1. An Open Letter to the Members of the Wassenaar Arrangement
   Sources News Release
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2014
   As members of the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE), Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Human Rights Watch, Open Technology Institute
2. Bringing the Battlefield to the Border
   The Wild World of Border Security and Boundary Building in Arizona
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2012
   The U.S.-Mexican border has not only become Ground Zero for every experiment in immigration enforcement and drug interdiction, but also the incubator, testing site, showcase, and staging ground for ever newer versions of border-enforcement technology that, sooner or later, are sure to be applied globally.
3. The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2018
   As "smarter" vehicles provide storehouses of personal information, carmakers are building databases of consumer preferences that could be sold to outside vendors for marketing purposes, much like Google and Facebook.
4. Companies that cooperate with dictatorships must be sanctioned
   Sources News Release
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2011
   Reporters Without Borders condemns the criminal cooperation that exists between many western companies, especially those operating in the new technology area, and authoritarian regimes.
5. The Computers are Listening
   How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2015
   Top-secret documents from the archive of Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency can now automatically recognize the content within phone calls by creating rough transcripts and phonetic representations that can be easily searched and stored.
6. Draconian cyber security bill could lead to Internet surveillance and censorship
   Sources News Release
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2012
   Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA), the cyber security bill now before the US Congress.
7. Eavesdropping on the Planet
   The Inalienable Right to Snoop?
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2013
   Like a mammoth vacuum cleaner in the sky, the National Security Agency (NSA) sucks it all up: home phone, office phone, cellular phone, email, fax, telex … satellite transmissions, fiber-optic communications traffic, microwave links … voice, text, images … captured by satellites continuously orbiting the earth, then processed by high-powered computers … if it runs on electromagnetic energy, NSA is there, with high high tech. Twenty-four hours a day. Perhaps billions of messages sucked up each day. No one escapes. Not presidents, prime ministers, the UN Secretary-General, the pope, the Queen of England, embassies, transnational corporation CEOs, friend, foe, your Aunt Lena …
8. The Face Off: Law Enforcement Use of Face Recognition Technology
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2018
   Face recognition is poised to become one of the most pervasive surveillance technologies, and law enforcement's use of it is increasing rapidly. However, the adoption of face recognition technologies like these is occurring without meaningful oversight, without proper accuracy testing of the systems as they are actually used in the field, and without the enactment of legal protections to prevent internal and external misuse.
9. Fake cell phone 'towers' may be spying on Americans' calls, texts
   Resource Type: Article
   Published: 2014
   More than a dozen 'fake cell phone towers' could be secretly hijacking Americans' mobile devices in order to listen in on phone calls or snoop on text messages, a security-focused cell phone company claims. It is not clear who controls the devices.
10. For Owners of Amazon’s Ring Security Cameras, Strangers May Have Been Watching Too
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2019
    Amazon's Ring security cameras have a history of lax, sloppy oversight when it comes to deciding who has access to some of the most precious, intimate data belonging to any person: a live, high-definition feed from around -and perhaps inside- their house.
11. Here we go again: Amazon AI-powered Cloud Cam actually powered by unseen humans who watch you have sex
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2019
    Amazon’s AI-based home security system is sending footage of users' private moments to dozens of algorithm trainers halfway around the world, according to former employees - not unlike its Alexa "smart" speakers. Amazon’s Cloud Cam home security device regularly sends video clips to employees in Romania and India, who help "train" its AI algorithms, according to five current and former employees who spoke to Bloomberg.
12. How California police are tracking your biometric data in the field
    Agencies are using mobile fingerprint scanners, tattoo and facial recognition software
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2015
    EFF and MuckRock got together to reveal how state and local law enforcement agencies are using mobile biometric technology in the field by filing public records requests around the country. Thousands of pages of documents were obtained from more than 30 agencies.
13. How the cops try to predict our next move
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    As civil dissent ramps up, UK secret police develop new modes of repression. Kevin Blowe reports on cops, kettles and a database profiling thousands of activists.
14. How the Hand of Israeli Spy Tech Reaches Deep into our Lives
    Israeli software used on Palestinians is producing new cyber weapons that are rapidly being incorporated into global digital platforms
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2019
    Digital age weapons developed by Israel to oppress Palestinians are rapidly being repurposed for much wider applications – against Western populations who have long taken their freedoms for granted.
15. If U.S. Mass Media Were State-Controlled, Would They Look Any Different?
    Snowden Coverage
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    The Edward Snowden leaks have revealed a U.S. corporate media system at war with independent journalism. Many of the same outlets that missed the Wall Street meltdown and cheer-led the Iraq invasion have come to resemble state-controlled media outlets in their near-total identification with the government.
16. Information Overload
    Driving a Stake Through the National Security State
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2012
    Here’s an idea. Let’s all start salting all of our conversations and our written communications with a selection of those 300 key words. If every liberty-loving person in America virus were to do this, the NSA would have to employ all 15 million unemployed Americans just to begin to look at all those transcripts!
17. IntelligentSearch.ca
    Resource Type: Website
    Published: 2017
    A web portal featuring topics related to research and the Internet. The home page features a selection of recent and important articles. A search feature, subject index, and other research tools make it possible to find additional resources and information.
18. It's not a conspiracy theory – your phone really is watching you, research finds
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2018
    Scientists used an automated system to interact with apps, searching for any media files that had been sent from them -- particularly to a third party. It was in the course of searching for audio files that the researchers began to see that screenshots and video recordings were being sent to third parties instead.
19. Location Tracking: A Pervasive Problem in Modern Technology
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    NSA is tracking people around the Internet and the physical world. These newly-revealed techniques hijacked personal information that was being transmitted for some commercial purpose, converting it into a tool for surveillance. One technique involved web cookies, while another involved mobile apps disclosing their location to location-based services.
20. Met police using surveillance system to monitor mobile phones
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2011
    Civil liberties group raises concerns over Met police purchase of technology to track public handsets over a targeted area.
21. NSA, GCHQ mapping "political alignment" of cellphone users
    New report reveals
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2014
    New information made public by Edward Snowden reveals that the governments of the United States and United Kingdom are trawling data from cellphone “apps” to accumulate dossiers on the “political alignments” of millions of smartphone users worldwide.
22. NSA Turns Cookies (And More) Into Surveillance Beacons
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    These Google cookies - known as 'PREF' cookies - last two years and can uniquely identify you. The NSA is using this to enable remote exploitation (hacking into people’s computers) - an act aided by the ability to uniquely identify individuals on the Internet.
23. NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using cookies and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.
24. NSA's Path to Totalitarianism
    Ever-Shrinking Democracy in America
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    The American National Security Agency (NSA) appears as a “rogue” organization, extremism in the putative service of liberty. Or better, call it, stripped of all cosmetics, the unerring mark of a Police State, itself become identical with Fortress America, the National-Security State.
25. Obama defiant over NSA revelations ahead of summit with Chinese premier
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    President says oversight of NSA surveillance programme should be left to Congress in comments criticising media 'hype.'
26. On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2009
    Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people's movements through public space will be woven inextricably into the fabric of everyday life. We are already starting to see such systems now, and there will be many more in the near future.
27. Permanent Record
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 2019
    
