Warning to Activists: Agent Provocateurs Want to Make You a Terrorist

Intelhub

J.G. Vibes

For hundreds of years the establishment has used agent provocateurs as a means of discrediting protest movements that spoke out against the injustice that was being perpetrated by the ruling class.

Provocateurs are basically undercover agents, who infiltrate activist groups and try to provoke or push various members of these groups into doing something illegal that they can then immediately be arrested for.

Even if the activists aren’t arrested, the incident can then be used as a propaganda piece against dissenters everywhere.  This is how things have played out throughout the course of American history, and im sure it goes back much further than that.

In the past you could expect one of these snakes to be at protests trying to get people to throw bricks through windows, or even just doing it themselves when all else failed.  This usually supplied the pretext for violent crackdowns on protestors, and a justification for the use of excessive force.

However, in recent years with the general population becoming more discontent, these provocateurs are taking more extreme measures and hatching plots that could get innocent protestors sent away for life, or worse.

I’m talking of course about the fabricated “terror” plots that the establishment has been walking people into since at least the signing of the patriot act.  First these plots were surrounding Muslims on airplanes with fake bombs.  This trend continued for years and resulted in the prosecution of several people.

These “underwear bomber” cases, as they later came to be known, served as the excuse for the expansion of the TSA and the rollout of the radioactive naked body scanners that have become so controversial.

Since occupy wall street became a household name, the government is now turning their attention away from the phoney Muslim threat and towards the dissenters at home who have now been branded “domestic terrorists”.

This past weekend in Chicago, a group of young occupy protesters were infiltrated by a federal agent, who supplied them with all sorts of contraband and then immediately had them arrested.  This set up was nearly identical to one that took place just weeks ago, prior to the mayday protests in Ohio.

The police are putting forward a narrative about violent terrorist masterminds, when in reality it was the undercover agents themselves who put the plot into motion and provided all of the materials.

These incidents should serve as a warning to activists everywhere to keep their guard up and to avoid people who start talking about this kind of sketchy activity.  Many of you reading this probably think that this should go without saying, but it’s become apparent that it is not very difficult for police to ensnare people in these false flag set ups.

This should be an issue that is discussed regularly at activist meetings and occupy general assembly’s worldwide.

While this may seem like a topic that should be unspoken and common sense, it is still one of the most damaging tactics that has been used against dissenters thus far, both in terms of public relations and the toll taken on the lives of those who get caught up in these traps.

As we have seen many times in the past, hurting people, blowing things up and destroying property accomplishes nothing for the cause of freedom.  This kind of behavior actually provides the mainstream media with propaganda opportunities that will be used to perpetuate the myth that anyone who disagrees with authority is dangerous and violent.

As long as this myth endures the public will continue to fund and allow their own enslavement, as well as yours and mine.

From now on we should all be especially careful about the kinds of things that new friends are bringing into our houses.  If someone approaches you acting shady, or offers to give you anything illegal especially related to weapons or explosive material, you need to get yourself out of that situation as smoothly as possible and don’t accept anything that person is going to offer you.

Try to disagree with them as politely as possible if they mention anything about violence, anything that is said to an undercover cop will definitely come back up in court and be used to demonize the accused.

With two cases like this popping up in two different cities so close to each other, it is quite possible that there are undercover units in activist movements in every city, especially the occupy movement due to all of the press that it got last season.

Be careful out there, and make sure your friends and local community members are aware that there has been widespread infiltration of protest movements and that they should be highly suspicious of people who start talking openly about violent or destructive behavior.

Recent sources:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/entrapment-of-cleveland-5-and-the-nato-3-is-nothing-new/

This article originally appeared at Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance

Feel free to email me at jgvibes@aotmr.com with any tips, suggestions or disagreements.

J.G. Vibes is an author, and artist — with an established record label. In addition to featuring a wide variety of activist information, his company Good Vibes Promotions hosts politically charged electronic dance music events. You can keep up with him and his new book Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, at his website www.aotmr.com and facebook page.

