1984: Doublespeak. Up is down, Yes is No.

So much is made of Donald Trump's unchecked facts.  And to be fair and honest, and transparent, I agree for the most part.  Yet what I have noticed over the last two months is lies, slander, and innuendo by academics, media, and liberals against anything and everything related to Donald Trump.  It is obsessive, hate-filled, and blind.  It is intolerant hate, and this is not news, real or fake to anyone.  It is very clear.  It is also not limited to liberals, for their are some conservatives in the Republican party who so loathe Trump, they now find themselves siding with the most loathe some of humans - people who preach intolerance, hate, violence, and an end to free speech - liberals.

You lost.  Get over it.  With illegal voting, although not millions probably, but still with that help, the help of people who said 'never trump', and the apathy of others all helping the vote count for Her, he still won.  He said he was going to do X, Y, Z, and surprise surprise, he is doing X Y and Z along with A, B, C, D, E, and F, with plans for G, H,I,J,K later.  I suspect L, M, N, O will be reserved until his next term if he were to run again.  This is what voters want.  Someone who says and does, not someone who blames and doesn't do.  And surprise, when he blames the media he isn't exaggerating - enemy of the people?  No, but certainly not working toward the sovereignty and independence of the American people.

The people who voted for Trump will do so again, and after he has demonstrated he is not the evil-doer the liberals say he is, some from the left side will vote for him/support him next time.  You can't win, because your message is one of division.  His message isn't one of division, his is one of unification.  Your message is divisive.  He says America is for Americans, for those people who want to be American, who come here to be part of this great experiment in human history.  For those who come legally, and follow our laws and seek to be Americans - all of this is for them.  That is NOT divisive.  Since when is supporting ones nation and the sovereignty and independence of ones nation and people divisive? 

Your message - which is entirely about division and hate, is exactly that - destructive and divisive.  Sad.

And voters see this.  They really do.  You think because 10,000 protest here and 1000 scream there, and 5,000 cry over there - that the nation is waking up.  You made that mistake in November.  The 40+ million who support him are not having fits, committing crimes en masse, or threatening an end to order by their intolerant attitudes toward government and policy.  They will vote.  AND others will also.  The only way you could pull off a coup is by getting illegals to vote, and I suspect in the next 4 years we will see voter reform to prevent much of that!  I know it hurts, but winning by fraud, by deception, by division, isn't winning - it's cheating!  And it kills truth. 

Oh, the Russians, I know.  But according to every poll/study done, NOTHING the Russians never did, helped Her.  And if it did, why hasn't SHE said it has.  Instead she has blamed everyone else BUT the Russians.  Simpletons who still believe the Russians hacked an email account are idiots, in the truest sense of the word.

What I have noticed in the last 3-4 weeks is that our country really does have a serious, serious, serious, very serious illegal immigration issue.  Throughout the country cities and states say they will 'protect' illegals.  But what about law.  They came here illegally, violating state and federal laws in doing so.  They are not fleeing (most) anything worse than what those miserably impoverished states they flee from have always been.  You don't protest the conditions in Mexico that force people to flee.  You instead fly the Mexican flag.  You offer sanctuary and protection flouting laws our government established long before Trump.  You want to hire illegals, and several companies have said they want to, to protect them.  OMG.

Honestly.  Spend your bloody energy saving their wretched countries from the inhuman conditions the people live in so they don't come here. Stop hurting the American taxpayer.

Americans haven't quite figured out all this tax stuff yet, but I promise.  That will come.

In the meantime, I will post some deets about that topic ignored by media in favor of depicting Trump as Satan or his aide.

However, not at this time.  I have things to do.  Later.

47th ? Really? Do you think THEY honestly believe that?

Amazing.



US Falls to 47th in press freedom rankings after Occupy crackdown

By Ellen Connolly

26th January 2012

Sweeping protests around the world made it an extremely difficult year for the media, and tested journalists as never before, the annual report into press freedom reveals.

The annual report by Reporters Without Borders has been released, showing the United States fell 27 points on the list due to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.

The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania.

Reporters Without Borders said the heightened unrest around the world resulted in a significant shake-up of the group's annual Press Freedom Index, which assesses governments' commitment to protecting media freedoms.

The Paris-based non-governmental Reporters Without Borders has named “crackdown” the word of 2011 in an assessment of global media freedom during a year in which journalists covering sweeping protests were tested as never before.

The non-governmental organisation seeks to defend journalists’ freedom to work and combat censorship internationally.

Despite the big changes, some constants remained. The country with the freest media in the world was Finland, followed by Norway, Estonia, the Netherlands and Austria. Eritrea was last, with North Korea just above.

The United States was not alone in the falling grades: Bahrain fell 29 points because of the crackdown in that country.

Egypt and Syria also fell a few points to languish near the bottom of the pack (166) and (176) respectively.

The group judged that Syria, along with Iran and China, 'seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror.'

Pakistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists, and Eritrea came in last in the list of overall press freedom.Syria, where an uprising against the government has been met with a brutal crackdown that has left more than 5,000 people dead, received its worst rating ever at 176.

In Afghanistan (150th) and Pakistan (151st), reporters remained under constant threat from the Taliban, religious extremists, separatist movements and political groups. With 10 deaths last year, Pakistan was the world’s most dangerous country for journalists for the second year in a row.

'Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.

The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them,' it said.

Elsewhere within the European Union, countries such as Bulgaria (80th), Greece (70th) and Italy (61st) failed to address the issue of media freedom violations, largely because of a lack of political will.

Libya came in 154th in the list, while Yemen was in 171th place.'
'The future of both of these countries remains uncertain, and the place they will allow the media is undecided.

The same goes for Egypt, which fell 39 places to 166th place.'

Syria was 176th, because journalists were unable to work because of total censorship, widespread surveillance, indiscriminate violence and government manipulation.

The report also highlights how pro-democracy movements that tried to emulate the example of the Arab revolutions were brutally suppressed. Vietnam (172nd) saw many arrests, while China (174th) stepped up its system of controlling news and information in response to public dissatisfaction with corruption and other injustices.

The biggest falls in the index were in Africa – Djibouti fell 49 places to 159th, Malawi (146th) fell 67 places and Uganda fell 43 places to 139th.

The Paris-based press freedom watchdog said Wednesday that the wave of uprisings in the Middle East, the Occupy movement in the West and continued protests in China gave journalists an unprecedented role in advancing democracy. But they also were often targeted by governments trying to quash dissent.

'Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much,' the group said in a statement accompanying its report.

But the important role journalists played put them in the cross hairs of repressive regimes, the report said, adding: 'Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.'

foolish

Civil RIghts and Protections

That our Constitution applies to even the worst human beings, that we will free the worst human beings for the worst crimes, and or believe their lies about why they were picked up by the US government over accepting that they are all either dangerous or evil - yet some Americans cannot do anything but spout off about ensuring their protections, regardless of where they are held.  Some leftists argue the US government should provide incentives to Israel to free the poor Palestinians held without cause in Israeli jails.

Yet, an American is held and imprisoned in Thailand for exercising his free speech rights and he is held and imprisoned for more than two years and the left are quiet.  He exercised his free speech rights and is now serving more than two years versus bloodthirsty killers who deserve death ...

Dec 11, 12:46 AM EST US response muted as American jailed in Thailand By CARA ANNA Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. government prides itself on standing up for freedom of speech around the world, but when it comes to longtime ally Thailand and its revered monarch, Washington treads carefully - even when an American citizen is thrown in jail. Thailand on Thursday sent an American, Joe Gordon, 55, to prison for two and a half years for defaming the country's royal family after he translated excerpts of a banned biography of Thailand's king and published them online. He had been living in Colorado at the time. The U.S. government has offered a measured response to the "severe" sentence - saying it was "troubled" by the outcome and asserting the right to free expression of people around the world. It has avoided direct criticism of Thailand over its use of laws punishing lese majeste, the crime of insulting a monarch. Washington's comments pale next to the strident criticism it gives when dissidents, even those without U.S. ties, are jailed by more authoritarian governments in the neighborhood, like China and Vietnam. The State Department typically calls for dissidents' immediate release and urges the government in question to uphold international law. The muted U.S. response may be partly explained by an unwillingness to spoil efforts to secure a royal pardon for Gordon, as has happened for foreigners previously convicted of lese majeste. But it also reflects the depth of U.S. relations with Thailand, which date back to 1833. The country was viewed as a bulwark against the spread of communism and served as a key base for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. As the Obama administration seeks to step up its engagement in Asia, it wants to consolidate its old alliances. Washington may also view behind-the-scenes efforts to get Thai authorities to ease up on lese majeste prosecutions more effective in a society where public criticism can backfire. Above all, it underscores the sensitivity of any critical, public discussion on Thailand's monarchy. Thailand's lese majeste laws are the harshest in the world. They mandate that people found guilty of defaming the monarchy - including the ailing 84-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch - face three to 15 years behind bars. They can face stiffer sentences still under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act, that punishes circulation of material online that threatens national security. Bhumibol is revered in Thailand and widely seen as a stabilizing force. He has stayed at a Bangkok hospital for more than two years, and there is deep uncertainty about what happens when he dies, as his son and heir apparent does not command the same respect and affection. Political divisions in the country exploded into violence last year that brought the business district of the Thai capital to a halt for weeks and left more than 90 dead. Even among Washington think tanks and U.S. universities, experts on Thailand often prefer not to discuss the monarchy and lese majeste for fear they could be blacklisted. The lese majeste law "inhibits discussion on the future of the monarchy and the political system," said Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation think tank. "Even Americans worry of talking about it, let alone Thais." Thailand was once seen as one of the most democratic nations in Southeast Asia, a status that has eroded during five years of political tensions. Since a military coup in 2006, there has been a sharp increase in lese majeste charges, frequently used to silence oppositional voices in the name of protecting the royalty. Human rights groups have expressed growing concerns over censorship of the Internet, which has given Thai authorities more targets to pursue. Authorities blocked 57,000 websites for containing anti-royal content in 2010, Thai monitoring groups say. Statistics obtained by The Associated Press from Thailand's Office of the Attorney General show that 36 lese majeste cases were sent for prosecution in 2010, compared to 18 in 2005 and just one in 2000. The figures do not include those filed under the Computer Crimes Act, nor the myriad complaints under investigation that have yet to reach trial. This year has seen a series of stiff penalties. Last month, Amphon Tangnoppakul, a 61-year old Thai grandfather with cancer, got 20 years in prison for sending four text messages received by a government official and deemed offensive to the queen. It was the heaviest sentence ever handed down for a lese majeste case. Amphon, now called "Uncle SMS" by the Thai media, denies sending the messages and says he doesn't even know how to send texts. He wept in court and said, "I love the King." The U.S. did not comment specifically on Amphon's case, but in a deviation from past practice, did say it was "troubled" by recent prosecutions and rulings inconsistent with international standards of freedom of expression. The European Union was more forthright, saying it was "deeply concerned" about Amphon's case. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said the U.S., EU, and other countries were only playing lip service to democratic values and should be more outspoken. "In reality, these countries have also their interests aligned with the Thai monarchy and, like many Thai politicians, do not want to risk their strategic interests in Thailand," he said. Trying to stifle dissent and keep politics under control is not much different than what China wants to do, said Paul Handley, author of the unauthorized biography "The King Never Smiles" that Gordon was punished for translating into Thai and posting online. The book is respected by most Thailand-watchers as shedding new light on Bhumibol's life. It alleges the king has been an obstacle to the progress of democracy in Thailand as he consolidated royal power over his long reign. Aside from the lese majeste law, Thailand has a vibrant political environment, which is far from the case in China, Handley said. He was also encouraged by the new book released in Thailand marking Bhumibol's seventh decade as king, which discusses the lese majeste law and says prosecutions have harmed the image of the monarchy. But Handley, now based in Washington, has no plans to return. "I assume I would be arrested," Handley said. "There's no one who tells me otherwise."

thailand

Could it be true? Those we believe are protecting us from the heartless Republicans are themselves selling us out?

Senate Moves To Allow Military To Intern Americans Without Trial

NDAA detention provision would turn America into a “battlefield”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, November 28, 2011

The Senate is set to vote on a bill today that would define the whole of the United States as a “battlefield” and allow the U.S. Military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.

“The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor this week, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.

The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill.

“I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”

dems

But I thought, the Left was supposed to want to save us, protect us from the Right, who were busy usurping our rights and violating our liberties and taking away our freedoms.





Calif. Governor Veto Allows Warrantless Cellphone Searches



By David Kravets
October 10, 2011

California Gov. Jerry Brown is vetoing legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest.

The Sunday veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.

Police across the country are given wide latitude to search persons incident to an arrest based on the premise of officer safety. Now the nation’s states are beginning to grapple with the warrantless searches of mobile phones done at the time of an arrest.

Brown’s veto message abdicated responsibility for protecting the rights of Californians and ignored calls from civil liberties groups and this publication to sign the bill — saying only that the issue is too complicated for him to make a decision about. He cites a recent California Supreme Court decision upholding the warrantless searches of people incident to an arrest. In his brief message, he also doesn’t say whether it’s a good idea or not.

Instead, he says the state Supreme Court’s decision is good enough, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week.

“The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizure protections,” the governor wrote.

Because of that January ruling from the state’s high court, the California Legislature passed legislation to undo it — meaning Brown is taking the side of the Supreme Court’s seven justices instead of the state Legislature. The Assembly approved the bill 70-0 and the state Senate, 32-4.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), was flummoxed by Brown’s action. “It was a curious veto message suggesting that the courts could resolve this more effectively than the state Legislature,” he said in a telephone interview.

Under California statehouse rules, neither Leno nor any other lawmaker may introduce the legislation for at least a year.

Orin Kerr, one of the nation’s leading Fourth Amendment experts, said Brown should have backed the state’s Legislature. “I think Governor Brown has it exactly backwards. It is very difficult for courts to decide Fourth Amendment cases involving developing technologies like cellphones,” he said.

In 2007, there were 332,000 felony arrests in California alone — a third of which did not result in conviction.

Brown’s veto also shores up support with police unions and the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a police union that opposed the legislation and recently donated $38,900 to Brown’s campaign coffers. “Restricting the authority of a peace officer to search an arrestee unduly restricts their ability to apply the law, fight crime, discover evidence valuable to an investigation and protect the citizens of California,” the association said in a message.

That support would be key if Brown decides to seek a second term.

In the last year alone, at least seven police unions donated more than $12,900 each to Brown. Those unions, including the California Association of Highway Patrolmen and the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, had given Brown more than $160,000 in combined contributions.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the left

OH Wait ... Obama was going to end the Bush era intrusion into your civil liberties, was going to end all the violations of your privacy ... was going to restore confidence ........

... where is all that hope now?  Change?




FBI to launch nationwide facial recognition service


BY ALIYA STERNSTEIN 10/07/2011
Nextgov.com

The FBI by mid-January will activate a nationwide facial recognition service in select states that will allow local police to identify unknown subjects in photos, bureau officials told Nextgov.

The federal government is embarking on a multiyear, $1 billion dollar overhaul of the FBI's existing fingerprint database to more quickly and accurately identify suspects, partly through applying other biometric markers, such as iris scans and voice recordings.

Often law enforcement authorities will "have a photo of a person and for whatever reason they just don't know who it is [but they know] this is clearly the missing link to our case," said Nick Megna, a unit chief at the FBI's criminal justice information services division. The new facial recognition service can help provide that missing link by retrieving a list of mug shots ranked in order of similarity to the features of the subject in the photo.

Today, an agent would have to already know the name of an individual to pull up the suspect's mug shot from among the 10 million shots stored in the bureau's existing Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Using the new Next-Generation Identification system that is under development, law enforcement analysts will be able to upload a photo of an unknown person; choose a desired number of results from two to 50 mug shots; and, within 15 minutes, receive identified mugs to inspect for potential matches. Users typically will request 20 candidates, Megna said. The service does not provide a direct match.

Michigan, Washington, Florida and North Carolina will participate in a test of the new search tool this winter before it is offered to criminal justice professionals across the country in 2014 as part of NGI. The project, which was awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2008, already has upgraded the FBI's fingerprint matching service.

Local authorities have the choice to file mug shots with the FBI as part of the booking process. The bureau expects its collection of shots to rival its repository of 70 million fingerprints once more officers are aware of the facial search's capabilities.

Thomas E. Bush III, who helped develop NGI's system requirements when he served as assistant director of the CJIS division between 2005 and 2009, said, "The idea was to be able to plug and play with these identifiers and biometrics." Law enforcement personnel saw value in facial recognition and the technology was maturing, said the 33-year FBI veteran who now serves as a private consultant.

NGI's incremental construction seems to align with the White House's push to deploy new information technology in phases so features can be scrapped if they don't meet expectations or run over budget.

But immigrant rights groups have raised concerns that the Homeland Security Department, which exchanges digital prints with the FBI, will abuse the new facial recognition component. Currently, a controversial DHS immigrant fingerprinting program called Secure Communities runs FBI prints from booked offenders against the department's IDENT biometric database to check whether they are in the country illegally. Homeland Security officials say they extradite only the most dangerous aliens, including convicted murderers and rapists. But critics say the FBI-DHS print swapping ensnares as many foreigners as possible, including those whose charges are minor or are ultimately dismissed.

Megna said Homeland Security is not part of the facial recognition pilot. But, Bush said in the future NGI's data, including the photos, will be accessible by Homeland Security's IDENT.

