Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Infowars.com
November 11, 2013
The revelations of Edward Snowden shone fresh light on NSA spying
targeting the American people, but what has gone largely unnoticed is the fact
that a network of different spy systems which can record real time conversations
are already in place throughout many urban areas of the United States, as well
as in the technology products we buy and use on a regular basis.
These systems are no secret – they are hiding in plain view – and
yet concerns about the monolithic potential for their abuse have been muted.
That lack of discussion represents a massive lost opportunity for
the privacy community because whereas polls
have shown apathy, indifference, or even support for NSA spying, anecdotal evidence
suggests that people would be up in arms if they knew the content of their
daily conversations were under surveillance.
The dystopian movie V for Vendetta features a scene in
which goons working for the totalitarian government drive down residential
streets with spy technology listening to people’s conversations to detect the
vehemence of criticism against the state.
Such technology already exists or is rapidly being introduced
through a number of different guises in America and numerous other developed
countries.
The Washington Post recently published a feature
length article on gunshot detectors, known as ShotSpotter, which detailed
how in Washington DC there are now, “at least 300 acoustic sensors across 20
square miles of the city,” microphones wrapped in a weather-proof shell that can
detect the location of a sound down to a few yards and analyze the audio using a
computer program.
While the systems are touted as “gunshot detectors,” as the New
York Times reported in May 2012, similar technology is already installed in
over 70 cities around the country, and in some cases it is being used to listen
to conversations.
“In at least one city, New Bedford, Mass., where sensors recorded
a loud street argument that accompanied a fatal shooting in December, the system
has raised questions about privacy and the reach of police surveillance, even in
the service of reducing gun violence,” states the report.
Frank Camera, the lawyer for Jonathan Flores, a man charged with
murder, complained that the technology is “opening up a whole can of worms.”
“If the police are utilizing these conversations, then the issue
is, where does it stop?” he said.
This led
the ACLU to warn that the technology could represent a clear violation of
the Fourth Amendment if misused.
The ACLU’s Jay Stanley asked, “whether microphones can be remotely
activated by police who want to listen to nearby conversations,” noting that it
was illegal for police “to make audio recordings of conversations in which they
are not a participant without a warrant.”
“If the courts start allowing recordings of conversations picked
up by these devices to be admitted as evidence, then it will provide an
additional incentive to the police to install microphones in our public spaces,
over and above what is justified by the level of effectiveness the technology
proves to have in pinpointing gun shots,” wrote Stanley.
Eventually, if indeed it is not already happening in some major
metropolitan areas, voices will be linked to biometric facial profiles via the
Trapwire
system, which allows the government to monitor citizens via public and
private CCTV networks.
As we have also previously highlighted, numerous major cities in
the Unites States are currently being fitted with Intellistreets ‘smart’ street
lighting systems that also have the capability of recording conversations and
sending them directly to authorities via wi-fi.
As we reported on Sunday, the Las Vegas Public Works Department
has begun
testing the devices, which act as surveillance cameras, Minority
Report-style advertising hubs, and Homeland Security alert systems. As ABC
7 reported in 2011, they are “also capable of recording conversations.”
Televisions, computers and cellphones are already utilizing
technology that records conversations in order to bombard users with invasive
targeted advertising. Last year, Verizon followed Google’s lead and officially
filed a patent for a set-top box that will actively spy on Americans in
their own homes by turning TVs into wiretaps.
The patent application says that the technology will be capable of
detecting “ambient action” including “cuddling, fighting and talking” in
people’s living rooms.
The box will even listen to your conversations, according to the
communication giant’s patent.
“If detection facility detects one or more words spoken by a user
(e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone),
advertising facility may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to
search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more
words,” the document states.
In an article we
published back in 2006, we highlighted the fact that, “Digital cable TV
boxes, such as Scientific Atlanta, have had secret in-built microphones inside
them since their inception in the late 1990′s.”
This technology is now commonplace, with products like the Xbox
utilizing in-built microphones to allow voice control. Microsoft promises
that it won’t use the microphones to record your conversations, which is a
fairly hollow guarantee given that Microsoft collaborated with
the NSA to allow the federal agency to bypass its encryption services in
order to spy on people.
App providers on the Android network also now
require users to agree to a condition that, “Allows the app to record audio
with the microphone,” on cellphones and other ‘smart’ devices. “This permission
allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation,” states
the text of the agreement.
Image: David Petraeus welcomes the ‘smart’ spy
grid.
Virtually every new technological device now being manufactured
that is linked to the Internet has the capability to record conversations and
send them back to a central hub. Is it really any wonder therefore that former
CIA director David
Petraeus heralded the arrival of the “smart home” as a boon for “clandestine
statecraft”?
Whistleblowers such as William
Binney have warned that the NSA has virtually every US citizen under
surveillance, with the ability to record all of their communications. The agency
recently completed construction of a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion
facility deep in the Utah desert to process and analyze all of the
information collected.
If the revelations of Edward Snowden taught us one thing then it’s
that if the NSA has the capability to use a technology to spy on its primary
target – the American people – then it is already doing so.
The state already has already had blanket access to phone records
since at least 1987 under
the Hemisphere program, under which AT&T gave the Drug Enforcement
Agency access to call logs.
This network of computer programs, urban wi-fi infrastructure and
technological products inside our homes that all have the capability of
recording our conversations represents an even more invasive and Orwellian
prospect than anything Edward Snowden brought to light, and yet discussion of
its threat to fundamental privacy has been virtually non-existent.
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