The new totalitarianism of surveillance technology

The Guardian

Naomi Wolf

Tom Cruise as John Anderton in the futuristic film Minority Report,
where the advertisements use recognition technology to call out to the shoppers.

A software engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

Yes, I know: it sounds like a paranoid rant.

Except that it turned out to be true. News21, supported by the Carnegie and Knight foundations, reports that Disney sites are indeed controlled by face-recognition technology, that the military is interested in the technology, and that the face-recognition contractor, Identix, has contracts with the US government – for technology that identifies individuals in a crowd.

Fast forward: after the Occupy crackdowns, I noted that odd-looking CCTVs had started to appear, attached to lampposts, in public venues in Manhattan where the small but unbowed remnants of Occupy congregated: there was one in Union Square, right in front of their encampment. I reported here on my experience of witnessing a white van marked "Indiana Energy" that was lifting workers up to the lampposts all around Union Square, and installing a type of camera. When I asked the workers what was happening – and why an Indiana company was dealing with New York City civic infrastructure, which would certainly raise questions – I was told: "I'm a contractor. Talk to ConEd."

I then noticed, some months later, that these bizarre camera/lights had been installed not only all around Union Square but also around Washington Square Park. I posted a photo I took of them, and asked: "What is this?" Commentators who had lived in China said that they were the same camera/streetlight combinations that are mounted around public places in China. These are enabled for facial recognition technology, which allows police to watch video that is tagged to individuals, in real time. When too many people congregate, they can be dispersed and intimidated simply by the risk of being identified – before dissent can coalesce. (Another of my Facebook commentators said that such lamppost cameras had been installed in Michigan, and that they barked "Obey", at pedestrians. This, too, sounded highly implausible – until this week in Richmond, British Columbia, near the Vancouver airport, when I was startled as the lamppost in the intersection started talking to me – in this case, instructing me on how to cross (as though I were blind or partially sighted).

Finally, last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to unveil a major new police surveillanceinfrastructure, developed by Microsoft. The Domain Awareness System links existing police databases with live video feeds, including cameras using vehicle license plate recognition software. No mention was made of whether the system plans to use – or already uses – facial recognition software. But, at present, there is no law to prevent US government and law enforcement agencies from building facial recognition databases.

And we know from industry newsletters that the US military, law enforcement, and the department of homeland security are betting heavily on facial recognition technology. As PC World notes, Facebook itself is a market leader in the technology – but military and security agencies are close behind.

According to Homeland Security Newswire, billions of dollars are being invested in the development and manufacture of various biometric technologies capable of detecting and identifying anyone, anywhere in the world – via iris-scanning systems, already in use; foot-scanning technology (really); voice pattern ID software, and so on.

What is very obvious is that this technology will not be applied merely to people under arrest, or to people under surveillance in accordance with the fourth amendment (suspects in possible terrorist plots or other potential crimes, after law enforcement agents have already obtained a warrant from a magistrate). No, the "targets" here are me and you: everyone, all of the time. In the name of "national security", the capacity is being built to identify, track and document any citizen constantly and continuously.

The revealing boosterism of a trade magazine like Homeland Security Newswire envisions endless profits for the surveillance industry, in a society where your TV is spying on you, a billboard you drive by recognizes you, Minority Report style, and the FBI knows where to find your tattoo – before you have committed any crime: "FBI on Track to Book Faces, Scars, Tattoos", it notes; "Billboards, TVs Detect your Faces; Advertisers Salivate", it gloats; "Biometric Companies See Government as the Driver of Future Market Growth", it announces. Indeed, the article admits without a blush that all the growth is expected to be in government consumption, with "no real expectation" of private-sector growth at all. So much for smaller government!

To acclimate their populations to this brave new world of invasive surveillance technologies, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and and his Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper, both recently introduced"snoop" bills. Meanwhile, in the US – "the land of the free" – the onward march of the surveillers continues apace, without check or consultation.

