CCTV cameras, converted to read ANPR data, capturing people’s movement. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Reuters
The police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys for up to five years, the Guardian has learned.
Paul Lewis on police plans to store car surveillance records Link to this audio
A national network of roadside cameras will be able to “read” 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.
Police have been encouraged to “fully and strategically exploit” the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.
But it has raised concerns from civil rights campaigners, who question whether the details should be kept for so long, and want clearer guidance on who might have access to the material.
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department made public on Friday a plan to expand the tools the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use to investigate suspicions of terrorism inside the United States, even without any direct evidence of wrongdoing.
Justice Department officials said the plan, which is likely to be completed by the end of the month despite criticism from civil rights advocates, is intended to allow F.B.I. agents to be more aggressive and pre-emptive in assessing possible threats to national security.
It would allow an agent, for instance, to pursue an anonymous tip about terrorism by conducting an undercover interview or watching someone in a public place. Such steps are now prohibited unless there is more specific evidence of wrongdoing.
Telford Town Park in Shropshire, where council workers have been told to confront lone adults in the park to check if they are paedophiles
Park wardens have been ordered to stop and interrogate anyone who is not accompanied by children.
The visitors who are quizzed have to explain their presence and risk being thrown out or reported to police if their answers are not satisfactory.
The policy has been introduced at Telford Town Park in Shropshire. The council which manages the 420-acre area says it is a ‘commonsense approach’ aimed at safeguarding children.
But park users accused it of ‘authoritarian madness’ and said the ruling risked panicking parents about the dangers faced from potential paedophiles.
There are various other satellite powers, such as manipulating electronic instruments and appliances like alarms, electronic watches and clocks, a television, radio, smoke detector and the electrical system of an automobile. For example, the digital alarm on a watch, tiny though it is, can be set off by a satellite from hundreds of miles up in space. And the light bulb of a lamp can be burned out with the burst of a laser from a satellite. In addition, street lights and porch lights can be turned on and off at will by someone at the controls of a satellite, the means being an electromagnetic beam which reverses the light’s polarity. Or a lamp can be made to burn out in a burst of blue light when the switch is flicked. As with other satellite powers, it makes no difference if the light is under a roof or a ton of concrete–it can still be manipulated by a satellite laser. Types of satellite lasers include the free-electron laser, the x-ray laser, the neutral-particle-beam laser, the chemical-oxygen-iodine laser and the mid-infra-red advanced chemical laser.
Unknown to most of the world, satellites can perform astonishing and often menacing feats. This should come as no surprise when one reflects on the massive effort poured into satellite technology since the Soviet satellite Sputnik, launched in 1957, caused panic in the U.S. A spy satellite can monitor a person’s every movement, even when the “target” is indoors or deep in the interior of a building or traveling rapidly down the highway in a car, in any kind of weather (cloudy, rainy, stormy). There is no place to hide on the face of the earth. It takes just three satellites to blanket the world with detection capacity. Besides tracking a person’s every action and relaying the data to a computer screen on earth, amazing powers of satellites include reading a person’s mind, monitoring conversations, manipulating electronic instruments and physically assaulting someone with a laser beam. Remote reading of someone’s mind through satellite technology is quite bizarre, yet it is being done; it is a reality at present, not a chimera from a futuristic dystopia! To those who might disbelieve my description of satellite surveillance, I’d simply cite a tried-and-true Roman proverb: Time reveals all things (tempus omnia revelat).
Edvige, which is also a woman’s name, has been dubbed Sarkozy’s “Big Sister” in France
President Nicolas Sarkozy faced an embarrassing split in his Cabinet today over a computer system that a new French internal intelligence service will use to spy on the private lives of millions of law-abiding citizens.
Hervé Morin, the Defence Minister, broke government ranks to side with a growing revolt against Edvige, an acronym for a police database that will store personal details including opinions, the social circle and even sexual preferences of more or less anyone who interests the State.
Edvige, which is also a woman’s name, was created by decree in July to store data on anyone aged 13 or above who is “likely to breach public order”.
“Sarkozy’s Big Sister”, as it has been dubbed, will also track anyone active in politics or trade unions and in a significant role in business, the media, entertainment or social or religious institutions. Listed people will have limited rights to consult their files.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.
Does the liberal-left have a clue? I sometimes think not.
In his book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?,” Thomas Frank made the excellent point that the Karl Rove Republicans take advantage of ordinary’s people’s frustrations and resentments to lead them into voting against their best interest.
Frank’s new book, “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule,” lacks the insight that distinguished his previous book. Why does Frank think that conservatives or liberals rule?
Neither rule. America is ruled by organized interest groups with money to elect candidates who serve their interests. Frank’s book does not even mention the Israel Lobby, which bleeds Americans for the sake of Israeli territorial expansion. Check the index. Israel is not there.
As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain’s choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.
I will not be traveling to Delaware, I will not be going to trial in Delaware and I have not plead guilty to any crimes in Delaware.
I was arrested in Washington, DC on June 18, 2008 by DC Police without ever being shown any warrant of any kind. DC Superior Court, Magistrate Judge A. Melendez, in cooperation with the office of US Attorney Jeff Taylor, ordered me held without ever producing any warrant, denied me medical access to prescribed medication, phone access to counsel and more.
On June 23, 2008 I was turned over to the custody of the Delaware Attorney Generals Office and driven to Wilmington, Delaware with no ID, no wallet (which the DC Police refused to allow me to carry with me upon my arrest on 6-18-08), where I was released on PR Bond. I was forced to remain in Delaware until July 4, 2008 to appear at a 7-03-08 arraignment, paid $10,500 in Attorney fees, forced to return to Delaware for a hearing on 8-11-08 (travel expenses), been accused by the Delaware Attorney General’s office of sending their employee’s threatening and disrespectful emails (completely untrue), and have been smeared by the Delaware News-Journal with completely false claims, with the same done by Politico.com’s Ben Smith; HuffingtonPost.com; The New Republic; and more.
All of this by the way in the name of Barack H. Obama and Joseph R. Biden III.
