{"id":93043,"date":"2014-03-18T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=93043"},"modified":"2014-03-22T07:37:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-22T07:37:48","slug":"big-brother-surveillance-%e2%80%93-it-is-not-just-for-governments-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=93043","title":{"rendered":"Big Brother Surveillance \u2013 It Is Not Just For Governments Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michael Synder — The American Dream March 12, 2014<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>Traditionally, when we have thought of \u201cBig Brother technology\u201d we have thought of government oppression.\u00a0 But these days, it isn\u2019t just governments that are using creepy new <\/strong><\/span>technologies<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to spy on all of us.\u00a0 As you will see below, \u201cBig Brother surveillance\u201d has become very big business.\u00a0 In the information age, knowledge is power, and big corporations seem to have an endless thirst for even more of it.\u00a0 So it isn\u2019t just governments that are completely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do.\u00a0 Corporations have discovered that they can use Orwellian technologies to make lots of money, and this is likely only going to get worse in the years ahead.\u00a0 Below, I have shared a few examples of this phenomenon\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Private Companies Are Using Automated License Plate Readers To Spy On You<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Did you know that people that work for private companies are driving around scanning our license plates?<\/span><\/p>\n

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I never knew this until I came across an article about it the other day.\u00a0 The following is an excerpt\u00a0from that <\/strong><\/span>article<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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Few notice the \u201cspotter car\u201d from Manny Sousa\u2019s repo company as it scours Massachusetts parking lots, looking for vehicles whose owners have defaulted on their loans. Sousa\u2019s unmarked car is part of a technological revolution that goes well beyond the repossession business, transforming any \u00adindustry that wants to check on the whereabouts of ordinary people.<\/span><\/p>\n

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An automated reader attached to the spotter car takes a picture of every \u00adlicense plate it passes and sends it to a company in Texas that already has more than 1.8 billion plate scans from vehicles across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

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These scans mean big money for Sousa \u2014 typically $200 to $400 every time the spotter finds a vehicle that\u2019s stolen or in default \u2014 so he runs his spotter around the clock, typically adding 8,000 plate scans to the database in Texas each day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your Cell Phone Is Spying On You<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you carry a cell phone around with you, then you are willingly offering up a whole host of information about yourself.\u00a0 This is something that I have written about previousl<\/strong><\/span>y<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, but I never realized that some private companies are now setting up sensors in businesses to purposely capture information from the cell phones of anyone that walks in.\u00a0 Yes, this is actually happening\u00a0according to the Wall Street<\/strong><\/span> Journal<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

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And he gleans this information without his customers\u2019 knowledge, or ever asking them a single question.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mr. Zhang is a client of Turnstyle Solutions Inc., a year-old local company that has placed sensors in about 200 businesses within a 0.7 mile radius in downtown Toronto to track shoppers as they move in the cit<\/span><\/span>y.<\/span><\/p>\n

Entire \u201cBig Brother Housing Developments\u201d Are Now Being Designed<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Would you live in a housing development with a sophisticated \u201cvideo surveillance program\u201d and that uses automated license plate scanners to monitor everyone who comes and goes from the community?<\/span><\/p>\n

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In a country that is becoming increasingly obsessed with \u201csecurity\u201d, these new kinds of housing developments are surely going to be quite popular.\u00a0 The following is an excerpt from an article about one of these communities that is being built <\/strong><\/span>in <\/strong><\/span>California<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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A new, scenic development surrounded by winding waterways is billed as a safe haven.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Only four bridges lead in and out of the area with security checkpoints and a fiberoptic video surveillance program. Every license plate scanned on those roads will be cross-checked with a DMV database for stolen cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The first homes are already going up at River Islands, and the people who move in can expect to be part of a new era in policing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disney Implements The \u201cMagicBand\u201d Tracking Device<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Would you wear an RFID tracking device that allows you to buy stuff and that monitors you wherever you go?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Well, Disney actually wants their customers to willingly use this technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

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They are calling it the \u201cMagicBand\u201d, and perhaps you have already watched one of the new Disney commercials about it.\u00a0 You can see what Disney has to say about \u201cMagicBand\u201d <\/strong><\/span>right<\/strong><\/span> here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the\u00a0video posted below<\/a>, activist Mark Dice discusses this troubling move by Disney\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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Our \u201cSmart Televisions\u201d Are Spying On Us<\/strong><\/h2>\n

How would you feel if I told you that your expensive new television is actually spying on you?<\/span><\/p>\n

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You probably would not be too excited to hear that.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Well, depending on the actual brand, this is really happening.\u00a0 In fact, one brand of television actually sends information about every button that press on your remote\u00a0back to corporate <\/strong><\/span>headquarters<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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An IT consultant called Jason Huntley, who lives in a village near Hull, uncovered evidence that a flat-screen television, which had been sitting in his living room since the summer, was secretly invading his family\u2019s privacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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He began investigating the \u00a3400 LG device after noticing that its home screen appeared to be showing him \u2018targeted\u2019 adverts \u2014 for cars, and Knorr stock cubes \u2014 based on programmes he\u2019d just been watching.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Huntley decided to monitor information that the so-called smart TV \u2014 which connects to the internet \u2014 was sending and receiving. He did this by using his laptop effectively as a bridge between his television and the internet receiver, so the laptop was able to show all the data being sucked out of his set.<\/span><\/p>\n

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He soon discovered that details of not just every show he watched but every button he pressed on his remote control were being sent back to LG\u2019s corporate headquarters in South Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Data Mining \u2013 Your Personal Information Is Big Business<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are huge companies that most people have never even heard of that do nothing but buy and sell our personal information.\u00a0 The collection of this personal information is called \u201cdata mining\u201d, and it is extremely profitable.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In fact, there is one company called Acxiom that made a profit of more than 77 million dollars in one recent year by collecting and selling info about all of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In case you were wondering, yes, Acxiom almost certainly has a profile\u00a0on you <\/span><\/strong><\/span>too<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

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The company fits into a category called database marketing. It started in 1969 as an outfit called Demographics Inc., using phone books and other notably low-tech tools, as well as one computer, to amass information on voters and consumers for direct marketing. Almost 40 years later, Acxiom has detailed entries for more than 190 million people and 126 million households in the U.S., and about 500 million active consumers worldwide. More than 23,000 servers in Conway, just north of Little Rock, collect and analyze more than 50 trillion data \u2018transactions\u2019 a year.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As long as these technologies are legal and businesses can make money this way, they are going to keep doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So even if we stopped the rapid expansion of \u201cBig Brother surveillance\u201d by the governments of the world, the reality is that private corporations are going to keep pushing the envelope.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We live in a world that is rapidly changing, and unless a miracle happens we soon will not have very much privacy left at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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