Suddenly NYPD Doesn’t Love Surveillance Anymore

Law Enforcement Agencies Monitor Our Most Basic Acts. But Try Assigning Them A Watchdog And They Resist With Fury

The Big Brother theory of surveillance goes something like this: pervasive snooping and monitoring shouldn’t frighten innocent people, it should only make lawbreakers nervous because they are the only ones with something to hide. Those who subscribe to this theory additionally argue that the widespread awareness of such surveillance creates a permanent preemptive deterrent to such lawbreaking ever happening in the first place.

I don’t personally agree that this logic is a convincing justification for the American Police State, and when I hear such arguments, I inevitably find myself confused by the contradiction of police-state proponents proposing to curtail freedom in order to protect it. But whether or not you subscribe to the police-state tautology, you have to admit there is more than a bit of hypocrisy at work when those who forward the Big Brother logic simultaneously insist such logic shouldn’t apply to them or the governmental agencies they oversee.

This contradiction is now taking center stage in New York City, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly wage a scorched-earth campaign to prevent the public from being able to monitor its own police force. And in that crusade comes the frightening assumption about how the terms “safety” and “security” are now defined.

To appreciate the rank hypocrisy of Bloomberg and Kelly opposing the creation of an independent police monitor, remember that they are two of the faces of the modern American Police State — and two of the biggest proponents of 24/7 monitoring of citizens.

That is not an overstatement. Bloomberg and Kelly are the proud autocrats who brag of “hav(ing) my own army in the NYPD” and who used that army to spy on peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors. They are the unapologetic masterminds of a surveillance program aimed at Muslim students. They are the unrepentant overseers of the city’s so-called stop-and-frisk policy, which seems to presume guilt, clearly violates civil liberties and disproportionately targets minorities. They are the champions of a Minority Report-esque system to integrate all the city’s cameras for ubiquitous real-time surveillance. They are the happy proponents of intensifying a drug war, again disproportionately against people of color. And they are now floating the idea of using drones to surveil the Big Apple.

As a justification for all of this, Bloomberg and Kelly typically cite New York’s declining crime rates as ends-justifies-the-means proof that their methods work. In this, they are extrapolating William Bratton’s old “broken windows” theory of crime, insinuating that because New Yorkers know they are under such intense and brutal police scrutiny, they are more prone to avoid breaking the law.

Yet, in now opposing the creation of an independent monitor to surveil, analyze and assess lawbreaking by police and municipal agencies after a wave of complaints about alleged crimes, Bloomberg and Kelly are crying foul. Somehow, they argue that their own Big Brother theory about surveillance supposedly stopping current crime and deterring future crime should not apply to municipal officials themselves.

This is where an Orwellian definition of “safety” comes in, for that’s at the heart of the Bloomberg/Kelly argument about oversight. Bloomberg insists that following other cities that have successfully created independent monitors “would be disastrous for public safety” in New York City. Likewise, the New York Daily News reports that “Kelly blasted the plan as a threat to public safety,” alleging that “another layer of so-called supervision or monitoring can ultimately make this city less safe.”

Full Article at Salon

NYPD Officer On The Rights Of The Public To Film

http://youtu.be/BjnxAOd9M4E

FBI's 'National Security Letters' Demands Ruled Unconstitutional

[caption id="attachment_2109" align="aligncenter" width="650"] The Digital Surveillance Culture[/caption]
Via NPR by EYDER PERALTA

A federal judge in California ruled today that the FBI cannot secretly demand data from banks and phone companies in national security cases. The judge said orders that keep those requests secret violate the First Amendment.

NPR's Carrie Johnson filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"The demands known as 'national security letters' became a quick and popular tool for the FBI to gather information without a judge's pre-approval in the years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"The letters give counter terrorism agents the power to get information without notifying the targets of their investigations.
"But U.S. District Judge Susan Illston says those gag orders run afoul of the freedom of speech and the separation of powers.
"The judge stayed her ruling to give the Justice Department time to appeal.
"A Justice spokesman said the department is reviewing the decision."

The Wall Street Journal has a bit more background:

"National security letters date back to the 1980s and were strengthened under the USA Patriot Act, the counterterrorism law put into place after Sept. 11. The letters allow the FBI to get data on phone, financial and electronic records without a judge or grand jury, as long as the head of an FBI field office certifies that the records would be relevant to a counterterrorism investigation. They typically come with strict secrecy orders, barring the recipient from acknowledging the case to anyone but attorneys."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the unnamed telecommunications company that challenged the national security letters statute, said they were "pleased that the court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute."

EFF's Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman added: "The government's gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience."

Wired explains that when the EFF first brought the suit representing the telecom company, "the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure and sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority."

Wired frames the decision as a "stunning defeat for the Obama administration's surveillance practices." They report:

"Illston found that although the government made a strong argument for prohibiting the recipients of NSLs from disclosing to the target of an investigation or the public the specific information being sought by an NSL, the government did not provide compelling argument that the mere fact of receiving an NSL served national security interests.

"A blanket prohibition on disclosure, she found, "creates too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted."
"She noted that 97 percent of the more than 200,000 NSLs that have been issued by the government were issued with nondisclosure orders."

CNET - Seattle Dive Bar Becomes First To Ban Google Glass

Google Glass won't be available to consumers for months, but there's at least one Seattle bar where the eyewear will not be welcome.
The 5 Point, a self-described dive bar in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, posted a notice to its Facebook page this week telling Glass Explorers looking to grab a pint that they will need to remove their $1,500 spectacles. The story was noted today on GeekWire.
"For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the post reads. "And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators."

"I'm a thought leader," deadpanned Dave Meinert, the bar's owner, in an interview on Seattle's KIRO-FM. "First you have to understand the culture of the 5 Point, which is a sometimes seedy, maybe notorious place. People want to go there and be not known...and definitely don't want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put on the Internet."

Full Article at CNET

CAMOVER - Real Life Game To Destroy Surveillance Cameras

Activists in Berlin are teaming up to trash surveillance cameras. Points are given, with bonus scores for the most innovative modes of destruction

The rules of Camover are simple: mobilise a crew and think of a name that starts with "command", "brigade" or "cell", followed by the moniker of a historical figure (Van der Lubbe, a Dutch bricklayer convicted of setting fire to the Reichstag in 1933, is one name being used). Then destroy as many CCTV cameras as you can. Concealing your identity, while not essential, is recommended. Finally, video your trail of destruction and post it on the game's website – although even keeping track of the homepage can be a challenge in itself, as it is continually being shut down...


For those who oppose CCTV, petitions and letters only go so far in the German capital. A group of 40 protesters walked the streets of Berlin for 1984 Action Day (protests against CCTV cameras and other surveillance, named after the novel by George Orwell) in June and pressure group Control Berlin has screened short films documenting CCTV's rise. But Camover's direct-action approach revolves around a small but committed group who call themselves "workless people – we are shoplifters, graffiti sprayers, homeless and squatters". They claim to have snuffed out as many as 50 cameras since the game began a few weeks ago.

Full Article on The Guardian

You can try to check out the site mentioned in the article, but it looks like the German government may be blocking it

http://youtu.be/9GCsd2TJKjQ