The planned addition of facial searches worries Sunita Patel, a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who said, "Any database of personal identity information is bound to have mistakes. And with the most personal immutable traits like our facial features and fingerprints, the public can't afford a mistake."

In addition, Patel said she is concerned about the involvement of local police in information sharing for federal immigration enforcement purposes. "The federal government is using local cops to create a massive surveillance system," she said.

Bush said, "We do have the capability to search against each other's systems," but added, "if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems."

Other civil liberties advocates questioned whether the facial recognition application would retrieve mug shots of those who have simply been arrested. "It might be appropriate to have nonconvicted people out of that system," said Jim Harper, director of information policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. FBI officials declined to comment on the recommendation.

Harper also noted large-scale searches may generate a lot of false positives, or incorrect matches. Facial recognition "is more accurate with a Google or a Facebook, because they will have anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen pictures of an individual, whereas I imagine the FBI has one or two mug shots," he said.

FBI officials would not disclose the name of the search product or the vendor, but said they gained insights on the technique's accuracy by studying research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In responding to concerns about the creation of a Big Brother database for tracking innocent Americans, Megna said the system will not alter the FBI's authorities or the way it conducts business. "This doesn't change or create any new exchanges of data," he said. "It only provides [law enforcement] with a new service to determine what photos are of interest to them."

In 2008, the FBI released a privacy impact assessment summarizing its appraisal of controls in place to ensure compliance with federal privacy regulations. Megna said that, during meetings with the CJIS Advisory Policy Board and the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact Council, "we haven't gotten a whole lot of pushback on the photo capability."

The FBI has an elaborate system of checks and balances to guard fingerprints, palm prints, mug shots and all manner of criminal history data, he said.

"This is not something where we want to collect a bunch of surveillance film" and enter it in the system, Megna said. "That would be useless to us. It would be useless to our users."





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

Suspend the Elections!

Close your eyes, sit back, rest, listen quietly, head back ... and consider the following:  a Republican Senator or Governor or Congressman suggesting we suspend elections to allow Congressmen to vote and act to solve the economic crisis in this country as a means to avoid accountability and instead, to act for the betterment of the country.

What if a Republican said that.  What would the response be?

Now, what if it was a Democratic Governor!!!




NC governor recommends suspending democracy to focus on jobs


9/27/2011
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller


As a way to solve the national debt crisis, North Carolina Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue recommends suspending congressional elections for the next couple of years.

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover,” Perdue said at a rotary club event in Cary, N.C., according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

Perdue said she thinks that temporarily halting elections would allow members of Congress to focus on the economy. “You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things,” Perdue said.

North Carolina Republicans immediately scoffed at Perdue’s proposal, pointing out to her that elections hold politicians accountable for their actions.

“Now is a time when politicians need to be held accountable more than ever,” North Carolina GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood said in an email to The Daily Caller. “To suspend an election would be removing the surest mechanism that citizens have to hold politicians accountable: the right to vote.”

UPDATE:

Perdue press secretary Chris Mackey claims the governor was joking when she made the comment.

“Come on … Gov. Perdue was obviously using hyperbole to highlight what we can all agree is a serious problem: Washington politicians who focus on their own election instead of what’s best for the people they serve,” Mackey said in an email to TheDC.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
democrats

Obamacare = Government Access to YOU

The savior of our rights, the warrior for the middle-class - and we are now finding out (as Pelosi stated) what is in that monstrosity of a bill - including government access to all your records!





Obamacare HHS rule would give government everybody’s health records


By: Rep. Tim Huelskamp
09/23/11 3:29 PM

OpEd Contributor



Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has proposed that medical records of all Americans be turned over to the federal government by private health insurers.

It’s been said a thousand times: Congress had to pass President Obama’s health care law in order to find out what’s in it. But, despite the repetitiveness, the level of shock from each new discovery never seems to recede.

This time, America is learning about the federal government’s plan to collect and aggregate confidential patient records for every one of us.

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.

(See Proposed Rule: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Standards Related to Reinsurance, Risk Corridors and Risk Adjustment, Volume 76, page 41930. Proposed rule docket ID is HHS-OS-2011-0022 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-15/pdf/2011-17609.pdf)

The HHS has proposed the federal government pursue one of three paths to obtain this sensitive information: A “centralized approach” wherein insurers’ data go directly to Washington; an “intermediate state-level approach” in which insurers give the information to the 50 states; or a “distributed approach” in which health insurance companies crunch the numbers according to federal bureaucrat edict.

It’s par for the course with the federal government, but abstract terms are used to distract from the real objectives of this idea: no matter which “option” is chosen, government bureaucrats would have access to the health records of every American - including you.

There are major problems with any one of these three “options.” First is the obvious breach of patient confidentiality. The federal government does not exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to managing private information about its citizens.

Why should we trust that the federal government would somehow keep all patient records confidential? In one case, a government employee’s laptop containing information about 26.5 million veterans and their spouses was stolen from the employee’s home.

There's also the HHS contractor who lost a laptop containing medical information about nearly 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries. And, we cannot forget when the USDA's computer system was compromised and information and photos of 26,000 employees, contractors, and retirees potentially accessed.

The second concern is the government compulsion to seize details about private business practices. Certainly many health insurance companies defended and advocated for the president’s health care law, but they likely did not know this was part of the bargain.

They are being asked to provide proprietary information to governments for purposes that will undermine their competitiveness. Obama and Sebelius made such a big deal about Americans being able to keep the coverage they have under ObamaCare; with these provisions, such private insurance may cease to exist if insurers are required to divulge their business models.

Certainly businesses have lost confidential data like the federal government has, but the power of the market can punish the private sector. A victim can fire a health insurance company; he cannot fire a bureaucrat.

What happens to the federal government if it loses a laptop full of patient data or business information? What recourse do individual citizens have against an inept bureaucrat who leaves the computer unlocked? Imagine a Wikileaks-sized disclosure of every Americans’ health histories. The results could be devastating - embarrassing - even Orwellian.

