Tag surveillance
Caitlin Johnstone Lots of fun stuff in the news lately. America’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which oversees the spy agencies of the United States, has admitted in a report requested by Senator Ron Wyden that the US intelligence cartel has… Continue Reading →
By Paul Gregoire with Sydney Criminal Lawyers Blog. Originally Published 4 January, 2021. Peter Dutton saw his ASIO Bill passed on the last parliamentary sitting day for 2020. The home affairs minister most likely had a rare smile upon his face whilst… Continue Reading →
By Manal Al-Sharif: Michael West Media. “I left Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. But the Australian Government’s recent draconian rules remind me so much of home.” Cyber security expert and human rights luminary Manal Al-Sharif reports… Continue Reading →
With TOTT News Mobile surveillance units are being used in parks and public spaces across Melbourne to remotely monitor citizens during stage four restrictions, fueling privacy concerns. The technology is the latest step in Melbourne’s ongoing shift towards a techno-fascist… Continue Reading →
Kurt Iveson, University of Sydney The Commonwealth government says if enough of us download its COVIDSafe app, restrictions on our movements and activities can be lifted more quickly and life can return to normal. As important as it is to… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton This week ten people were arrested in Melbourne for attending a protest against self-isolating, social distancing and tracking apps, the only real political protest in the country since climate demonstrations earlier in the year. The government perpetrated… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton With Australia’s economy tilting into collapse and numerous questions now arising over the government’s management of the Covid-19 response, the question of surveillance of whistle blowers, journalists and dissidents is now front and centre of the debate…. Continue Reading →
Will future historians see the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison era as the period of governance when totalitarian instincts were unleashed? The targeting of journalists is just the beginning of a much greater disaster, writes journalist and author, John Stapleton. Australia’s #RighttoKnow movement barely touches… Continue Reading →
Surveillance in Australia Australia has a government run on announceables. Even without the Budget blizzard, so far in 2018 we have had major announcements on everything from the so-called Gonski 2.0 education reforms, the establishment of an Australian arms industry… Continue Reading →
Could it happen again? Of course it could. It already is. Here is an extract from John Koehler’s authoritative book Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police.
“The Stasi was much, much worse than the Gestapo, if you consider only the oppression of its own people,” according to Simon Wiesenthal of Vienna, Austria, who has been hunting Nazi criminals for half a century. “The Gestapo had 40,000 officials watching a country of 80 million, while the Stasi employed 102,000 to control only 17 million.” One might add that the Nazi terror lasted only twelve years, whereas the Stasi had four decades in which to perfect its machinery of oppression, espionage, and international terrorism and subversion.
In the Age of Terror, the issue of data retention and government surveillance has become of paramount importance. In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier shows just how frighteningly meaningless the notion of privacy has become. Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.
Algorithms can learn. Algorithms can acquire bias. In The Black Box Society: How Secret Algorithms Control Money and Information, eminent Law Professor Frank Pasquale exposes the invasive technology running our lives. In The Age of Terror these systems can be used to extend the control of dark agencies into every corner of our lives. Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior-silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed and invasive. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with this information? The Black Box Society argues that we all need to be able to do so-and to set limits on how big data affects our lives.