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The NYPD is instructing cops to log serial numbers from suspects’ phones.

The NYPD is amassing a database of cell phone users, instructing cops to log serial numbers from suspects’ phones in hopes of connecting them to past or future crimes.

In the era of disposable, anonymous cell phones, the file could be a treasure-trove for detectives investigating drug rings and other criminal enterprises, police sources say.

“It’s used to help build cases,” one source said of the new initiative.

“It doesn’t replace the human element, like debriefing prisoners, but it’s another tool to use that we didn’t have in the past.”

A recent internal memo says that when cops make an arrest, they should remove the suspect’s cell phone battery to avoid leakage – then jot down the International Mobile Equipment Identity number.

The IMEI number is registered with the service provider whenever a call is made.

And that data could allow a detective to match, for example, a cell phone used by one suspect to a phone used by another.

There are limits to the data’s usefulness – all Chinese-made cells sold in India have the same number and some overseas cells are embedded with fake numbers.

Still, civil libertarians are alarmed by the new policy since normally a warrant is needed to obtain information such as calls made or numbers in an address book.

New York Civil Liberties Union associate legal director Christopher Dunn said it appears the NYPD is “taking phones apart to get information” without warrants.

“It’s hard to believe they feel there’s a real need to take out the battery to prevent leakage,” he said. “Instead, it looks like they’re doing this to circumvent the warrant process.”

The cell phone information joins another database of more than 20 million 911 callers that the NYPD has been building. It has paid off.

In one case involving a 911 call, detectives solved a burglary pattern after the suspect left a slip of paper with his cell number on it at a crime scene, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said.

The phone was disposable so no owner information was available, but police were able to track it to the suspect because he had used it to make a 911 call after he was assaulted.

The NYPD started collecting 911 data for incidents involving a police response in 2003. Four years ago, it began putting the information into its new computer nerve center, the Real Time Crime Center.

rparascandola@nydailynews.com

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• By David Kravets
• May 15, 2009  |

SAN FRANCISCO — Setting the stage for a constitutional showdown, the Obama administration dared a federal judge here late Friday to do what no judge has yet done: disclose classified data the government has declared a national security state secret.

The administration urged (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to order such a disclosure in a 3-year-old lawsuit weighing whether a sitting U.S. president may bypass Congress and adopt a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants. Such an order, the administration said, could halt three years of convoluted litigation and force the appellate courts to weigh in on the hotly contested issue.

The classified data in question shows that telephone calls by two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were intercepted by the government without warrants in 2004. Without the classified documents admitted as evidence in the case, the aggrieved lawyers for the al-Haramain charity, which the Bush administration designated as a terror group, cannot establish a legal basis to earn them a day in court.

The eavesdropping evidence in the Islamic charity’s case came to light after the Treasury Department accidentally disclosed a classified document to the plaintiffs five years ago.

The evidence, which the Bush and Obama administrations have declared a state secret, has never been made public. Counsel for the charity lawyers returned the document to the government, but have continued fighting to use the document to challenge Bush’s spy program, which was adopted in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks. Bush acknowledged the program in 2005, and Congress legalized it in July.

Judge Walker has ordered the government twice to work with the plaintiff’s lawyers to craft a so-called “protective order” by which only the plaintiffs lawyers would have access to the document to enable the case to be litigated. There would be no public disclosure of the evidence.

Walker, in January and again in April, demanded the Justice Department, in conjunction with plaintiff’s lawyers, to craft the protective order like those used to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees.

But Walker has never pulled the trigger and actually ordered the disclosure of the documents to the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case.

So in a court filing late Friday, the Obama administration again refused to cooperate in creating a protective order. Instead, the administration challenged Walker to go beyond a protective order and actually demand disclosure of the records.

That would commence the first constitutional showdown surrounding the disclosure of state secrets in a bid to get the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Walker’s decision.

Walker’s earlier orders in the case have not been ripe enough for the San Francisco appellate court to review.

“Accordingly, the government respectfully requests that, before the court grants plaintiffs’ counsel access to state secrets, the court enter an order directing disclosure or otherwise provide adequate notice of any disclosure to enable the government to seek a stay and take an appeal,” Anthony Coppolino, the Justice Department’s special litigation counsel, wrote Judge Walker.

The state secrets defense was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era lawsuit in 1953, and has been increasingly and successfully invoked by federal lawyers seeking to shield the government from court scrutiny. Lawsuits in which national-security information may be divulged are always tossed by judges at the request of the government –- often by judges who never reviewed any classified data.

In this case, Walker reviewed the classified material and said the evidence pointed toward illegal spying.

A George H. W. Bush appointee, Walker has defied the government on state secrets before, but has never ordered the disclosure of evidence the government has declared classified.

He rejected the Bush administration’s state secrets claim in lawsuits challenging the nation’s telecommunication companies’ complicity with Bush’s once-secret electronic eavesdropping program. But Congress stepped in and immunized the telcos from the lawsuits.

With then-Sen. Barack Obama’s vote in July, Congress also sanctioned Bush’s spy program that authorized warrantless wiretapping on Americans if they are communicating overseas with suspected terrorists.

Walker is also weighing a challenge to that immunity legislation.

Jon Eisenberg, an attorney for the al-Haramain lawyers – Wendell Belew and Asim Gafoor — is urging Walker to disclose the information without the government’s consent.

“For this case to resume forward progress, the court can simply adopt a protective order under which the court will afford plaintiffs access to the classified filings,” Eisenberg wrote Walker late Friday.

But if Walker obliges Eisenberg, another constitutional crisis may surface. The Justice Department, in an earlier filing, suggested it may “withdraw” the documents at issue regardless of Walker’s orders.

