State’s Giving Feds Trolling Rights to DMV Facial Biometric Databases

Kaye Beach

June 17, 2013

The Washington Post published what is probably one of the most comprehensive and clear (major media) articles to date on the state departments of motor vehicles’ biometric databases and how they are increasingly being utilized to undermine the presumption of innocence and rob us of our right to be left alone.

State photo-ID databases become troves for police

“Facial-recognition systems are more pervasive and can be deployed remotely, without subjects knowing that their faces have been captured.   Today’s driver’s-license databases, which also include millions of images of people who get non-driver ID cards to open bank accounts or board airplanes, typically were made available for police searches with little public notice.”

The Washington Post reports;

“Thirty-seven states now use ­facial-recognition technology in their driver’s-license registries, a Washington Post review found. At least 26
of those allow state, local or federal law enforcement agencies to search — or request searches — of photo databases. . .”

The Washington Post also notes that;

“The current version of the Senate’s immigration bill would dramatically expand an electronic photo-verification system, probably relying on access to driver’s-license registries.”

The New York Times reported on this a few days ago;

WASHINGTON — Driver’s license photographs and biographic information of most Americans would be accessible through an expanded Department of Homeland Security nationwide computer network if the immigration legislation pending before the Senate becomes law.

. . . the Senate bill would direct the department to expand the photo program by offering grants to states if they allow the department to tap into their driver’s license photo records

Read more; Fears of National ID With Immigration Bill

The Constitutional Alliance first sounded  the alarm on April 17th;

“If you want to work, travel, buy, or sell you will be forced to be enrolled into this global system of identification.” 

Read more from the Constitutional Alliance; You are being enrolled into a global identity scheme which controls your ability to buy, sell, travel and now work !!!

Our government is working diligently to ‘connect the dots’  We need to do the same – please read the Washington Post’s article on the state’s biometric databases along with  the ones linked above.

Photography is Suspicious Activity

Kaye Beach

Jan 20, 2012

The police tell a photographer;

“You know, I’ll just submit your name to TLO (the Terrorism Liaison Officer program). Every time your driver’s license gets scanned, every time you take a plane, any time you go on any type of public transit system where they look at your identification, you’re going to be stopped. You will be detained. You’ll be searched. You will be on the FBI’s hit list.”

If we allow the national security state to continue to grow, this threat, spoken or unspoken, will come to determine many of our actions in life.

A snapshot of our times

By George F. Will, Published: January 18

LOS ANGELESShawn Nee, 35, works in television but hopes to publish a book of photographs. Shane Quentin, 31, repairs bicycles but enjoys photographing industrial scenes at night. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department probably wishes that both would find other hobbies. Herewith a story of today’s inevitable friction between people exercising, and others protecting, freedom.

When the Los Angeles Police Department developed a Suspicious Activity Report program, the federal government encouraged local law enforcement agencies to adopt its guidelines for gathering information “that could indicate activity or intentions related to” terrorism. From the fact that terrorists might take pictures of potential infrastructure targets (“pre-operational surveillance”), it is a short slide down a slippery slope to the judgment that photography is a potential indicator of terrorism and hence photographers are suspect when taking pictures “with no apparent aesthetic value” (words from the suspicious-activity guidelines).

One reason law enforcement is such a demanding, and admirable, profession is that it requires constant exercises of good judgment in the application of general rules to ambiguous situations. Such judgment is not evenly distributed among America’s 800,000 law enforcement officials and was lacking among the sheriff’s deputies who saw Nee photographing controversial new subway turnstiles. (Subway officials, sadder but wiser about our fallen world, installed turnstiles after operating largely on an honor system regarding ticket purchases.) Deputies detained and searched Nee, asking if he was planning to sell the photos to al-Qaeda. Nee was wearing, in plain view, a device police sometimes use to make video and audio records of interactions with people, and when he told a deputy he was going to exercise his right to remain silent, the deputy said:

“You know, I’ll just submit your name to TLO (the Terrorism Liaison Officer program). Every time your driver’s license gets scanned, every time you take a plane, any time you go on any type of public transit system where they look at your identification, you’re going to be stopped. You will be detained. You’ll be searched. You will be on the FBI’s hit list.”

Read more

 

Intelligence Led Policing and Fusion Centers: How the IACP Helped the USA to Cross the Rubicon

Kaye Beach

Jan 12, 2011

Part I

This is part one of a long dissertation on fusion centers.   This segment mostly deals with the ideology of intelligence led policing and the beginnings of fusion centers which I think is critical to understanding the threats to our freedoms posed by them.

Fusion Centers and Intelligence Led Policing –A New Paradigm

Fusion Centers are DATA FUSION CENTERS.

Fusion centers are really data fusion centers. The physical centers aren’t much to see because the real work happens in the computer networks.  Since 9 11, the US government has enthusiastically embraced the idea that by collecting, collating and sharing massive amounts information about all of us, criminals and terrorists can be identified preemptively.

The principal role of the fusion center is to compile, analyze, and disseminate criminal/terrorist information and intelligence and other information (including, but not limited to, threat, public safety, law enforcement, public health, social services, and public works) to support efforts to anticipate, identify, prevent, and/or monitor criminal/terrorist activity.   Source http://www.scribd.com/doc/19251638/Fusion-Center-Guidelines-Law-Enforcement

Would you be surprised to know that public schools are one of the data sources for fusion center? How about health and medical information?

