The following rush transcript probably contains errors and/or omissions…
NSA, and now Cities… Suck Up Everything
NSA and Cities Collect Private Data
Rex Latchford, back in New York with another Day, another DayPage, another Monday!
Speaking of Turning the Page, The International Herald Tribune will on Tuesday become The International New York Times. The paper has changed its names a number of times since its founding. It’s been the global edition of the New York Times for a while, now the name will show it.
Privacy fears aren’t just about the NSA. In Oakland, California, Federal grants of $7 million were meant to help thwart terror attacks at its bustling international port. But instead, police have redirected the funds there to snoop on citizens instead, from microphones called “gunshot-detection sensors” to license-plate scanners that will record the location of every plate within range as police cars cruise the streets and parking lots.
Oakland’s new system, scheduled to go online next summer, is the latest example of how cities are compiling and processing large amounts of data – effectively in competition with the NSA. In addition to what we’ve already mentioned, the police there will be monitoring social media, toll payments, and, well, everything and anything they can get their hands on. Not to be outdone, New York City police, and Boston police are similarly becoming mini-NSA’s.
Instead of calling their program “Total Information Awareness” as the NSA does, the Oakland police are calling their initiative “Domain Awareness Center”. Like all these programs, the system doesn’t just track criminals. It tracks the everyday movements and habits of law-abiding citizens, raising legal and ethical questions about tracking people so closely.
There’s money in all this too, of course, and not just for the Feds and the Police. Companies like IBM and SAID (Science Applications International Corporation) are making tens of BILLIONS of dollars worth of software a year to make this new Total Surveillance Society possible.
Meanwhile, at Fort Meade, Md, General Kieth Alexander, head of the NSA, said he sees “no effective alternative” to total surveillance of American citizens. Fighting back against critics and now members of the Congress and Senate that are seeking to eliminate the NSA’s death grip on what was once thought to be personal and private data, Alexander defended the NSA. He said events of the past 5 months highlights the need to “crack down” on leakers letting out the truth about NSA operations, an continues to deny many of the details portrayed in the NSA’s own documents and presentations leaked earlier this year by Edward Snowden. However, General Alexander, in some sort of Judo like move to evade the truth, does not deny the authenticity of the Snowden documents.
General Alexander was by turns folksy and firm in the interview. But he was unapologetic about the agency’s strict culture of secrecy and unabashed in maintaining that unrestrained snooping on the American people is necessary to protect them from terrorism.
We sure would like to relate other news, but the NSA keeps sucking up all the oxygen, and information, in the news… some day… some day.
As the criminals in Washington known as Congressmen and Senators continue to burn over $100 million dollars a day in the Government shutdown, areas such as scientific research and the space program have been knocked out, throwing more people into the unemployment pool. States dependent on tourism have increasingly turned to digging up precious funds to pay the National Parks Service to operate popular tourist destinations — that’s so as to keep their local economies from being crushed.
In India, 800 thousand were moved to safety in the hours before a powerful cyclone struck the Eastern coast there. Also in India’s politics, Jail Time is a Badge of Honor. Hundreds of tainted politicians are seen as heroes among uneducated tribal voters.
That’s more than all we have time for. DayPages of the past can be found at DayPage.net – because if you don’t learn from history, you’ll be doomed to repeat it in future DayPages! It’s a production of Radio InfoWeb. I’ll see you next time for another… Day Page.