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The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s department has received $1 million for a violence prevention unit that is getting attention from privacy advocates. Florida legislators awarded the money to Sheriff Ric Bradshaw to create the unit with the idea that they will be able to prevent gun tragedies from occurring. Bradshaw intends on utilizing specially trained deputies and mental health professionals in the prevention of crimes.

“Every single incident, whether it’s Newtown, that movie theater, or the guy who spouts off at work and then goes home and kills his wife and two kids — in every single case, there were people who said they knew ahead of time that there was a problem,” Bradshaw said. “If the neighbor of the mom in Newtown had called somebody, this might have saved 25 kids’ lives.”

Bradshaw is readying a hotline and is planning public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors, friends or family members if they fear they could harm themselves or others.

While the deputies and mental health workers might be able to spot a problem, the vast majority of people do not see the warning signs until after an incident occurs.

The goal won’t be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there’s violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things.

On paper, this appears to be a noble cause, but if there is nothing wrong with a person, how is keeping a close eye on anyone a benefit? It raises Stasi comparisons, something no American should ever strive for.

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’”

No. You do not want to call the police because someone says they hate the government. Many Americans do not like their government, but they have the right to espouse that view. You even have the right to say you hate your mayor, congressman, or anyone else and wish them dead. If one takes a moment to think, they have probably voiced those opinions out loud [12 angry men], but out of frustration and never with any real intent. Now, if that person says, “I hate the mayor and I’m going to shoot him,” while holding a shotgun, then you might want to call the police. In this case, a new crime prevention unit is not needed because people already do this.

It hurts people to go knock on a door and ask if everything is okay because people do not want others butting into other people’s business for something that was said, especially when the person reporting it doesn’t have the qualifications to determine intent. It undermines free speech and creates a climate of fear where dissent can be easily misinterpreted and people are put under suspicion for no reason.

That’s enough for Senate budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who helped push through the funding last weekend.

He said he met with Bradshaw about the program and “got assurances from the sheriff that this is going to be done in a way that respects people’s autonomy and privacy, and that he makes sure to protect against people making false claims.”

If he got assurances, then why doesn’t he list what they are so that everyone can see if those assurances are valid or not? How does the sheriff intend to protect innocent people from making false claims? Saying there are assurances to protect people indicates that something has been discussed, so why isn’t it out in the open?

Mental health advocates, however, worry about a potential new source of stigma, and the potential for erosion of the civil rights of people with mental illnesses.

It is not just citizens with mental illnesses that have to be worried about being stigmatized. Anyone who is suspected of not liking the government is going to be forced to talk to a mental health professional. This information may or may not be public. If the person is taken in for questioning, neighbors are likely to make conclusions about what is happening, making life difficult for the person questioned. If any of this is made into the public record, the person could have problems later on finding a job. Those who do have mental illnesses could also be singled out merely because they are different.

“How are they possibly going to watch everybody who makes a comment like that? It’s subjective,” said Liz Downey, executive director of the Palm Beach County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We don’t want to take away people’s civil liberties just because people aren’t behaving the way we think they should be.”

It is impossible to watch everyone unless you resort to Stasi-like tactics and Soviet-style political commissars and get every citizen to report on each other. What will happen is the police will have a database of people that they have harassed for no reason, yet still may continue to “keep an eye on” while those that may truly have criminal intentions keeps quiet and falls into whatever the police think is socially acceptable. Not everyone behaves the same. Some people have quirks that are not harmful at all, yet others might find it weird and report a person for being different.

Bradshaw acknowledged the risk that anyone in a messy divorce or in a dispute with a neighbor could abuse the hotline. But, he said, he’s confident that his trained professionals will know how to sort out fact from fiction.

“We know how to sift through frivolous complaints,” he said.

Obviously, the police can’t figure out all the frivolous items. There are several instances of SWAT teams being called in after a fake 911 call because an individual online 911 said that person X is at home making a bomb right, there’s a domestic assault happening, or any number of other things. This phenomenon is called “swatting” and it has serious repercussions for the person that is made a suspect.