This is what fusion centers do, they collect and share information.  This is supposed to help us to catch terrorists or criminals but it is also a darn good method to control the masses.  Think about it-large data sets are prerequisite for any effective social control.  That is true no matter whether it was 100 years ago or today.

Fusion centers were largely funded by the federal government and they took off beginning in the mid 2000’s.  As of 2011, there are officially 73 fusion centers in the US and each state has at least one.  http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1301685827335.shtm

The International Association of Chiefs of Police

The not-so-fabulous idea of fusion centers has been driven, hell-bent-for-leather by the International Association of Chiefs of Police or IACP for short. They can’t take all the credit for them but if you start poking around you will find the same thing I have, that the IACP gets lots of the credit.  Why is this important?  Number one, The IACP is a non-governmental organization.  Want to know more about them?  Try filing a Freedom of Information Act request.  You won’t get anything because as a non-governmental organization they aren’t accountable for squat.  Problem number two, the IACP is an international organization. And if there is not enough wrong with a non-governmental, international organization driving policy that represents a marked departure from long established American ideals (such as the presumption of innocence) this NGO was granted Consultative Status by the United Nations in 1974 (pg. 71). link  As I have said many times before, I am sure the UN is a swell organization but policy that is otherwise accepted internationally often run afoul of cherished precepts established by the US Constitution.

“. . .unprecedented initiatives have been undertaken to reengineer the law enforcement intelligence function.” 2004   link

And if you still don’t see a problem, wait till you see what the IACP thinks about the Second Amendment.

In March 2002, a year before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the International Association of Chiefs of Police called for a national plan for sharing intelligence.  The recommendations of the IACP led to the drafting of a National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan in October 2003. This policy institutionalized Intelligence Led Policing nationwide.

The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, developed by Global in partnership with the IACP, is the first of its kind in this country — and promises to bring us closer to achieving the goal, expressed at your 2002 Summit, of “intelligence-led policing.” From The Police Chief, vol. 74, no. 4, April 2007

According to the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, criminal intelligence is “information compiled, analyzed, and/or disseminated in an effort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor criminal activity.”

I will be accused of being an incorrigible libertarian (as if this is a bad thing!) but I have to say it.  Here is where we really crossed the Rubicon. This national intelligence policy along with many others that have followed, have turned traditional policing on its head. If I didn’t feel so bad for us first, I’d really pity the cops. Civilian policing has necessarily been fairly tightly limited to reacting or responding to crimes.  The reason is that pesky constitution of ours and the presumption of innocence that is foundational to the sort of justice system the US claims to aspire to.

A quick rundown on the policy development of fusion centers from the Electronic Privacy Information Center–  In May 2004, the Department of Justice announced its progress in implementing the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan. The announcement made public the decision to create a Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council (CICC) that would be managed by Global. By December 2004, the push for a national Fusion Center initiative received a boost when the Department of Justice sponsored Global Infrastructure/Standards Working Group published A Framework for Justice Information Sharing: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). States using local, state, and federal funds created information Fusion Centers. In August 2005, Global published the Fusion Center Guidelines.

All of the above named organizations are seeded with IACP members or are heavily influenced by the IACP or both.   For example;  “Global represents the IACP . . .This influential group works to address the many policy, privacy, connectivity, and jurisdictional issues that hamper effective justice information sharing.” –THE HONORABLE DEBORAH J. DANIELS, 2007

Intelligence Led Policing: A Turning Point in Policing in the US

Intelligence Led Policing is based on the UK’s National Intelligence Model.  The US and UK, while similar in many respects, nonetheless have one major difference that makes the implementation of Intelligence Led Policing in the US fraught with difficulty.  The US Constitution guarantees certain rights to the citizens of this nation that are not recognized by government of the UK.  Americans have a justified expectation that the government instituted to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will always afford due respect for the autonomy and privacy  of law abiding individuals.

Intelligence-Led Policing in the United States
Biot Report #474: November 02, 2007
United States domestic law enforcement authorities, like their counterparts in Great Britain, have moved to an ―intelligence-led policing paradigm, as described elsewhere. (1) The terrorist events of September 11, 2001 prompted a March 7-8, 2002, Summit in Alexandria, Virginia, of over 120 criminal intelligence experts from across the U.S., titled Criminal Intelligence Sharing: Overcoming Barriers to Enhance Domestic Security. Funded by the US government and organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the Summit became a turning point in policing in the U.S. (2)

The 2002 IACP sponsored Summit participants examined closely the United Kingdom’s National Intelligence Model.  Read more or access document here; IACP Intelligence-Led-Policing-the-New-Paradigm 2007 111

Criminal Intelligence Sharing: Overcoming Barriers to Enhance Domestic Security

Intelligence-led policing is part of a larger trend of blurring the distinction between national security and domestic policing, or the state’s military and police functions.  This ‘blurring” is purposeful and deliberate.  Many policy watchers have been tracking the fast disintegration of boundaries separating government functions since 9 11 with dismay.  Most recently the issue has gained some attention with the passage of the NDAA which would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens, without charge or trial.

Intelligence Led Policing is based on Utilitarian philosophy

The Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP) mission is to gather, analyze, and disseminate intelligence data, in an effort to thwart the next terrorist attack or prevent the commission of a major felony. In applying a utilitarian philosophy to prevention efforts, the “greatest good for the greatest number,” is to detect preoperational terrorist acts and prevent another 9/11.  –Thomas J. Martinelli, International Association of Chiefs of Police LINK

We often remind ourselves that it is better to let ten guilty men go free than to put one innocent in jail.  The Utilitarian’s think it is the other way around and now we are all guilty until proven otherwise.

Utilitarianism-Natural rights?  Nonsense on stilts!

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, where punishment is forward-looking.  Justified by the ability to achieve future social benefits resulting in crime reduction, the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice

In other words-The Ends Justifies the Means

Jeremy Bentham is one example of a famous Utilitarian philosopher.  Bentham lauded state power over citizens and referred to the idea of natural rights as “nonsense on stilts”

Bentham was  also the designer of the Panopticon which was an institutional total surveillance structure that was described by Bentham as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example” Link The Panopticon was designed to induce a perception of permanent visibility in its subjects for the purpose of social control. “What matters” according the Jeremy Bentham, “is that he knows himself to be observed”

Intelligence Led Policing is based upon collecting, sharing and analysis of information.   High tech surveillance devices and information sharing across all levels of government without regard to jurisdiction are two key features of Intelligence Led Policing and this school of thought is central to the functioning of state fusion centers.

The Panopticon and Intelligence Led Policing have a lot in common;

Intelligence-led policing is future focus in Rochester, 2010

“You’re less likely to do something (wrong) if you think somebody’s watching,” McAleer said. Or even, maybe , foreseeing. Computerized analysis of crime data might give officers a lead on where to be to prevent crimes.. . . “This is the direction of policing in this country,” he said. Read more

Welcome to “The New Paradigm”

The IACP has been the tip of the spear in ushering in “The New Paradigm” (as Intelligence Led Policing is often referred to) in policing and national security.  Fusion Centers are part and parcel of this New Paradigm.

The New Paradigm according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police;

“. . . means that all the physical and conceptual walls associated with the modern, sovereign state—the walls that divide domestic from international, the police from the military, intelligence from law enforcement, war from peace, and crime from war—are coming down.” Source-THE NEW PARADIGM—MERGING LAW ENFORCEMENT AND COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGIES Secure Cities 2006 http://www.scribd.com/doc/21970726/IACP-Intelligence-Led-Policing-2006-New-Paradigm

Intelligence Led Policing represents a profound philosophical shift in American policing.  The United States police have operated under individual rights oriented and evidence based form of policing for 200 years.  The New Paradigm requires collecting and analyzing massive amounts of data, not limited to criminals or suspects but about all us.   It is preemptive rather than reactive.  The New Paradigm wants our police forces to be part of the ever expanding intelligence apparatus.

If some subversive organization wanted to eradicate those infernal, constitutional sticking points that make harmonizing the USA into an internationalized system so awkward, it couldn’t do better than to set into motion a standardized, nationalized domestic surveillance and control construct based on preemptive, preventive, risk based, rather than rights based,  policing.

Kansas Fusion Center Wants to Gather Intelligence in Public Schools

From the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center's 2007 powerpoint slide

Kaye Beach

Oct. 1, 2011

The above slide is from Oklahoma’s Fusion Center.  When I first saw it, I remember thinking “is that a schoolhouse?!”  It is indeed a schoolhouse.   “Nontraditional”  is apparently a euphemism for ‘formerly illegal’.

Fusion Centers were created to gather “intelligence” from all sources, including public schools.

Posted by jwmartinez ⋅ September 28, 2011

Because we have agreed (or at least not opposed) the idea that security is the most important pursuit of our government, surveillance that was once reserved for suspects now extends to most of the population.

From the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center website; The Education Sector is comprised of organizations and businesses that are responsible for the education of children and adults.  Entities within this community are a valuable resource that can provide information related to suspicious activities occurring on and around school grounds and campuses.  Primary and secondary schools, post-secondary schools, colleges and universities, and technical schools are entities that are a part of this community

 

“If you try to create too much security in a school setting, you are going to make it a branch of the law enforcement enterprise instead of a branch of the educational enterprise” –Frank Zimring, a a University of California at Berkley law professor.

That is a “BINGO!” statement there.  But read the rest of the article that the quote was taken from.  It is an eye opener.

Feds to Fund Controversial School Surveillance

Here is one of the most interesting parts;

In one of the more controversial areas of the grant solicitation, the NIJ states that “non-cooperative” identification and tracking is preferred over a “cooperative” system. A non-cooperative identification system captures and tracks personal or biometric data automatically, without a person knowing that they have been screened by a surveillance system

Read more

Don’t like the way this is heading?  Now would be a great time to speak up!

Call your school and ask what information the school shares with law enforcement and under what circumstances.

You have a right to know what information is being collected on your child, you have a right to know who they are sharing that information with, you have a right to make sure the data is accurate and you should have an opportunity to correct any inaccuracies.

 

 

Delaware Pilots Mass Surveillance Devices for Revenue Enhancement

Kaye Beach

August 8, 2011

Delaware gets some fancy new mass surveillance tracking and revenue enhancement devices namely ALPR or Automatic License Plate Recognition.

One of the main concerns voiced  by Delawares pesky privacy pirates is ‘where will the data collected by these spy scameras go’?

It’s not just Delaware either.  Most of these these tracking, monitoring, and revenue enhancement schemes are either already in use in your community or look for them to be coming soon.  All a part of Intelligence Led Policing, the technology and data dependent form of policing/intelligence embraced shortly after 9 11.

We are all “share” like Barney now.

LINK

From DelawareOnline.com

State troopers used to park behind billboards or underpasses as they quickly typed the license-plate numbers of passing cars into computers to find scofflaws.They were lucky to record the plates of 50 passing motorists per shift.But that’s changing because of new technology that allows them to instantly check license plates to see if motorists owe everything from traffic fines to back taxes. And they can check up to 900 plates per minute.

“I can drive 55 mph on I-95 and I can pass a parked car on the shoulder and I can still read that tag,” said state police Cpl. Todd Duke, who has the device — known as a License Plate Recognition (LPR) system — mounted onto his patrol car. “With the new technology, as the machine is operating, I’m able to scan a license plate and immediately read the plate to determine if it is stolen and/or suspended.”LPR is one of the latest surveillance systems officials across the state have started using. They range from red-light cameras to facial-recognition software.

. . .Data collected by troopers will be stored and managed by the state department of technology and information for one year. After that, the data will be retained in an archive database for up to five years, depending on system storage capacity, to assess the validity and operational efficiency of LPRs, said Kimberly Holland Chandler of the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security.State police conducting active investigations will have access to the data, Chandler said. Other law-enforcement agencies also could be granted access.

. . .

Many uses for scans

The LPR system, which is still in the pilot stage, is a collaboration between the state Division of Motor Vehicles and Department of Safety & Homeland Security.

It began after officials noticed the number of uninsured motorists in Delaware reached about 10 percent, Schiliro said. The solution was to tie in the DMV’s uninsured database to a state police license-plate reader system. Once that was solved, they began seeing possibilities for other problems, including tracking people who have not paid tolls or are wanted for other crimes.

. . .You can use it for a lot of different things,” Schiliro said. “You can use it for parking violators, stolen vehicles.”State police began using the system at sobriety checkpoints because of the number of cars that pass through them.

Read more

Virtual Alabama

Kaye Beach

July 23, 2011

“The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration,

and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.”  U. S. Privacy Study Commission

GIS stands for  Geographic Information System

“GIS is a computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing  and displaying data related to location. What separates GIS from other types of information/databases is that everything is based on location (georeference).”

 Link  

“GIS organizes geographic data so that a person reading  a map can select data necessary for aspecific project or task. A thematic map has a table of contents that allows the reader to add layers of information to a basemap of real-world locations. For example, a social analyst might use the basemap of Eugene, Oregon, and select datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau to add  data layers to a map that shows residents’ education levels, ages, and employment status.” Link

Read more about GIS “Getting the Gist of GIS“

Here is an excerpt about a program called Virtual Alabama which is based on GIS  from Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity By Torin Monahan

Pg 44-49

“Virtual Alabama”

Virtual Alabama is a complex database replete with three-dimensional imagery of most of the state (including, for example, buildings, roadways, power plants, refineries, and airports), GIS overlays for additional contextual information, building schematics, video surveillance access for all public cameras, algorithmic scenarios for likely direction of chemical plumes in case of a toxic release, and so on (see figure 1).

Modeled after the Google Earth platform, this science fiction- like surveillance system allows real-time access for all first responders in all counties within the state. James Walker explained that at first DHS had a very difficult time convincing local sheriffs that they should participate and share their data. This obstacle was overcome, however, when DHS promised to include a GIS overlay for all registered sex offenders in the state, showing exactly where each of them are supposed to be residing.

. . . The vision for Virtual Alabama, and for similar applications in other states, is to map everything and share data liberally. DHS envisions being able to share data regionally and nationally so that all emergency responders have access to the system, from local public safety providers to the National Guard—and, one must suspect, private contractors as well, especially because in addition to security contractor companies like Blackwater, which has been rebranded as “Xe Services,” fire departments have jumped on the privatization bandwagon too.27 DHS would like to achieve total “situational awareness” from the system, including real-time GPS data on the location of all state troopers, real-time readouts of available beds in hospitals, and GIS overlays for hunting licenses issued and chicken farms (in case of an avian flu outbreak).

There may be perks for businesses too. James Walker said that he would like to make the data available to corporations as an incentive for them to relocate to Alabama. Or, he continued, insurance companies and FEMA might like to have access to before-and-after aerial photographs of disaster sites so that they can determine who should really qualify for reimbursement to repair damaged property. In other words, this high-tech security application can be used to protect the assets of private companies or the state from the “security threat” of fraud.

. . . What is glaringly absent here is any discussion of the extent to which systems like Virtual Alabama could create new security threats. The detailed mapping of critical information can be as dangerous as it is useful if it falls into the “wrong hands.” This possibility, however, is not on the agenda of those advocating for such systems, which reveals that the goal of generating profitable data may be just as important as protecting the public, if not more important.