That’s because the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation material likely remains locked under the control of the Obama administration’s Litigation Security Section of the Justice Department, according to the record in the case.

Last month, the government acknowledged that, in 2005, it purposely destroyed 92 videotapes to cover up evidence of mistreatment of U.S. terror suspects — evidence the American Civil Liberties Union was trying to bring to light in a New York federal court lawsuit against the Defense Department.

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Last week Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea of a mileage tax. “The idea — which involves tracking drivers through Global Positioning System (GPS) units in their cars — is gaining support in some states as a way of making up for a shortfall in highway funding,” reports CNN.

	CFR member and current DHS boss Janet Napolitano rolled out the idea of “enhanced driver’s licenses,” that is to say RFID national ID cards.

It didn’t take long for Obama to reject the idea — at least for now. The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission report rolling out the mileage tax is designed not to foist this intrusive technology on the American people in the short term, but rather get them acclimated to the idea of being tracked and taxed.

“The White House was somewhat premature,” commission Chairman Robert Atkinson told Bloomberg. “It’s absolutely critical that we look at it. The members of Congress that are committed to a robust transportation system are certainly very aware of the risks of that system not having as much money as it needs because of the stated policy of the Obama administration.” According to Atkinson and the panel, the so-called stimulus bill won’t be sufficient to meet highway-funding needs and financing programs in partnership with private companies “can play an important supplementary role.”

Private companies such as defense contractor Lockheed-Martin currently manufacture and profit from red light cameras now going in around the country. Lockheed-Martin not only manufactures the cameras, it also takes a cut from fines issued to red light violators.

“Not only has the sheer number of tickets issued and money reaped increased, but the type of photo enforcement and surveillance the government uses has also vastly increased,” notes the National Motorists Association. “There are red light cameras, speeding cameras, railroad crossing cameras, and most recently face identification cameras. Tampa Bay, Florida is now scanning the faces of pedestrians on the street to compare them to their database of criminals. The Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles is investing in a camera system that will map the face of anyone with a driver’s license thus creating a photo database of the vast majority of their population. How long until the system used in Colorado is married to the system used in Florida?”

Adding GPS tracking to this emerging surveillance network would be a control freak’s wish come true. Obama’s supposed rejection of the GPS track and tax idea is a public relations trick. In fact, the global elite have long planned to impose a high-tech surveillance and control grid on humanity.

At approximately the same time we were told Obama rejected the GPS track and tax idea, CFR member and current DHS boss Janet Napolitano was rolling out the idea of “enhanced driver’s licenses,” that is to say RFID national ID cards.

“Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly,” writes Bob Unruh for WorldNetDaily.

“Enhanced driver’s licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it’s less elaborate than REAL ID,” Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

Globalist servant Napolitano’s idea is a classic bait and switch. The government introduced the idea of REAL ID a few years ago and after this technology was rejected as “flawed” by Congress and a number of states, Napolitano’s “less elaborate” scheme was floated.

Michigan State Rep. Paul Opsommer told WND when he sought an exception to the growing federal move toward driver’s licenses with an electronic ID chip, and he was told that was “unlikely.” In addition, Opsommer was informed that the government is “trying to harmonize these standards with Canada and Mexico [so] it had to apply to everybody. I was absolutely dumbfounded.”

In other words, implementing this intrusive technology — facial recognition cameras, RFID chips, and GPS track and tax — is part of the world government agenda, beginning with the merger of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, otherwise known as the North American Union.

Robert Atkinson was correct when he stated that the “White House was somewhat premature” in its supposed rejection of the track and tax idea. As the banker devised “stimulus” borrow and spend bill flounders — it wasn’t designed to address such problems, but rather hand out pork in the name of political favor and inflate the national debt — and the nation’s crucial infrastructure continues to crumble, the track and tax idea will be forced on the American people along with the RFID national ID card and other control grid schemes.

The global elite will track our every move. Imposing burdensome taxes on us is only part of the agenda. The other and equally important part is the “electronic identification for every adult in the U.S.” (and eventually the entire world), especially those who may attend anti-government rallies.

In the not too distant future, if the effort to surveil our every move is not defeated, merely attending such rallies will become impossible.

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The spy shop that brought you the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program wants to expand its power under President Barack Obama, the nation’s top intelligence chief told Congress Wednesday, in a little-noticed intelligence grab.

While acknowledging that many distrust the agency for its role in eavesdropping, Obama Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair said he believed the agency should expand into a permanent role in handling government cybersecurity efforts.

In essence, his agency’s move is an effort to take the responsibilities away from the Homeland Security Department. The head of Obama’s cybersecurity transition team, Paul Kurtz, said he supports giving the NSA more power in handling cybersecurity.

Blair told a House committee: “The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent.”

“There are some wizards out there … who can do stuff,” Blair added. “I think that capability should be harnessed and built on.”

Some critics have questioned whether the agency is already involved in surveilling domestic e-mail and other correspondence in searching for foreign intelligence threats.

Blair said that foreign countries increasingly post a threat to the US in the cybersecurity realm. The agency, in general, is tasked with foreign intelligence.

“A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure,” Blair remarked. “Cyber-defense is not a one-time fix; it requires a continual investment.”

But he said that the NSA had “two strikes out” for its role in appearing to subvert civil liberties. Many critics say that Bush’s wiretapping program was illegal, because taps did not go through proper court channels.

“The NSA is both intelligence and military, two strikes out in terms of the way some Americans think about a body that ought to be protecting their privacy and civil liberties,” Blair said.

“I think there is a great deal of distrust of the National Security Agency and the intelligence community in general playing a role outside of the very narrowly circumscribed role because of some of the history of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] issue in years past,” he continued. “So I would like the help of people like you who have studied this closely and served on commissions, the leadership of the committee and finding a way that the American people will have confidence in the supervision.”

