We are always warning about police abuse of personal data. Beyond the fundamental privacy violations arising from collecting and storing vast amounts of information about ordinary people, there's the risk that police or contractors will improperly use that data to hurt or blackmail people.
A February 1, 2010 state department cable from the US Embassy in Baghdad shines light on the US military's project to 'secure' Iraq's borders. Besides the thousands of miles of new roads and surveillance equipment to patrol them, a major part of this effort involves the gathering of biometric data from people crossing the border at official entry points.
In a decision handed down Monday in the Eastern District of New York, Judge Nicolas Garaufis sided with privacy rights advocates against the federal government's plea for warrantless access to the historical cell phone location data of a suspect in a law enforcement investigation.
The judge argued forcefully that rapid development and expansion of mobile technology does not give the government a green light to track people's movements without a judge's permission.
We've been aware for some time now of the federal government's use of immigration threats to coerce people, largely Muslims, to inform on their communities. But now we have evidence that the feds are also using their unchecked powers to punish American citizens who refuse to become government informants.
Rania Khalek reports on an extensive Southern Povery Law Center interview with former DHS right-wing terror analyst Darryl Johnson, in which he decries the agency's shirking from its investigations against extreme right-wing fundamentalists. Not surprisingly, DHS' terrorism resources are overwhelmingly directed towards fighting Muslim extremism.
Data collection, sharing and mining firm i2 runs COPLINK software, used by police throughout the nation to share and analyze information. The company just scored a 9.6 million dollar deal with the US army to do the same work for the military.
The Jamaica Plain Gazette (Boston) is reporting that U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) teams used helicopters in drills last month at a Massachusetts elementary school. The Agassiz School, a recently-closed elementary school in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, was the site of secretive military training, disturbing neighbors who said they weren't informed of the impending helicopters and SWAT raids. The Gazette reached out to military spokesman Kim Tiscione: