Surveillance

Spying On Americans: Infamous 1970s White House Plan For Protest Surveillance

June 29, 2020 By John Prados and Luke A. Nichter, National Security Archive. Educate! FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Surveillance

Portions of a long-secret government blueprint for expansive surveillance of domestic protest movements during the Nixon presidency have just been released, more than 50 years after it was drafted. The notorious “Huston Plan” prepared by representatives of the White House and the U.S. intelligence community envisioned a smorgasbord of covert operations that made even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover queasy. The proposed activities ranged from monitoring domestic dissident groups — notably the Black Panthers — to office break-ins. This is the first time the document has been released on its own and with this amount of text declassified, it features more than two dozen additional documents from the FBI, CIA and other sources — as well as audio recordings from the Nixon Tapes — most of them obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and posted for the first time.

Secretive Police Unit Gathers Information On Maine Citizens

June 27, 2020 Megan Gray, Press Herald. Educate! Activism, Maine, Police, Surveillance

A secretive unit of the Maine State Police does gather information about groups and organizations even when they are not suspected of crimes, including people who are participating in protests, a top law enforcement official told lawmakers Wednesday. Michael Sauschuck, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, testified at a joint legislative hearing about the Maine Intelligence and Analysis Center, which is at the center of a federal whistleblower lawsuit filed by a state trooper. The trooper had been assigned to the center and says he was retaliated against after reporting that the intelligence unit illegally used surveillance tools to monitor innocent citizens. Those allegations raised concerns among lawmakers and civil liberties advocates and prompted groups that were allegedly targeted by the center’s surveillance to demand details about the activities.

Black Activists Expose The FBI Targeting Their Movements

June 22, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Black Activists, Facial Recognition, FBI, Surveillance

In 2017, a leak from the FBI revealed they were targeting black activists organizing to end racist policies and practices calling them "Black Identity Extremists." This is consistent with the FBI's long history of investigating and harassing black and brown activists. Organizations like Media Justice and the ACLU have been working to get information from the FBI about what they are doing and who they are targeting but the FBI has been putting barriers in their way. We speak with Myaisha Hayes of Media Justice about what they have learned so far and its impact on activists. Hayes also discusses their efforts to urge Congress to stop federal funding for surveillance of people exercising their constitutional rights and to educate activists about ways to protect themselves.

FBI Misled Congress: Black Activists Still Under Investigation

June 17, 2020 Media Justice. Educate! Black Activists, Congress, FBI, Surveillance

As Black activists around the country lead protests for racial justice, following the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people, MediaJustice and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is still surveilling Black activists using a dated designation they testified to Congress was no longer in use. Of one million pages of documents, responsive to a FOIA request filed by MediaJustice and the ACLU, up to one-third of the pages are on open investigations of Black people as “domestic terrorist” threats for potential “Black identity” activities. Today, more than 100 civil rights organizations sent a letter urging Congress to cease federal funding for surveillance technologies, known to be disproportionately deployed in communities of color.

Infiltrating Antifa: The Feds And Their Long History Of Subversion

June 15, 2020 By T.J. Coles, Counterpunch. Educate! AntiFa, Infiltration, Police, Surveillance

Antifa is a leaderless, direct action platform, making it unusually easy for police, intelligence groups, and rival organizations to infiltrate and frame for violence. For example, on the same day that Trump tweeted his wish to see Antifa banned, a livestreamer was forced to run away after he incited a New York BLM group to “flip” over a truck before the crowd called him out. So, let’s see how the federal authorities infiltrate, provoke, and subvert. As usual, the state is the most violent of all the institutions involved. It subverts and oppresses as methods of its survival. The state typically directs its energy against left-wing groups while allying with far-right and fascist elements as proxies against progressives. None of this can be uttered in mainstream media, lest one is accused of conspiracy theorizing. Grassroots activists, on the other hand, are all-too-aware of these tactics.

Authorities Seize Masks Oakland Printer Made For Protesters

June 6, 2020 Martha Ross, Mercury News. Educate! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Post Office, Rebellion2020, Surveillance

The family that owns an Oakland screen printing business said they feel “angry, concerned and threatened” after they learned that cloth masks they made for protests around the country were temporarily seized by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which suspected they might be “non-mailable matter.” Rene Quinonez of Movement Ink in Oakland said he and his family stayed up late and worked for several days to produce 2,500 masks, which read “Stop killing Black people” or “Defund police.” The masks had been ordered by The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organized, to distribute to protesters in New York City, Washington D.C, St. Louis and Minneapolis.

New Court Files Expose Sheldon Adelson’s Security Team In US Spy Operation Against Julian Assange

May 16, 2020 Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone. Educate! CIA, Julian Assange, Surveillance, Wikileaks

As the co-founder of a small security consulting firm called UC Global, David Morales spent years slogging through the minor leagues of the private mercenary world. A former Spanish special forces officer, Morales yearned to be the next Erik Prince, the Blackwater founder who leveraged his army-for-hire into high-level political connections across the globe. But by 2016, he had secured just one significant contract, to guard the children of Ecuador’s then-President Rafael Correa and his country’s embassy in the UK. The London embassy contract proved especially valuable to Morales, however. Inside the diplomatic compound, his men guarded Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, a top target of the US government who had been living in the building since Correa granted him asylum in 2012. It was not long before Morales realized he had a big league opportunity on his hands.

