How to Remove Your Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google's other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.

Click here to see how you can do that.

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GOP Push to Force ISPs to Track User History Approved by House

What happened to the presumption of innocence? We the people are guilty until proven innocent, anymore. Since the Patriot Act shredded the Bill of Rights, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 did away with due process and habeas corpus, there is very little, if anything, safeguarding our individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.

Now, once again, under the guise of protection and security, our government, in particular, the GOP, in order to empower themselves, will target and violate the rights of law abiding American citizens, by not only  tracking our every move, but also collecting that information and creating an easily accessible database.

A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.

It represents "a data bank of every digital act by every American" that would "let us find out where every single American visited Web sites," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill.

Of course, the bill is mislabeled: Protecting the Children from Pornographers Act of 2011 in order to ensure its passage.

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Militarizing Cyberspace?

The Pentagon has classified cyberspace as a new battlefield, as they unveiled a new strategy for protecting military computer networks from hackers, designating cyberspace as an "operational domain" U.S. forces will be trained to defend.

The question that needs to be asked is, who do they plan to battle? Well, we, the people, of course.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Justice, relying on the All Writs Act that dates back to 1789, is determined to make sure that a case in Colorado will set a legal precedent allowing it to force Americans accused of crimes to decrypt their computers' hard drives. Fortunately, an encryption defense attorney is fighting the DOJ demands, applying the Fifth Amendment to encrypted information stored on computers.

The government is using DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks to their censoring methods to silence critics and stymie opposition.

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U.S. Wants to Build New Safer Internet Infrastructure

Say good-bye to anonymity. The US is seriously considering building a new Internet infrastructure to prevent cyber attacks.


General Michael Hayden’s presentation begins at approximately 42:20 into the video.

Several current federal officials, including U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, want a “.secure” network for critical services such as banking that would be walled off from the public Web. Unlike .com, .xxx and other new domains now proliferating the Internet, .secure would require visitors to use certified credentials for entry and would do away with users’ Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. Network operators in the financial sector, for example, would be authorized to scan account holders’ traffic content for signs of trouble.

Nations with fewer civil liberty protections, including China, use “deep packet inspection” to search all Internet traffic for viruses — as well as anti-government content, noted James Mulvenon, a China and cybersecurity specialist. Due to privacy laws, the United States cannot monitor private network traffic using this approach. Mulvenon questioned whether such restrictions give other nation states the upper hand in cyber defense. “We still believe that anonymity is possible,” he said of America’s attitude toward freedom of expression on the Internet.

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Big Brother Trains Local Law Enforcement to Target Law Abiding Citizens.

Within the last few years, more than  70 fusion centers - intelligence enterprise operations responsible for conducting surveillence on suspicious people - have sprung up across the United States.

According to Police Chief Magazine:

In November 2009, after a six-month review, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Homeland Security Committee said fusion centers should do the following:

•Act as principal intelligence enterprise nodes to connect state and local law enforcement, homeland security, and public safety entities to each other and the federal government

•Harness and apply the collective knowledge of their constituents to address issues related to threat and risk

•Assume the leading role in information-sharing initiatives related to law enforcement, homeland security, and public safety issues

The Police Chief article points out, "the concept [fusion centers] has changed considerably from the original vision." In, and of itself, that is not surprising, as many, if not all, organizations gradually evolve somewhat from the original vision.  However, it's especially concerning in this case, given the exponential growth in technology; the rise of Orwellian doublespeak (analogous to George Orwell's doublethink and Newspeak) by the establishment; the bailing out of banks instead of homeowners; the fact that our nation comprises 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prison population, and, overall,  the consolidation of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands at the dawn of the 21st century.

