Tag Archives: big brother

The New York Times reports: Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, has closed an internal watchdog office established in 2020 to uncover and reduce the risk of misuses of national security surveillance, according to officials familiar with the matter. The elimination of the unit, the Office of Internal Auditing, comes as Congress debates whether to reauthorize a high-profile warrantless wiretapping law, …

404 Media reports: The Los Angeles Police Department obtained video footage from a Waymo driverless car as part of its investigation into a hit-and-run in which a separate, human-driven car hit a pedestrian. The LAPD published the footage, which has a note on it that reads “Waymo Confidential Commercial Information,” on its YouTube page to ask the public for help …

404 Media reports: American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications 404 Media obtained via public …

And the audience goes WILD! (Via Towleroad)

The FBI is launching a national network of face-recognition technology that will identify individuals from images culled via a massive network of security cameras. Even your Facebook page photo can then be used to match your name to your presence wherever the cameras find you. The technology will be used for identifying fugitives, missing persons and unknown persons of interest; …

Your dream of changing your name and vanishing into the ether with your winnings won’t happen in California, where lottery officials have published surveillance video of a big winner checking his ticket. “We see this as an integrity and transparency issue,” said Russ Lopez, California Lottery Deputy Director of Corporate Communications, in a statement. “The California Lottery truly believes that …

If you want to get a job at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, you’ll have to submit to a test for nicotine use. If you test positive, you don’t get the job. “This is just the next step in creating a tobacco-free environment and it’s just an effort to focus on the well-being of our employees,” said Geisinger spokeswoman Marcy …

Even when you stop paying them. Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service. OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data …

A business district in Amsterdam has begun using “DNA spray,” an adhesive mist triggered by store clerks, motion detectors, or by remote camera surveillance operators during a robbery or holdup. Chemical markers injected into the mist identify the precise time and location of the incident. “The procedure is simple: during a holdup a nebula of invisible liquid with a synthetic …

Remember the Pennsylvania high school accused of spying on its students via their their laptop webcams? Student Blake Robbins says Lower Merion School District officials secretly activated the webcams and captured him sleeping in bed and partly undressed. They say the school also took screen shots of instant messages he exchanged with friends. And his lawyer says they have evidence …

In an effort to stem public sex on the beach, officials in Martin County, Florida are considering installing “talking” motion-detecting surveillance cameras. Upon detecting movement, the cameras would flash a bright light and play a pre-recorded announcement that the area was under surveillance. Recording would begin 30 seconds later. Martin County arrested six men in an undercover beach sex sting …