With its extensive rule-making decrees, ObamaCare has been an exercise in creating authority out of thin air at the expense of individuals’ rights, freedoms, and liberties.

The ability of the federal government to spy on, review, and approve individuals’ private patient-doctor interactions is an excessive power-grab.

Like other discoveries that have occurred since the law’s passage, this one leaves us scratching our heads as to the necessity not just of this provision, but the entire law.

The HHS attempts to justify its proposal on the grounds that it has to be able to compare performance. No matter what the explanation is, however, this type of data collection is an egregious violation of patient-doctor confidentiality and business privacy. It is like J. Edgar Hoover in a lab coat.

And, no matter what assurances Obama, Sebelius and their unelected and unaccountable HHS bureaucrats make about protections and safeguards of data, too many people already know what can result when their confidential information gets into the wrong hands, either intentionally or unintentionally.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
lies

Federal Government: We can spy on you, even journalists

Just so we are all on the same page.  This did not occur under Bush.  This DID occur under Obama - you remember, the guy who made idiotic claims about Bush abuses and charges against the Attorney General under Bush, and how it would all be different under Obama.  You remember.  Well, it is a bit different.  In order for the abuse to have occured, the Attorney General HAD TO SIGN OFF ON THIS for it to have occured.

How is all that change working out for you, and your civil liberties?





Feds spy on reporter in leak probe

By: Josh Gerstein
Politico
February 24, 2011 11:06 PM EST



Federal investigators trying to find out who leaked information about a CIA attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program obtained a New York Times reporter’s three private credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained information about his phone calls and travel, according to a new court filing.

The scope and intrusiveness of the government’s efforts to uncover reporter James Risen’s sources surfaced Thursday in the criminal case of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer facing federal criminal charges for allegedly disclosing classified information. Sterling is accused of giving Risen details about what Risen describes as the CIA’s plan to give Iran faulty nuclear blueprints, hoping to temporarily thwart the regime’s ambitions to build an atomic bomb.

In a motion filed in federal court in Alexandria, Sterling’s defense lawyers, Ed MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack, reveal that the prosecution has turned over “various telephone records showing calls made by the author James Risen. It has provided three credit reports—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian—for Mr. Risen. It has produced Mr. Risen’s credit card and bank records and certain records of his airline travel.”

The revelation alarmed First Amendment advocates, particularly in light of Justice Department rules requiring the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas directed to members of the media and on requests for their phone records. And Risen told POLITICO that the disclosures, while not shocking, made him feel “like a target of spying.”

“We’ve argued that I was a victim of harassment by the government. This seems to bolster that,” Risen said. “Maybe I should ask them what my credit score is.”

Sterling’s attorneys and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined POLITICO’s request for comment.

The government’s interest in Risen’s sources for his 2006 book, “State of War,” has been known since 2008. In particular, investigators have zeroed in on a chapter which details what Risen describes as a botched CIA effort to trip up Iran’s nuclear program. The scheme involved using a Russian defector to deliver the faulty blueprints to the Iranians, but the defector blew the CIA’s plot by alerting the Iranians to the flaws — negating the value of the program, and perhaps even advancing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Risen was twice subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to testify about his sources, but the first grand jury dissolved before a judge acted on Risen’s motion to quash the subpoena. Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema sided with Risen and quashed the second subpoena, though details of her reasoning haven’t been made public.

Soon after that decision, Sterling was indicted.

First Amendment advocates said the Justice Department’s use of business records to find out about Risen’s sources was troubling. Those records, they argue, could potentially expose a wide array of Risen’s sources and confidential contacts — information that might fall beyond the initial investigation that led to Sterling’s indictment.

“To me, in many ways, it’s worse than a direct subpoena,” said Jane Kirtley, a University of Minnesota law professor and former director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Third-party subpoenas are really, really invidious…. Even if it is targeted, even if they’re trying to just look at the relevant stuff, they’re inevitably going to get material that exposes other things.”

Kirtley also said journalists often aren’t notified when the government asks telecom companies, banks or other service providers for their records.

Asked how journalists could credibly complain about such techniques when most also refuse more direct demands for information about their sources, Kirtley said reporters who become the focus of determined investigators face a “Hobson’s choice.”

“It’s the same thing as if the cops go to someone’s office with a search warrant and say, ‘Give us the information we want and we won’t tear the place apart,’” she said. “If you say ‘tear the place apart,’ all kinds of confidential information that you don’t think the police should have is going to end up in their hands.”

Lawyers tracking the case believed that both former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was part of the Bush administration, and current Attorney General Eric Holder gave the go-ahead to subpoena Risen. Under Justice Department rules, the attorney general must approve a subpoena for a journalist and grant permission to obtain “telephone toll records of a member of the news media.”

It’s unclear whether the records investigators obtained about Risen’s phone calls came from his billing records or from records of incoming calls to Sterling or others. The Justice Department guidelines for investigations affecting journalists don’t appear to address travel, bank or credit card records.

Risen said the government never notified him that they were seeking his phone records. But he said he got an inkling in 2008 that investigators had collected some information about his calls.

“We heard from several people who had been forced to testify to the grand jury that prosecutors had shown them phone records between me and those people—not the content of calls but the records of calls,” he said. “As a result of what they told us, my lawyers filed a motion with the court as asking how the Justice Department got these phone records and whether or not they had gotten my phone records.”

“We wanted the court to help us decide whether they had abided by the attorney general’s guidelines,” Risen said. “We never got an answer from the court or the government.”

The new defense filings also offer the first official confirmation that Risen’s work was the focus of the investigation that led to the charges against Sterling. In addition to the phone, travel and financial records, Sterling’s defense said the prosecution handed over a copy of the cover of Risen’s book along with receipts and shipping records showing it was sold in Virginia.

While those familiar with the case immediately concluded that Sterling was a source for Risen, the journalist who got classified information from Sterling was referred to simply as “Author A” in the indictment, and was not named. Justice Department policy generally bars naming unindicted individuals in an indictment.