. . . the privacy of individuals is at significant risk with current levels of liberal data sharing among private companies and government agencies, along with the absence of serious privacy regulations in the United States.29 DHS Fusion Centers promise to institutionalize the data sharing that has been ad hoc to date. Second, while it is unclear if Google or similar companies will have access to data entered into security applications like Virtual Alabama, the centralized stockpiling of diverse data elements will certainly allow for intensified surveillance of people, whether for purposes of public safety, consumer marketing, fraud detection, or other unimagined possibilities enabled by these systems.  The limited information currently available on these nascent systems indicates that DHS is more than willing to approve the sharing of public data with private companies to encourage them to relocate their businesses or help them detect fraud. It is only a matter of time before other mutually profitable—but probably liberty-decaying—arrangements are discovered.

Read More

Fusion Centers, the IACP, Gun Control and HUBZones A4L Show Notes

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Governor Jesse Ventura Talks About The Police State. 3 Videos

OKOHS (Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security) is directed to continue their efforts in combating terrorism, and shall continue to oversee the implementation of any and all initiatives or efforts mandated by the United States Department of Homeland Security, including the development of a state information fusion center.

Background

In August 2002, the International Association of Chiefs of Police released the recommendations of its Criminal Intelligence Summit held March 7-8, 2002, with the final document coming from the DOJ’s office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). The report acknowledged that the problems identified following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were found to be with “intelligence exchange between national agencies…” Then the report quickly endorsed the creation of a Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council to implement the National Intelligence Plan that would engage local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in a database sharing environment. The plan addressed the legal impediments to the effective transfer of criminal intelligence between authorized local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. This plan became the superstructure for the next domestic Fusion Center effort by advocating for the creation of the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council and charged it with accomplishing a number of goals:

Read More

The Rise of the Fusion-Intelligence Complex: A critique of political surveillance after 9/11

Where did Fusion Centers Come From???

Immediately following the tragic events of 9/11, the IACP moved quickly to hold a national policy summit on terrorism and intelligence. The summit, sponsored by the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office and the IACP, was held in March of 2002. More than 120 law enforcement, justice, terrorism, and intelligence experts gathered in Alexandria, Virginia to create a national strategy to improve American law enforcement’s capacity to recognize, gather, analyze, share, and utilize criminal intelligence. Read More

Recent story on the IACP;

Obama Nominates Rabid Anti-gunner to Head the ATF

In March 2002, a year before DHS’ creation, the International Association of Chiefs of Police called for a national plan for sharing intelligence.

That recommendation led Justice’s Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) consortium to draft a National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan in October 2003.

The IACP also recommended against limiting intelligence sharing to terrorism-related data, suggesting instead that all “criminal intelligence” data be shared.  SOURCE EPIC

The IACP set 2 goals

#1 the establishment of “a coordinating council comprised of local, state, Tribal and Federal law enforcement executives … to oversee and implement the National Intelligence Plan.”

#2 is to “Address the legal impediments to the effective transfer of criminal intelligence between enforcement agencies.”

Those  “legal impediments” are the Bill of Rights and specifically the laws that were implemented in order to protect us from government spying as in COINTELPRO

The IACP and Intelligence Led Policing Post 911 Big Brother Gets Bigger

In the fall of 2001, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) held its annual conference in Toronto. Considering the events of September 11th, it was decided to organize an International Criminal Intelligence Sharing Summit in Alexandria, VA, March 7-8, 2002; the topic was Criminal Intelligence Sharing: Overcoming Barriers to Enhance Domestic Security.

2004

“. . .unprecedented initiatives have been undertaken to reengineer the law enforcement intelligence function.”

The Criminal Intelligence Systems Operating Policies, 28 CFR 23  mandates that

“criminal intelligence systems … are utilized in conformance with the privacy and constitutional rights of individuals.”

The IACP National Law Enforcement Policy Center’s “Criminal Intelligence Model Policy,” in an appendix to the GIWG (Global Intelligence Working Group) Report, was revised in 2003 to incorporate the anticipated change to 28 CFR 23.

The anticipated change?  Replace “reasonable suspicion” with “reasonable indication” (From Big Brother Gets Bigger)

R.I.P.  28 C.F.R. part 23

2008. . .the Department of Justice has relaxed restrictions on when the Federal Bureau of Investigation can begin investigations, and worked to increase intelligence-sharing among local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies as well as with federal (intelligence) agencies in ways that will compromise civil liberties (through a change in federal regulation 28 C.F.R. part 23).

Read more FBI Guidelines 28 C.F.R. part 23

Fusion Center Document Collection

The IACP- Gun Grabbers

The Constitution preserves “the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” — James Madison, The Federalist, No. 46

the Joyce Foundation, UN and the IACP disarming the world…

Brady President Praises Police Chiefs After Release of New Report

Sep 19, 2007

Washington, D.C. – Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called today’s report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Taking a Stand: Reducing Gun Violence in Our Communities, a “clear road map from the nation’s police chiefs of steps we can take now to combat gun violence.”

“Our nation’s police are on the front lines in the fight for public safety. In this landmark report, police leaders are saying they are tired of the nation’s gun policies being held hostage by the special interest gun lobby,” Helmke said.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/press/view/929

International Association of Chiefs of Police and The Joyce Foundation Great Lakes Gun Summit 2007

America has accepted the communitarian premise of the “good of the community” over individual rights as evidenced throughout law and policy, especially since 9 11.  This is where that line of thinking leads us and it is antithetical to the philosophy of individual rights that this nation was founded upon.  If we do not insist on upholding this revolutionary precept of our nation, then we ought to not be surprised when we begin to resemble every other milksop so-called Democracy in the world.

