President Barack Obama and his national security team are seeking an expansion of the U.S. government's role in eavesdropping on the Internet including emails, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as BlackBerries.
According to reports, the Obama White House plans to submit a bill after the new congress takes over both houses next January that would require all online services that provide communications between users to be enabled to comply with federal wiretap orders.
Social network spying
The proposed monitoring measures will affect encrypted e-mail, such as the popular BlackBerry, networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, as well communication sites such as Skype.
Cash is already allocated for Obama's new spy program. In the Pentagon's fiscal 2011 budget proposal cybersecurity received a $105 million increase from the previous year. The Defense Department's sub-command dedicated to cyber warfare -- a facility in Fort Meade, Maryland, known as U.S. Cyber Command -- is slated for a fiscal 2011 budget of $139 million under the Air Force budget proposal, in addition to funding from the U.S Strategic Command, which oversees its operations.
Federal law enforcement and counterterrorism experts claim the new Obama-sanctioned regulations are necessary in light of increased communications on the Internet between members of terrorist groups and organized crime gangs.
"It's amazing how during the Bush administration, the limited actions taken to monitor terrorists' communications met with fury from civil liberties groups and members of the news media.
Now that a liberal-left president sits in the Oval Office, these same people are silent regarding increased surveillance of U.S. citizens by law enforcement and intelligence agencies," said former intelligence officer and police detective Mike Snopes.
For most of his time in the White House, Obama has been critical of information about him and his administration posted on the Internet. He's frequently denigrated bloggers and Internet conservative news & commentary web sites for their efforts to cover stories the so-called mainstream news media refuse to cover, according to critics of his plans to control the "Information Highway." source - Examiner
US Federal Gov't Radiating US Citizens While Spying On Them Puts ZBV Backscatter X-Ray Technology On The Streets
Black Ops. The paper-thin boundary line between the fundamental right of an American citizen to privacy and the Federal government's fight against terrorism has once again been sheered to the point of non-existience. It cannot possible get much thinner without ceasing to exist on any level. Now we have vans equipped with X-ray equipment, obstensibly to detect hidden bombs in passing vehicles, but accomplishing a much different purpose altogether.
Bringing the children's game of "I Spy" to a whole new level, I SPY the Federal government looking at me...
That burning feeling should be telling you something
Atlanta - For many living in a terror-spooked country, it might seem like a great government innovation: Use vans equipped with mobile X-ray units to scan vehicles at major sporting events, or even randomly, for bombs or contraband.
But news that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about "feds radiating Americans."
"This really trips up the creep factor because it's one of those things that you sort of intrinsically think the government shouldn't be doing," says Vermont-based privacy expert Frederick Lane, author of "American Privacy." "But, legally, the issue is the boundary between the government's legitimate security interest and privacy expectations we enjoy in our cars."
Backscatter X-ray removes any expectation of privacy while radiating you
American Science & Engineering, a Billerica, Mass.-company, tells Forbes it's sold more than 500 ZBVs, or Z Backscatter Vans, to US and foreign governments. The Department of Defense has bought the most for war zone use, but US law enforcement has also deployed the vans to search for bombs inside the US, according to Joe Reiss, a company spokesman, as quoted by Forbes.
Presented as a benefit, the ZBV Backscatter van removes any expectation of citizen privacy. They can park
it anywhere - home, offfice, or in your car - and see what you're up to.
On Tuesday, a counterterror operation snarled truck traffic on I-20 near Atlanta, where Department of Homeland Security teams used mobile X-ray technology to check the contents of truck trailers. Authorities said the inspections weren't prompted by any specific threat.
Security experts say expanding the X-ray technology for use on American streets is a powerful counterterror strategy. They also point out the images do not not offer the kind of detail that would be embarrasing to anyone. Moreover, law enforcement already has broad search-and-seizure powers on public highways, where a search warrant is often not needed for officers to instigate a physical search.
But others worry that radiating Americans without their knowledge is evidence of gradually eroding constitutional protections in the post-9/11 age. "Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of national security... you have to be realistic that this is another way in which the government is capturing information they may lose control over," says Mr. Lane. "I just have some real problems with the idea of even beginning a campaign of rolling surveillance of American citizens, which is what this essentially is." Source - Yahoo News
While you were sleeping
Let me break it down for you - what you are watching is the arming of the Federal government against the average America citizen. Oh, it's all for our "protection", they say. Really? So tell me who will "protect us" from them?
As we have always stated, and will continue to sound the alarm on until the Day of the rapture, this is all leading, not only us, but all the nations of the world towards a system the bible calls the mark of the beast.
Click here to see just how close we are to the implementation of that system.