From 2004 to 2006, the New York Times fought a court battle to keep federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from obtaining the telephone records of Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. Fitzgerald wanted the information to help find out who leaked information that tipped off Islamic charities about federal raids on their offices.

A district judge ruled in the Times’ favor, but a federal appellate court overturned that decision. Fitzgerald ultimately obtained the records when the Supreme Court declined to step in; no one was ever charged for the leak.

Sterling’s indictment suggests that Risen urged the Times to publish details about the CIA’s attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but Times editors declined after senior U.S. government officials warned that the disclosure could harm national security and endanger the life of the Russian intermediary. The information later appeared in Risen’s book.

The new details about the FBI’s investigation of Risen came in a motion that called on the government to provide more details about what specific information Sterling allegedly disclosed. Sterling's lawyers also filed a series of other motions challenging several counts of the indictment as duplicative. Some also sought to punish Sterling for acts he did not commit, such as Risen’s publication of the book, the defense argued.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

In Illinois - Don't stop and take a picture of an accident

Who could possibly disagree.  This not only interferes with the process but slows traffic or causes congestion where none need exist.

On the other hand ...




Bill Would Ban Photos At Accident Scenes


March 4, 2011 6:42 AM


SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WBBM) – A state lawmaker doesn’t want drivers to stop and take pictures or videos of vehicle accidents.


As WBBM Newsradio 780’s Alex Degman reports, a measure to ban that practice has passed an Illinois House committee.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Tom Holbrook (D-Belleville), says amateur photographers often get in the way of emergency personnel.

“Putting your cell phone over the firemen’s shoulders as he’s using the jaws of life, maybe to get your grandmother of the front seat of her car while she’s bleeding,” Holbrook said. “You never know with these things. These are horrendous situations for individuals.”

Holbrook says accident victims would still be able to take pictures for insurance purposes.

But the bill says no person may use a wireless device within 500 feet of an accident, except for specified purposes.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
photo

Dutch Children: Someone is watching them and it isn't Bush

Dutch to Open Electronic Files on Children

Associated Press

September 14 2005


AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, all citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database — including health, education, family and police records — the health ministry said Tuesday.

As a privacy safeguard, no single person or agency will be able to access all contents of a file. But organizations can raise "red flags" in the dossier to caution other agencies about problems, ministry spokesman Jan Brouwer said.

The intention is to protect troubled children, Brouwer said. Until now, schools and police have been unable to communicate with each other about truancy records and criminality, which are often linked.

"Child protection services will say, 'Hey, there's a warning flag from the police. There's another one from school. There's another one from the doctor," Brouwer said. "Something must be going on and it's time to call the parents in for a meeting."

Every child will get a Citizens Service Number, making it easier to keep track of children with problems even when their families move, said Secretary of Health Clemence Ross.

"Safety, guidance, education and supervision are incredibly important for the development of children," Ross said.

All Dutch births are currently registered with local authorities.














Dutch

Children get electronic ID cards - Big Government Watches Over You (not Bush though)

Children to be given electronic identity cards



Electronic identity cards for all children under 12 are to be introduced in Belgium. They will bear a code designed to allow parents of missing children to be traced instantly.

The Telegraph Group Limited
Published: 00:00 June 25, 2006
The Gulf News

Brussels: Electronic identity cards for all children under 12 are to be introduced in Belgium. They will bear a code designed to allow parents of missing children to be traced instantly.

The announcement came as Belgian police continued to search for two young girls who vanished from the street outside a bar in the middle of the night a fortnight ago.

Though the ID cards would be useless in protecting children from an abductor or adult determined to do them harm, they are intended to offer a secure way of making sure a lost child can be reunited with family.

Belgians have been greatly sensitive to issues of missing children since the case a decade ago of Marc Dutroux, a paedophile rapist and killer who kidnapped six children, killing four of them, before being caught.

The new children's cards will carry a special code number and instructions on how to call a central missing child hotline.

 
[So these cards cannot help in tracking down the girls who went missing (and were found some time later dead - they had been raped and strangled) but lets give every child a card and number to feel safer.]
 
 
 
 





 
 
 
 
privacy

Are you being tracked? (and again, Bush is nowhere to be found)

Is RFID tracking you?



July 10, 2006
By Daniel Sieberg CNN



Radio frequency identification has been heralded as a breakthrough in tracking technology, and denounced as the next Big Brother surveillance tool.

RFID sounds futuristic: A transmitter smaller than a dime embedded in everything from a T-shirt to human skin, communicating data over a short distance to a reading device.

The technology has been around for decades -- the British used it to identify aircraft as friend or foe during World War II, and factory warehouses have used it more recently to make shipping more efficient.

So why is it getting so much attention now? The short answer is that RFID has moved into more common corners of society.

Today, it can be used to identify missing pets, monitor vehicle traffic, track livestock to help prevent disease outbreaks, and follow pharmaceuticals to fight counterfeit drugs. Many of us start our cars using RFID chips embedded in the ignition key.

RFID chips, injected under the skin, can store a medical history or be used to control access to secure areas. The next generation of passports and credit cards are hotbeds for RFID. It could make bar codes obsolete.

However, hackers and analysts are exposing potentially serious problems. Hackers could disable a car's RFID anti-theft feature, swap a product's price for a lower one, or copy medical information from an RFID chip.

"The dark side of RFID is surreptitious access," said Bruce Schneier, a security expert with Counterpane Internet Security Inc.

"When RFID chips are embedded in your ID cards, your clothes, your possessions, you are effectively broadcasting who you are to anyone within range," he said. "The level of surveillance possible, not only by the government but by corporations and criminals as well, will be unprecedented. There simply will be no place to hide."

But Mark Roberti, editor of RFID Journal, a trade publication that claims independence from the RFID industry, said the long-term convenience and cost-savings outweighs the potential pitfalls.

"Technology is neither good nor evil," Roberti wrote in an e-mail responding to questions from CNN. "Technology is a tool. All technologies can be used in positive or negative ways.