TrapWire tied to White House, Scotland Yard, MI5 and others, claims hacked Stratfor email

Russia Today

An email hacked from Stratfor that discusses the use of the TrapWire surveillance system has been decrypted, revealing insider claims that the widespread spy program was adopted by the White House, Scotland Yard, Canadian authorities and others.

When WikiLeaks published a trove of correspondence last week reported to be from the servers of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, included in the data dump was at least one email that initially appeared as pure gibberish. The communiqué, sent from Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton to seven other staffers within the private firm, has now been decoded, however, and its content suggests that the TrapWire surveillance program was put into the hands of the most elite and powerful governments and law enforcement agencies in the entire world.

The email, dated September 23, 2010, includes a string of correspondence between Burton and more than half-a-dozen colleagues exchanging information for a full day about how Stratfor is distributing feeds from its TrapWire system and with whom. Although encoded, the emails are encrypted in Base64 format, which can easily be decodedonline. A decoded copy has also been uploaded to the Web by hacktivists aligned with Anonymous.

“Chatted with Mike M, the TW [TrapWire] operator and former CIA crony,” Burton writes in the first email included in the encrypted chain. “He said our feed was taking up 25% of the TW screens inside the client command posts and that the feedback they are getting is that the info being pushed in is more geo-pol centered vice tactical-security.”

“How can we fix?  Who is auditing what is going in the pipe?” Burton asks his cohorts.

Stratfor is reported to have had a contract directly with the developers of TrapWire that allowed them a substantial cut of their profits in exchange for their assistance in promoting their product to high-ranked customers, other emails published by Wikileaks as part of the Global Intelligence Files suggest. One file included in the trove, a partnering agreement between Stratfor and TrapWire’s parent group, Abraxas, provides Burton and company with an 8 percent referral fee for any businesses they help sign on to the surveillance system [pdf].

The first reply to the encrypted Burton email is from Beth Bronder, whose public LinkedIn profile documents her as serving as the senior vice president of government & corporate solutions at Stratfor until November of that year. She was only at the agency for ten months before moving to Bloomberg Government and then the CQ – Roll Call Group, where she is listed as an employee today.

According to the decrypted emails, Bronder says that Stratfor is on top of trying to fix the feed being streamed to TrapWire clients in order to make it more “security focused” per his superior’s suggestion, but when Burton responds with the names of customers involved in the surveillance program, it is no wonder why Stratfor was so eager to entice their buyers with the best material available.

“This audience is the who's who of the CT world,” the email from Burton reads, referring to counterterrorism. “TW has RCMP, MI5, Scotland Yard SO15, USSS White House and PPD, LAPD, NYPD, Las Vegas PD and Fusion, Seattle PD, SEA-TAC…etc.”

Since breaking the news of TrapWire last week, the science-fiction-like surveillance system has slowly but surely penetrated the mainstream media, although few agencies have responded to the attention by addressing their connection with TrapWire. Earlier this week, though, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne flatlyrefuted on behalf of the NYPD to the New York Times, “We don’t use TrapWire.” According to Burton’s claim, however, the NYPD was indeed a customer as of September 2010, as were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British intelligence and the US Secret Service and White House.

Other information collected in the last week have also suggested that the NYPD was in cahoots with TrapWire, but no correspondence is believed to have been published linking the surveillance system with the Executive Branch of the United States or any agencies in Canada. Although an unencrypted email from Burton that was circulated by hacktivists last week includes the claim that TrapWire was installed on the site of every major high-value target in the continental US, UK and Canada, no other correspondence is thought to have put these specific agencies in direct connection to TrapWire.

In the next line, Burton explains that intelligence caught by TrapWire was being fed directly to these high-profile customers, bypassing any complication that could arise by a more bureaucratic distribution. He even acknowledges that problems could be put in play if they relied on sending their surveillance to the US Department of Homeland Security or lesser government agencies.

“Our materials are on their screens INSIDE the walls,” Burton writes. “We circumvent the dysfunctional DHS/DC by having our info already on their 24x7 screen.”

“We need to laser focus pieces to capture their attn.  Maybe even a video,” Burton adds. “Trust me, the agents and cops watching the TW feed WANT something interesting to see.”

