FBI wants to keep secret who’s stored in its massive biometric database The FBI said it would retain the data to “aid in establishing patterns of activity” to help discover new criminals when they arise. The FBI is proposing keeping information that it stores as part of a massive biometric database private — even to…
Category: Counter-Surveillance
Future Warfare: 21st Century DIY Insurgency
It started innocuously enough. The prime minister-for-life never missed the annual “Liberation Day” parade. With the drums and platoons thundering, nobody noticed as the quadcopter, barely larger than a sparrow, floated down toward the dais, its faint whirr drowned out by the industrial machinery rolling by in formation. It was at once a child’s birthday…
Military News: China and Russia Field “Anti-Stealth” Drones
Both China and Russia appear to be building unmanned aerial vehicles designed to negate America’s advantages in stealth aircraft. Earlier this year, photos first emerged of a new High Altitude, Long Endurance (HALE) UAV termed the Divine Eagle that foreign observers believe is designed to detect and eliminate stealth enemy aircraft far from the Chinese…
Surveillance State: Inside The NSA’s Real-Time Regional Gateway (RT-RG)
It is a very common trend to see “Counter-Terrorism” programs and technology that were once used to save American Military and Civilian lives in war get re-directed to spy on American citizens in Peace time. This is something to keep in mind with this program. -SF Relentless attacks on American military personnel at the height…
Surveillance State: Everything We Know About How the FBI Hacks People
RECENT HEADLINES WARN that the government now has greater authority to hack your computers, in and outside the US. Changes to federal criminal court procedures known as Rule 41 are to blame; they vastly expand how and whom the FBI can legally hack. But just like the NSA’s hacking operations, FBI hacking isn’t new. In…
Surveillance State: The Missing Piece of Obama’s Terrorist “Kill Memo” Still Haunts America
The lack of adversarial opinion for a 2011 drone strike on Anwar Al Awlaki could presage the killing of U.S. citizens in America When U.S. Pres. Barack Obama considered the unprecedented step of intentionally killing an American citizen without judicial process, he asked for a legal opinion that would provide legal cover in case he…
The Surveillance State: Twitter and Data Mining
Twitter has barred Dataminr, a service that analyzes tweets from across the globe to inform users about news events, from providing its information to US intelligence agencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. The social network has not confirmed that it cut the agencies off from the service, which claims to have informed clients about the…
The Surveillance State: Spy Chief Might Reveal Number of “Accidentally Surveilled”” Americans
“U.S. Persons Caught INCIDENTALLY in Internet Surveillance…” HA!! Where have we heard that before? -SF Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Monday his office is considering options to obtain and publicly disclose an estimate of the number of U.S. persons caught incidentally in Internet surveillance intended for foreign targets. “We are looking at…
Espionage Files: A Day In The Life of a Spy
The complex life of a CIA officer is unveiled in this fascinating AMA on Reddit, which reveals an existence that is both terrifying and amusing, but never boring. Names, places, and timelines are redacted, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of his words, as it’s easy to assume his involvement in a number of covert operations that have…
A New Generation of Unrestricted Warfare
In 1999, two Chinese colonels wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare, about warfare in the age of globalization. Their main argument: Warfare in the modern world will no longer be primarily a struggle defined by military means — or even involve the military at all. They were about a decade and a half before their…