**Special note to 2A people in Oklahoma.** Read “Janet Reno addresses the IACP”

1995-This is a internal International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) document that obtained by NRA.  It discusses in detail IACP plans to weaken or eliminate right-to-carry legislation in state legislatures.

Do Gun Shows Have Loopholes?

“The public has a right to know the contents of this report, which was revealed to the International Association of Chiefs of Police last year,” said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron. “According to the Force Science News, research focused on 40 incidents involving assaults or deadly attacks on police officers, in which all but one of the guns involved had been obtained illegally, and none were obtained from gun shows.”

The study is called “Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement Officers.” Waldron called it a “smoking gun” in terms of revelations about the sources of crime guns. Anti-gun politicians and police chiefs do not want the public to know as they campaign against the so-called “gun show loophole,” he said.

Read more

Gun Violence Reduction

I’m going to describe a group that recently demanded enactment of a sweeping federal gun control agenda.

Let’s see if you can guess who it is.

The group has 22,000 members in more than 100 countries. Membership categories include “city managers, highway safety specialists, psychologists, attorneys, coroners and management analysts,” among others. The group has offices in Europe and the Caribbean, and the group’s website describes its governing board in your choice of English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Is it a new United Nations disarmament agency? No, the group is the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), headquartered in the nation’s capital.

Chris Cox “Follow The Money”

WyGO says

IACP Document Collection

http://www.scribd.com/document_collections/2332792

Ok-safe.com Fusion Center Power Point

•Questions to Ask about Fusion Centers

•Find Your State Fusion Center

Oklahoma Information Fusion Center

•Fusion Center Document Collection

Oklahoma Spy Cams-Never Say Die!

Kaye Beach

Posted Nov 15, 2010

Edited 12:24 pm

Oct 21, 2010 TOLLSROADSnews reports;

Most of north America’s tollers have agreed to participate in developing a hub to clear license plate tolls – a key step to improving the reach of all-electronic tolling (AET). At least 37 toll operators including the biggest – MTA B&T, NY Thruway, New Jersey Turnpike, Illinois Tollway, 407ETR, Florida’s Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, Harris County Toll, North Texas Toll, Ohio Turnpike, Oklahoma Turnpike, Bay Area Toll – are cooperating to develop a “License Plate Interoperability Hub”

Oklahoman’s may remember that Gov. Henry tried to implement a plan to place ALPR Automatic License Plate Readers, in 200 fixed locations ostensibly for the purpose of catching motorists driving without insurance and to help fill the gaps in the state budget.

Back in January of 2010 I wrote;

“Soon after queries were made to Governor Henry regarding license plate scanning devices some very interesting information came to light that seems to give more of the “big picture” on why these devices are so important to the state.

The Alliance for Toll Interoperability is a fairly new organization comprised of representatives of the transportation industry from several states.  David Machamer, the Director of Toll Operations for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is  the board of trustees Chairman of ATI.  This organization has come up with an interoperable toll charging plan that requires the use of ALPR (Automatic License Plate Readers) in order to be workable.

The plan also includes other schemes for tracking motorists and charging for various roadway usage fees through electronic registration tags (RFID) as well as cellular and satellite technology. . .

I asked;

Why ALPR?  Why Now?

NEWS ARTCLE–Florida, E-ZPass exchanging toll camera data to test license plate based tolls
Fri, 2009-08-07

The pilot program to exchange camera based data between toll areas is being conducted under the auspices of the Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI) and the I-95 Coalition.

ATI Initiatives

The ATI anticipated a great variety of ID tech for vehicles as being standard issue on vehicles in the near future but they needed a way to be able to identify vehicles so that they could implement their charging scheme NOW!

The answer?

ALPR-Automatic License Plate Readers.  You may be familiar with these devices as “spy cams”

BACKGROUND: All-electronic or cashless tolling depends mainly on transponders (also known as electronic ‘tags’ or ‘passes’) that can be read by an overhead RF (radio frequency) ‘reader’ for motorists enrolled in a local or grouped plan such as E-ZPass, TxTag, SunPass (Florida) or FasTrak (California).

But those vehicles without transponders or with transponders that cannot be read by local radio frequency readers have their license plates photographed.

The challenge is to get accurate names and addresses of the vehicle owners from the license plate images, and to bill, and collect on them – the task to be assigned to the hub operator or operators.

From TOLLROADSnews 2010-10-21

This grand scheme owes a lot to Oklahoma’s own David Machamer, the Director of Toll Operations for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority who has played a leading role in the development of this unbelievable human tracking and charging scheme.

When Governor Henry’s spy cam plan was revealed to the public, I knew that insurance verification was just the tip of the iceberg.  I wrote then;

Why do we need ALPR???

Uninsured motorists?  Sure but here is where the real money is!  This is why these devices are so important to the state. With interoperability and ubiquitous cameras, our government can charge us every time our wheels roll if they want.

The system will also be great for all sorts of fines and fees.  Really anything that can be attached to your motor vehicle records could be collected through the ALPR system.  Rather like the “deadbeat dad” DMV SSN racket.  In some states they already use these things to collect back taxes.  What are you going to do?  Walk?  No.  This is why state motor vehicle agencies never have a problem with debt.  No pay-no drive.  No work, no visits, no R and R.  We have to have our vehicles!

The new organization is called ATI-the Alliance for Toll Interoperability.  David Machamer, the Director of Toll Operations for the Oklahoma Toll Authority is on the board of trustees. The Chairman of the ATI.

Back in August 2010 Oklahoma residents began to breathe a little easier thinking that the spy cam plan had petered out;

Henry’s Highway ‘Spy’ Cam Plan Runs Out Of Gas

But the Spy Cam plan is nowhere near out of gas.  In fact, it hasn’t even taken a detour.

Will our new Governor pick up where Henry left off?  Where do the new “sticker tags” fit in the ATI’s plans?

As with so many other projects (like Real ID) our government has decided to impose upon us, this one too continues on despite the hue and cry of the taxpayers.

ALPR is an amazingly flexible technology.  Besides giving the state many new revenue streams it also allow big brother to keep an eye on us wherever we go, with whomever we travel, doing whatever it is we do.  This data will stream into your local Fusion Center to be combined with all of the other data being collected on you to be shared, errors and all like a bad disease.

“One of the major benefits of ALPR is the collection of data that allows for investigative purposes; this benefit is being seen with equal or even greater interest than the identification of known vehicles of interest.”

Automated License Plate Recognition Investment Justification and Purchasing Guide Federal Signal Corporation Published: August 2008

ATI July 2010 Board Meeting Board of Directors Meeting

Among the items discussed was;

The ATI’s Violation Enforcement Reciprocity initiative, legislation and drafting of legislation for the states to use to create/enforce the ATI’s Violation Enforcement Reciprocity initiative, how Alliance states were going about creating interoperability so that the information of travelers can be shared which will allow the states to charge drivers no matter which state they reside in.  For example North Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner is working on making these changes by way of an MOU.

An MOU is a memorandum of understanding, an informal written agreement and the DMV commissioner is an unelected position, yet this is how decisions and policy that will have an enormous effect on the people is being implemented!

The ATI board explains that “North Carolina and Virginia DMV

Commissioners are legislatively able to enter into these types of agreements without a legislative mandate.”

Isn’t that handy?  The people and their representatives in those two states apparently have no say in the matter.

It is not a new manner of charging for tolls that bothers me so much.  It is the fact that spy cameras are going to be the method of charging and that the data collected for this purpose will be kept and used for a number of other purposes such as intelligence gathering.  Another issue that is clear from reading the ATI documents is that the charging will not likely be limited to simply tolling.  Mileage and usage taxes based on zones and time of day, video enabled ticketing and a vast array of other creative revenue enhancement are part and parcel of the ALPR scamera plan.

Buckle up freedom lovers.  It is going to be a bumpy ride.

My collection of notes (soon to be updated again!) Oklahoma ALPR, Turnpike, Alliance for Toll Interoperability

Automatic License Plate Recognition and the ATI in Oklahoma-a write up from early 2010

Should government control the people or should the people control government?

** Mark Lerner will be a guest on the Power Hour with Joyce Riley tomorrow Oct 1st to talk about his book “your Body Is Your ID”**

The Big Question – should government control the people or should the people control government?

That is the first question we must ask ourselves. If you thing the people should be controlling the government and not the other way around then you will want to read “Your Body Is your ID”

A Surveillance Society or a Free Society?

Orwell’s prediction of a future big brother government came true. Whether acknowledged or not, Americans now live in a surveillance society.

Most of that American public falls into one of the categories the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calls “potential threats”; environmentalists, animal lovers, anti-war protestors, pro-lifers, evangelical Christians, observant Jews, Constitutionalists, returning veterans, and third party candidate supporters are all “potential domestic terrorists.”

The Real ID Act 2005 mandated that facial recognition technology be used for all drivers’ license photos; facial recognition, a biometric, measures distances between facial characteristics – specific parts of the mouth, eyes, nose and so on — and digitizes this information. Using this technology, each citizen would be enrolled into a single global biometric identification system.

No matter where a person is – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma or Paris, France — that person can be identified with the use of facial recognition technology. Closed circuit television cameras/surveillance cameras (CCTV) and linked computer systems make possible remote surveillance and global information sharing.

Read More: A Surveillance Society or a Free Society by Mark Lerner

Excerpts from Your Body is Your ID;

“A surveillance society must be in place before the government can have absolute power over us, the citizens.”

from the book “Your Body Is Your ID”

View this document on Scribd

Oklahoma Schools: Data Collecting or Dossier Building?

States mismanage student information, study concludes

The Washington Post reports, citing a Fordham Law report “Children’s Educational Records and Privacy” in Oct. 2009

Collection systems for education appear vast and vulnerable

States often collect far more information about students than necessary and fail to take adequate steps to protect their privacy, a national study concludes. The dossiers go far beyond test scores, including Social Security numbers, poverty data, health information and disciplinary incidents.

. . .The movement toward statewide databases with unique student identifiers, rooted in the standards-and-testing movement of the 1990s, has grown significantly in this decade under the federal No Child Left Behind law and is getting a fresh push this year from the Obama administration. Federal officials want to link student test scores to teacher files to help evaluate instruction. They also envision systems that track students from pre-kindergarten through college, to help raise college completion rates.

