Domestic Drones: Report Exposes Expansion of Surveillance Flights
November 14, 2014
http://www.indypendent.org/2014/11/14/domestic-drones-report-exposes-expansion-surveillance-flights
The American government has expanded the use of drones along the border of Mexico without informing the public about it very much. Drones stretch across the almost 2,000 mile border, and are monitoring everything. Many people have been concerned about drones and how they are used. Some think that it puts the nation at risk for becoming surveyed too much, and constantly being watched. This secret border patrol program has sent at least 10,000 drones on missions since March of 2013. The ACLU is against this use of drones. They say that if we continue then it will “profoundly change the character of public life in America.” We are slowly moving towards a society where every move we make is surveyed. The executive director of national air security says that we shouldn’t worry right now because the drones can’t recognize many details. They can’t register faces or license plates.
LAPD Technology That Tracks Ex-Cons Stirs Concerns
November 14, 2014
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/national/2014/11/lapd_technology_that_tracks_ex_cons_stirs_concerns
The LAPD relies on a lot of technology to catch criminals. So far, they say that it has decreased the amount of crime in the city. The federal government just gave them $400,000 to improve their program even more. They have named the program and technology LASER. The CIA developed the technology. Officials from around the country have been briefed on this program, and are looking into using it. The program has proved that it definitely lowers crime in places that it is being used compared to places that aren’t using it, but privacy advocates aren’t sure that’s enough. The problem is that it risks targeting minorities, and also puts some bias on those who have already committed crimes. Some think that information on an individual she be gotten rid of is they haven’t committed a crime in over 6 months, but there isn’t any rule for that.
Americans Fear Eroding Policy Online
November 12, 2014
http://www.voanews.com/content/americans-fear-eroding-privacy-online/2517626.html
This article is about a study that was released on Wednesday. It showed that Americans are very concerned about there privacy online and digitally. Most Americans associated privacy with security. If they didn’t feel like something was secure, then they didn’t think that they had any privacy. They don’t control what companies collect, and what they do with it. The study asked people about their confidence in landline phones, mobile phones, text messages, email, instant messaging, and social media. All of them scored very low. The highest one was landline phones, but only 16% of people had confidence in it. Most people are concerned about their social security number, and things like that, but not many were concerned with things like their political views or their personal shopping habits. The study didn’t see if Americans were changing their behavior, but it showed that many are concerned about their privacy.
Watch What Happens When a Photographer Secretly Taps into Public Surveillance Cameras
November 13, 2014
http://mic.com/articles/104232/here-s-what-happens-when-a-photographer-secretly-hacks-into-surveillance-cameras
A photographer hacked into a networked CCTV camera to spy on people that didn’t know. He wanted to give people an idea about how modern surveillance doesn’t give you a lot of privacy on an artistic way. He realized that many cameras didn’t have passwords and started hacking into things like parking lot cameras. He eventually found the camera that he liked the best. The camera could pan, zoom in, and adjust the exposure. He says that he didn’t hack into anything because it was accessible to the public. He noticed people patterns, and the pictures he took weren’t clear enough to see their face so it left some anonymity. He wanted to expose what the security cameras see all the time, and show us what they saw.
Fed Up With Dragnet Government Surveillance
November 13, 2014
This article is about a new way to send email without it being read by Yahoo, Google, Apple, the government, or hackers. A new, private, email service, called StartMail.com, encrypts your emails. There has been a lot of interest in this already. This website is supposed to make it easy to encrypt everything for you. It makes encryption available to those who don’t really know how to do it. There is no advertising revenue for in the company so they make their profit from subscriptions. As soon as this takes off, millions of people’s emails will suddenly become private and secure.