Crapaganda.com

Source: Telegraph UK

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy concerns. The projects range from what the DHS describes as “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports.

The 173-page collection of contracts and reports, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request, includes contracts with Siemens Corporations, Northeastern University, and Rapiscan Systems. The study was expected to cost more than $3.5 million.

One project allocated to Northeastern University and Siemens would mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans, along with other cameras on buildings and utility poles, to monitor groups of pedestrians, assess what they carried, and even track their eye movements. In another program, the researchers were asked to develop a system of long range x-ray scanning to determine what metal objects an individual might have on his or her body at distances up to thirty feet.

“This would allow them to take these technologies out of the airport and into other contexts like public streets, special events and ground transit,” says Ginger McCall, an attorney with EPIC. “It’s a clear violation of the fourth amendment that’s very invasive, not necessarily effective, and poses all the same radiation risks as the airport scans.”

It’s not clear to what degree the technologies outlined in the DHS documents have been implemented. Multiple contacts at the DHS public affairs office didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Update: A TSA official responds in a statement that the “TSA has not tested the advanced imaging technology that is currently used at airports in mass transit environments and does not have plans to do so.”

A privacy assessment included in the documents for one aspect of the plans that focused on train security suggests that images wouldn’t be tied to any personally identifiable information such as a subject’s name. Any images shared outside the project or used for training purposes would have faces blurred, and employees using the system would be trained to avoid privacy violations, the document says. If the scanners were to adopt privacy enhancements deployed in new versions of the airport full body scanners currently being tested by the TSA, they would also use nondescript outlines of people rather than defined images, only showing items of interest on the subject’s body.

But EPIC’s McCall says that those safeguards are irrelevant: If scanners are deployed in public settings, it doesn’t matter if they show full naked images or merely the objects in a user’s pockets. “When you’re out walking on the street, it’s not acceptable for an officer to come up and search your bag without probable cause or consent.,” she says. “This is the digital equivalent.”

In August of last year, Joe Reiss, the vice president of marketing of security contractor American Sciences & Engineering told me in an interview that the company had sold more than 500 of its backscatter x-ray vans to governments around the world, including some deployed in the U.S. Those vans are capable of scanning people, the inside of cars and even  the internals of some buildings while rolling down public streets. The company claims that its systems’ “primary purpose is to image vehicles and their contents,” and that “the system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, sex or age of the person.” But Reiss admitted that the van scans do penetrate clothing, and EPIC president Marc Rotenberg called them “one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable.”

On top of exposing research into possible expansion of the scanner program, EPIC has also filed a lawsuit against the DHS that fights the use of the scanners in airports. The group is arguing its case in a D.C. appellate court next week, though some expect the scanners to be ruled constitutional.

Check out the full documents obtained by EPIC below:

Epic Body Scan Foia Docs Feb 2011[1]

Ginger McCall of EPIC on the proposals

The Department of Homeland Security plans to begin testing a DNA analyzer that’s small enough to be easily portable and fast enough to return results in less than an hour.

The analyzer, about the size of a laser printer, initially will be used to determine kinship among refugees and asylum seekers. It also could help establish whether foreigners giving children up for adoption are their parents or other relatives, and help combat child smuggling and human trafficking, said Christopher Miles, biometrics program manager in the DHS Office of Science and Technology.

Only DNA can positively determine family relationships, Miles said Wednesday during a conference on biometrics and national security.

Eventually, the analyzer also could be used to positively identify criminals, illegal immigrants, missing persons and mass casualty victims, he said.

The machine, known as a rapid DNA screener, is expected to cut days or weeks and hundreds of dollars off the per-use cost of DNA analysis.

Using a process called digital microfluidics, the analyzer processes a DNA sample and provides results in less than an hour for under $100 per sample, Miles said. By comparison, it takes days or weeks and about $500 per sample to get results when DNA is tested in a laboratory, he said.

“We’re not about advancing the technology so much as integrating and automating it into a fieldable device,” he said.

Boston-based NetBio, which developed the rapid DNA analyzer for DHS, described it as a “game-changing technology” platform that “consists of instruments, biochips and analytical software.” It eliminates the need for a trained technician and special operating site.

The analyzer was designed for Homeland Security, the military, intelligence and police agencies, the company says on its website.

As with other DNA tests, the process begins with a sample collected on a swab, typically from inside the mouth. The sample is placed in a disposable cartridge, and the analyzer does the rest of the work.