"The Internet is a great boon to businesses and consumers, but some use it [unscrupulously]. RFID is no different. It will be bring tremendous benefits to consumers and businesses. The key is to find ways to maximize the benefits and try to limit any potential abuses."

Most RFID chips or tags are passive, meaning they contain no battery power and can transmit data only when zapped with a reader. Active tags, which are more expensive, can carry some battery power.

Prices for the chips can range from several cents to a couple of dollars apiece, depending on the application and whether they are ordered in bulk. The cost has limited RFID's appeal. To compete with barcodes, RFID chips need to be priced at under a penny each. The cost is gradually coming down, though.

The storage space is extremely small, typically about 2KB, and the data on the tags can be read by equipment from a few inches to several feet away -- and sometimes a bit farther.

A group of hackers at the 2005 DefCon technology convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, used an antenna attached to an RFID reader to scan the information on a tag nearly 70 feet away. RFID proponents downplayed the demonstration, saying the apparatus was impractical and wouldn't work if the information on the RFID tag were encrypted, which is more often the case.

"The kind of RFID that is becoming widely used has no power source, and can send information over tens of feet. Compared to, say, a cell phone, which transmits personal identity and location information for miles, RFID's potential for misuse and abuse is quite trivial," Kevin Ashton, vice president at ThingMagic LLC, a manufacturer of RFID readers, wrote in an e-mail responding to CNN's questions.

"That said, companies that make and use RFID have a responsibility to make sure the technology is developed and adopted in ways that make it secure and useful."

That responsibility was recently addressed by a best-practices manifesto composed by the RFID industry. Participating companies included Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Visa U.S.A. and Proctor & Gamble.

The manifesto is meant to assuage consumer fears about how data could be collected, shared and stored. Key parts of the document include an agreement to notify consumers about RFID data collection and give them a choice when it comes to gathering personal information. But the manifesto doesn't suggest any penalties for not complying, and the onus would likely fall to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate any claims of harm or wrongdoing.

"Credit card companies have huge incentives to secure the transaction: They need to avoid customer complaints, counterfeiting and billing disputes, so it seems reasonable to assume high levels of security will have to be built in before such a system would be widely accepted," wrote ThingMagic's Ashton.

A company in Cincinnati, Ohio, recently delved into new territory with RFID tags by chipping its employees.

CityWatcher.com provides video surveillance for clients and police. The information it collects is the company's biggest asset and needs to be kept in a room that has more security than a lock and key, CEO Sean Darks said. The answer was an electronic lock, and the company has given its handful of employees the option of using an electronic key or getting an RFID chip implanted in their arm.

"It can't be read, it can't be tracked, it doesn't have GPS," Darks said. "It doesn't emit a signal, I do not know where my employees are unless I call them on a cell phone -- your cell phone has more GPS capability than an RFID chip does."

VeriChip Corp. is a Florida-based company that makes the government-approved, human-implantable RFID chips. A certified doctor injects the chip, which is about the size of a grain of rice.

If done for medical reasons, the RFID chip would contain a random 16-character string of numbers or letters connected to that person's medical chart. That way, in an emergency, doctors could access a patient's history even if the patient was incapable of communicating. But the technology is not available at all hospitals, and not every doctor knows to look for the implanted chips.

A few CityWatcher.com employees opted not to have the procedure done, saying the whole idea makes them nervous. They were given a key chain that contained an RFID chip. Regardless, Darks says the idea helps maintain security in the building -- and he sees some humor in the situation.

"What we like to say at CityWatcher is it helps with employee retention, because employees don't like to leave their arm if they leave the company," he said.

But this human-implant trend worries privacy advocates like Marc Rotenberg with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"A lot of these technologies have very useful applications," he said. "They can help large companies keep track of products, which is why companies such as Wal-Mart use RFID chips in their inventory management system. A lot of pet owners are using chips to keep track of their animals if they're lost.

"But it really seems to cross a line when technology that's used for inventory management or keeping track of pets is then placed in human beings," Rotenberg added. "And that raises ethical issues and privacy issues and probably some legal issues. I think people are going to be concerned about who uses the chip and who has access to it."

Despite these concerns, others say there are huge benefits to using RFID.

"At least 30 million people carry an RFID tag on them every day in their car keys or in their access control card to get into their office building or to buy gas or to pay a toll," wrote RFID Journal's Roberti. "Everywhere RFID has been rolled out in the consumer environment, consumers have overwhelmingly embraced it."

One new consumer application is in credit cards. Consumers could simply wave a credit card containing a passive chip at an RFID reader to pay for their purchases.

While there is concern that hackers could remotely read the card information, supporters argue it would be easier for merchants, and the speed of the processing time could shave off more than a dozen seconds per transaction, which would add up. They also say transactions would be no more or less secure than they are today.

"That is, if you buy stuff today with a credit card, that information is stored in a database," Roberti wrote. "When or if RFID is used to record sales, data will go in a database, the same one in fact. If the government wants access to the RFID data or the bar code data, it's essentially the same thing."

The controversy and discussion about RFID technology will not end anytime soon. But both sides agree that a sizable dose of debate is needed to hammer out the kinks. Meanwhile, the technology is appearing in an increasing number of places -- though even if you look around, you still might miss it.
















i spy

Color Printer? The Government is Tracking You (and Bush isn't around to blame)

Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents


Practice embeds hidden, traceable data in every printed page.



By Jason Tuohey, PCWorld Nov 22, 2004 1:00 am


WASHINGTON--Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printed there that could be used to trace the document back to you.

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.

The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page, along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say, from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.

Crime Fighting vs. Privacy

Laser-printing technology makes it incredibly easy to counterfeit money and documents, and Crean says the dots, in use in some printers for decades, allow law enforcement to identify and track down counterfeiters.

However, they could also be employed to track a document back to any person or business that printed it. Although the technology has existed for a long time, printer companies have not been required to notify customers of the feature.

