Big Brother Is Watching You Big Time

It was way back in 1949 that George Orwell wrote the classic book 1984. In it, he coined the famous phrase, "Big Brother Is Watching You."

In the universe of that book, monitoring devices in every room of every home reported to the government on its citizens' slightest words and actions. The rationale behind this encroachment upon the lives of people everywhere consisted of "emergency powers" on behalf of an ongoing, never-ending war against a nebulous enemy that they were encouraged to hate. Sound familiar?

The following article encapsulates the things that are going on in our world today with regard to loss of privacy and the enabling of our government to search into every aspect of our lives, with or without "probable cause." In some ways, it makes 1984 look like a walk in the park.

For background and documentation of what's below, along with a great deal more information if you choose to pursue this topic, please visit the Center for Democracy & Technology website.

The United States and other developed countries (especially the United Kingdom) have developed highly sophisticated systems and software to monitor communication and movement of individuals through satellites, telephones, facial ID, and the Internet servers (ISPs).

Originally, the tracking capabilities were developed by the military and intelligence community (Central Intelligence Agency). But today, the military and intelligence community can share information under what is known as the "Echelon system," which is coordinated by the National Security Agency. The push by law enforcement is to increase the ability to wire tap, require national identification systems, and data mine, and to prohibit encryption software.

Wire taps and E-mail

ISP Backdoor

As early as 1993, the FBI proposed that Internet Service Providers create a built in "back door" to e-mail messages on their servers.

In a move that worried privacy experts, software manufacturers, and telephone companies, the FBI's proposed legislation would have amended the Communications Act of 1934 to make it easier for the Bureau to perform electronic wiretapping.

The proposed legislation, entitled "Digital Telephony," would have required communications service providers and hardware manufacturers to make their systems "tappable" by providing "back doors" through which law enforcement officers could intercept communications.

Furthermore, this "back door" capability would have been provided undetectably — while communications were in progress, exclusive of any communications between other parties, and regardless of the mobility of the target of the FBI's investigation.

Open Season on Phone Telephone Surveillance

Under pressure from the FBI, the wireless phone industry has agreed to provide law enforcement with the capability to track the location of cellular phone users.

The telephone industry has also agreed that carriers using increasingly common "packet switching" protocols may provide to the government the full content of customer communications — even though the government is only legally authorized to intercept the less sensitive addressing data (that indicates who is calling whom).

CALEA — a version of the "Digital Telephony" bill which requires telephone firms to make it easy to wiretap the nation's communication system, was adopted in 1994, in the closing hours of Congress — after the government offered to pay telephone companies $5 million to make the proposed changes.

Monitoring of Your Computer Activity

On July 11, 2000, the existence of an FBI Internet monitoring system called "Carnivore" was widely reported. Although the public details were sketchy, reports indicated that the Carnivore system is installed at the facilities of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and can monitor all traffic moving through that ISP.

The FBI claims that Carnivore "filters" data traffic and delivers to investigators only those "packets" that they are lawfully authorized to obtain. But because the details remain secret, the public is left to trust the FBI's characterization of the system and — more significantly — the FBI's compliance with legal requirements.

Satellite Monitoring

Satellites developed by the military can record pictures to within one to two feet, even through cloud cover.

Most of this capability is classified. However, we do know that a system called Lacrosse, while still highly classified, has an imaging resolution of 1m (3.3ft).

Lacrosse 3 (199-A) was launched from Vandenberg AFB, California, on a Titan-4 in the fall of 1997, replacing Lacrosse 1.

A space-based imaging radar can see through clouds, and utilization of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques can potentially provide images with a resolution that approaches that of photographic reconnaissance satellites.

A project to develop such a satellite was initiated in late 1986 by the CIA. This effort led to the successful test of the Indigo prototype imaging radar satellite in January 1982. Development of the Lacrosse KH-12 system was approved in 1983. Similar to the KH-11 but with greatly improved electronics which provide sharper images and a resolution approaching ten centimeters (6 inches), it has a periscope-like rotating mirror that reflects images onto the primary mirror, enabling the KH-12 to take pictures at very high angles of obliquity, imaging objects hundreds of miles away from its flight path. KH-12-3 was launched on 20 December 1996 by a Titan-4 from Vandenberg.

