Chief Justice John Roberts is even more powerful than you might think, said Ezra Klein. In addition to presiding over the Supreme Court, Roberts also has the “exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime power to shape the surveillance state.” It’s a little known fact that the chief justice appoints all 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance […]
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The Chinese government has revealed that it has a nationwide surveillance system to track dissidents, and it bears the same name as the evil computer network that tries to destroy humanity in the Terminator movies. Skynet, begun in 2005, has at least 20 million cameras installed across the country in public places, including on buses and streets, and outside dissidents’ […]
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Hey, corporations destroying the planet: If you’ve been getting away with illegally logging forests, dumping waste, or overfishing, you might want to reconsider your actions. A new generation of high-tech detectives has traded in their spyglasses for surveillance that’s, shall we say, a little more 21st century — and they think they can catch you red-handed.Fast Company reports that “A growing […]
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Drone warfare is now coming to your own backyard, said Glenn Greenwald. Local police have begun using unmanned Predator drones like those used in Afghanistan and Pakistan to conduct surveillance of criminal suspects right here in the U.S. This chilling step toward “a Surveillance State”—without the public’s knowledge or consent— was revealed last week by the Los Angeles Times, which […]
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At the edge of an alfalfa field outside Grand Junction, Colorado Deputy Sheriff Derek Johnson squints at a speck crawling across the brilliant, hazy sky. It’s not a vulture or crow but a Falcon, a new brand of drones, and Johnson is flying it. The sheriff’s office here in Mesa County, a plateau of farms and ranches, is weighing the […]
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What happened to the Conservatives’ promise to roll back the surveillance state? said James Ball. The British are already the most-spied-upon people on the planet, with hundreds of thousands of video cameras recording our comings and goings. Junior-level bureaucrats have the authority to “ping” our mobile phones to find out where we are at any given moment. Now they also […]
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