George Orwell
Compulsory Biometric ID Announced by European Commission
– Compulsory Biometric ID Announced by European Commission:
The European Commission has announced plans to make biometric ID cards compulsory across the bloc which will allow authorities to bar “terrorists and criminals” from accessing money and other services.
Plans to introduce mandatory ID cards across all 28 EU member states — including Britain — have been in development for more than two years in Brussels as part of the Commission’s goal of building an effective “security union”, Die Welt reports.
Set to be equipped with data including the holder’s fingerprint, the cards would be designed to tackle identity fraud and make it harder to falsify documents, according to Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
“We have to tighten the screws until there is no room left for terrorists or criminals and no more means for them to carry out attacks,” he told the German newspaper on Monday.
Read moreCompulsory Biometric ID Announced by European Commission
India’s Big Brother: Fingerprint And Eye-Scans Required For Food And Medicine
…and after that comes the RFID microchip!
– India’s Big Brother: Fingerprint And Eye-Scans Required For Food And Medicine:
India collects biometric data on 1.3 billion residents for use in a nationwide identity system called Aadhaar.
The New York Times notes Big Brother has Arrived in India.
Seeking to build an identification system of unprecedented scope, India is scanning the fingerprints, eyes and faces of its 1.3 billion residents and connecting the data to everything from welfare benefits to mobile phones.
Civil libertarians are horrified, viewing the program, called Aadhaar, as Orwell’s Big Brother brought to life. To the government, it’s more like “big brother,” a term of endearment used by many Indians to address a stranger when asking for help.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other champions of the program say that Aadhaar is India’s ticket to the future, a universal, easy-to-use ID that will reduce this country’s endemic corruption and help bring even the most illiterate into the digital age.
The poor must scan their fingerprints at the ration shop to get their government allocations of rice. Retirees must do the same to get their pensions. Middle-school students cannot enter the water department’s annual painting contest until they submit their identification.
The Modi government has also ordered Indians to link their IDs to their cellphone and bank accounts.
Read moreIndia’s Big Brother: Fingerprint And Eye-Scans Required For Food And Medicine
UK Column News – 28th March 2018: The Fusion Doctrine – “The End of Free Speech, Now We Have a Fascist Dictatorship in UK” (Video)
…or watch the video here…
– UK Column News – 28th March 2018: The Fusion Doctrine
H/t readers I.G. and Eric:
“The end of Free Speech, now we have a Fascist Dictatorship in UK.”
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China Deploys “SkyNet” Facial Recognition, Can Compare 3 Billion Faces Per Second
You really can’t make this stuff up!
– China Deploys “SkyNet” Facial Recognition, Can Compare 3 Billion Faces Per Second:
“The system is able to identify 40 facial features, regardless of angles and lighting, at an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent,” reports People’s Daily. “It can also scan faces and compare them with its database of criminal suspects at large at a speed of 3 billion times a second, indicating that all Chinese people can be compared in the system within only one second.”
Read moreChina Deploys “SkyNet” Facial Recognition, Can Compare 3 Billion Faces Per Second
The US Government Just Destroyed Our Privacy While Nobody Was Paying Attention
– The US Government Just Destroyed Our Privacy While Nobody Was Paying Attention:
While the nation remained fixated on gun control and Facebook’s violative practices last week, the U.S. government quietly codified the CLOUD Act, its own intrusive policies on citizens’ data.
While the massive, $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill passed Friday received widespread media attention, the CLOUD Act — which lawmakers snuck into the end of the 2,300-page bill — was hardly addressed.
The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD) “updates the rules for criminal investigators who want to see emails, documents and other communications stored on the internet,” CNET reported. “Now law enforcement won’t be blocked from accessing someone’s Outlook account, for example, just because Microsoft happens to store the user’s email on servers in Ireland.”
The CLOUD Act will also allow the U.S. to enter into agreements that allow the transfer of private data from domestic servers to investigators in other countries on a case-by-case basis, further globalizing the ever-encroaching surveillance state. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has strongly opposed the legislation, listed several consequences of the bill, which it called “far-reaching” and “privacy-upending”:
Read moreThe US Government Just Destroyed Our Privacy While Nobody Was Paying Attention
Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better: Round Ups, Checkpoints and National ID Cards
– Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better: Round Ups, Checkpoints and National ID Cards
H/t reader eric:
“Compulsory I/D cards for USA by 2020.
Land of the meak – home of the slave,
It’all part of the plan and it’s all coming together nicely. George Orwell & Aldo’s Huxley warned us this was the plan.
Even Brit hating James Cameron did it with Terminator, George Lucas with the Star Wars series, but nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
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Customs And Border Protection Clarifies: You Have No Rights While Traveling
– Customs And Border Protection Clarifies: You Have No Rights While Traveling:
In 2015, the Customs and Border Protection searched 8,503 airline passengers’ electronic devices. In FY 2016 they searched 19,033. And in FY 2017 CBP searched the devices of 30,200 travelers.
…
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Surveillance Is Not About Fighting Terrorism
– Surveillance Is Not About Fighting Terrorism:
Intelligence Community Says US Had Better Reauthorize Surveillance… Or Else
By Caitlin Johnstone
The editorial board of the Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor, has published a predictably fact-challenged op-ed arguing that congress must reauthorize the Orwellian surveillance program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is deliberately used to collect communications of US citizens.
WaPo, which to this day continues to violate universal journalistic protocol by refusing to disclose its $600 million conflict of interest when reporting on the US intelligence community, just so happens to once again find itself in full agreement with that same US intelligence community. In a new joint statement by the Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, NSA Director Michael Rogers, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the US intelligence community warns that should congress fail to reauthorize Section 702, something very, very bad may happen to America.