit program; equips U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with "mobile iris and multimodal devices" so they can collect biometric data in the field; maintains the State Department's "largest facial-recognition database system"; and produces driver's licenses in Illinois, Montana and North Carolina. In addition, L-1 has an even more secretive intelligence unit called SpecTal.

Asked by a Wall Street analyst to discuss, in "extremely general" terms, what the division was doing with contracts worth roughly $100 million, the company's CEO would only say, "Stay tuned." It is L-1's deep integration with multiple U.S. government agencies that makes its dealings in China so interesting: It isn't just L-1 that is potentially helping the Chinese police to nab political dissidents, it's U.S. taxpayers. The technology that Yao purchased for just a few thousand dollars is the result of Defense Department research grants and contracts going as far back as 1994, when a young academic named Joseph Atick (the research director Fordyce consulted on L-1's China dealings) taught a computer at Rockefeller University to recognize his face.

Yao, for his part, knows all about the U.S. export controls on police equipment to China. He tells me that L-1's electronic fingerprinting tools are "banned from entering China" due to U.S. concerns that they will be used to "catch the political criminals, you know, the dissidents, more easily." He thinks he and L-1 have found a legal loophole, however. While fingerprinting technology appears on the Commerce Department's list of banned products, there is no explicit mention of "face prints" — likely because the idea was still in the realm of science fiction when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place. As far as Yao is concerned, that omission means that L-1 can legally supply its facial-recognition software for use by the Chinese government.

Whatever the legality of L-1's participation in Chinese surveillance, it is clear that U.S. companies are determined to break into the homeland-security market in China, which represents their biggest growth potential since 9/11. According to the congressional staff member, American companies and their lobbyists are applying "enormous pressure to open the floodgates."

Yes, it is now possible to access every detail about you, including medical records, from a camera on a street corner. And this technology is being manufactured in China for export to the USA.

I can't help but wonder what plans the EU has for this given England's recent draconian new laws on the elimination of privacy. Similar laws have already been enacted in Sweden and Ireland requires all phone records to be saved for five years.

So maybe George Orwell was right about Big Brother; he just got the year wrong. The book should be called 2009.