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President Barack Obama’s campaign theme should have been, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The personality-driven media has juxtaposed Mr. Obama’s pledge to clean the nation’s Augean Stables of rich lobbyists and insiders who profited on special access to the corridors of power; and, his appointments or nominations of delinquent taxpayers to his Cabinet (with jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Service), and appointment of a mega-lobbyist for a defense contractor as deputy secretary of defense.

But Mr. Obama’s more alarming betrayal concerns the imperial powers of his office, which he inherited from the Bush-Cheney duumvirate. He has either embraced or acquiesced in every one of their usurpations or abuses (some perpetrated with congressional collaboration).

Then-Sen. Obama had assailed the Bush-Cheney invocation of the non-constitutional state secrets privilege to block litigation by victims of egregious constitutional violations seeking damages from the wrongdoers. The case of Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian native, is exemplary. He sued a subsidiary of Boeing for arranging flights to execute the Bush-Cheney “extraordinary rendition” program. It entails kidnapping terrorism suspects based on the president’s say-so alone and transporting them to other countries for torture. Mr. Mohammed alleged that after his kidnap and transport to Morocco, “he was routinely beaten, suffering broken bones and, on occasion, loss of consciousness. His clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis. A hot stinging liquid was then poured into open wounds on his penis where he had been cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death.” United States laws make torture a criminal offense irrespective of the nationality of the violator or the place of the crime.

Last week before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, President Obama echoed the position of Bush-Cheney that the state secrets privilege required dismissal of Mr. Mohammed’s suit. In other words, individual constitutional rights of the highest order should be sacrificed on the altar of national security. At the same time, Mr. Obama was deciding to defend the arch-defender of torture, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, from a suit brought by Jose Padilla. The complaint alleges that Mr. Yoo concocted the legal justification for detaining and harshly interrogating Padilla as an “enemy combatant” without accusation or trial. (The United States later recanted its enemy combatant allegation).

Mr. Obama invoked the state secrets privilege a second time last week to block litigation challenging the legality of the Bush-Cheney “Terrorist Surveillance Program” (TSP) that he had assailed as a senator. For five years, the TSP targeted American citizens on American soil for electronic surveillance on the president’s say-so alone to gather foreign intelligence in contravention of the warrant requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Intentional violations are federal felonies.

Candidate Obama faulted the Bush-Cheney reign for tolerating or encouraging lawlessness. The president is obliged under the Constitution to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. Waterboarding has been prosecuted as torture since the Spanish-American War of 1898. Former Republican Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge concurs that waterboarding is torture. Ditto for Attorney General Eric H. Holder. Former President Bush and Vice President Cheney have acknowledged their authorization for waterboarding at least three detainees. The United States torture prohibition makes no exceptions for times of war (although mistake of law is a defense). Mr. Obama, however, has virtually renounced faithfully enforcing the laws against torture (and the criminal prohibitions of FISA and kidnapping) as regards the former president and vice president. Mr. Obama’s inaction is tantamount to a pardon, but which uncourageously evades the political accountability that President Gerald Ford accepted for pardoning former President Richard M. Nixon. Pardons, moreover, require the recipient’s concession of criminal culpability, and prevent the violations from becoming legal precedents that would lie around like loaded weapons ready for use by any White House successor who claims an urgent need.

Then-Sen. Obama descried the Bush-Cheney invocation of executive privilege to prevent former White House officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers from even responding to congressional subpoenas for testimony about the firings of nine United States attorneys. That extravagant and unprecedented claim would have enabled President Nixon to muzzle his Watergate nemesis, former White House counsel John Dean, from testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee about Oval Office conversations implicating the president in obstruction of justice. Mr. Obama, however, is now hedging over whether to defend Mr. Rove’s non-responsiveness to a new congressional subpoena.

President Obama has left undisturbed the bulwark of other Bush-Cheney usurpations or constitutional excesses: the Military Commissions Act of 2006; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008, which eviscerates the Fourth Amendment; the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq concluded by Bush-Cheney as an executive agreement (despite its placement of U.S. troops under foreign command) to evade Senate scrutiny as a treaty requiring a two-thirds majority; and, President Bush’s hundreds of signing statements.

If the American people and Congress do not wake up from their Obama infatuation, presidential powers will soon be indistinguishable from King George III’s that provoked the 1776 Declaration of Independence.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer at Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc., and author of “Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy.”

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Google says it’s a “100 percent opt in” service that only works if you sign up for it, but there’s something fishy about all this they’re not saying: How is it that Google has access to cell phone tower triangulation data in the first place?

A typical programmer (or even a company) can’t simply announce they’re creating an online mapping program and get access to cell phone tower triangulation data. This requires some sort of high-level data interchange between Google and telecommunications companies — you know, the kind of data interchange normally reserved for the FBI or CIA. That Google now has this technology is downright spooky (and “spook” is the right word here…).

Technically, it means that Google engineers now have access to the physical location of virtually every mobile phone user in the country. Even if they’re not making your location public, the point is they could if they wanted to.

There is a way to thwart this technology, of course: Remove the battery from your mobile phone if you don’t want to be tracked. Turning it off isn’t good enough, either: You actually have to physically remove the battery to be sure you’re not being tracked.

A history of your geographic movements?

By the way, remember how the U.S. government once subpoenaed Google to turn over details of 100 million searches? There’s no reason why the government couldn’t one day subpoena Google’s cell phone triangulation logs and request an archived history of the movements of one particular person.

Where were you on December 31, 2008? Google probably has a record of that somewhere. Every store you shopped at, every house you visited and every route you drove to work for the past year has potentially been logged and archived. This is all data that could one day be used against you in a court of law. The data could even reveal you were speeding down the interstate, ignoring speed limit laws.

