Big Brother

Trump may intervene in case of St. Louis couple wielding guns at protesters, Missouri governor said

The governor of Missouri says President Trump has promised to “do everything he could within his powers” to shield a St. Louis couple who wielded guns at protesters in their gated community from prosecution, even as an attorney for the client says charges are imminent. Gov. Mike Parson said he spoke to Trump Tuesday and was reassured that the president– who previously has retweeted a photo of the couple, Mark and Patricia McCloskey holding up guns in front of their house in the June 28 incident–“understands the situation in Missouri.” “He understands the situation in St. Louis and how out of control it is for a prosecutor to let violent criminals off and not do their job and try to attack law-abiding citizens,” Parson said at a press conference. “The conversation I had with the President, said that he would do everything he could within his powers to help with this situation,” Parson added. Parson and Trump’s conversation comes days after police served a search warrant at the McCloskey’s home in the upscale Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, in the same area where the city’s Democratic mayor, Lyda Krewson, lives. Nearly 500 protesters marching for racial equality and against police brutality were headed towards Krewson’s residence during the June 28 incident, after she read off the names and addresses of individuals petitioning to defund the police. Mark and Patricia McCloskey came out of their house, brandished their guns, and demanded the protesters leave because they were trespassing. The couple later told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that they were fearful that the protesters would “kill us” and “burn down the house.” Police seized the rifle that Mark was holding in the now-viral video of the incident, while a handgun that Patricia was holding was turned over to St. Louis Police Saturday by the couple’s attorney Albert Watkins. The handgun had been in Watkins’s possession as evidence that it was inoperable when she pointed it at protesters “in defense of themselves and their home at [the] time of the march,” Watkins told Fox News. Watkins says he anticipates state charges against the couple “as early as today,” he said on Wednesday, but views Trump’s interest in the case as a positive. “The President has been restrained to date and has been kept up to date in virtually real time,” Watkins said, “His support behind the scenes was vital to permitting local police to step back from prior directives to be ‘hands off’ protesters. “The support of the Executive Office appears to have motivated The Governor to garner a heightened degree of appreciation for implications and rights at risk in this situation,” Watkins said. Parson shared an article about the McCloskeys on Facebook Tuesday with the caption “Missourians have the right to protect their homes.” In a separate post, Parson lambasted city prosecutors, saying it’s “appalling” that they are “targeting the McCloskey’s for defending their home.”

Exactly! And well said, Governor.  This is what happens when you have anti-gun, liberal Democrat nazis like this local St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner (D) in power.  They go after law-abiding gun owners, like the McCloskeys, who are just trying to protect their family and their home.  Instead, Ms. Gardner should be going after these protestors who, by contrast, BROKE the law and jumped the gate (almost tore it down) of this gated community and harassed homeowners, etc.  But, don’t hold your breath, folks.  This is the same city attorney who, after the riots in St. Louis following the George Floyd death, released the 35 or so rioters.  The cops arrested them for violence and vandalism, etc..and she just turned them loose.  In case you’re wondering..  Yes, she’s a black, Democrat female.  We’ll let you decide if that’s relevant in today’s racially charged environment.

Josh Hawley: Google, Apple CEOs Must Be Personally Liable for User Privacy

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has called on the CEOs of Google and Apple to accept personal legal liability for protecting user privacy as they move to implement “contact tracing” technology in smartphones to track the spread of the Chinese virus. As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Google and Apple are teaming up to track carriers of the Chinese coronavirus and other individuals, a process known as “contact tracing,” using smartphone location data. The companies promise a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms,” meaning the technology will be embedded in Android and iOS smartphones. Now Sen. Hawley is calling on the companies to address privacy concerns by making their CEOs personally liable for any improper use of user data. “If you seek to assure the public, make your stake in this project personal,” wrote Hawley in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai “Make a commitment that you and other executives will be personally liable if you stop protecting privacy, such as by granting advertising companies access to the interface once the pandemic is over. The public statements you make now can be enforced under federal and state consumer protection laws. Do not hide behind a corporate shield like so many privacy offenders have before. Stake your personal finances on the security of this project.” This comes after Google’s recent announcement that, allegedly due to pandemic-related disruption, it would delay the rollout of key features in its plan to eliminate third-party tracking technology (known as “cookies”) in its Chrome internet browser. The effort is part of a wider push by Google to reassure consumers about its commitment to their privacy. But as Breitbart News reported last month, eliminating third-party cookies does not mean Chrome browsers won’t be collecting user data. It just means that Google will have an even tighter monopoly over that data, supplementing the vast amounts of data it collects on its users’ behavior via services like Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Google Docs, and hardware like Android phones, tablets, and Chromebooks. The company also does not have a sterling reputation for responsibly accessing healthcare data. In 2019, the company gained access to the personal health data of 50 million Americans through an initiative the company branded “Project Nightingale.” According to reports at the time, doctors and patients were unaware of Google’s data-harvesting operation.

Major kudos to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who is also the former Attorney General for the State of Missouri, for putting these CEOs on notice.  This whole so-called “contact tracing” just stinks of big brother and allowing the government the ability to track your whereabouts without any restrictions.

