Frank Bajak And Jack Gillum, Phys.org: Snapping up cheap spy tools, nations 'monitoring everyone'
Governments known to stifle dissent with imprisonment and beatings or otherwise abuse their power are buying cheap, off-the-shelf surveillance software that can monitor the phone conversations and track the movements of thousands of their citizens, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Such so-called "lawful intercept" software has been available for years to Western police and spy agencies and is now easily obtained by governments that routinely violate basic rights—outside a short blacklist that includes Syria and North Korea. For less than the price of a military helicopter, a country with little technical know-how can buy powerful surveillance gear.
Domestic spy operations rely upon companies like the Israeli-American firm Verint Systems, which has customers in more than 180 countries. Verint has also supplied U.S. law-enforcement agencies, including those that target drug traffickers in Mexico and Colombia.
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WNU Editor: I am even surprised by how cheap these "spy tools" are becoming. It is only a question of time before this technology becomes available (and affordable) to businesses and retail consumers .... if not already. An AP version of this same story can be read here.
5 comments:
As much as I hear about Big Brother spying on everyone, I have never heard of a single case where this information is used to come after anyone in the United States. It's a boogeyman in the closet
Big Brother is now in a cubicled boardroom, all governments exist in this boardroom, and assess their citizens for their own purposes. The more corrupted the government, the more license they take in using their surveillance toys.
To say that OUR Big Brother never uses these techniques and technologies at the level of local, state and Federal law enforcement is naive.
In my estimation, a government which protects the homeland from 'nasties' within and from without, is only doing its due diligence on the part of its citizens.
It is in part, this thin thread of electrons, which allow for a generally orderly and safe environment.
It is the laws and the leadership at each level or the corruption thereof, which will determine the proper use or the misuse of these technologies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/04/baltimore-cases-overturned-police-secret-stingray-surveillance
>>More than 2,000 cases could be overturned in Baltimore as the first motion for a retrial is filed accusing the state’s attorney’s office and the police of “deliberate and wilful misrepresentation” of the use of the secret surveillance equipment known as Stingrays.<<
Thank you for sharing that article. Real oversight and clear limitations on police surveilling must be in place and practiced.
It is obvious that is not the case.
It never was the case.
>>COINTELPRO (a portmanteau derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations.[3]<<
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
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