The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, voter concerns about domestic surveillance have not decreased, as the nation prepares for a new administration under President-elect Donald Trump.
Continue reading Surveillance State: Worries Remain High About Government Spying on Americans
photos courtesy of the Hackensack Police Department
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Hackensack NJ, the City of Hackensack takes a major leap forward in community safety with the grand opening of the Safe Street Command Center! This state-of-the-art facility, located in the John Earl Building adjacent to police headquarters, will serve as the central hub for modernizing the city’s patrol and crime prevention efforts.
Continue reading 24/7 Surveillance to Comes to Downtown Hackensack
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Ridgewood NJ, a majority of voters are worried that their government is spying on Americans – almost as much as they fear spying from foreigners.
Local law enforcement officials across the country, from Southern California to rural parts of North Carolina, have been using an obscure tracking tool for cell phones, sometimes without warrants. The tool has reportedly been used in New Jersey as well, and it allows law enforcement to follow people’s movements from months in the past, according to public records and emails The Associated Press was able to obtain.
Continue reading Cell Phone Tracking Tool Facilitates Mass Surveillance
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Trenton NJ, acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck today announced the launch of an online portal soliciting comment from the public on regulating the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement in New Jersey for investigative purposes.
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Ridgewood NJ, the COVID pandemic saw the raise of “remote work” . Remote work, also called telecommuting, distance working, telework, teleworking, working from home, mobile work, remote job, work from anywhere, hybrid work and flexible workplace, is a work arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, warehouse, or store.
Continue reading Remote work, the death of Personal Privacy and the Spread of the Surveillance State
thhe staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, a new book has been released that details how Facebook fired 52 employees between January 2014 and August 2015 for exploiting user data for personal means. Most of the employees who were fired were men who took advantage of their data access to find profiles of women they were interested in. Facebook has a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and has fired every employee ever found to be improperly accessing data. An employee was found to have abused access nearly every month, but Facebook still resists limiting internal access to private data.
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Ridgewood NJ, Brave’s search engine has been launched in global beta. The non-tracking search engine is built on top of an independent index and is marketed as a privacy-safe alternative to products like Google search. Brave will make Brave Search the default search for its browser later this year. Pro-privacy consumer tech has been building momentum over the last few years as the public is becoming more educated on surveillance-based business models.
Continue reading Brave’s Non-tracking Search Engine Takes on the Surveillance State
By
James Freeman
Updated May 12, 2017 5:42 p.m. ET
Another day brings another series of tweets from President Trump that have his opponents—and even some of his allies—expressing shock and outrage. In one particularly incendiary missive this morning Mr. Trump wrote, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” It’s no surprise that Mr. Trump is once again dominating the news via Twitter, but reporters might also want to pay attention to presidential use of a much more powerful set of electronic tools.
.https://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-trump-and-surveillance-1494624812.
Barack Obama denies ‘ever ordering surveillance on any US citizen’ following bombshell accusations he tapped Donald Trump’s phone during US presidential election
Trump claims ‘sick’ ex-president involved in surveillance during heated election campaign
By Brittany Vonow, Mark Hodge and Patrick Knox
4th March 2017, 8:06 pm
Updated: 4th March 2017, 10:44 pm
DONALD Trump’s allegation that his predecessor ordered his phone to be tapped is “simply false”, Barack Obama’s spokesman says.
In an astonishing salvo of early morning tweets, the firebrand President claimed his predecessor had bugged his phones during the “very sacred election process”, slamming the allegations as a “Nixon/Watergate” scandal.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3009405/donald-trump-barack-obama-wires-tapped-trump-tower-election/
U.S. to disclose estimate of number of Americans under surveillance
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON
The U.S. intelligence community will soon disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose electronic communications have been caught in the crosshairs of online surveillance programs intended for foreigners, U.S. lawmakers said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
The estimate, requested by members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, is expected to be made public as early as next month, the letter said.
Its disclosure would come as Congress is expected to begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the so-called surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that was added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008.
“The timely production of this information is incredibly important to informed debate on Section 702 in the next Congress— and, without it, even those of us inclined to support reauthorization would have reason for concern,” said the letter signed by 11 lawmakers, all members of the House Judiciary Committee.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-surveillance-idUSKBN1452FX?il=0
Major survey finds record low confidence in government
By EMILY SWANSON
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ confidence in all three branches of government is at or near record lows, according to a major survey that has measured attitudes on the subject for 40 years.
The 2014 General Social Survey finds only 23 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, 11 percent in the executive branch and 5 percent in Congress. By contrast, half have a great deal of confidence in the military.
The survey is conducted by the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. Because of its long-running and comprehensive set of questions about the public, it is a highly regarded source of data about social trends. Data from the 2014 survey was released last week, and an analysis of its findings on confidence in institutions was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the General Social Survey.