In a 2005 interview with The Entrepreneur Center, Richard “Hollis” Helms, co-founder of TrapWire developers Abraxas, says the system “can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition, draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” He calls it “a proprietary technology designed to protect critical national infrastructure from a terrorist attack by detecting the pre-attack activities of the terrorist and enabling law enforcement to investigate and engage the terrorist long before an attack is executed,” and that, “The beauty of it is that we can protect an infinite number of facilities just as efficiently as we can one and we push information out to local law authorities automatically.”

In a unencrypted email from September 26, Burton writes that the “NYPD has done what no US Govt Agency has been able to do” in the counterterrorism arena because of TrapWire.”

Since the TrapWire scandal broke, Stratfor has kept mum on the allegations that they were directly affiliated with a widespread, international surveillance program, and are probably inclined to follow the tactic proposed by the head of the security firm earlier this year. In February, Stratfor CEO and founder George Friedman addressed the hack credited to Anonymous, saying, “Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies,” but, also, “Some may be authentic.”

“We will not validate either, nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questions about them,” Friedman said.

This Is How We Know The Shocking Facts About Spy Campaign 'TrapWire' Are True

Business Insider
Michael Kelley

Last week WikiLeaks published internal emails from the U.S. private security firm Stratfor that describe a widespread surveillance network called TrapWire that was created and is run by former members of the CIA.

RT first broke the story about the system's staggering reach into the privacy of passersby and informative stories followed.

Then several news outlets claimed that the growing dismay was misguided, specifically the claim that cameras linked to TrapWire utilizes facial recognition software.

Ryan Gallagher of Slate said the reports are "rooted in hyperbole and misinformation" and Scott Shane of the New York Times called them "wildly exaggerated."

But one thing – besides the fact that the founder of TrapWire's parent company said the software "can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition" – proves to us that the reporting on TrapWire is rooted in reality: Mickey Mouse does it. 

A Naomi Wolf article in the Guardian about the rise of security cameras at Occupy hangouts and multi-billion dollar biometric technologies industry includes this story: 

A software engineer ... visited Disneyland, and ... the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

It turns out that Disney applies biometrics – that is, the statistical analysis of biological data – in the form of scanning visitor fingerprint information and identifying people with facial recognition software.

In fact, "Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation’s largest single commercial application of biometrics" and after 9/11 the government sought "Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics," as reported in 2006 by Karen Hamel of News 21.

Hamel listed several former Disneyland employees that have gone on to fill "some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence and security communities," including:

• Disney executive Gordon Levin, who was part of a group convened by the Federal Aviation Administration and other federal agencies to help develop a plan for "Passenger Protection and Identity Verification" at airports by using biometrics.

• Eric Haseltine, who left his post as executive vice president of research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering in 2002 to become associate director for research at the NSA and then became National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s assistant director for science and technology.

• Bran Ferren, who served on advisory boards for the Senate Intelligence Committee and offered his technological expertise to the NSA and the DHS.

So if Mickey does it at "the most wonderful place on Earth" – and willingly shares his biometrics secrets with the government – then it's no stretch that TrapWire actively spies on people all over the world.

Suicide Bomber in Khost Targets Biometric Screening Checkpoint?

Empty Wheel

A suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan has caused multiple casualties today. Accounts of the bombing by Reuters and the New York Times have substantial differences in pertinent details, but the Reuters account stands out because it suggests that the attack was against NATO forces using biometric scanners to screen Afghan citizens at a checkpoint:

A suicide bomber struck a security checkpoint in Afghanistan’s city of Khost on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 30, police said, the latest attack to raise questions about stability in the volatile eastern region bordering Pakistan.
/snip/
A witness said that NATO and Afghan troops were using biometric data to screen residents of the provincial capital when the bomber struck.

The photo above is from ISAFMedia’s Flicker feed and demonstrates the equipment used by NATO in collecting biometric data. The caption provided by ISAFMedia reads:

 A soldier from 2nd Platoon, A Company, 1-503rd Infantry Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team enters a member of a private Afghan security company into the Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT) Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE) System near the village of Heyderk Hel, Wardak Province, Afghanistan, Feb.18, 2010. The BAT HIIDE System assists soldiers in community mapping. U.S. Army photo by Sgt Russell Gilchrest. (Released)

The handset used for collection of the biometric data is quite powerful:

With a high-capacity storage of up to 22,000 full biometric portfolios (two iris templates, ten fingerprints, a facial image, and biographic data), L-1’s HIIDE Series 4, or Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment, is receiving praise for its functionality and appeal to Afghanis wishing to have proper identification that would distinguish them from suspected terrorist in question.
The product description on L-1’s Web site reads:

The HIIDE is the world’s first hand-held tri-biometric system that allows users to enroll and match via any of the three primary biometrics: iris, finger and face. The intuitive user interface makes it easy to enter biographic data to create a comprehensive database on the enrolled subject. The HIIDE provides complete functionality while connected to a host PC or when operating in the field un-tethered.

The featured biometric technology is presently being used in a ring of security checkpoints around Kandahar City in Afghanistan, where Canadian operated bases are also being equipped with it. The enrollment procedure is voluntary and takes approximately six minutes to complete. All the biometric information is sent securely to the database of ISAF, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

As Occupy Arrestees Arraigned, Iris Scans Affect Bail

Village Voice
Nick Pinto

Refuse to have your iris photographed,
and your bail could go up.

The first of the more than 70 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested Saturday afternoon and evening were arraigned yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Exhausted by a night and day in jail and shaken by the violence of the police response to Occupy Wall Street's six-month anniversary celebration, many burst into tears of relief when they were finally released to the friendly welcome of the movement's Jail Support team.

Unlike many of the other defendants with whom they shared cells, the protesters could feel confident that they would soon be released -- Occupy posts bail for those arrested during movement actions.

But protesters and their legal advisers were surprised yesterday to learn that the size of their bail was being affected by whether defendants were willing to have the distinctive patterns of their irises photographed and logged into a database.

Police and courts have been photographing irises since 2010, once at booking and once on arraignment. The practice is a response to a couple of instances in which mistaken identity allowed someone facing serious charges to go free by impersonating another defendant up on minor charges.

The idea of the state collecting distinctive biometric information from people who haven't even been charged with a crime yet, much less convicted of one, makes civil libertarians nervous, though, and over the last two years they've pushed back. Unlike fingerprints, they argue, no law was ever passed to require iris photographs -- it's just a policy. And while police regularly tell arrestees that the photographs are mandatory, and that failing to be photographed will prolong their stay in jail, defendants have often refused to comply without serious consequence.


That appears to be changing. Yesterday, a defense lawyer had told Judge Abraham Clott she was under the impression that her client -- not affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, facing charges of marijuana possession -- was not legally bound to submit to an iris photograph. Clott responded in no uncertain terms: Iris photographs may be optional in the sense that the court can proceed without them if it has to, he said, for example if the photographic equipment breaks down. But they are not optional for defendants.

DHS Implementing No Work List: Citizens Must Get Government Approval to Work in Private Sector Jobs

InfoWars
Kurt Nimmo

You’ve heard of no fly and no buy lists – get ready for no work lists. Millions of workers now must apply to the DHS and prove they are not terrorists in order to be granted permission by the government to work. 


On the Alex Jones Show today, a caller pointed to information posted on a union website for ironworkers spelling out details on the Department of Homeland Security’s TWIC and SWAC programs.

TWIC is short for Transportation Worker Identification Credential and SWAC stands for Secure Worker Access Consortium.

TWIC “is a biometric credential that ensures only vetted workers are eligible to enter a secure construction site, unescorted,” Ironworkers Local 361 in Ozone Park, New York, explains. “Before issuing a TWIC, TSA must conduct a security threat assessment on the TWIC applicant. An applicant who, as a result of the assessment, is determined to not pose a security threat, will be issued a TWIC card.”