“It’s the same process that occurs in the lab today,” Miles said. But “it will drastically make the system more efficient.”

DHS’ Citizen and Immigration Services bureau is first in line to begin testing the new equipment this summer. A likely priority is testing people who claim to be family members in refugee camps overseas, Miles said.

That’s important because when a refugee is allowed to come to the United States, parents, children and some siblings also could be eligible to enter. Citizen and Immigration Services wants to make sure those who claim to be relatives actually are, he said.

Similarly, the agency wants to make sure children are who their guardians claim them to be. Usually, that sort of identity check might be done with fingerprints, but fingerprints of small children can be unreliable, Miles said.

On an average day, 400 refugees apply to enter the United States, 40 persons are granted asylum and 100 foreign-born children are adopted, according to DHS.

Although DNA analysis speeds identification of people, it raises concerns about privacy and civil liberties, Miles conceded. “We have privacy officers and civil rights and civil liberties officers who are working through all of those questions.”

As a precaution to protect privacy, the analyzer avoids sampling DNA that could identify genetic problems, Miles said. For years, privacy advocates have worried that DNA test results could be used to deny people employment, insurance or entry to the country.

But even the analysis DHS officials want to do could be problematic. DNA test results might reveal that a child is not related to the man thought to be his father. “Is it our role to tell them that?” Miles asked. In some societies, revealing such information could be dangerous to the child and its mother, he said.

Policy hasn’t developed as fast as technology when it comes to DNA analysis, Jim Harper, director of information studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Nextgov. “There are still a lot of unknowns. I’m not certain we know what all is being gathered when we examine DNA.” So far, there has been no comprehensive public discussion of what is being gathered, and how it should or shouldn’t be used has not occurred, he said.

The machines are expected to cost about $275,000 apiece, Miles said. “That sounds like a lot of money, but compare that to a laboratory full of equipment that would cost millions of dollars and a building that would cost tens of millions of dollars.”

After the rapid analyzers are in production, he added, the cost is likely to come down.

The Obama administration is appealing the first — and likely only — lawsuit resulting in a ruling against the National Security Agency’s secret warrantless-surveillance program adopted in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks.

A San Francisco federal judge in December awarded $20,400 each to two American lawyers illegally wiretapped by the George W. Bush administration, and granted their attorneys $2.5 million for the costs of litigating the case for more than four years.

Although U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker had called it “unlawful surveillance,” he went soft on the government because the authorities, the judge said, believed they were protecting the country in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Walker did not declare the administration’s so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program unconstitutional, and he declined to issue punitive damages to punish the government for wiretapping in the country without warrants. Instead, the judge granted the two spied-upon lawyers for the now-defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity $100 a day for each of the 204 days their telephone calls were wiretapped beginning in February 2004, an amount they sought. In addition, they requested about $200,000 each in punitive damages, and the same amount to be awarded to the charity — all of which was denied.

The government lodged what is known as a notice of appeal (.pdf) with the judge’s court late Friday. The government has about three months to file its opening brief with the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“That’s when we’ll know for sure what they are challenging,” Jon Eisenberg, counsel for the Al-Haramain attorneys, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Under Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which The New York Times disclosed in December 2005, the NSA was eavesdropping on Americans’ telephone calls without warrants if the government believed the person on the other end was overseas and associated with terrorism. Congress, with the vote of then-Sen. Barack Obama, subsequently authorized such warrantless spying in the summer of 2008.

As part of that program, the NSA in 2004 was intercepting the telephone communications of Al-Haramain lawyers Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, who worked for an Oregon branch of the charity. The plaintiffs learned of the eavesdropping after the government mistakenly sent them records.

Both the Bush and the Obama administrations declared those records state secrets, so the documents were removed from the case. Walker allowed the case to proceed, based on other evidence of eavesdropping.

Source: Wired

An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.

The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport’s body scanners every time she tried, the source said.

“In this case, where they had a test, and it was just a dismal failure as I’m told,” said Larry Wansley, former head of security at American Airlines. “As I’ve heard (it), you got a problem, especially with a fire arm.”

Wansley said covert testing by the TSA is commonplace — although failing should be rare.

The TSA insider who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined. The source said the agents continue to work the body scanners today.

Wansley said that is a problem.

“This was only a test, but it’s critically important that you do something, because if that person failed in the real environment, then you have a problem,” he said.