28. Radio Frequency ID Removes Freedom
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2006
    Radio Frequency ID violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is part of the stealthy forging of a police state.
29. Raleigh police are asking Google to provide user data for all people near crime scenes
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2018
    Police in Raleigh, North Carolina, have presented Google with warrants to obtain data from mobile phones from not just specific suspects who were in a crime scene area, but from the mobile phones of all people in the area
30. Real-Time Face Recognition Threatens to Turn Cops' Body Cameras Into Surveillance Machines
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2017
    For years, the development of real-time face recognition has been hampered by poor video resolution, the angles of bodies in motion, and limited computing power. But as systems begin to transcend these technical barriers, they are also outpacing the development of policies to constrain them. Civil liberties advocates fear that the rise of real-time face recognition alongside the growing number of police body cameras creates the conditions for a perfect storm of mass surveillance.
31. Selling your Secrets
    The Invisible World of Software Backdoors and Bounty Hunters
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2014
    The documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that the world of NSA mass surveillance involves close partnerships with a series of companies most of us have never heard of that design or probe the software we all take for granted to help keep our digital lives humming along.
32. Smart Faucets And Toilets Use Alexa To Listen To Your Conversations
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2019
    It is hard to imagine a more intrusive home surveillance device than a faucet or toilet that listens to everyone’s conversations, but that is just what Delta Faucet and Kohler have done. Delta Faucet's "Voice IQ" takes advantage of where lots of people like to congregate and turns it into an Alexa eavesdropping centre.
33. Snowden document confirms US-backed mass surveillance in Australia
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    The document obtained by the former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor confirms that the electronic surveillance agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), monitors the domestic population, as well as the people and governments of many Asian countries.
34. Snowden document shows Canada set up spy posts for NSA
    CSEC conducted espionage activities for U.S. in 20 countries, according to top-secret briefing note
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    A top secret document retrieved by American whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals Canada has set up covert spying posts around the world and conducted espionage against trading partners on behalf of the U.S. National Security Agency.
35. Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    Raytheon's Riot program mines social network data like a 'Google for spies', drawing ire from civil rights groups.
36. The Stasi could only dream of such data
    Britain, the birthplace of liberalism, has become the database state
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2008
    As technology increases the flow of stored data about individual actions, assurances of the "right to informational self-determination" must be hard won from governments. Government surveillance of citizens has become an accepted 'counter-terrorism' measure.
37. Three Leaks, Three Weeks, and What We've Learned About the US Government's Other Spying Authority: Executive Order 12333
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2013
    The National Security Agency has been siphoning off data from the links between Yahoo and Google data centers, which include the fiber optic connections between company servers at various points around the world. While the user may have an encrypted connection to the website, the internal data flows were not encrypted and allowed the NSA to obtain millions of records each month, including both metadata and content like audio, video and text.
38. Vodafone Reveals Existence of Secret Wires that Allow State Surveillance
    Resource Type: Article
    Published: 2014
    Wires allow agencies to listen to or record live conversations, in what privacy campaigners are calling a 'nightmare scenario'.
39. War Against the People
    Israel, The Palestinians and Global Pacification
    Resource Type: Book
    Published: 2015
    Governments today are waging a 'war against the people' -- whether 'securitization' against asylum seekers in Fortress Europe, 'counterinsurgency' in Afghanisation, or the subliminal war of policy and surveillance arising everywhere. Israel's contribution to this is key: exporting the high-tech weaponry, security systrems and methods of pacification perfected on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

Experts on Surveillance Systems in the Sources Directory

1. Wikileaks