In other words, construction workers in New York will need permission from the TSA and DHS in order to practice their profession and earn a living. It was much the same in the former Soviet Union and authoritarian states such as China where the government determines all aspects of an individual’s life and where even the mildly rebellious are severely punished.

SWAC is even more draconian. It is “a large-scale collaborative effort among public and private authorities, facility owners, contractors, and labor organizations who are partnering to prevent terrorist activity by creating a trusted contractor community. Over 500 organizations, including the Port Authority of NY and NJ, which manages and maintains the bridges, tunnels, bus terminals, airports, PATH, and seaports that are essential to the bi-state region’s trade and transportation capabilities, have joined this effort,” according to the union website.

SWAC also requires a background investigation by the government, so if construction, port workers, longshoremen, and truck drivers are involved in political activity frowned upon by the feds – for instance, 9/11 truth, considered dangerous and subversive by the State Department – it is likely they will have to find another line of work.

A SWAC PDF specifically mentions “treason” in an exhaustive list of crimes and misdeeds that will result in the federal government denying a person the right to earn a living.

The TWIC Disclosure and Certification form states the following: “I acknowledge that if TSA or other law enforcement agencies determine that I pose an imminent threat to national security or transportation security, my employer may be notified.”

The TSA no-fly list contains thousands of names, including journalists and political activists. If the government determines you hold the wrong political beliefs, according to the TWIC document, your employer will be told and you may lose your job and the ability to provide for your family.

The TWIC application also mentions “treason” and “sedition” as a criteria to put an end to an individual’s employment.

Sedition is defined as overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by officialdom to tend toward insurrection against the establishment. The Sedition Act of 1918 forbids the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces. The Sedition Act was updated on October 26, 2001, when Congress signed the USA Patriot Act into law. In the mid 70s, the Church Committee discovered that the government had carried out an aggressive campaign for decades to neutralize – as FBI director Hoover characterized it – political activity the establishment considered a threat to its monopoly on power.

As noted above, TWIC plans to force an expensive biometric ID on workers. This idea is hardly new. In 2002, the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the Department of Homeland Security in order to get details on then director Tom Ridge’s plan to introduce a biometric national ID card. Ridge and the government have stated repeatdly that “national security requirements would ultimately make such cards a reality.”


Emanuel: Government must prevent people on arbitrary
no fly list from exercising Second Amendment.


Earlier this year, Democrats pushed the idea making a biometric national ID card mandatory for all Americans. “Everyone would have to produce the card to get a job, or keep a job,” the UPI reported on May 9. “On a five-year timetable the biometric cards would replace Social Security cards and would be used to prove eligibility for employment. Card scanners would be issued to all U.S. employers. The cards would at least have the capability of being linked to a central data system.”

New Documents Reveal Behind-the-Scenes FBI Role in Controversial Secure Communities Deportation Program

Uncover the Truth

FBI Views Secure Communities as First Step in “Next Generation Identification” (NGI) Surveillance Project to Amass Expansive Database of Personal Biometric Information

Opt-Out Policy for Secure Communities Set by Obscure FBI Panel, Not by Law

July 6, 2011, New York and Washington – Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Cardozo Law School Immigration Justice Clinic show that the controversial Secure Communities deportation program (S-Comm), designed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target people for deportation, is also a key component of a little-known FBI project to accumulate a massive store of personal biometric information on citizens and non-citizens alike.

According to the documents, S-Comm is “only the first of a number of biometric interoperability systems being brought online by the FBI ‘Next Generation Identification’ (NGI) project.” NGI will expand the FBI’s existing fingerprint database to add iris scans, palm prints, and facial recognition information for a wide range of people.

Jessica Karp of NDLON explained: “NGI is the next generation Big Brother. It’s a backdoor route to a national ID, to be carried not in a wallet, but within the body itself.  The FBI’s biometric-based project is vulnerable to hackers and national security breaches and carries serious risks of identity theft. If your biometric identity is stolen or corrupted in NGI, it will be hard to fix. Unlike an identity card or pin code, biometrics are forever.”