Google to issue reports on users’ location data to help governments enforce social distancing

Google said Friday it will begin publishing reports created from Google Maps users’ whereabouts to help governments make policy decisions regarding social distancing measures enacted to fight coronavirus. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer, said Friday the company will protect individuals’ privacy by not revealing any one user’s location, contacts or movement at any point. Dr. DeSalvo said the COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports will initially cover 131 countries and regions and they will expand to cover additional countries and regions in the coming weeks. “The reports use aggregated, anonymized data to chart movement trends over time by geography, across different high-level categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential,” Dr. DeSalvo wrote on Google’s blog. “We’ll show trends over several weeks, with the most recent information representing 48-to-72 hours prior. … In addition to other resources public health officials might have, we hope these reports will help support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.” Dr. DeSalvo wrote that the information Google has long collected but is now publishing may help officials understand better what defines an “essential” trip and where public transit resources may need to be allocated. Google users with the “Location History” setting turned on are having their whereabouts provide information for the mobility reports, which are publicly searchable on Google. Dr. DeSalvo wrote that her team is also working with epidemiologists who are focused on coronavirus and is providing them with an “existing aggregate, anonymized dataset” to learn more about the coronavirus outbreak and “forecast the pandemic.”

This certainly should raise all sorts of privacy and ‘big brother’ questions/concerns.  We’ll, of course, keep an eye on this developing story…

FBI’s Foreign Surveillance Program Violated Americans’ Civil Liberties, FISA Court Finds

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has ruled that an FBI program intended to target foreign suspects violated Americans’ constitutional right to privacy by collecting the personal information of American citizens along with the foreign targets of the surveillance. According to the ruling, tens of thousands of searches the FBI made of raw intelligence databases from 2017 to 2018 were illegal, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The searches involved personal data including emails and telephone numbers of private citizens. “The court…finds that the FBI’s querying procedures and minimization procedures are not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment,” wrote U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in the ruling, which was released Tuesday in partially redacted form. Boasberg said the Trump administration failed to persuade the court that adjusting the program to more efficiently protect American citizens’ privacy would impede the FBI’s ability to counter threats. Federal law limits searches on such databases to to those that are explicitly related to the collection of evidence of a crime or foreign intelligence. In one case revealed in the ruling, an FBI official used a database to search for information on himself, his relatives and other FBI personnel. The Foreign Intelligence Service Act has come under scrutiny in recent years after the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to conduct an investigation into former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI maintains it suspected Page may have been working with Russian officials to interfere with the 2016 presidential election campaign, while President Trump has said the FBI “illegally spied” on his campaign.

…which it did.  But, this is an interesting development.  It’s the classic battle between law enforcement trying to protect us, and the need to make sure that they don’t cross that line where they impede on our civil liberties as Americans.  It’s a very fine line..

Swedes are getting implants in their hands to replace cash, credit cards

Thousands of people in Sweden are having futuristic microchips implanted into their skin to carry out everyday activities and replace credit cards and cash. More than 4,000 people have already had the sci-fi-ish chips, about the size of a grain of rice, inserted into their hands — with the pioneers predicting millions will soon join them as they hope to take it global. “It’s very ‘Black Mirror,’” Swedish scientist Ben Libberton told The Post of the similarity to the TV series highlighting futuristic scenarios. Like glorified smartwatches, the chips help Swedes monitor their health and even replace keycards to allow them to enter offices and buildings. They have particularly caught on, however, by enabling owners to pay in stores with a simple swipe of the hand, a big deal in a forward-looking country that is moving toward eliminating cash. The microchips were pioneered by former body piercer Jowan Österlund, who calls the technology a “moonshot” — and who told Fortune magazine that he’s been hit up by hopeful investors “on every continent except Antarctica.” “Tech will move into the body,” the Biohax International founder told the mag. “I am sure of that.” Österlund insists the technology is safe — but that has not stopped alarm bells from ringing, with some fearing a link to a doubling in cybercrime in the country over the last decade. Libberton, a British scientist based in Sweden, praised the “definitely exciting” potential health benefits of accurate health metrics taken from inside the body. “Think if the Apple Watch could measure things like blood glucose,” he told The Post. But he also fears the mass of highly personalized data and how it could be used. “The problem is, who owns this data?” he asked. “Do I get a letter from my insurance company saying premiums are going up before I know I’m ill? If I use the chip to buy lunch, go to the gym and go to work, will someone have all of this info about me? Is this stored and is it safe?” Libberton added, “It’s not just about the chip, but integration with other systems and data sharing.” And he fears Swedes are not giving enough thought to the potential dangers. “People have shown they’re happy to give up privacy for convenience,” he said. “The chip is very convenient, so could we accept our data being shared very widely before we know the risks?” The trend coincides with Sweden’s march toward going cashless, with notes and coins making up just 1 percent of Sweden’s economy. At the same time, the country has seen a dramatic decrease in some crimes — with just two bank robberies last year compared to 110 in 2008.

Look for this to come to America at some point..  But, hopefully not anytime soon.  Don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of this on oh so many levels.  There are the security and privacy concerns.  But, also..  How about big brother?!?  Way too many risks.  I guess let the Swedes be the guinea pig on this one for now..

Report: Google Is Tracking Your Location Even if You Tell It to Stop

Google is reportedly tracking your physical movements with your smartphone even if you select privacy settings which are supposed to stop it from doing so. According to the Associated Press, who launched an investigation into the tracking, it “found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.” “Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request,” it continued, adding that, “Storing your minute-by-minute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects — such as a warrant that police in Raleigh, North Carolina, served on Google last year to find devices near a murder scene.” Despite Google claiming that you can turn off the tracking, the Associated Press revealed that this is not true, and even “with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking.” “If you’re going to allow users to turn off something called ‘Location History,’ then all the places where you maintain location history should be turned off,” expressed Jonathan Mayer, a former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. “That seems like a pretty straightforward position to have.” In a statement, Google defended their tracking, and proclaimed, “There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people’s experience, including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services. We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.” In February 2018 Tucker Carlson revealed that placing an Android phone in airplace mode or disconnecting it from the network would not stop it from tracking location. The governments of South Korea and the U.K. investigated Google for tracking users’ locations without their knowledge in 2017.