Read More

From the Fordham Report;

Among state departments of education there has been a growing trend to establish statewide longitudinal databases of all K-12 children within a state in order to track students’ progress and change over time. This trend is accompanied by a movement to create uniform data collection systems so that each state’s student data systems are interoperable with one another. These two trends raised privacy concerns that we examine in this study.

. . .. Specifically, our goal was to investigate what type of data was being collected and whether children were protected legally and technically from data misuse, improper data release, and data breaches. Second, we were concerned with the ease with which individual interoperable state data systems could potentially be combined to create a national database of all K-12 children. (Emphasis mine)

Read the report

I share these concerns.  Unfortunately Fordham was unable to get much information on Oklahoma’s school data systems or practices but from a minor bit of digging on the subject, I do find some reason for Oklahoma parents to be asking some questions.

For instance;

in 2005;

Oklahoma Deploys the Nation’s First Fully Implemented Statewide SIF-Based Data Collection Model

and in 2010;

Oklahoma Receives First Ever SIF Award Public Schools

SIF means Schools Interoperability Framework

SIF is an interoperability framework that enables  the exchange of information between diverse data systems.  Oklahoma is the first state to deploy SIF. How did we manage that?

We are also  the first state to mandate compliance by law.

So, What sort of information is being collected and shared on students?

Broadly, the data collected on students  includes their

• directory
• demographic
• disciplinary
• academic
• health, and
• family information

Those categories pretty much cover, well, just about everything and the SIF standards are internationally benchmarked.

Oklahoma is an active participant in the Common Core Standards Initiative, a consortium of 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia. The Initiative is coordinated by the National Governors Association and the Council for Chief State School Officers. The standards that are being developed will be internationally benchmarked

From Race to the Top
Technical Review Form – Tier 1
Oklahoma Application #5280-0K-1

Read More about international benchmarks

But wait, there’s more;

“at least 32% of the states warehouse children’s social security numbers, at least 22% of the states record children’s pregnancies, at least 46% of the states track mental health, illness, and jail sentences as part of the children’s educational records, and almost all states with known programs collect family wealth indicators.” says the Fordham report

The  report states that “most states collected information in excess of what is needed for the reporting requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and what appeared needed to evaluate overall school progress”

Why?

Why would most states do this.  Seems like this would be just more work for them. School administrators and teachers already have their hands full.  If most states are collecting all of this excess data, you can bet there is a reason for it and it probably has something to do with funding.

“Oklahoma’s student information system, The Wave, is regarded as a state-of-the-art, real-time electronic system unlike any other state’s in the nation for student reporting and accountability efforts.”

In the May 2010 press release announcing Oklahoma’s award for its student information system, Sandy Garrett, Oklahoma School Superintendent remarks;

“This system was not developed overnight. We were diligent in taking the steps to make it sound, secure and reliable, and to ensure it was a platform that wouldn’t become out-of-date, but rather provide infrastructure for the inevitable advances in data collection and reporting.”

If you have followed my blogging even casually you will know that I am extremely opposed to the  intrusive and ever increasing levels of surveillance being directed upon law abiding people and that state Fusion Centers are a major focus for me.

“They use their technology infrastructure to gather and analyze data on the factors that are most predictive of students who are in danger of school failure and/or dropping out.  . . .As a result, the district has forged new partnerships with local law enforcement agencies”

from the Oklahoma Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development pg 26

Our schools and Fusion Centers both use Data Mining and Predictive Analytics, although for (somewhat) different purposes.

Predictive Analytics data and text mining, data collection and statistics software enables law enforcement agencies to anticipate criminal behavior by quickly analyzing massive amounts of incident data – along with current and developing conditions, such as weather, time of day, city events or even paydays – to ensure the safety of citizens and officers.

Read More

Fusion Centers incorporate a vast array of sources for information collection including law enforcement, public safety, transportation, education, health, agriculture and the private sector

My interest in what is going on in our public education system is directly tied to my concern about the Fusion Centers and I’ll tell you why.  Because any and all information is being fed to them.  Public schools are no exception.    In fact, it is the tying of information that is the source of the problem.  One database holding information is not what bothers me, it is the fact that these systems are being merged.

Read More

I have much more that I will be  sharing with you about this issue but I think it is important enough to try and lay a firm  foundation before I do.  To this end, I will be having an expert on education & privacy law who will catch us up on the  on the history and development of school information collecting on my radio show, AxXiom for Liberty, this Friday evening.

The expert is Beverly K.  Eakman and here is a short list of her credentials.

Beverly Eakman was an Educator, 9 years and a Science & Technical Writer/Editor-in-Chief of NASA’s official newspaper.  She was the Chief speechwriter for: Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and a writer: U.S. Dept. of Justice from 1991-2004. She is also the author of several books on education policy including the recently released, Walking Targets and has written many feature-length articles: Education Week, Chronicles Magazine, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, National Review, The New American, Crisis Magazine, The Washington Post and served as the Executive Director of the  National Education Consortium from 1994-2006.

I will be posting some of Beverly Eakman’s work between now and Friday and I hope that you will join me Friday at 6pm CST to find out more about what is happening in our schools and what we can do about it.

AxXiom for Liberty is heard in 18 different states around the nation on AM and FM stations.  It can also be heard live over the internet every friday at Rule of Law Radio. http://www.ruleoflawradio.com

If you would like to call in with a question or comment, the number is 512-646-1984.