Spies, spies everywhere — here's what to do
Almost anything can be sold to the American public in the interest of personal safety. People will seemingly surrender all their rights if someone in authority can convince them it will keep them safe.
Politicians and bureaucrats use crime as an excuse for its massive surveillance apparatus. Video surveillance is a fact of modern life. In China, they are even using video to clue in to your emotional state as part of your "social credit score" there.
Worse, as China Digital Times reports, "A new report from The Intercept's Mara Hvistendahl uncovers how U.S. software giant Oracle worked with Chinese law enforcement to supply analytics software for China's burgeoning surveillance state. At the same time, other reports have revealed how Chinese manufacturers of surveillance equipment are widely supplying governments and companies in the West."
Cameras are more prevalent in Europe than in the U.S., but even here, your activities are likely being recorded by somebody, somewhere dozens of times every day. Estimates are there are more than 30 million surveillance cameras deployed in the U.S. shooting more than 4 billion hours of footage every week.
Every time you use an ATM machine, go into any government building, drive the streets, go through a toll booth, buy a snack at a convenience store, purchase certain over-the-counter medications at a drugstore, try your luck at a casino, browse at a shopping mall or even just stroll down the sidewalk, your picture is being taken and/or your actions are being recorded in a database. Stores are capturing your visage as you shop, pairing your face with your email address and your computer browser, and then sending you ads for the items you looked at in the stores.
Some surveillance cameras are so powerful they can read your text messages from more than 800 feet away. And they record not just your image but everything you say.
Governments justify video surveillance as a tool to prevent crime, improve traffic safety, deter fraud and catch terrorists. Companies and employers justify video spying for security reasons and to keep an eye on employee activities. Private individuals install spycams to see who's at the door and to monitor their property.
Amazon, which is partially funded by the government and collects data for the government, took it one step further via its Ring doorbell division. This is a smart doorbell that uses the camera to monitor a user's neighborhood with facial recognition technology and report suspicious activity to authorities. Amazon even wants to license this "Rekognition" technology to government for mass surveillance — to spy on people simply walking down the street. After all, Keith Alexander — a retired four-star U.S. Army general and former National Security Agency director who infamously lied about the federal government's mass surveillance program — joined the board of Amazon.
Certainly, personal cameras make excellent deterrents to keep criminals from your property. And they serve as great weapons to secure convictions in cases of criminal activity. But should citizens partner with government to grow the massive spying apparatus?
That's exactly what's happening in a number of cities across the country through a program called SafeCam. Participants in the program select cameras and monitoring systems from certain vendors and opt for their "public-facing cameras" into the program. The live video feeds then automatically go to the city's central monitoring center.
In essence, people are setting up a system that allows government to spy on them and their neighbors 24/7. People used to fear the idea of "Big Brother" watching whatever they do. Now they are inviting Big Brother onto their property.
And since we live in a massive welfare state, anyone who can't afford his own cameras and doesn't want to be left out of view of the government's prying eyes can get a "free" government camera.
The idea of government using its massive surveillance apparatus to solve crimes can seem palatable if we trusted that the government has our best interests at heart and there weren't ne'er-do-wells and sociopaths inhabiting the halls of power.
Meanwhile, technology is being advanced that purports to be able to make a risk assessment of someone based on his eyes or the sound of his voice. This is the essence of pre-crime: Making a person a criminal before he commits a criminal act based on the possibility he may commit a crime as determined by algorithms. It certainly spells the end of any pretense at due process.
We know from experience that government is at war with us. The fact that most Americans are totally oblivious to all-out war against them doesn't change a thing. Governments always silently make war on their own citizens behind a propaganda front so as to alert as few people as possible. The less resistance the better.
Benevolent totalitarianism is not an inherent contradiction or an oxymoron. It is a political system of persuasion in which the people are manipulated against their self-interest.
Every action of government is psychological coercion, however concealed, to transfer more and more wealth and authority to the system.
Crime is a means or excuse for regimentation. Law and order is the pretense. Regimentation of honest working people is the result.
For years I have been warning about the growing police state and the rise of benevolent totalitarianism, and those warnings have often been greeted with charges of fear-mongering or tin foil-hattery.