Lorelei Pagano, a counterfeiting specialist with the U.S. Secret Service, stresses that the government uses the embedded serial numbers only when alerted to a forgery. "The only time any information is gained from these documents is purely in [the case of] a criminal act," she says.

John Morris, a lawyer for The Center for Democracy and Technology , says, "That type of assurance doesn't really assure me at all, unless there's some type of statute." He adds, "At a bare minimum, there needs to be a notice to consumers."

If the practice disturbs you, don't bother trying to disable the encoding mechanism--you'll probably just break your printer.

Crean describes the device as a chip located "way in the machine, right near the laser" that embeds the dots when the document "is about 20 billionths of a second" from printing.

"Standard mischief won't get you around it," Crean adds.

Neither Crean nor Pagano has an estimate of how many laser printers, copiers, and multifunction devices track documents, but they say that the practice is commonplace among major printer companies.

"The industry absolutely has been extraordinarily helpful [to law enforcement]," Pagano says.

According to Pagano, counterfeiting cases are brought to the Secret Service, which checks the documents, determines the brand and serial number of the printer, and contacts the company. Some, like Xerox, have a customer database, and they share the information with the government.

Crean says Xerox and the government have a good relationship. "The U.S. government had been on board all along--they would actually come out to our labs," Crean says.

History

Unlike ink jet printers, laser printers, fax machines, and copiers fire a laser through a mirror and series of lenses to embed the document or image on a page. Such devices range from a little over $100 to more than $1000, and are designed for both home and office.

Crean says Xerox pioneered this technology about 20 years ago, to assuage fears that their color copiers could easily be used to counterfeit bills.

"We developed the first (encoding mechanism) in house because several countries had expressed concern about allowing us to sell the printers in their country," Crean says.

Since then, he says, many other companies have adopted the practice.

The United States is not the only country teaming with private industry to fight counterfeiters. A recent article points to the Dutch government as using similar anticounterfeiting methods, and cites Canon as a company with encoding technology. Canon USA declined to comment.
























i spy, on you.

Google and Big Brother: Makes CIA and KGB look like children

Google 'will be able to keep tabs on us all'


Alexi Mostrous and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Friday 3 November 2006

The internet will hold so much digital data in five years that it will be possible to find out what an individual was doing at a specific time and place, an expert said yesterday.

Nigel Gilbert, a professor heading a Royal Academy of Engineering study into surveillance, said people would be able to sit down and type into Google "what was a particular individual doing at 2.30 yesterday and would get an answer".

The answer would come from a range of data, for instance video recordings or databanks which store readings from electronic chips. Such chips embedded in people's clothes could track their movements. He told a privacy conference the internet would be capable of holding huge amounts of data very cheaply and patterns of information could be extracted very quickly. "Everything can be recorded for ever," he said.

He was speaking at a conference at which a report commissioned by Richard Thomas, the privacy watchdog, was launched. Mr Thomas has said Britain is "waking up to a surveillance society that is all around us" and that such "pervasive" surveillance is likely to spread.

Sir Stephen Lander, the head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and former head of MI5, defended surveillance by the government.

"Significant intrusion into the privacy of a small minority is justified to protect the safety and wellbeing of the majority," he said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
privacy

Wireless World (and Bush isn't anywhere in sight)

Wireless World: Chips track license plates




Aug 12, 2005
Technology
UPI

A controversial plan to embed radio frequency identification chips in license plates in the United Kingdom also may be coming to the United States, experts told UPI's Wireless World.

The so-called e-Plate, developed by the British firm Hills Numberplates, is a license plate that also transmits a vehicle's unique identification via encryption that can be read by a small detector, whose output can be used locally or communicated to a distant host.

"RFID is all the rage these days," said Bradley Gross, chairman of Becker & Poliakoff, a law firm in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., "but my fear is that this use of the technology is tracking at its worst."

The reason for the concern in the legal and privacy-rights communities is that e-plates may expand the ability of police to track individuals by the movement of their vehicles.

A single RFID reader can identify dozens of vehicles fitted with e-plates moving at any speed at a distance of about 100 yards. The e-plate looks just like a standard plate, but it contains an embedded chip that cannot be seen or removed. It is self-powered with a battery life of up to 10 years.

"Police will be able to track your every move when you drive," said Liz McIntyre, an RFID expert and author of the forthcoming book, "Spychips: How Major Corporations and the Government Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID" (Nelson Current, October 2005). "What if they put these readers at a mosque? They could tell who was inside at a worship service by which cars were in the parking lot."

Indeed, the makers of the technology boast that the e-plates can furnish access control, automated tolling, asset tracking, traffic-flow monitoring and vehicle crime and "non-compliance." The chips can be outfitted with 128 bit encryption to prevent hacking.

The problem is people other than the vehicle's owner quite often are at the wheel.

"Will this, ultimately, stop terrorism?" Gross asked. "The occupants of cars change continuously. Terrorists can steal cars."

Similar technology already has been used in the United States, experts said.

"The technology side of this is readily available, as it is used in the high-frequency battery-powered transmitters in the toll road systems like Fastrak," said attorney Dave Abel, with the international law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP, who was an engineer before coming to the bar. "To use the toll road, a user signs up -- providing name, address, billing info, et cetera, which is stored in a database. Each time they drive past the reader station they are billed or a credit is deducted from an account."

Security access points could justify the expense, but placing them even at key intersections may not be very practical, according to lawyers at Pittiglio, Rabin, Todd & McGrath in Costa Mesa, Calif., a spokeswoman said.

The cost of roadside readers is significant -- although the price per chip is estimated to be only 20 cents.

Some experts said governments already are using the chips embedded in tollway access cards without heed to privacy rights. In Texas, for example, tollway authorities have been "making printouts of the records of every time you pass through a toll booth, what time you passed through," McIntyre said. "The government hasn't established a privacy policy for this, and people are not being informed that they are doing this. This is an instance of Big Brother on the highway."



 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
privacy