One man, James Wesley, Rawles, in law enforcement for 18-years, compiled a list of things being taught on how to detect domestic terrorists based on the DHS training he has attended:

1. Expressions of libertarian philosophies, statements, and bumperstickers.
2. 2nd amendment oriented view: gunship club membership, holding CCW permit (concealed carry weapon)
3. Survivalist literature and fictional books such as "The Patriot" and "One Second After". 
4. Self sufficiency: stockpiling food, medical supplies, ammo, hand tools, etc.
5. Fear of economic collapse. Buying gold or bartering items,
6. Religious views regarding the Book of Revelation.
7. Involved in home schooling.
8. Express fears of Big Brother or big government.
9. Declarations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties
10. Belief in a New World Order conspiracy

Now, based on that list, former President George W. Bush, and over half the Republican party should be rounded up. As for myself, I'm only "guilty" of #4, #8 (Big Brother...who isn't?), #9, and possibly # 1; nevertheless, even if that list only identified people I detest, "W", I can see where this is leading. It's not so important as to who they are targeting - because that could change in an instant - but that they are targeting law-abiding American citizens at all.

Consider the following statement by this ordinary citizens, with a more or less, insiders view.  (There is no way to verify the veracity of the following statement; however, if manufactured out of thin air, he should work for "Big Brother", given his level of creativity).

I just attended the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Denver and took a class hosted by the FBI and Colorado State Patrol about Domestic Terrorism. The FBI's JTTF is urging local law enforcement to have their local fire departments and ambulance districts help to violate illegal search and seizure
The Director of the Joint Task Force was one of the speakers and urged that because we are not able as police officers to search every house due to the 4th amendment. He said that the fire and ambulance guys are in a unique position to enter houses without any criminal probable cause and we shoud urge them to check through houses that they enter for anything suspicious and report it back to local law enforcement or the FBI. The things sounded like they could include anything from guns to right or left wing books, posters, or speech.
This is one of the most disgusting violations of Constitutional rights I have ever witnessed. According to the CSP their are several Colorado agencies already on board and who knows how many more nationwide. This is direct from the mouth of the FBI and is not an internet rumor. Please share this with everyone.

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Big Brother's Genetic Roundup for Top-Secret America?

8-year old Big Brother Homeland Security, "already has its own Special Access Programs, its own research arm, its own command center, its own fleet of armored cars and its own 230,000-person workforce, the third-largest after the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs."

Do we really want them gathering information about us that we don't even know or have access?  As the Washington Post pointed out an "estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances". Whose to say how many of these unknown people know more about us than we know about ourselves. Whose to say one of these people is not our boss, spouse, next-door neighbor...or even worse, a psychopathic serial killer who targets specific DNA profiles.  Well, you never know.

Here are some of the latest developments in possibly mandatory invasive screening devices:

First, the latest. Under the guise of combating human trafficking, illegal immigration, and finding missing persons,  Homeland Security plans to roll out even more invasive screening at airports this summer. How? They plan on invading your genes with portable DNA scanners that will conduct on-site, real-time genetic testing, in addition too, or in place of, the groping session.   Richard Seldon of NetBio, creator of the scanners said, "DNA information has the potential to become part of the fabric of day-to-day life."  However, this is nothing new. Since 2009, police have already had the authority to conduct warrantless searches by taking blood and saliva during arrests, even from those not convicted of a crime, and the Pentagon maintains a database of over 80,000 DNA profiles.

Let's not forget the safer than safe biometric blueprint grabbing enhanced version of 1000D whole body scanners.

Iscon is introducing an enhanced version of the 1000D whole body scanner equipped with optional biometric technologies and identity verification techniques that will vastly improve security at corrections facilities, law enforcement as well as international airports.

The Iscon 1000D is the only whole body imaging portal that can be integrated with state of the art technologies to detect virtually any object, without radiation or privacy issues and confirm that the person is indeed who they claim to be. This is critical in prisons as inmates try to pose as others to escape as well as airport security to speed processing, identify terrorists and discover contraband.

Iscon1000D uses thermo-conductive infrared technology that completes a 360°scan in 30 seconds, reveals a multitude of objects, but doesn't penetrate clothing, so there's no privacy or radiation issues.