But America is on life support, and government men know this. Unless the leviathan government is torn down to its Constitutional foundation, the country will rip itself apart. It may well be too late to prevent it.
The government, through its alphabet soup agencies and its surveillance apparatus, are terrorizing the American people. Terrorizing by government cannot survive against a well-armed citizenry. That is why the elected class has pushed so hard to disarm the populace and why the surveillance state is being expanded at breakneck speed.
It's part of the globalists' plans. According to the projections of the WEF's "Global Future Councils," privacy will be abolished during the next decade.
Be sure that you understand that the government thinks that you and your property are their business. Often those in power think they are entitled to what you have. Bureaucrats don't like the word privacy. Can you guess why?
Information on citizens is absolutely essential to governments. The business of government is information on its citizens. Read this over and over. You must understand the implications.
Low-profile living should be your rule. You must already know not to drive a Mercedes on a Chevrolet income. The reason is that the IRS sometimes computes a "net worth" assessment of taxes if they think your standard of living (i.e., what you display) is greater than your income.
Don't disclose any more than you need to, ever. All government agencies are tied directly to the IRS through their computer.
You must also know that although cash is private, the government is trying to do away with cash so that you and your income and spending can be tracked precisely. Credit cards are convenient, and you are offered endless "rewards" to use them, but information about your credit is scattered around the world with total disregard for your privacy. Many people receive several solicitations a week to apply for a new credit card. How do you think the credit card company discovered you might be a good prospect for a new credit card?
When you want to do a transaction and keep it private and out of bank records, consider doing it in cash despite how inconvenient the government wants to make it. Also consider bartering or trade of goods and services, with no record except your handshake. The reason? Governments don't like cash. They are suspicious of cash transactions. Their excuse is the drug trade. What they really want is to control you. So as long as what you are doing is not illegal, you can still do small, private cash transactions and not violate any Treasury reporting rules.
There is no privacy on the Internet! The world's most popular websites are tracking and recording your keystrokes, mouse movements, scrolling behaviors and the pages you visit. This puts your most sensitive information at risk.
A study conducted by Princeton University's Web Transparency and Accountability Project discovered that popular sites like Microsoft, Adobe, WordPress, Godaddy, Spotify, Skype, Samsung and Rotten Tomatoes are using scripts that capture the data and send it to third parties. All told, 482 of the 50,000 most-viewed sites are using the session replay scripts. Among the information grabbed includes passwords, credit card information and medical information.
Researcher Steven Englehardt, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton, told DailyMail.com, "Unlike typical analytics services that provide aggregate statistics, these scripts are intended for the recording and playback of individual browsing sessions, as if someone is looking over your shoulder... This may expose users to identity theft, online scams and other unwanted behavior."
Although this is a scary situation, to say the least, you can do something more about it. There is no such thing as freedom without privacy. There is no such thing as privacy unless you use your freedom to make it happen. Privacy and freedom are inseparable concepts. We live in an information society. It follows that we have no freedom left if we do not restrict, impede and stop creating that information by freely giving out information.
"Our" congress has legislated our privacy away. They have thus legislated our freedom away. If you are to have any privacy, it will be up to you and you alone. Admittedly, being private is not convenient nor easy.
Stay away from lawyers, accountants, and courts as much as possible. If you can settle out of court, try to do so every time, whether as a plaintiff or defendant. Use private or even public arbitration services and arbitration judges instead.
Get prepared forms and do your own legal work. Most lawyers have their secretaries fill out these forms anyway and charge for "professional" legal work.
As long as most people don't feel any direct threat, they relax and let the system run their lives. But if something happens, such as a lawsuit or a serious IRS field audit or even a criminal investigation, your life can become a nightmare overnight. In this way, the government destroys people and families one by one, like sitting ducks. It can strip you of everything you have ever worked for and own. It is true that everything that you say or otherwise reveal about yourself can and will be used against you. Learn low-profile living!
Yours for the truth,
Bob Livingston
Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter®
P.S. — My staff and I have created a way to alert you as to just how far the government has gone to steal your privacy and compiled some of the best ways to get it back and counter government surveillance operations. You can get the eBook The Ultimate Privacy Guide here.
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