The TSA did not deny that the tests took place or the what the results were.

The agency would only provide the following statement:

“Our security officers are one of the most heavily tested federal workforces in the nation. We regularly test our officers in a variety of ways to ensure the effectiveness of our technology, security measures and the overall layered system. For security reasons, we do not publicize or comment on the results of covert tests, however advanced imaging technology is an effective tool to detect both metallic and nonmetallic items hidden on passengers.”

TSA agents who spoke to a reporter agreed that the body-imaging scanners are effective — but only if the officers monitoring them are paying attention.

Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation says it has unearthed upwards of 40,000 intelligence violations relating to investigations carried out by the FBI.

In a report released today the EFF says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has “compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed.”

The revelations in the report were unearthed in documents obtained by the EFF using Freedom of Information Act Litigation and show that the Intelligence Oversight Board, which is supposed to protect the public from FBI abuses, takes on average two-and-a-half years to report violations.

The documents have also revealed cases of serious misconduct by Federal agents including perjury, using dodgy evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas and illegally accessing password-protected files without a warrant.

In all, the documents expose as many as 40,000 possible violations between 2001 and 2008.

The report (PDF) is based on close to 2,500 FBI documents sent to the Intelligence Oversight Board, a supposedly independent civilian organisation which is charged with reporting abuses of intelligence powers directly to the President.

The EFF says the report underscores the need for “greater transparency and oversight in the intelligence community” and that it will be sending
Source: thinq.co.uk

For all those conspiracy theorists out there, 2012 just got a little more ominous. As required by legislation passed this last summer, Russia will adopt a universal ID card starting next year. The Universal Electronic Card(UEC) is intended to eventually replace all local, regional, and national forms of ID, providing a central database through which Russians can access everything from medical insurance to ATMs. According to the official website, the UEC will be adopted by around 1000 national and regional services along with about 10,000 commercial enterprises. The mayor of Moscow has already declared it will be able to handle public transportation there, and we can expect similar adoptions throughout the nation. Will all Russians be carrying a single form of ID that is their only passport to all public and private services? Looks like it. A similar project has started in India, and there are experiments for related concepts in Mexico. Universal ID is starting to catch on around the globe. Where will it spread to next?

Ostensibly, the UEC is designed to push the Russian ID system into the 21st century. Not only is the card to provide a way for citizens to easily make electronic purchases (in person and online) it is supposed to cut down on fraud. While it doesn’t seem to include any biometrics, the card has other security measures. All information (whether for public or commercial use) will be stored in a database, not on the card. The UEC will have a number, a ‘passcode’, that points the user to the appropriate record in the database. It’s unclear what kind of readers (RF, magnetic strip, etc) will be able to access the UEC, but the site says that at least one (perhaps the only one ) will be contactless. For financial transactions users will be able to set predefined limits so that the card can only withdraw a restricted amount of funds over a period of time. Each use of the UEC will require the entry of a personal identification number, and get this, everyone will be granted a fake PIN as well! If someone is coercing you into using your UEC, then enter the fake PIN. Authorities will be notified surreptitiously while the transaction appears to be continuing regularly. I’m sure we can think of a dozen ways to get around that, but still, pretty cloak and dagger there, Russia.

Starting in 2012, Russians will be able to carry the UEC and start connecting it to their bank accounts, credit cards, bus passes, etc. Due to the legal mandate most of the businesses and all of the local/regional/national services will be required to accept it. Convenient, yes. Potentially disastrous? Maybe so, but Russia’s not going to be alone in this. India is adopting a universal ID for national identity, and is going to encourage public institutions and commercial enterprises to accept it. That UID, however, will contain some pretty thorough biometrics. Programs in Mexico (powered by a company in the US) will experiment with iris-based identification for public and commercial purposes, albeit on a smaller scale. Universal ID, especially those with advanced security features, seem to be a rising trend on the global stage.

There are some real benefits here. Convenience, certainly. Many Russians simply don’t have a way to make a secure purchase online, and their public system is a warren of overlapping ID cards that require an equally tangled bureaucracy. Properly set up, a UID tied into bank accounts could help you keep track of purchases and manage finances with greater accuracy. Security could also improve, but I think that any such system (even those that employ biometrics) are at best a short step ahead of criminal ingenuity.

I don’t think you have to be a conspiracy nut to notice the dangers either. With a single ID, agencies will be able to track personal activity more precisely. That could mean catching terrorists through financial detective work, but it could also mean a large scale invasion of privacy. Not sure if this is just old Cold War prejudice talking here, but I think Russia’s reputation makes that possibility seem likely.

In any case, whether or not Russia’s UEC proves to be a boon or bane to its citizens, it is certainly coming. And soon. The more often we see universal ID adoption, the more I believe that some form of that technology is going to spread to every industrialized nation around the world. Government or private issue, service or commercial orientated, biometrically enhanced or not – UID is on the rise. Whatever problems or advantages that may cause, we best prepare for them now.

Source: Singularity Hub

Big Brother may already be watching you in the District, and he will soon have a lot more eyes trained in your direction.

The city’s homeland security agency is planning to add thousands of security cameras from private businesses around the nation’s capital and the Metro system to the thousands of electronic eyes that authorities are already monitoring 24/7.

D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency has already centralized the feeds from more than 4,500 cameras operated by the District’s department of transportation and school system. Those feeds are watched around the clock by officials from those departments who sit together in homeland security’s Joint All-Hazards Operation Center.

By bringing feeds from thousands more cameras to the central watching room through links to cameras at businesses such as banks, corner stores and gas stations, the District is joining other big cities like London, New York and Baltimore that in recent years have turned to cameras to fight crime and terrorism. But critics worry the District’s government might be going too far.

“The D.C. effort to link public and private watching capabilities might be viewed as excessive,” said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University who studies the balance between security and civil liberties. “It would make it hard to find a place in the city where people aren’t being watched by cameras.”

“It sounds like Big Brother to me,” Maryland resident James Dewitt said Wednesday on the streets of downtown Washington, referencing George Orwell’s novel foreseeing a society oppressed by a government that tracks everyone. “We’re heading to ’1984.’ It’s 2011, but we’re heading to 1984.”

Robyn Johnson, a spokeswoman from HSEMA, told

The Washington Examiner that “the program has not expanded to include private businesses.” But, “We continue to explore this in a deliberative way.”

A plan for 2011 submitted to the city administrator by HSEMA says the agency plans to centralize cameras at private businesses and those run by Metro and the D.C. Housing Authority. The plan doesn’t have a timeline, and Johnson said there isn’t one.

Homeland security says the centralized camera system is designed to be used to raise “situational awareness” during “developing significant events” like the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

When it was started in spring 2008, the program immediately met resistance from the D.C. Council. Some council members worried that the closed-circuit television system was put together too quickly and without consideration of how effective it would be in reducing crime or preventing terrorism.

At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson, who oversees the homeland security agency, still has those concerns.

“My concern about these cameras has always been that there’s no evidence they reduce crime,” Mendelson said. “If HSEMA intends to put more staff on to monitor these cameras, it would not be a good use of resources.”

Mendelson added that “although one doesn’t have much of a right of privacy on a Metro platform … it could change when you’re inside a bank, and if HSEMA were looking at a bank statement.”

Johnson said the agency is developing regulations to protect civil liberties.

Homeland security currently operates under the same series of regulations the D.C. Council adopted for the cameras used by the police department, which are run separately from HSEMA’s cameras.

Those regulations make it illegal for a camera to be focused on literature being carried by someone in a protest. They also prevent footage from being stored for more than 10 days, unless it captured a crime being committed or questionable police action.

Source: Washington Examiner

Over the years, fingerprinting has evolved from an inky mess to pressing fingers on sensor screens to even a few touch-free systems that work at a short distance. Now a company has developed a prototype of a device that can scan fingerprints from up to two meters away, an approach that could prove especially useful at security checkpoints in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The device, called AIRprint, is being developed by Advanced Optical Systems (AOS). It detects fingerprints by shining polarized light onto a person’s hand and analyzing the reflection using two cameras configured to detect different polarizations.

Joel Burcham, director for projects at the Huntsville, Alabama-based company, says AIRprint could help make authorization more efficient in lots of settings. Instead of punching a keypad code or pressing fingers to a scanner, individuals could simply hold up a hand and walk toward a security door while the device checks their identity. “We’re looking at places where the standard methods are a hassle,” says Burcham. For instance, AIRprint could be linked to a timecard system, he says, to help avoid a logjam at manufacturing plants at the start or end of the workday.