With Latitude, Google has opened a can of worms into issues of personal privacy and automated surveillance. They’ve also given the public new surveillance tools that people can use to stalk each other online.

Note to husbands everywhere: Your days of “going bowling with the guys” are history. If your wife finds out about Latitude and signs you up, you’re now on a new electronic leash. Forget about calling home every hour — your wife knows where you are anyway! The same goes for wives who want to “hang out with the girls” to get away from a paranoid husband. The era of domestic stalking has been unleashed, and the implications are spooky.

About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He’s also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, Pilates and organic gardening. Known on the ‘net as ‘the Health Ranger,’ Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org

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JaciCee
Daily Kos
January 22, 2009

Ever hear of a Fusion Center?

They are run by the Department of Homeland Security and are locally based across the country.

A fusion center is an effective and efficient mechanism to exchange information and intelligence, maximize resources, streamline operations, and improve the ability to fight crime and terrorism by merging data from a variety of sources.

At first blush this sounds good.  After 9/11 discussions were had about how to streamline communication between local and federal law enforcement agencies.

From the Department of Homeland Security website:

Many states and larger cities have created state and local fusion centers to share information and intelligence within their jurisdictions as well as with the federal government.  The Department, through the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, provides personnel with operational and intelligence skills to the fusion centers.  This support is tailored to the unique needs of the locality and serves to:

help the classified and unclassified information flow,
provide expertise,
coordinate with local law enforcement and other agencies, and
provide local awareness and access.

But, it is being alleged that something has gone wrong along the way.  Fusion centers have now come under the scrutinizing eye of the ACLU, and for good reasons.

Who is spying in your neighborhood?

These centers have been placed in our neighborhoods.  Our local fusion center is located on Bataan Boulevard in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  You can find the fusion center nearest you by clicking on this interactive map. The ACLU has also set up a site that tracks camera surveillance. Video surveillance is nothing new, but:

Video surveillance is not a new phenomenon, but the amount of attention that the federal government has been paying is. In the past five years, the Department of Homeland Security has awarded $300 million in grants to state and local governments, all in the name of public video surveillance.

From the same article:

Meanwhile, a timely University of California study has found that San Francisco’s $700,000 ‘Crime Camera’ program has had no impact on violent crime since its 2005 installation. The study also states that robberies dropped significantly within each camera’s radius, but notes that this finding is inconclusive.

These two paragraphs beg some further discussion.  Is the surveillance arm of the Department of Homeland Security working in conjunction with the fusion center in this California neighborhood?  If surveillance cameras aren’t reducing crime significantly, what other purposes are they serving?

From California again:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of California have filed a federal lawsuit against the FBI and local authorities over the seizure and search of two organizations’ computers, they jointly announced Wednesday.

…

On August 27, 2008, the University of California Police, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI took part in a raid of the Berkeley offices of two politically active groups, Long Haul Infoshop and East Bay Prisoner Support Group (EBPS), seizing every computer in the building, even those behind locked doors, which were opened by force. The raid was conducted despite no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of either organization or any of their members, and the complaint questions the legality of the warrant obtained by authorities.

Why search and seize at the Long Haul Infoshop or the East Bay Prisoner Support Group?  Was the FBI working in conjunction with the local fusion center?  More questions.

The neighborhood spying isn’t limited to California.

From the Washington Post:

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.
…
The records show that undercover agents collectively spent 288 hours on surveillance activities over 14 months from March 2005 until May 2006.

The fusion center in New Mexico is known as a “cut and paste” shop.  Analysts peruse media, in all forms (print and electronic), clipping information that they feel is “important” or “questionable.”  It is also alleged that they peruse the internet.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they were reading this diary, now.

Their peering eyes are looking into the private sector:

A new institution is emerging in American life: Fusion Centers. These state, local and regional institutions were originally created to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Though they developed independently and remain quite different from one another, for many the scope of their mission has quickly expanded – with the support and encouragement of the federal government – to cover “all crimes and all hazards.” The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data, and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.

Legislation has been drafted, and will be presented to the New Mexico State Legislature, addressing concerns over the fusion center in Santa Fe.

A draft of the ACLU legislation, sponsored by Rep. Antonio “Mo” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, would prohibit a law enforcement agency from collecting, maintaining and sharing “with any other law enforcement agency, information about the political, religious or social associations, views or activities of a person unless” they are suspected of committing a crime.

That is the kicker…they aren’t watching American citizens who are suspected of committing crimes. They are watching whoever they want to.

A quick summary:

But in a democracy, the collection and sharing of intelligence information – especially information about American citizens and other residents – need to be carried out with the utmost care. That is because more and more, the amount of information available on each one of us is enough to assemble a very detailed portrait of our lives. And because security agencies are moving toward using such portraits to profile how “suspicious” we look.

American citizens aren’t being spied on just by the NSA.  They are being spied on by the fusion center office around the corner.

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The oversize white envelope bore the blue logo of the Department of Homeland Security. Inside, I found 20 photocopies of the government’s records on my international travels. Every overseas trip I’ve taken since 2001 was noted.

I had requested the files after I had heard that the government tracks “passenger activity.” Starting in the mid-1990s, many airlines handed over passenger records. Since 2002, the government has mandated that the commercial airlines deliver this information routinely and electronically.

A passenger record typically includes the name of the person traveling, the name of the person who submitted the information while arranging the trip, and details about how the ticket was bought, according to documents published by the Department of Homeland Security. Records are made for citizens and non-citizens who cross our borders. An agent from U.S. Customs and Border Protection can generate a travel history for any traveler with a few keystrokes on a computer. Officials use the information to prevent terrorism, acts of organized crime, and other illegal activity.