It can detect the thermal imprint of any object that many scanners miss, including:

* thin plastic
* wood
* powder (pills and drugs)
* paper (money)
* liquids
* ceramics (explosives)

Iscon 1000D is already been sold in the U.S., Europe, China, Japan, Iraq, Russia and the Ukraine.

The enhanced system offers stand alone or combined options for integrated security capabilities through identify verification using the following technologies:

Facial Recognition -- Can compare a person's facial attributes to existing databases and cross match with other systems.

Fingerprint Recognition -- Fingerprints are a highly reliable identification method and are a fast and easy way to determine identity. Large law enforcement databases can be accessed to cross match and verify a person's identity quickly and easily.

Iris Recognition -- Scans of a person's iris can be cross-matched to a database for identity verification.

Card/Barcode Reader -- For high traffic areas that need fast scans, the Iscon 1000D is equipped with a card and barcode reader. At manufacturing facilities and other high security operations, that require both scanning and verification, this system is ideal for people who are preapproved and can simply scan their card or barcode and go through safely.

"Facilities are facing significant privacy and health issues using scanners that expose a persons body parts that can be stored and shared digitally," explains Iscon Founder and President Izrail Gorian. Using existing databases available today, or using a proprietary system of employees or inmates, security will ultimately be enhanced for everyone and at the same time ease verification for those who are not suspect."

And as if we need anymore biometric grabbing devices, Sony's Finger Vein Authentication (Mofiria) technology for mobile apparatus  could appear within the year.  Mofiria is a compact camera based system that uses CMOS sensor to capture light scattered diagonally through finger veins.  Data from the pattern is compressed making it possible to store on gadgets for laptops, and mobile devices.  Supposedly, this technology has been in use for two years.

The use of new and highly-intrusive surveillance technology violates the normal expectation of privacy, dignity and respect of every individual, whether they know it or not. Mandatory screening is a direct infringement basic human rights and should not be tolerated.

Links:

Top Secret America

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

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The Ministry of Truth: Weeding-Out Pre-Criminals for the Secret State.

42-years ago, in 1968, the essential apparatus for a police state was in place...a reporting structure in line with the technology of the day: old-fashioned shoe leather and manila folders.  This organization of activities, functions, processes, etc., was created in order to cover millions of Americans, conducting law-abiding lives. In other words, agents who normally did security checks, also monitored dissent.  7-years later, in 1975, Senator Frank Church headed a congressional commission to investigate widespread abuses by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, laying the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.  Imagine that kind of time-frame in today's world!

Senator Church warned about government’s power to turn surveillance technologies on its own citizens, a warning, even more crucial as we transform into the digital age. On the one hand, ultimate first amendment-enabling technology has leveled the playing field like never before. On the other hand, the foundation for an Orwellian type of investigative government exists like never before.

“ . . . the Internet of Things refers to the seamless connection of devices, sensors, objects, rooms, machines, vehicles, etc, through fixed and wireless networks. Connected sensors, devices and tags can interact with the environment and send the information to other objects through machine-to-machine communication . . . The Semantic Web promotes this synergy: even agents that where not expressly designed to work together can transfer data among themselves when the data come with semantics.” -- Internet Governance and critical Internet resources

Anyway, remember the concept of "pre-crime" -  part of the predictive behavior model that describes stopping crimes before they happen - in the movie Minority Report, set in the year 2054? Well, the electronic police state, if not already here, arrived... a few years early.

The stage was set in the 1990s, when the data industry mushroomed. Vast computer systems quietly gathered staggering amounts of personal information we the people willingly feed to cell-phone networks, really surveillance networks, that continuously track us through sensors on ATM machines, credit card readers, the Internet, electronic fingerprint readers, convenient tollbooths that sense transponders on cars, etc.

Then, on 9/11/2001, the largest terrorist attack, on U.S. mainland in history, occurred.  This gave the powers the perfect excuse to merge the government and private data mining companies.  Choicepoint won a $67 million contract with the Justice Department, and other data companies serve/served as a private intelligent operation for the government. As you can see, data is a valuable commodity.