The misrepresentations ICE used to sell S-Comm to states have been well documented and are currently the subject of a DHS Office of the Inspector General investigation.  But to date, the FBI’s role in S-Comm has not been scrutinized, although the FBI has come under fire recently for adopting new, generalized policies that permit intrusive, suspicionlesssurveillance without adequate oversight.
Said Bridget Kessler of the Cardozo Law School Immigration Justice Clinic: “These documents provide a fascinating glimpse into the FBI’s role in forcing S-Comm on states and localities. The FBI’s desire to pave the way for the rest of the NGI project seems to have been a driving force in the policy decision to make S-Comm mandatory. But the documents also confirm that, both technologically and legally, S-Comm could have been voluntary.”

Although the documents obtained raise many more questions than answers about the FBI’s involvement in S-Comm and S-Comm’s place in the broader NGI project, they do reveal the following key facts:

The CJIS Advisory Board, which oversees the FBI’s criminal databases, passed a motion in June 2009 to recommend that the FBI convert S-Comm from a voluntary to a mandatory program at the local level.  At that time – and as much as one year later – ICE was still representing S-Comm as voluntary to state and local officials.

Despite Previous Reassurances by Janet Napalitano and Homeland Security, Incident Rates of Cancer Surge in TSA Employees

PrisonPlanet

FOIA documents reveal how “large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease”

 Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.

In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”

Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.

As we reported yesterday, newly released internal government documents, obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, reveal that the TSA, and specifically the head of the Department of Homeland Security, “publicly mischaracterized” the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in stating that NIST had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

In erroneously citing both NIST and the Johns Hopkins school of medicine to claim that the body scanners are safe, the TSA has also deliberately misled the public on the dangers posed by the devices.
Documents obtained by EPIC show that, far from affirming their safety, NIST warned that airport screeners should avoid standing next to full body scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”

Further documents illustrate how a Johns Hopkins study actually revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit,” contradicting repeated claims by the TSA that Johns Hopkins had validated the safety of the devices.

At the time we pointed out that Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine had publicly stated two days previously that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.

Rand Paul Reminds Homeland Security about the Embedded Constitutional Right to Travel

Formal calls for probe into reporter's name on no-fly list

CNN

A House representative said Thursday she is requesting an investigation after learning a CNN reporter was put on the federal no-fly list shortly after his investigation of the Transportation Security Administration.

Michael Chertoff:  Has a stake in the TSA machines

Sheila Jackson Lee

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about "a curious and interesting and troubling phenomenon" that CNN Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin was added to the list.

"My question is, why would Drew Griffin's name come on the watch list, post-his investigation of TSA?" Jackson Lee said.

"What is the basis of this sudden recognition that Drew Griffin is a terrorist? Are we targeting people because of their critique or criticism?"

In response, Chertoff said it was "not my understanding the reporter was put on," but that Griffin may share a name with someone put on the list.

"We do have circumstances where we have name mismatches," he said.
Griffin learned in May he was on the list, about two months after he reported on the federal air marshals program.

In a March story, Griffin reported that of the 28,000 commercial flights taking off in the United States every day, fewer than 1 percent have on-board, armed federal air marshals on board.
In response to Griffin's story, TSA said on its Web site that it would not disclose the number of air marshals flying on a daily basis so as not to "tip our hand to terrorists."

"The actual number of flights that air marshals cover is thousands per day," read a statement on the Web site.

Jackson Lee said she was using Griffin as an example. Committee members noted during the meeting that Congressman John Lewis, D-Georgia, is also on the no-fly list and has been trying for years to get removed.

"He's still having trouble," said committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, showing a letter from Lewis.

"And according to this letter, it's still not happening," Thompson said, "even to the point that the department gave him a letter attesting that he was John Lewis and he should be allowed to get on planes."

He asked Chertoff to "find out how many other John Lewises are out there, who are having difficulty explaining to the department who they are so they can get off this no-fly list. We see more and more of it happening and I know Sen. Kennedy had a problem with it, and for whatever reason it was worked out."