I had been curious about what’s in my travel dossier, so I made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a copy. I’m posting here a few sample pages of what officials sent me.

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My biggest surprise was that the Internet Protocol (I.P.) address of the computer used to buy my tickets via a Web agency was noted. On the first document image posted here, I’ve circled in red the I.P. address of the computer used to buy my pair of airline tickets.[An I.P. address is assigned to every computer on the Internet. Each time that computer sends an e-mail—or is used to make a purchase via a Web browser—it has to reveal its I.P. address, which tells its geographic location.]

The rest of my file contained details about my ticketed itineraries, the amount I paid for tickets, and the airports I passed through overseas. My credit card number was not listed, nor were any hotels I’ve visited. In two cases, the basic identifying information about my traveling companion (whose ticket was part of the same purchase as mine) was included in the file. Perhaps that information was included by mistake.

Some sections of my documents were blacked out by an official. Presumably, this information contains material that is classified because it would reveal the inner workings of law enforcement.

I have grayed out other parts of the documents because they contain information, such as my passport number, that I’d rather not share. The parts I’ve blocked out are colored gray to distinguish from the government censor’s black marker.

Here’s the lowdown on the records.

The commercial airlines send these passenger records to Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. Computers match the information with the databases of federal departments, such as Treasury, Agriculture, and Homeland Security. Computers uncover links between known and previously unidentified terrorists or terrorist suspects, as well as suspicious or irregular travel patterns. Some of this information comes from foreign governments and law enforcement agencies. The data is also crosschecked with American state and local law enforcement agencies, which are tracking persons who have warrants out for their arrest or who are under restraining orders. The data is used not only to fight terrorism but also to prevent and combat acts of organized crime and other illegal activity.

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Officials use the information to help decide if a passenger needs to have additional screening. Case in point: After overseas trips, I’ve stood in lines at U.S. border checkpoints and had my passport swiped and my electronic file examined. A few times, something in my record has prompted officers to pull me over to a side room, where I have been asked additional questions. Sometimes I’ve had to clarify a missing middle initial. Other times, I have been referred to a secondary examination. (I’ve blogged about this before.)When did this electronic data collection start? In 1999, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (then known as the U.S. Customs Service) began receiving passenger identification information electronically from certain air carriers on a voluntary basis, though some paper records were shared prior to that. A mandatory, automated program began about 6 years ago. Congress funds this Automated Targeting System’s Passenger Screening Program to the tune of about $30 million a year.

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How safe is your information? Regulations prohibit officials from sharing the records of any traveler—or the government’s risk assessment of any traveler—with airlines or private companies. A record is kept for 15 years—unless it is linked to an investigation, in which case it can be kept indefinitely. Agency computers do not encrypt the data, but officials insist that other measures—both physical and electronic—safeguard our records.I wonder if the government’s data collecting is relevant and necessary to accomplish the agency’s purpose in protecting our borders. The volume of data collected, and the rate at which the records is growing and being shared with officials nationwide, suggests that the potential for misuse could soar out of hand. Others may wonder if the efforts are effective. For instance, I asked security expert Bruce Schneier Schneider about the Feds’ efforts to track passenger activity, and he responded by e-mail:

“I think it’s a waste of time. There’s this myth that we can pick terrorists out of the crowd if we only knew more information.”

On the other hand, some people may find it reassuring that the government is using technology to keep our borders safe.What do you think? Feel free to post a comment, below.

Oh, one more thing: Are your records worth seeing? Maybe not, unless you’ve been experiencing a problem crossing our nation’s borders. For one thing, the records are a bit dull. In my file, for instance, officials had blacked out the (presumably) most fascinating parts, which were about how officials assessed my risk profile. What’s more, the records are mainly limited to information that airline and passport control officials have collected, so you probably won’t be surprised by anything you read in them. Lastly, there may be a cost. While there was no charge to me when I requested my records, you might charged a fee of up to $50 if there is difficulty in obtaining your records. Of course, there’s a cost to taxpayers and to our nation’s security resources whenever a request is filed, too.

However, if you are being detained at the border or if you suspect a problem with your records, then by all means request a copy. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is required by law to make your records available to you, with some exceptions. Your request must be made in writing on paper and be signed by you. Ask to see the “information relating to me in the Automated Targeting System.” Say that your request is “made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552).” Add that you wish to have a copy of your records made and mailed to you without first inspecting them. Your letter should, obviously, give reasonably sufficient detail to enable an official to find your record. So supply your passport number and mailing address. Put a date on your letter and make a copy for your own records. On your envelope, you should conspicuously print the words “FOIA Request.” It should be addressed to “Freedom of Information Act Request,” U.S. Customs Service, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20229. Be patient. I had wait for up to a year to receive a copy of my records. Then if you believe there’s an error in your record, ask for a correction by writing a letter to the Customer Satisfaction Unit, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Room 5.5C, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20229.

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• America’s “Money Machine”
• The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
• The Zionist Nexus Linking 9-11 and the Financial Crisis
• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA’s wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with “former” Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation’s security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman;

(Continued below the fold…)

Along with the mass surveillance being conducted on all U.S. users of AT&T and Verizon by Narus and Verint, (according to Bamford), two other Israeli-owned companies, Amdocs and NICE Systems, have their fingers in the wiretapping pie as well.

Christopher Ketcham preceded Bamford in September, with with the article “Trojan Horse”, that focuses on Verint, Amdocs, and CALEA (the legislation which brought all of these problems into existence);

“Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government’s domestic intelligence surveillance technology. Both companies are based in Israel – having arisen to prominence from that country’s cornering of the information technology market – and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence (both companies have a long history of board memberships dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers). Verint is considered the world leader in “electronic interception” and hence an ideal private sector candidate for wiretap outsourcing. Amdocs is the world’s largest billing service for telecommunications, with some $2.8 billion in revenues in 2007, offices worldwide, and clients that include the top 25 phone companies in the United States that together handle 90 percent of all call traffic among US residents. The companies’ operations, sources suggest, have been infiltrated by freelance spies exploiting encrypted trapdoors in Verint/Amdocs technology and gathering data on Americans for transfer to Israeli intelligence and other willing customers (particularly organized crime)…

None of US law enforcement’s problems with Amdocs and Verint could have come to pass without the changes mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which, as noted, sought to lock spyware into telecom networks. CALEA, to cite the literature, requires that terrestrial carriers, cellular phone services and other telecom entities enable the government to intercept “all wire and oral communications carried by the carrier concurrently with their transmission.”

If Ketcham and Bamford are correct, (so far, no lawsuits), then the National “Security” Agency has thrown the “National Security” of the United States under the bus.

Amdocs and NICE

The two companies that should be getting extra scrutiny from 9/11 researchers are Amdocs, and NICE Systems. Both have direct links to 9/11 via the milieu known as the “Israeli DEA Groups”. To date, the best report on the DEA Groups was assembled by retired international lawyer, Gerald Shea; you can download the report from Antiwar.com.

I consider Shea’s report the best so far, because it is high on content, and low on speculation, and, it names names. The content is damning. Consider the following graph from Shea which places the DEA Groups in the same general vicinity as the alleged 9/11 hijackers, in the time period running up to 9/11;

Shea notes the Amdocs and NICE connections in his report;

“Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources–activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey, adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled “DEA Groups.”

One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas,18 was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a “relative”.

Shea makes a distinction between the DEA Groups, and the New Jersey Group detained on 9/11, where two of the 5 Israelis arrested were later identified as Mossad agents. The Mossad connection was discussed on Democracy Now! in February of 2007;

Shea on the Mossad connection, and some more on Nice systems;

“The vans in the operations of both Israeli Groups were able to move about neighborhoods without raising undue concern. The “art students” in the Israeli DEA Groups were using their vans as sometime door-to-door salesmen. The personnel of Urban Moving Systems, the Mossad front, were ostensibly driving about northeastern New Jersey towns in their van (or vans) to help people move—a familiar suburban sight.

With ample room for personnel and electronic equipment, the vans were ideal vehicles for electronic eavesdropping. The extent to which Nice Systems, the Israeli wiretapping company for which Tomer Ben Dor worked (the Israeli with the reference to “DEA Groups” in his computer files) will be a matter for the public inquiry. Nice Systems was ideally suited to provide equipment and expertise to the Israeli New Jersey Group because its U.S. headquarters were located in Rutherford, New Jersey, near the center of the Group’s operations.“

James Bamford was introduced to NICE Systems at the 2006 Intelligence Support System World Conference or informally… the Wiretappers’ Ball, held in Crystal City, along the Potomac. Bamford writes;

“The large Israeli firm NICE, like Verint and Narus, is also a major eavesdropper in the U.S., and like the other two, it keeps its government and commercial client list very secret. A key member of the Wiretappers’ Ball, it was formed in 1986 by seven veterans of Unit 8200, according to the company’s founder, Benny Levin. “We were seven people from the Unit,” he said, “we all worked on a project for more than four years, we knew each other very well. We had very good complementary skills.” Like a page out of Orwell, all their high-tech bugging systems are called “Nice”. Nice Perform, for example, “provides voice content analysis with features such as: word spotting, emotion detection, talk pattern analysis, and state-of-the-art visualization techniques.” Nice Universe “captures voice, email, chat, screen activity, and essential call details.” Nice Log offers “audio compression technology that performs continuous recordings of up to thousands of analog and digital telephone lines and radio channels.” And Nice VoIP “can use both packet sniffing and active recording methods for recording VoIP sessions (both by telephone and internet).”*

“Former” Israeli military intelligence personnel are scattered throughout the high-tech wiretapping industry. And this fact, (along with Bamford’s new book), prompted Israeli journalist Yossi Melman to ask this rhetorical question in Haaretz, “Is Israel’s booming high-tech industry a branch of the Mossad?”.

NSA Domestic Spying Began Before 9/11

The NSA’s domestic spying operation began no later than February, 2001;

“Within eleven (11) days of the onset of the Bush administration, and at least seven (7) months prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, defendant ATT began development of a center for monitoring long distance calls and internet transmissions and other digital information for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The center was put into development by ATT following a proposal by the NSA for the construction and development of a network operations center identical to ATT’s own network operations center located in Bedminster, New Jersey for the exclusive use of the NSA.

The NSA proposal was accepted by the ATT sales division and referred to ATT Solutions, an ATT project development division situated in Florham Park, New Jersey…

Said data center would enable the NSA to tap into any phone line and to monitor any digital transfer of information on ATT’s networks including voice telephone calls, facsimile transmission and all internet traffic.”

The NSA’s early 2001 involvement with expanded domestic wiretapping is confirmed by the former CEO of Qwest;

“Defendant Joseph P. Nacchio … respectfully renews his objection to the Court’s rulings excluding testimony surrounding his February 27, 2001 meeting at Ft. Meade with representatives from the National Security Agency (NSA) as violative of his constitutional right to mount a defense. Although Mr. Nacchio is allowed to tell the jury that he and James Payne went into that meeting expecting to talk about the “Groundbreaker” project and came out of the meeting with optimism about the prospect for 2001 revenue from NSA, the Court has prohibited Mr. Nacchio from eliciting testimony regarding what also occurred at that meeting. [REDACTED] The Court has also refused to allow Mr. Nacchio to demonstrate that the agency retaliated for this refusal by denying the Groundbreaker and perhaps other work to Qwest.

By being prevented from telling his full story to the jury or from fully and properly cross-examining any rebuttal witnesses, Mr. Nacchio has been deprived of the ability to explaoin why – after he came out of the February meeting with a reasonable, good faith, expectation that Qwest would be receiving significant contracts from NSA in 2001 … Qwest was denied significant work…

There was a feeling also, that the NSA acted as agents for other government agencies and if Qwest frustrated the NSA, they would also frustrate other agencies.

As this clip featuring Bamford on Charlie Rose shows (1984), the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community in general would be the “other agencies” in question;

The DEA began to receive reports about the Israelis in January of 2001, with peak activity by the Groups occurring in February and March of 2001;

“In January, 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Office of Security Programs (IS), began to receive reports of Israeli art students attempting to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States. Additionally, there have been reports of Israeli art students visiting the homes of numerous DEA employees. These incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the present. The number of reported incidents increased in November/December 2000, and has continued to date. These incidents have involved several other law enforcement and Department of Defense agencies, with contacts made at other agencies’ facilities and the residences of their employees. Geographically, these incidents are very widespread, ranging from California to Florida. The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. Since April 2001, the number of reported incidents has declined, however, the geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Los Angeles.

The activities of these Israeli art students raised the suspicion of IS and other field offices when attempts were made to circumvent the access control systems at DEA offices, and when these individuals began to solicit their paintings at the homes of DEA employees. The nature of the individuals’ conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli Organized Crime, leads IS to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity. It is believed by IS that these incidents should not be the basis for any immediate concern for the safety and security of DEA personnel, however, employees should continue to exercise due caution in safeguarding information relating to DEA investigations, or activities…

In general, these individuals appear to be organized in teams of 8 to 10 people, with one person described as the “Team Leader”. They are usually encountered in pairs or individually carrying a makeshift art portfolio. Several times, they have, been seen or admitted to being dropped off in an area by the Team Leader, who returns later to pick them up. The females are usually described as very attractive, and all are generally in their early to mid-20s. Most admit to having served in the Israeli Military. This is not surprising given the mandatory military service require in Israel, however, a majority of those questioned has stated they served in military intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordinance units. Some have been linked to high-ranking officials in the Israeli military. One was the son of a two-star general, one served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army, one served in a Patriot missile unit. That these people are now traveling in the U.S. selling art seems not to fit their background.

Their stories are remarkable only in their consistency. At first, they will state that they are art students, either from the University of Jerusalem, or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem. Other times they will purport to be promoting a new art studio in the area. When pressed for details as to the location of the art studio or why they are selling the paintings, they become evasive. Some claim to be the artist who painted the artwork, others claim they promoting the work of others or of Israel. Information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China. When told that they cannot solicit on federal facilities, they will claim that the paintings are not for sale, but that they are soliciting interest in the paintings, either for an art studio or for a future art sale…

When encountered at residences, some of these individuals are persistent in trying to get inside the home. Some have asked to use the telephone when leaving. Some employees have reported that they came only to their house, while others have reported that the students approached the entire neighborhood.”

Questions, again…

Why is NONE of this information in the 9/11 Commission Final Report?

Did the NSA sub-contract NICE Systems and other Israeli wiretappers to monitor the alleged 9/11 hijackers? And does this in turn explain why the Israelis were simply deported for “immigration” violations?

How could the Israelis be in such uncanny proximity with the alleged hijackers without MASSIVE foreknowledge of their plans, identities, and locations?

Is possible collusion between NSA and the Israelis only the tip of the iceberg?** And will further digging reveal operational relationships between the Israelis and other U.S. intelligence services or Private Military Contractors (PMCs)?

Is the “Wiretappers” story merely very complex cover for the actual activities of the Israelis, including far more destructive uses of moving vans?

Or, are stories about explosives being linked to the Urban Moving Systems vans clever disinfo to lead away from HUMINT and SIGINT being conducted by the Israelis?

Were the Israelis merely shepherds, keeping an eye on U.S. intel assets, assets that had been tagged for a future activity?

If the Israelis are our friends… why didn’t they stop the hijackers?

Perhaps the quote attributed to one of the New Jersey Israelis explains it best (see Shea’s memo);

“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”

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The Department of Homeland Security has been given the money it needs to begin turning international spy satellites within the country’s borders, despite lingering fears about the program’s lack of focus and the potential for it to infringe upon Americans’ civil liberties.

After more than a year of delay, Congress quietly authorized DHS to begin sharing data gathered by military satellites with civilian and law enforcement agencies. A $634 billion spending bill signed into law earlier this week provides funds for DHS to establish the satellite surveillance program, known as the National Applications Office, without addressing the myriad concerns about NAO privacy and civil liberties protections that had been delaying its implementation.

Supporters of the program claim, according to the Wall Street Journal, that its scope will be limited to “emergency response and scientific needs,” but civil liberties advocates and some members of Congress fear the door has been open for the highly classified satellite surveillance program to shift into high gear.

“I’m kinda shocked it got through,” Tim Sparapani, an American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist, told Raw Story, saying the spending bill language authorizing the NAO is not “strong enough to forbid what we would want to see forbidden.”

Essentially, the bill only requires the Homeland Security Secretary to assure lawmakers that NAO programs comply with exisiting laws. Congress also has required the DHS Inspector General to provide quarterly classified reports on how much information has been collected by the domestic satellite surveillance, although the bill required those reports be made to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, not the Homeland Security Committees that are traditionally in charge of DHS oversight.

House Homeland Security Committee members recommended the program be put on hold a year ago, when they requested documents outlining its legal framework and privacy protections. Those reports still have not been handed over, and committee members are not happy at the apparent subversion they suffered by Appropriations Committee members.

