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American Cities Are Installing DHS-Funded Audio Surveillance (csoonline.com)
"Audio surveillance is increasingly being used on parts of urban mass transit systems," reports the Christian Science Monitor. Slashdot reader itwbennett writes "It was first reported in April that New Jersey had been using audio surveillance on some of its light rail lines, raising questions of privacy. This week, New Jersey Transit ended the program following revelations that the agency 'didn't have policies governing storage and who had access to data.'" From the article:
New Jersey isn't the only state where you now have even more reason to want to ride in the quiet car. The Baltimore Sun reported in March that the Maryland Transit Administration has used audio recording on some of its mass transit vehicles since 2012. It is now used on 65 percent of buses, and 82 percent of subway trains have audio recording capability, but don't use it yet, according to the Sun. And cities in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon and California have either installed systems or moved to procure them, in many cases with funding from the federal Department of Homeland Security.
as someone who works in the entertainment industry, i have to say this is more about keeping the populace paranoid than preventing terrorism.
most of the audio they are liable to pick up will be garbage. directional mikes can only pick up so much legible speech before being overrun by ambient noise.
there is a reason we use body mikes: because without them we get nothing but unintelligible noise.
Looks like it is time for widespread counter-actions, while we are still able to do so.
Microphones need wires leading to them, which means they will absorb/attenuate nearby EM fields. That means you can sweep for them with a fairly low tech detector. If they are not wired, they will actively emit a signal, which likewise can be detected.
Once you find them, pour superglue into them. Document their presence and location on your social media platform of choice, so that others can quickly sabotage similarly placed microphones.
Dutiful denial of service will make this too costly for the orwelian surveillance state to maintain.
Why aren't these systems running afoul of both state and federal wiretapping laws?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
As I rode the WMATA (DC area) bus there were plenty of placards saying that the bus had audio and video surveillance and that audio and video were being recorded.
"wiretapping" has to do with surreptitious non-consent recording. You consented when you got on the bus.
I consider myself to be very privacy focused (using the Mullvad VPN right now) and I don't trust the government at all. However, I can never understand the concern about video/audio surveillance of public places. When you're in a public place you can have no expectations of privacy to begin with because you're generally surrounded by people.
Public and private are mutually exclusive, so you cannot expect privacy in a public place. I therefore don't understand the outrage.
Can someone explain this one to me?
This shit isn't necessary, and even the people installing it don't think so as the equipment is sitting there unused. Use the money for better teachers, enabling the poor, etc but not for useless expensive contracts that ultimately don't even have a clear goal or function.
Twinstiq, game news
it is commonplace for cities/regions to have audio and video recording on public transit, the Twin Cities has had audio for over a decade on its buses and added video at least as long ago.. it's used in accident and violence investigations. they have never sent goons on the bus to club a slob who drops orange peels and potato chips all over the bus.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Nice gadgets they have and little respect for the constitution, too. They have not up to this day demonstrated that these intrusive mass spying mechanisms and continuous and ever more severe invasion of privacy has brought any real results. It's as if they're just gathering information of every individual citizen for possible later use. Be it for prosecution of inconvenient individuals at a later time or for the purpose of creating a paper trail in a totally unrelated case.
Absolutely nothing will change until there is a third party that gets some meaningful proportion of power and influence to disrupt the crony capitalists infesting the Democrat and Republican parties. It never seizes to amaze me how the US has come to this. Torture and massive domestic spying apparatuses are the new norm accepted by the majority of people.
-SR
New Jersey isn't the only state where you now have even more reason to want to ride in the quiet car.
Why would privacy be a reason for riding in the quiet car? You'd be better off in the noisy car if you want your conversation to be lost in the hubbub. And if you're not planning to have an incriminating (or otherwise) conversation, it doesn't matter which car you're in!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
After you are barometrically identified by the cameras...
Aaaah, finally an algorithm for uniquely identifying people by the pressure they are under.
Real lawyers write in C++
lol. this reminds me of romania !
whenever youre on public transportation, dont forget to mention how "this weather is the bomb!" and "ISIS was an Egyptian god before AL QUEDA got hold of it"
Look for ways to insert world-war-terror phrases into every conversation.
... whether installed surveilance anything is being used or not. Therefore, if it's installed, I must assume it will be used at some point, and that point may or may not include right now. Thus it must be treated as if it is in use right now.
That means that any argument "but it isn't in use yet" is invalid and wilfully misleading. It must be treated as a lie, and the utterer as yet another liar. If the liar is an official, he is unfit for service and must be removed, unless we are prepared to acquiesce a corrupt government. Yes, this particular thing is indeed that black and white. How else would you propose to retain some privacy or even a government with some measure of integrity? This isn't pick-and-choose. If you disagree, kindly explain.
Now we can just bitch and moan about how the service sucks and someone will actually listen to it...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"If the president does it, it's not illegal" - That predates HRC by a long shot.
it predates EVERYTHING because it HAS NOT HAPPENED
your stupidity predates everything you say
Hal... Can you hear me now Hal? I wouldn't doubt it if the 3-letter agencys already use the speakers on every device (TV, cellphones, laptops, etc) as microphones to spy on people.
I assume that most of us are appalled/annoyed by such goings-on. But what I don't hear from anyone is what is a better alternative?
At first I agreed with many of you over the years, that we should "do nothing", that is, leave our freedoms alone. But the truth is, the easier it is for terrorists to conduct attacks, the more of them there will be in the future (why not?). We already, mostly, look the other way from the shit-tonnes of people who should not even be here, potential terrorists would be (and are) having a field day killing us fish in various barrels.
The folks sworn to protect us are probably decent for the most part, and they do not want to fail, no matter what. I suspect they would be an order of magnitude less successful if they could not track phone and Internet communications, since those are the main communication methods today.
I read somewhere that there have been 100+ arrests preventing such plots in the US so far. I know that's a small chance of danger for any one person, and I don't fear terrorism in my tiny town in the middle of nowhere. But with every attack there will be more and more people pressure to protect their kids, etc., and this will cost money/freedoms too. "So what's the answer?", I ask. Doing nothing will not work.
Big Brother hears you. :(
They learned from Batmans, audio device cross correlation device which he used to find the villains... 'it looks justified when you are after the super terrorist to listen in on billions of privat chats. Each smartphone becomes a relay point, even around the world.' - Commander Irony
This is why I avoid using public transport. I started avoiding it when they installed those video surveillance systems. Including audio surveillance just makes using it that much more objectionable.
The government now have the Eyes, the Ears and the Mouth. All hail NorseFire.
They've got to do something to justify their phony baloney jobs.
You consented when you got on the bus.
That argument is right up there with "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Freedom of movement is a basic necessity of a civilised society. By attaching riders -- sure, you have freedom of movement, but only if you consent at metaphorical and/or literal gunpoint to some other undesired behaviour -- you are undermining that freedom as surely as if you just locked someone up in the first place.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"I don't mind paying taxes", claim the Statists. With them, they say, "we are buying civilization". How about it? Civilized yet?
Me? I just try to ensure, my daughters grow up with good enough knowledge of Ukrainian to be able to hold a conversation in a language bound to remain unparsable by such equipment for decades to come... Celebrate diversity.
What's your plan?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
How else do you expect to run a public transit system? Run trains completely without any supervision 24/7? Hire more people to patrol the cars constantly? Who is going to pay for that, given that public transit systems already require massive subsidies for their operations?
Come on you folks who advocate public transit: what is your solution?
The remaining CIA need to get the fuck away from Slashdot.
Audio surveillance your ashes. In Hell you are raped repeatedly.
These assholes think they get a last ditch effort to screw the world over.
Look for their most equipped vans... large gun metal grey walk-ins that stand out like a sore thumb and nobody else uses. They have smaller ones and some with business names on them, but their most equipped vans are the large gun metal greys.
Do not fund paint.
Welcome to big brother...
Much like the airport, free speech will go right out the window and it will be illegal to say much of anything that might be taken out of context. This isn't about terrorism, it's about control.
Yes, yes, " Fire " in a movie theater and all that. Toss in the " No expectation of privacy in a public place " BS while we're at it. Doesn't mean I want a camera and / or microphone recording every moment of my life for me, looking for any excuse at all to arrest me. Seems to fall under the " We'll just grab everything " mentality the government is fond of these days. Courts aren't fond of that when it comes to electronic communications, though the government doesn't seem to give a shit.
Imagine becoming a person of interest and investigation for saying silly things like:
Bomb, Allah, ( hell anything that isn't English ) terror{ist}{ism}, any name of any known terror group, and eventually, vocalizing your displeasure towards City, State, Federal governments or any elected official with power to make your life a living hell.
We all know the government is far too honorable to ever worry about them abusing this ability right ? :|
This is why I make sure to say phrases like "assassinate Obama" and "Allah akbar" constantly! Sometimes I even say such traitorous phrases like "Bill of rights" and "constitutional rights".
What are we celebrating?
... can't have their 'cattle' (goyim) talking about them behind their backs, can we!
Just imagine if we had an all white country again. There would be no more 'terrorism', because all the muslims would be living in their own shitty countries, and the poor Jew would have no excuse to spy on us all the time. And the poor Jew would have to live in 'precious' Israel, surrounded by other Jews! How awful for him!
The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered "irrelevant." They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find *you*
I assume my state is not alone in banning the recording of voice without a warrant. Even security systems in stores are not allowed to record audio. So if this is being done by a bunch of agencies will that make it legal for the public to record each other? The day voice recording is allowed in businesses the public will learn just how widespread corruption is in business. Everything from sexual harassment to business owners trying to hire a killer to wipe out an enemy will be shockingly commonplace. If we eliminate crime in business there may be nothing left. Often business leaders are not even aware that they are committing serious crimes as what they do has been considered standard practic for centuries such as wage fixing and price fixing arrangements.