Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance

Pen register and trap and trace devices now generally refer to the surveillance of information about—rather than the contents of—communications. Pen registers capture outgoing data, while trap and trace devices capture incoming data. This still includes the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing telephone calls and the time, date, and length of those calls. But the government now also uses this authority to intercept the “to” and “from” addresses of email messages, records about instant message conversations, non-content data associated with social networking identities, and at least some information about the websites that you visit (it isn’t entirely clear where the government draws the line between the content of a communication and information about a communication when it comes to the addresses of websites).

via ACLU.

For the record, I agree with the ACLU exactly one time.  This is it.

Our government has taken to spying on its own citizens, that’s us, on an unprecedented level.  As more and more communications go electronic it’s easier and easier to intercept.  That it is done without a warrant is truly frightening.  If these communications are so important then the FBI should present evidence to a judge and get a warrant.

Mind you, this is the same FBI that cannot find hundreds of guns from Fast and Furious.  This is the same presidential administration that refuses to turn over records regarding those guns or the Fast and Furious catastrophe.  The same administration that promised to the “the most open and transparent in history” and has proven to be just as closed and private as Dick Cheney and the Bush years.

When it comes to spying on you but keeping gov. secrets Obama = Bush.

New Govt Laser Reads You At Molecular Level

The Department of Homeland Security will soon be using a laser at airports that can detect everything about you from over 160-feet away.

Gizmodo reports a scanner that could read people at the molecular level has been invented. This laser-based scanner – which can be used 164-feet away — could read everything from a person’s adrenaline levels, to traces of gun powder on a person’s clothes, to illegal substances — and it can all be done without a physical search. It also could be used on multiple people at a time, eliminating random searches at airports.

The laser-based scanner is expected to be used in airports as soon as 2013, Gizmodo reports.

via CBS DC.

Really?!  Is this what we’ve come to?

I wonder what the ACLU’s position is going to be on this.  At the airport I kinda understand; you are giving your consent to be searched.  That’s the bargain for what is supposed to be a safe flight.

But how long before Mayor Bloomberg decides that he wants to use this on people just walking down the street?

1984 here we come!!