The police also cannot distinguish right away if a person is simply a target through a messy divorce without going to that person’s house and performing their version of the “are you okay” spiel. Again, they must actually go and disrupt this person’s life, with others watching and jumping to conclusions, in order to sort fact from fiction.

Also, after troubled people are identified by Bradshaw’s teams, then what? Who will pay for their care? The state? Medicaid? The county? The Palm Beach County Public Defender has a good program to ensure qualified people apply for the Social Security and Medicaid benefits they may need, she said. Some high-level conversations have started, but more are needed, Berner added.

No one really knows what they’re going to do with people that need help. Another question not being asked is how long are the people going to be kept under surveillance? How long will their names be kept in the database that is going to be made? If the police ask if you’re okay and you say you’re fine and tell them to go away, currently your right, what happens next? Are they put on a “keep an eye on” list? There are far too many questions that haven’t been answered or even looked at. We’re just supposed to take one man’s assurances that he’ll do the right thing. How many people will be caught up in this unit and have their lives ruined until the sheriff gets everything sorted out?

Video.

Photo.

The post originally appeared at The Daily Censored.

From a guy on YouTube:

My mom hadn’t seen (or heard of) the Wachowski’s classic sci-fi film The Matrix. We watched the entire movie together and right after she told me what it was all about.

She follows the white rabbit down some… tangents.

Animated with Premiere and a bit of After Effects and a heavy dose of Photoshop.

Some entertaining commentary.

Source.

When CISPA reared its ugly head last year, it was soundly defeated. This year, not only is is back, it’s taking more swipes at individual privacy, passing in the House 288-127, with more representatives in favor of the bill and more supporters than last year. As the fight now shifts to the Senate, there are several interesting developments that Americans should be aware of before this bill becomes a law.

One of the most important issues comes from Representative Mike Rogers, who dismissed CISPA opponents as 14-year old tweeters on the internet in their parents’ basements.

Not only does Mr. Rogers not understand how the internet works, he doesn’t understand how anyone could be against this bill. Despite being the sponsor of the bill, Rogers can’t even keep straight as to whether or not the NSA will have access to your information (it will).

The EFF, one of the bigger opponents to CISPA gathered together a collection of people who aren’t fourteen to show Mike Rogers just who is against the bill.

One has to wonder, however if Representative Rogers is so pro-CISPA because his wife stands to benefit from its passing, because he took so much money from supporters of the bill, or if he really believes taking away peoples’ privacy is a good thing.

So it seems rather interesting to note that Rogers’ wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, was, until recently, the president and CEO of Aegis LLC a “security” defense contractor company, whom she helped to secure a $10 billion (with a b) contract with the State Department. The company describes itself as “a leading private security company, provides government and corporate clients with a full spectrum of intelligence-led, culturally-sensitive security solutions to operational and development challenges around the world.”

Kristi Rogers is also the author of an article for Washington Life in which she declares it is with the utmost importance that cybersecurity legislation be passed. In it, she, and the magazine, never see the need to disclose that her husband is the one behind CISPA and is pushing for its passing in Congress.

Kristi Rogers recently changed jobs as well, such that she’s now the “managing director of federal government affairs and public policies” at Manatt, a big lobbying firm, where (surprise, surprise) she’s apparently focused on “executive-level problem solving in the defense and homeland security sectors.”

I’m sure the fact that he husband is pushing a bill that will create a lot of money for her present and past employers, as well as the Rogers has nothing to do with this at all. Since Kristi Rogers probably has some type of equity package from leaving Aegis, the Rogers will garner a lot of money should CISPA pass.

Just before the final push to vote on CISPA in the House of Representatives, IBM flew 200 senior executives to Washington to speak with legislators about the bill. After they arrived, the bill gained 36 new sponsors.

The IBM executives will pound the pavement on Capitol Hill Monday and Tuesday, holding nearly 300 meetings with lawmakers and staff. Over the course of those two days, their mission is to convince lawmakers to back a bill that’s intended to make it easier for industry and government to share information about cyber threats with each other in real time.

The technology services company runs the information technology networks of major hospitals, banks and electric companies—key infrastructure that lawmakers and security officials warn are top targets for hostile actors to launch a cyberattack.

Big Blue is also the top recipient of U.S. patents and owns a trove of valuable intellectual property that would be enticing to probing hackers looking to siphon valuable proprietary information. A report published by computer security firm Mandiant this year concluded that an elite military unit of Chinese hackers has allegedly cracked into the computer systems of more than 100 U.S. companies and stolen intellectual property.

Again, this comes down to money. IBM stands to gain a lot of it should CISPA pass, so they sent their executives to make sure the bill passed.

But companies are currently hesitant to share information about cyber threats they spot on computer networks with the government because they fear it may put them at risk for being sued. CISPA would address that concern, Padilla said, by granting companies liability protection from lawsuits if they share threat information with the government, allowing firms to get the assistance and data they need faster.

So, companies don’t want to share information because their customers (regular American citizens) might sue them for failing to protect their data. If CISPA becomes a law, all they have to do is tell the government and you can no longer sue them.

But the cyber information-sharing bill has rankled privacy advocates from Washington to Silicon Valley. One of their chief concerns with the bill is that it would allow companies to share threat information directly with the military, including the National Security Agency, without being required to take steps to remove personally identifiable information from that data. Privacy advocates warn that could lead to people’s email and IP addresses, names, and other personal information being inadvertently passed on to the NSA without their knowledge.

Congress doesn’t see what’s so bad about allowing the military or NSA have all your personal information. They still believe in that, if you have nothing to hide, you don’t have to worry about anything. Except that everyone has something to hide and, once your information is in a database, you can’t control how it’s used or how your information is connected to others.

An explanation of CISPA:

The FBI has spent so much time creating its own fake plots against America that, when a real one occurs, they totally missed it. Yet, law enforcement and politicians are claiming that the bombing in Boston proves that we need more surveillance and that CISPA should be passed. CISPA, more surveillance, and every citizen under scrutiny isn’t ever going to change that. The more surveillance there is, the more likely someone is going to slip through the cracks. No one on Earth is ever 100% free from calamity. We can mitigate it as best we can, but eroding constitutional rights and privacy is not the way to do it. If we had been in such mortal danger, the Boston Police Department would not have told everyone to stay home unless they worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, in which case those places needed to stay open so the police could eat.

President Obama has threatened to veto CISPA, should it reach his desk. Whether or not CISPA passes, there is something you can do. Contact your senators before it gets to a vote in the senate. That may or may not help as, unfortunately, politicians only listen to money. On a personal level, take back your privacy yourself:

* Browser Privacy: HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus + EasyList, Ghostery, NoScript (FireFox), NotScript (Chrome)

* VPNs: BTGuard (Canada), ItsHidden (Africa), Ipredator (Sweden), Faceless.me (Cyprus / Netherlands)

* Internet Anonymization: Tor, Tor Browser Bundle, I2P

* Disk Encryption: TrueCrypt (Windows / OSX / Linux), File Vault (Mac).

* File/Email Encryption: GPGTools + GPGMail (Mac), Enigmail (Windows / OSX / Linux)

* IM Encryption: Pidgin + Pidgin OTR

* IM/Voice Encryption: Mumble, Jitsi

* SMS/Voice Encryption: WhisperSystems, Silent Circle ($$$)

* Google Alternative: DuckDuckGo

* Digital P2P Currency: BitCoin

* Live Anonymous/Secure Linux: TAILS Linux

If you have any problems installing or using the above software, please contact the projects. They would love to get feedback and help you use their software.

Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or the EFF’s Surveillance Self-Defense Project.

Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF’s Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Censored.

By 1995 I was an old pro on the internet. Still, I don’t really miss those early days so much.

In this episode of Computer Chronicles, Stewart Cheifet will show you what the internet had to offer back in the 1990′s. He would also show you how to get onto the internet. But first, You would need a Internet Service Provider (ISP). But for this episode of Computer Chronicles, Stewart Cheifet will show you the most popular ISP back in the 1990′s, and that was Compuserve. Keep in mind that this TV Program was recorded and broadcasted back in 1995. Thanks for watching and enjoy the video!

People in 1995 were also complaining about getting too much email, particularly spam, as well as privacy concerns and the use of encryption in purchasing items online. I feel old now, so you’d better get off my lawn.

Source.