Scheer Intelligence: Governments Are Using Coronavirus To Usher In A New Era Of Mass Surveillance

April 24, 2020 Robert Scheer, KCRW.com. Educate! Civil Rights, COVID-19, Government, Podcast, Surveillance

On this week’s installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” host Robert Scheer speaks with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Adam Schwartz. The civil rights lawyer, who spent two decades at the ACLU, explains why Americans should be incredibly alarmed at how the pandemic could be used to chip away at whatever is left of their civil liberties under the excuse of contact-tracing. “You've raised some cautions about the blank check we're giving every government in the world to engage and increase surveillance, to track down people on the contact list, and so forth,” Scheer tells Schwartz, “But what I don't understand is the basic justification of keeping this all secret rather than transparent. Because we don't have an enemy, this ‘invisible enemy’ that Donald Trump talks about, that cares to translate, to read, to break codes.”

Covid-19 Is Bringing Us Into A Hyper-Surveilled, Highly Policed Fascist Dystopia

April 16, 2020 Rainer Shea, SeeYouIn2020. Create! Civil Rights, COVID-19, Fascism, Surveillance

We must understand that the crisis we’ve entered into will never end, at least not for as long as our neoliberal capitalist system isn’t replaced with a socialist model. In the U.S., as well as the other countries where austerity has wrecked healthcare systems, Covid-19 is going to cause societal disruptions for years as the virus partially subsides and then regrows. So will be the case for the other pandemics that are sure to emerge in the coming years due to global warming and ecological degradation. This is aside from the collapse of the economy, which is going to put the capitalist world in a general state of crisis throughout the coming years and decades. Amid this new normal where the U.S./NATO empire is fighting a war on viruses, in addition to a war on terror, a war of great power conflict with Russia and China, a war on immigrants, a war on dissent, and a war on communism, the repression we’ve seen during these last two decades since 9/11 will look mild compared to what’s coming next.

On Contact: CIA’s Intelligence Coup

April 15, 2020 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Chris Hedges, CIA, NSA, Surveillance

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to intelligence analyst and NSA whistleblower William Binney about the Washington Post’s revelations over the CIA and West German intelligence (BND) setting up a Swiss company, Crypto AG, to sell encrypted machines to more than 120 governments worldwide. From 1970 through to 2018, the CIA intercepted foreign government communications. Among the countries buying the machines were France, Iran, the Vatican, and Venezuela. “It was the intelligence coup of the century,” stated the CIA’s own report on the program. Russia and China did not buy the service.

The EARN IT Bill Is the Government’s Plan To Scan Every Message Online

March 20, 2020 By Joe Mullin, Eff.org Educate! Reform, Repression, Surveillance

That’s what the Senate Judiciary Committee has proposed and hopes to pass into law. The so-called EARN IT bill, sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), will strip Section 230 protections away from any website that doesn’t follow a list of “best practices,” meaning those sites can be sued into bankruptcy.

Assange: Empire Of Surveillance And Imperialism

March 4, 2020 Katu Arkonada, La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano Educate! Imperialism, Julian Assange, Surveillance

The trial against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a perfect metaphor for how United States imperialism operates in the world today. The Armed Forces, the Department of State, and the CIA caused thousands of deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria, but it’s the person who showed to the world those crimes who is going to be sentenced to 175 years in prison for 18 crimes...

Backlash Forces UCLA To Abandon Plans For Facial Recognition Surveillance

February 23, 2020 Fight for the Future, Medium.com. Resist! Education, Facial Recognition, Surveillance

UCLA is known for its strong academics and winning sports teams. But the school almost became known for something far more sinister: as the first university in the United States actively planning to use facial recognition surveillance on campus. Today, in a major victory for the movement against facial recognition, our Deputy Director Evan Greer received a statement directly from the UCLA’s Administrative Vice Chancellor saying that the school is abandoning its plan in the face of community backlash in the lead up to a national day of action on March 2 to ban facial recognition from campus. “We are beyond excited by the potential agenda-setting a top school like UCLA might bring about nationwide through the prohibition of facial recognition software and through listening to the students, workers, faculty and local community,” said Matthew William Richard, a 3rd year Political Science Major at UCLA and Vice-Chair of the Campus Safety Alliance.

Forty Organizations Call For Ban On Facial Recognition On College Campuses

February 20, 2020 Fight for the Future, Medium.com. Resist! Facial Recognition, Privacy, Students, Surveillance

On behalf of leading consumer, privacy, and civil liberties organizations, we are calling on administrations to commit to not using facial recognition technology (for non-personal reasons, e.g. when used to unlock personal phones) in schools. This invasive and biased technology inherently violates the liberty and the rights of students and faculty and has no place in our educational institutions. Facial recognition technology isn’t safe. It’s biased and is more likely to misidentify students of color, which can result in traumatic interactions with law enforcement, loss of class time, disciplinary action, and potentially a criminal record. The data collected is vulnerable to hackers, and we’ve seen that schools are ill-equipped to safeguard this data.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources