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May 20, 2013

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Tag: Big Brother


jonathan mcintosh (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Stop Whining About Privacy, Bloomberg Says

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks your concerns about privacy in a world of city- and drone-mounted surveillance cameras are unimportant. His advice to radio audiences Friday morning? “Get used to it!”

Posted on Mar 23, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/otfrom

Your Private Bus Conversations May Soon Be Recorded

In cities across the country, the government is installing sophisticated audio surveillance equipment on public transit to listen in on passengers.

Posted on Dec 11, 2012 READ MORE


Big Brother in Your Car

Your chipper TV friend Flo, otherwise known as Progressive Insurance’s ubiquitous shill, wants you to be excited—very excited.

Posted on Sep 6, 2012 READ MORE



WarmSleepy (CC BY 2.0)

Big Brother Gets Established in NYC

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on Wednesday revealed that for the last six months the city has been monitoring its residents via a network of roughly 3,000 closed circuit television cameras that feed into NYPD headquarters. The technology is termed the “Domain Awareness System.”

Posted on Aug 9, 2012 READ MORE


Patriot Act Renewal

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Posted on May 30, 2011 READ MORE



Flickr / Ed Yourdon (CC-BY-SA)

Justice Dept. Wants Providers to Retain Internet Data

The Justice Department will ask Congress to make it mandatory for Internet service providers to retain data on their users’ activity. Law enforcement officials already can ask for data to be preserved, but Justice would like to have more robust snooping capabilities in order to investigate and prosecute “almost every type of crime.” (more)

Posted on Jan 25, 2011 READ MORE  |  28 COMMENTS



Flickr / Ludovic Bertron (CC-BY)

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” It turns out they were both right.

Posted on Dec 27, 2010 READ MORE  |  354 COMMENTS



Flickr / GuenterHH (CC-BY-ND)

Justice Dept. Hand-Slaps FBI for Spying on Greenpeace and Friends

The supervising bureaucrats at the Justice Department acknowledged that the FBI should not have been spying on activists, although they decided that the bureau was not targeting anti-war and environmental groups for political reasons.

Posted on Sep 20, 2010 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS



AP / Pat Sullivan

One Day, You’ll Have a Chip in Your Rear

Should your car help authorities track you? Should it be a traveling billboard? … Amid emerging technology, the role of the license plate is in flux and causing controversy.

Posted on Sep 12, 2010 READ MORE  |  15 COMMENTS


How to Lose Big Brother’s Interest

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Posted on Aug 8, 2010 READ MORE



Collage based on photo by Flickr user bgilliard (CC-BY-SA)

Big Apple? More Like Big Brother

Citing the specter of terrorism, an appeals court overturned a decision that would have forced New York City to turn over documents detailing the surveillance of demonstrators, street performers and other ne’er-do-wells who may have threatened the 2004 Republican convention ... and our national security, of course.

Posted on Jun 9, 2010 READ MORE  |  5 COMMENTS


Big Brother
Screenshot of "Telescreens" from the film "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

U.K. to Monitor Families With In-Home Surveillance

With millions of cameras watching its citizens’ every move, Britain is already one of the world’s leading surveillance states. Now the government wants to go even further, putting cameras in 20,000 private homes “to make sure children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals,” reports the Telegraph. Update

Posted on Aug 4, 2009 READ MORE  |  25 COMMENTS


Googlehand
businessweek.com

Privacy Intrusion With a Twist

Google on Wednesday officially announced its entry into the fray of contextualized advertising—serving up advertisements in accordance with a user’s prior Web-surfing habits. The move, which has raised alarm in the privacy community, carries an unprecedented privacy twist: Google users will now be able to see and edit the information the company collects about them.

Posted on Mar 11, 2009 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS


Googs Flu
google.org/flutrends

Google: ‘I’m Feeling Sicky’

While worries over Google’s “big brother” surveillance practices still worry many, a softer, more health-conscious side of the search giant is partnering with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The tool, “Google Flu Trends,” uses the aggregate regional data obtained from flu-related searches to predict epidemics weeks before they can be diagnosed by traditional measures.

Posted on Nov 12, 2008 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


Tim Robbins
theactorsgang.com

Tim Robbins on Orwell, Obama and the Media

It’s usually a reliable sign that a once-original idea has been utterly stripped of its impact by the time it becomes the premise for a reality television show. Not so for “Big Brother.” Several seasons of that particular televised train wreck have come and gone, and besides, Apple Computer also cashed in on the whole surveillance paranoia theme ages ago. Big Brother is watching. We get it.

Posted on Jun 2, 2008 READ MORE  |  25 COMMENTS


border patrol
criminal-justice-online.com

Homeland Security Meets Reality TV

If you thought reality TV was only for wannabe warblers, petulant teens and bug-eating fetishists, guess again. The Department of Homeland Security, “as well as several other government agencies,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, is working with ABC on a new “unscripted” show called “Border Security USA,” brought to you, creepily enough, by the executive producer of “Big Brother.”

Posted on May 29, 2008 READ MORE  |  10 COMMENTS


Dr. Al-Arian
tkb.org

Dr. Al-Arian’s Third Strike

The Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, imprisoned for five years despite a jury’s failure to return a single guilty verdict against him, has gone on a hunger strike in a Virginia jail.

Posted on Mar 7, 2008 READ MORE  |  22 COMMENTS


Orwell
guardian.co.uk

For Orwell, Life Imitated Art

It turns out that George Orwell, famed author of “1984” and originator of the term “Big Brother,” was spied on by his government for more than 10 years. Members of Britain’s MI5 suspected the writer of being a communist, until they bothered to read him, and were apparently baffled by his “bohemian” clothes.

Posted on Sep 4, 2007 READ MORE  |  5 COMMENTS


donor
rte.ie

Who Wants to Win a Kidney?

If you thought reality television had already hit its nadir, guess again.  The creators of the “Big Brother” franchise have whipped up a shocking new premise for their next hopeful hit in the Netherlands: A terminally ill woman will, with advice from viewers, choose the winner ... of her kidneys.  Update:  Producers at Endemol have admitted that the show is a hoax.

Posted on May 29, 2007 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS


nottingham
indymedia.org.uk

Insert Orwell Reference Here

Street surveillance is taking an alarming turn for the interactive in England.  As part of a government plan to target “antisocial” behavior and petty crime, closed-circuit television cameras will be installed around the country with the capacity to talk back to people engaging in unseemly acts in public places.

 

Posted on Apr 4, 2007 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


Spy on the Government

The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1966, and has proved to be an indispensable tool for our democracy, but negotiating the bureaucracy can be intimidating. Luckily, the Bad Guys blog has collected a helpful assortment of FOIA resources. Check it out and find out what your government is up to.

Posted on Mar 18, 2007 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


Google’s Wi-Fi Plan Stirs Big Brother Concerns

The company’s free wireless service in San Francisco would allow Google to monitor all its users’ whereabouts—ostensibly to serve up location-specific advertising.
The feeling you just got? That would be the hairs on the back on your neck rising.

Posted on Apr 12, 2006 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


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