Slightly smaller than a square tissue box, AIRprint houses two 1.3 megapixel cameras and a source of polarized light. One camera receives horizontally polarized light, while the other receives vertically polarized light. When light hits a finger, the ridges of the fingerprint reflect one polarization of light, while the valleys reflect another. “That’s where the real kicker is, because if you look at an image without any polarization, you can kind of see fingerprints, but not really well,” says Burcham. By separating the vertical and the horizontal polarization, the device can overlap those images to produce an accurate fingerprint, which is fed to a computer for verification.

The prototype device, which scans a print in 0.1 seconds and processes it in about four seconds, can handle only one finger at a time. Also, the scanned finger must remain at a fixed distance from the device. But by April, Burcham expects to have made significant improvements. By then, he says, the device should be able to scan five fingers at once even if a person is moving toward or away from the cameras, and the processing time ought to have dropped to less than a second.

Burcham says several potential customers have indicated that a single-finger scanner would be sufficient for their needs—so AOS plans to sell both a single-finger device and a more expensive five-finger device. “We’re looking at having product ready for market at the beginning of the third quarter this year,” says Burcham.

The military has a growing interest in biometric sensors that operate at a distance. The U.S. Department of Defense awarded $1.5 million to Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Biometrics Lab to support development of technology that performs iris detection at 13 meters.

One potential customer for the AIRprint is the Marine Corps. Jeremy Powell, head of identity operations at Marine Corp Headquarters, saw a demonstration of it about a year ago. Currently, individuals entering a military installation must place their fingers on a scanner, with a Marine standing beside them to help ensure a viable print. Powell would prefer there to be a safe distance between the Marine and the person being scanned. The AIRprint device could be on a tripod and connected to a cable that runs behind a blast wall, where the Marine could safely assess the fingerprint result, he says.

AIRprint’s two-meter standoff distance represents more than a technical advancement. “It is a step closer to being able to verify an individual’s identity from a safe distance with or without their knowledge. As with all new technology, the hope is further advancements will follow and increase the standoff distance,” says Powell. “This could potentially allow Marines to positively identify a target before engaging or conduct ‘standoff’ screenings from the safety of an armored vehicle.”

Over the past nine years, the Marines have made increasing use of biometrics to distinguish friend from foe in Iraq and Afghanistan. Says Powell, “It’s actually been very successful so far, and technologies like AIRprint have the potential to make it even more so.”

Source: Technology Review

A proposed unmanned floating airship surveillance system is being hailed by city officials in Ogden, Utah as one way to fight crime in its neighborhoods.

“We believe it will be a deterrent to crime when it is out and about and will help us solve crimes more quickly when they do occur,” Ogden City Mayor Matthew Godfrey told Reuters.

The airship entails military technology now available to local law enforcement, he said.

Godfrey floated the idea of a dirigible in the skies above Ogden for his city council members last week. The council is expected to vote on the measure in coming weeks.

He says the cost of the blimp is being negotiated but said it is more “cost effective” to operate than helicopters or fixed winged aircraft.

“We anticipate using it mainly at night. The cameras have incredible night vision to see with tremendous clarity daytime and nighttime. It will be used like a patrol car. It will be used to go and check things out and keep things safe,” said Godfrey.

One person will be able to operate the system but Godfrey says it will also function on its own with programing directives.

The blimp is 52 feet long, will be outfitted with two cameras, and is capable of flying up to 40 miles per hour at 400 feet above the city.

Officials say the cigar-shaped blimp, powered by electric batteries, can fly for four to six hours before needing to be recharged.

“Once you understand the capability of the technology as well, not only the cameras but the ability to relay that data from the camera down to ground it’s amazing,” said Godfrey.

The blimp is long but narrow and moves quickly and quietly, meaning it should be fairly undetectable, he said.

The blimp is being developed by the Utah Center for Aeronautical Innovation and Design at Weber State University. Researchers say the blimp is a helium filled balloon with a special coating of fabric developed at their center.

“The very lightweight fabric was developed in partnership with the Utah State Legislature who gave us a grant… The air envelope would leak the helium it would penetrate through so it had to be coated,” said Bradley Stringer, research team executive director.

Ogden will be the first metropolitan police force to employ this technology, Stringer said.

The blimp has almost no operational costs and minimal maintenance expenses, he said. Ogden city officials say it will cost about $100 a month to operate but would not comment specifically on the cost of the blimp.

Source: Reuters