Fast forward 45 days to October 26, 2001, and with very little public debate, lawmakers passed the Patriot Act, dismantling limits Congress created in the 1970s in response to widespread abuse on the monitoring of citizens. National security officials began using the data mining system, Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX)— a powerful tool for tracking terrorists.

Data mining tools like MATRIX create new information by giving investigators the power to discern patterns and apply profiles, thus creating the ability to cut across sales and police records, coming up with links in an instant instead of days, weeks, months and sometimes, years.

So, what's the big deal?

Well, if the FBI suspects one person they are going to try to round up as much information on every single person the suspected person has come into contact with. In other words, "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" transforms from harmless fun to potentially deadly serious.

Why deadly serious?

Everyone is familiar with Google Earth, right? And drones? And the CIA?  Google who knows more about all of us than God is linked to the U.S. spy and military systems through the technology behind Google Earth software.   You see, the software was originally developed by Keyhole Inc., a company funded by  In-Q-Tel,  the CIA's semi-private investment company.  This same technology is currently used by U.S. military and intelligence systems for “full-spectrum dominance” of the planet and geospatial intelligence used in drone attacks that kill people.

The CIA and Google are both backing the company, Recorded Future, that monitors the web in real time.  They say  it uses that information to predict the future. The CIA’s semi-private investment company, In-Q-Tel, and Google Ventures, the search giant’s business division had partnered-up with Recorded Future, which scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the "invisible links" between people, institutions, actions and incidents, here and now, and the "predicted future".  In-Q-Tel also invested in Visible Technologies, a software firm specializing in monitoring social media.

The ‘Visible’ technology can automatically examine more than a million discussions and posts on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and so forth each day. The technology also ‘scores’ each online item, assigning it a positive, negative or mixed or neutral status, based on parameters and terms set by the technology operators. The information, thus boiled down, can then be more effectively scanned and read by human operators.

Privacy International rated eight countries as 'endemic surveillance societies' and the U.S. is one.

No, this is not the surveillance society George Orwell wrote about. We feed our personal information to Big Brother, voluntarily. Why?  For a variety of conveniences, discounts, and because we don't want to be left out, but we don’t want to know how the electricity gets to the light switch; we just want to flick it on.

The bottom line is that we are fast approaching a genuine surveillance society in the U.S. Already, our every move, transaction, communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready to be accessed and used against us by the authorities on demand. No court order needed.

Links: 

10 Ways We are Being Tracked and Traced

Authorities Plan To Trawl Phone Calls And E Mails For Signs Of “Resentment Toward Government”

Data Mining and Homeland Security

E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress

Feds Use Pre-Crime To Target Disgruntled Veterans

Google and NSA The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Mind Machine Project at MIT

Pinwale still going strong under Obama.

Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Assessment - debunked the utility of data-ming and link analysis as effective counterterrorism tools.

Recorded Future A White Paper on Temporal Analytics

Social Intelligence - data-mines the social networks to help companies decide if they really want to hire you.”

State Electronic Harrassment or "Cyberstalking" Laws

Top Secret America  investigation disclosed that the government has built a huge, complex and hard to manage national security and intelligence system.  Google supplies mapping and search products to the U.S. secret state and that their employees, outsourced intelligence contractors for the Defense Department, may have filched their customers’ wi-fi data as part of an NSA surveillance project

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If Not Advertising, What?

How to monetize the Internet is thee big question right now. Currently, advertisers use behavioral targeting which involves "two types of activities: following users' actions and then tailoring advertisements for the users based on those actions. While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible."

Julia Angwin recently led a team of reporters from The Wall Street Journal in an effort to analyze the tracking software that tracking companies use to spy on internet users. They surveyed the top 50 American websites, which account for about 40% of the web pages viewed by Americans, and on average, each website was installing about 65 different types of tracking technologies. The majority are from third party companies - data brokers and advertising networks - collecting data which are then sold on a stock market-like exchange to online advertisers. In the past 18 months a secondary market has arisen for that data.