Chertoff said he would be "happy" to help Lewis in his efforts to get removed from the list.

House votes to expand national DNA arrest database

cnet news

Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults "arrested for" certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.

"We should allow law enforcement to use all the technology available to them...to reduce expensive and unjust false convictions, bring closure to victims by solving cold cases, better identify criminals, and keep those who commit violent crime from walking the streets," said Rep. Harry Teague, the New Mexico Democrat who sponsored the bill.

But civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes, and argue that if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted.

"It's wrong to treat someone as guilty before they're convicted," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. "It inverts the concept of innocent until proven guilty."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership scheduled Tuesday's debate on the bill--called the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010--using a procedure known as the "suspension calendar" intended to be reserved for non-controversial legislation.

"Suspension of the rules is supposed to be for praising the winner of the NCAA championship or renaming Post Offices," Harper says. "Things like collecting Americans' DNA are supposed to be fully debated in Congress."

In a surprise move, as the U.S. Congress was expanding the FBI's DNA database, the U.K.'s new coalition government was pledging sharp curbs on its own databases.

Created in the mid-1990s, the UK National DNA Database originally was supposed to store data on convicted criminals, but grew to include records on more than 5 million Britons, including many who were only arrested on suspicion of a crime.

U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg promised once-in-a-century privacy reforms in a speech on Wednesday: "We won't hold your Internet and e-mail records when there is just no reason to do so. CCTV will be properly regulated, as will the DNA database, with restrictions on the storage of innocent people's DNA. Britain must not be a country where our children grow up so used to their liberty being infringed that they accept it without question."

Background

The United States has followed a similar pattern: first, DNA was collected from convicted criminals, and then the practice was expanded to sweep in Americans arrested on suspicion of a crime.

A 2000 federal law called the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act required that DNA samples be taken from anyone convicted of or on probation for certain serious crimes. This was challenged in court on Fourth and Fifth Amendment grounds, but a federal appeals court upheld (PDF) the DNA collection requirement as constitutional.

A second bill that President Bush signed in January 2006 said any federal police agency could "collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested." Anyone who fails to cooperate is, under federal law, guilty of an additional crime.

In addition, federal law and subsequent regulations from the Department of Justice authorize any means "reasonably necessary to detain, restrain, and collect a DNA sample from an individual who refuses to cooperate in the collection of the sample." The cheek swab or blood tests can be outsourced to "private entities."

A May 2009 ruling from a federal judge in California was the first decision to say that police can forcibly take DNA samples from Americans who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime. U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows said the requirement of DNA-sampling felony arrestees did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable searches and seizures"--but noted that he took no position on whether or not DNA sampling for misdemeanor offenses was reasonable and constitutional.

But that law applied only to federal agencies, and the bill approved this week would provide a strong incentive for state and local governments to follow suit.

If states do follow suit, it's difficult to overstate how many more DNA samples would flood into the FBI's Convicted Offender DNA Index System (CODIS) database. Federal agencies arrested about 133,000 people in 2004, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute under a Justice Department grant.

But local and state governments arrested nearly 14 million Americans that year, not counting traffic offenses, according to FBI data.

Rep. Teague's proposal would extend DNA sampling and testing to anyone arrested on suspicion of burglary or attempted burglary; aggravated assault; murder or attempted murder; manslaughter; sex acts that can be punished by imprisonment for more than one year; and sex offenses against minors. The attorney general would be required to report to Congress which states have and have not signed up for the DNA database.

Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), a former sheriff who spoke on the House floor in favor of the bill, said the measure is supported by the National Sheriffs' Association, the National District Attorney's Association, and the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN).

The legislation would allow states to receive 15 percent "bonuses" from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. The program gave out $165 million in local funding and $318 million in state funding for fiscal year 2009, not counting stimulus grants.

"We're strongly opposed to expanding collection," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. He suggested the U.S. should follow the lead of the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled two years ago that holding DNA samples from people arrested but not convicted of a crime violates their privacy rights.