“It would appear they have not been satisfied in their demands,” Sparapani said of the Homeland Security Committee members who have objected to the satellite surveillance.

Rep. Jane Harman, who has compared the Bush administration’s efforts to expand the use of spy satellites to its warrantless wiretapping program, has been one of the key members attempting to block implementation of the program until all these questions are answered.

“Having learned my lesson,” she told the Journal, “I don’t want to go there again unless and until the legal framework for the entire program is entirely spelled out.”

Lawmakers also have seen a 60-page report from the Government Accountability Office, on the condition they not release the report publicly. Sources described its contents for the Journal’s Siobhan Gorman, who reports that GAO found that DHS “lacks assurance that NAO operations will comply with applicable laws and privacy and civil liberties standards.”

The report cites gaps in privacy safeguards. The department, it found, lacks controls to prevent improper use of domestic-intelligence data by other agencies and provided insufficient assurance that requests for classified information will be fully reviewed to ensure it can be legally provided.

A DHS official told Gorman the department worked hard to include privacy protection and a spokeswoman justified the satellite surveillance’s legality because GAO did not specifically say it violates any current laws.

That justification misses the point, Sparapani says, because GAO simply answers questions posed by Congress, and since its latest report has not been made public, no one outside of the government knows what those questions are.

Besides, he says, it’s not GAO’s job to determine whether programs are legal or not.

“That’s like asking the FDA to talk about Internet communications,” he says.

Raw Story has left a message with DHS seeking further comment.

There are further concerns about whether the surveillance program would violate Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from participating in domestic law enforcement activities. It’s “ridiculous” to think that’s not what would be happening under this program, Sparapani says.

The ACLU is examining all its options in trying to prevent implementation of this program, which has dramatic potential to violate citizens rights, he says, but filing a lawsuit against DHS may be untenable because of the classified nature of the activities and the difficulty in being able to demonstrate any particular defendant was directly harmed.

Mostly, the ACLU will continue to push Congress and encouraging efforts of lawmakers like Harman and Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson to stop the program.

“The Homeland Security Committee has the right instinct,” Sparapani says. “It smells a rotten fish, and the only thing you can do with a rotten fish is throw it out in the trash.”

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1. USA Patriot Act – A 342 page document presented to Congress one day before voting on it that allows the government access to your bank and email accounts, as well as your medical and phone records with no court order. They can also search your home anytime without a warrant.
2. USA Patriot Act II – This one allows secret government arrests, the legal authority to seize your American citizenship, and the extraction of your DNA if you are deemed a potential terrorist.
3. Military Commissions Act of 2006 – Ends habeas corpus, the right to an attorney, and the right to court review of one’s detention and arrest. Without this most basic right, all other rights are gone too since anyone can be detained indefinitely. Now anyone may be arrested and incarcerated and nobody would know.
4. NSPD 51 – A directive signed by George W. Bush on May 9, 2007, that allows the President to declare martial law, effectively transforming the U.S. into a dictatorship with no checks and balances from the Legislative or Judicial Branches. Parts of this directive are considered classified and members of Congress have been denied the right to review it.
5. Protect America Act of 2007 – Allows unprecedented domestic wiretapping and surveillance activities with a reduction in FISA court oversight. Probable cause is not needed.
6. John Warner Defense Authorization Act – Signed by George W. Bush on October 17, 2007, this act allows the President to declare a public emergency and station troops anywhere in America without the consent of the governor or local authorities to “suppress public disorder.
7. Homegrown Terrorism and Radicalization Act – Passed overwhelmingly by Congress on October 23, 2007, is now awaiting a Senate vote. This act will beget a new crackdown on dissent and the Constitutional rights of American citizens. The definitions of “terrorism” and “extremism” are so vague that they could be used to generalize against any group that is working against the policies of the Administration. In this bill, “violent radicalization” criminalizes thought and ideology while “homegrown terrorism” is defined as “the planed use of force to coerce the government.” The term, “force” could encompass political activities such as protests, marches, or any other form of non-violent resistance.

So when you add in:

1. Halliburton Confirms Camps Constructed
2. Halliburton’s Immigrant Detention Centers
3. Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps
4. Halliburton Confirms Concentration Camps Already Constructed
5. KBR awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M
6. This from Halliburton’s own website

It starts to get a little scary.”

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Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy also confirmed that of the 500,000 plus requests, 1,707 were from local councils who have been accused of misusing the idea of the service. The power of surveillance was originally extended to an array of public bodies initially for anti-terrorist uses but things seem to have progressed to a whole new level.

Councils have been known to use the service to track fly tippers and those whom they suspect of evading council taxes. Even though the service only allows access to phone bills and internet page visits, and not actually listening in on phone calls, there are concerns that the so called Big Brother scenario is starting to grow.

When you consider the array of CCTV cameras in the UK as well as the option for public bodies to request permission to spy, the UK has to be one of the most closely monitored states in the world, but is the system being used for its original purpose?

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“[M]ost people would be upset to know that police were spying on lawful citizens and infiltrating peaceful organizations, rather than chasing down real criminals,” said Kucinich in a press release delivered to RAW STORY. “At a minimum, such police spying is clearly a waste of taxpayer dollars and a diversion from the mission of protecting and serving the people.

“I want the subcommittee to determine how widespread these activities are and who ordered them,” the Ohio Democrat and former presidential candidate said.

Kucinich chairs the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The press release referred to reports that Maryland state police officers infiltrated peace and anti-death penalty groups and that private investigators working on behalf of “several large corporations” had surveilled environmental groups.

Such surveillance is apparently not limited to law enforcement and private investigators. In January 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report showing “widespread Pentagon surveillance of peace activists.”

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