The Air Force now imposes a total security blanket on this project, which is called Corona. Future launches will be secret, with no effort to maintain a cover story of scientific research.

Privacy and Human Rights

ID Requirements

In recent years, ID cards have been linked to national registration systems, which in turn form the basis of government administration. In such systems — for example in Spain, Portugal, Thailand and Singapore — the ID card becomes merely one visible component of a much larger system.

With the advent of magnetic stripes and microprocessor technology, these cards also can become an interface for receipt of government services. Thus, the cards become a fusion of service technology and identification.

Even in democratic nations, police retain the right to demand ID on pain of detention. Attempts in the United States to require a national ID have been proposed, but not passed.

One state generates over $8 million in revenue by selling information on drivers' licenses to private industry.

Biometrics

Biometrics is the process of collecting, processing, and storing details of a person's physical characteristics for the purpose of identification and authentication. The most popular forms of biometric ID are retina scans, hand geometry, thumb scans, finger prints, voice recognition, and digitized (electronically stored) photographs.

Biometric technology has gained the interest of governments and big business because, unlike other forms of ID such as cards or papers, it has the capacity to accurately and intimately identify the target subject.

Biometrics schemes are being implemented across the world. The technology is being used in retail outlets, government agencies, child care centers, police forces, and automated-teller machines. For example:

An automated immigration system developed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) uses hand geometry. In this project, frequent travelers have their hand geometry stored in a "smart" computer chip card. The traveler places a hand onto a scanner, and places the card into a slot. More than 70,000 people have enrolled in a trial experiment.

DNA identification is benefitting from the new scanning technology, which can automatically match DNA samples against a large database in minutes. Police forces in several countries such as the United States, Germany and Canada are creating national databases of DNA.

Private Industry Monitoring

Employees in nearly every country are vulnerable to comprehensive surveillance by managers. Legal protections are generally more lax in such circumstances because surveillance is frequently imposed as a condition of employment.

In many countries, employers can tap phones, read email, and monitor computer screens. They can bug conversations, analyze computer and keyboard work, peer through CCTV cameras, use tracking technology to monitor personnel movements, analyze urine to detect drug use, and demand the disclosure of intimate personal data.

The technology being used to monitor workers is extremely powerful. It can even analyze "keystrokes" on a terminal to determine whether employees are making efficient use of their time between telephone conversations. Software companies call this process "performance monitoring."

Even in workplaces staffed by highly skilled information technology specialists, bosses demand the right to spy on every detail of a workers performance. Modern networked systems can interrogate computers to determine which software is being run, how often, and in what manner. A comprehensive audit trail gives managers a profile of each user, and a panorama of how the workers are interacting with their machines.

The software also gives managers total central control over the software on each individual PC. The technology being used extends to every aspect of a worker's life. Miniature cameras monitor behavior. "Smart" ID badges track an employee's movements around a building. Telephone Management Systems (TMS) analyze the pattern of telephone use and the destination of calls.

Psychological tests, general intelligence tests, aptitude tests, performance tests, vocational interest tests, personality tests, and honesty tests are all electronically assessed. Surveillance and monitoring have become design components of modern information systems.

United Kingdom and U.S. Cooperation

The strongest alliance within the UK/USA relationship is the one between the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The most important facility in the alliance is Menwith Hill, in the north of England. With two dozen radomes and a vast computer operations facility, the base has the capacity to eavesdrop on vast chunks of the communications spectrum.

With the creation of Intelsat and digital telecommunications, Menwith and other stations developed the capability to eavesdrop on an extensive scale on fax, telex, and voice messages. It is widely believed that Menwith Hill has around 40,000 lines connected to it, through which access could be gained to much of European and Russian communications.

A report published in late 1997 by the European Parliament has confirmed that "Project Echelon" gives the NSA the ability to search nearly all data communications for "key words." Messages are not currently analyzed for overall content, nor is the scanning done in real time, but daily reports provide "precursor" data which assists intelligence agencies determine targets.

Automatic scanning of voice communications may not be far behind. A voice recognition system called "Oratory" has been used for some years to intercept and analyze diplomatic phone calls. The report — "Assessing the Technologies of Political Control" — states:

Within Europe, all email, telephone, and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London, then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York moors in the UK.

Besides CDT, two other good sources for further research are Privacy International a watchdog entity, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).