In one instance, by clicking on a single web page (not entering any information) a tracking company called x+1 said they can find out where you like to shop, your income, whether you're a parent and how old your children are...a little unnerving to say the least.

Now, The Wall Street journal clearly has an agenda. In addition to collecting and profiting from Personally Identifiable Information as a policy, they have decided to sell their content by subscription. And that means that it has an interest in scaring people away from the site that provide "free" content. Cookies are nothing new and they function, in part, to keep most of the web free to readers, however, the advertising methods on the Internet grow more sophisticated every day and the following information is very helpful to know regardless of the WSJ's motivation.

Links:

The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets:  A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers.
BlueKai

Privacy Choice

Steel Cage Debate On The Future Of Online Advertising: Danny Sullivan Vs. Eric Clemons

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VoIP and Big Brother

Google scans their e-mail users’ in-boxes to distribute ads related to what those messages say. Pudding Media uses speech recognition software to base ads on what is said during VoIP conversations.

"Pudding Media is building a platform that opens new advertising real estate, allowing consumers to immediately receive and respond to offers related to topics they are discussing,"

Sounds a little scary to me.

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What About GOOGLE?

Help Wired rank and shame corporate privacy villans.

Who do you think is the biggest Privacy Villan? Let Wired know.

So far people have nominated:

Apple Quicktime + Itunes - according to this article, from the International Business Times, iTunes embeds customer's account information in each track purchased.

Acxiom Corporation -a company known among privacy advocates for its massive collection and sale of consumer data, claim they are, "a global leader in helping large companies and government agencies manage the information they have about individuals . . . by offering innovative marketing and reference services and technologies, along with various information products."

Real Player - you can see what people have to say about Real Player at the link I provided.

Microsoft - nominated, but I think they're trying at least as you can read about at the link I posted.

What about Google?

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"Vacuum Cleaner Technique"

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Carnivore was set up to collect data which matched certain filters, whereas this new type of surveillance technology -- "vacuum cleaner method" -- collects data without the use of filters set up to target certain types of individuals or information.

“What they’re doing is even worse than Carnivore,” said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. “What they’re doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets.”

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Like a Condom for your Computer.

The DemocraKey was created in May of 2006. Within two days, over 60,000 people had read about the DemocraKey and built their own. It was featured on MSN, Digg, Lifehacker, and hundreds of other pages. Now, it’s entering version 2.0, where it becomes a complete, portable privacy suite. We can’t trust unknown computers to be secure, so the DemocraKey helps scan and surf securely from computer to computer.

Eventually, the DemocraKey will also encrypt and store personal documents, creating an entire personal security suite.

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Computers the Size of Sugar Cubes Could Record Entire Life in Two Decades

A device the size of a sugar cube will be able to record and store high resolution video footage of every second of a human life within two decades, experts said yesterday.

Researchers said governments and societies must urgently debate the implications of the huge increases in computing power and the growing mass of information being collected on individuals.
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Some fear that the advent of "human black boxes" combined with the extension of medical, financial and other digital records will lead to loss of privacy and a dramatic expansion of the nanny state.

Others highlight positive advances in medicine, education, crime prevention and the way history will be recorded.

Leading computer scientists, psychologists and neuroscientists gathered to debate these issues at Memories for Life, a conference held at the British Library yesterday.

Prof Nigel Shadbolt, president of the British Computer Society and professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Southampton, said: "In 20 years' time it will be possible to record high quality digital video of an entire lifetime of human memories. It's not a question of whether it will happen; it's already happening."

Cliff Lynch, director of the US think tank Coalition for Networked Information, said the changes could lead to a dramatic extension of state interference.

"Imagine having a personal companion that whines at you three times a day, telling you that you are eating the wrong things and that you spent more than you earned today. The scary thing is it might be foisted on us."

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