The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is secretly collecting millions of consumer credit card accounts, mortgages

Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are conducting a massive, NSA-esque data-mining project collecting account information on an estimated 991 million American credit card accounts.

It was also learned at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that CFPB officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on a second data-mining effort, this one focused on the 53 million residential mortgages taken out by Americans since 1998.

The mortgage information is being compiled in a database that can be "reversed engineered" by hackers seeking information for identify theft, according to an expert cited during the hearing.

“This is one step closer to a Big Brother form of government where they know everything about us,” said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.

Neugebauer pressed Cordray on the possibility of reverse-engineering of the mortgage database. "Can this data be reverse-engineered?" he asked.

"We're concerned about making sure that does not happen as much as possible," Cordray answered. "I don't need that headache."

The revelations came in a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, during which CFPB Director Richard Cordray was repeatedly pressed about federal officials rummaging around in the private financial affairs of millions of Americans.

"We're collecting aggregated information," Cordray told the committee while defending the bureau's data-mining efforts.

Neugebauer remarked that CFPB "and NSA are in a contest of who can collect the most information."

According to Steven Antonakes, the bureau's deputy director, CFPB's program mines credit card accounts maintained by 18 of the largest card issuers in the United States.

CFPB has signed a four-year, $2.9 million contract with Argus Information and Advisory Services to obtain credit card data from nine of the issuers, according to documents made available by the committee.

The contract is to end March 2017, according to USAspending.gov, a government database that tracks federal spending.

A memorandum of understanding signed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency permits Argus to obtain data from nine other credit card issuers.

In previous testimony before Rep. Jeb Hensarling's panel, Antonakes said “the combined data represents approximately 85-90 percent of outstanding card balances.”

The Argus contract specifies that the company must collect 96 “data points” from each of the participating card issuers for each credit card account on a monthly basis.

The 96 data points include a unique card-account identification reference number, ZIP code, monthly ending balance, borrower’s income, FICO score, credit limit, monthly payment amount, and days past due.

"Would you object to getting permission from consumers, those people who you work for, before you collect and monitor their information?" Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., asked Cordray.

"That would make it impossible to get the data," Cordray replied.

"You can't even opt out," Duffy said. "The NSA does not ask Americans' permission to collect their phone records and emails and texts. The CFPB does not ask permission to collect information on America's financial consumers."

A committee aide estimated that over the life of the Argus contract, the company will collect about 51 terabytes of data, or the equivalent of all the text in all the books in 50 large libraries.

Morgan Drexen, a company that designs and delivers integrated support systems to attorneys across the United States, filed a lawsuit to block the CFPB from taking enforcement action against the company and asked the court to declare that the bureau is unconstitutional because it violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. (The CFPB sued Morgan Drexen back for “charging advance fees for debt relief services in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule and engaged in deceptive acts and practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act.”)
http://washingtonexaminer.com/consumer-bureau-data-mining-hundreds-of-millions-of-consumer-credit-card-accounts-mortgages/article/2543039
http://washingtonexaminer.com/consumer-bureau-data-mining-hundreds-of-millions-of-consumer-credit-card-accounts-mortgages/article/2543039
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/13/Consumer-Financial-Protection-Bureau-Data-Mining-Americans-Credit-Card-Transactions

Airlines aren't liable for exaggerating possible air emergencies

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that when an airline reports to TSA about an individual who might pose a potential danger, the airline may not be held liable if its report contained exaggerations and minor falsehoods. (Court allows gov't employees to LIE while innocent Americans get arrested, WTF?)

Air Wisconsin terminated the employment of a pilot who failed several required tests, and who became extremely agitated and disruptive during the fourth, and last, test. In its report to TSA, the airline described the pilot as “mentally unstable.” The fired pilot sued the airline for describing him as mentally unstable, and a Colorado jury awarded him $1.2 million in damages. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said “a few inaptly chosen words” were not enough to support the verdict. “Baggage handlers, flight attendants, gate agents, and other airline employees who report suspicious behavior to the TSA should not face financial ruin if, in the heat of a potential threat, they fail to choose their words with exacting care,” she wrote.

A federal law — the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 — gives airline employees broad immunity from lawsuits for reports of suspicious activities.

The court threw out a jury’s award of $1.2 million to a pilot who was removed from a plane, questioned and searched after his employer told the Transportation Security Administration that he had just been fired, was mentally unstable and might be carrying a gun.

 

The pilot, William L. Hoeper, failed a series of tests he needed to pass to qualify to fly a new kind of aircraft. Mr. Hoeper ended the fourth test abruptly, cursing and shouting. His employer, Air Wisconsin Airlines, booked Mr. Hoeper on a flight home to Denver and, after internal deliberations, contacted the transportation agency.

 

The justices were unanimous in ruling that the Colorado Supreme Court had applied the wrong legal standard in upholding the jury award when it said that true statements may give rise to liability. The United States Supreme Court, drawing on its libel decisions, said only materially false statements should count.

 

But the justices split, 6 to 3, over whether the gaps between what the airline had told the authorities and what was strictly true was broad enough to allow the suit. Mr. Hoeper would not be fired until the next day; was authorized to carry a gun as a flight deck officer but was unarmed that day; and was upset but perhaps not “mentally unstable.”

 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said “a few inaptly chosen words” were not enough to support the verdict.

 

“Baggage handlers, flight attendants, gate agents, and other airline employees who report suspicious behavior to the T.S.A. should not face financial ruin if, in the heat of a potential threat, they fail to choose their words with exacting care,” she wrote. (If an airline attendant or baggage clerk doesn't like you, they can lie and call you a terrorist. What's even worse they're immune from prosecution! Lying about false flag terrorism is ok, ruining people's lives is ok?)

  

In dissent on this point, Justice Antonin Scalia said the court had decided too much and should have instead sent the case back to the lower courts to apply the correct legal standard. He said it was hardly clear that the airline’s characterization of the pilot’s conduct was materially accurate. In particular, he said, Mr. Hoeper’s frustration and anger may not have entitled the airline to call him “mentally unstable.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan joined the partial dissent.

 

Justice Sotomayor responded that Mr. Hoeper was not an ordinary traveler, partly because he was authorized to carry a firearm. “Hoeper was not some traveling businessman who yelled at a barista in a fit of pique over a badly brewed cup of coffee,” she wrote.

 

The case, Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper, No. 12-315, concerned a federal law, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. It gave airline employees broad immunity from lawsuits for reports of suspicious activities.

 

The law had an exception, based on the “actual malice” standard in the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, for statements made with knowing falsity or reckless disregard of the truth. In the portion of her opinion that was unanimous, Justice Sotomayor said the defamation standard must be adapted to fit the 2001 law. Materiality for purposes of libel suits, she said, turns on whether the statement “affects the subject’s reputation in the community.”

 

In the context of the 2001 law, she went on, “we care whether a falsehood affects the authorities’ perception of and response to a given threat.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/us/justices-decide-on-air-safety-steelworkers-and-drug-dealers.html?_r=1

A look inside U.S. government surveillance

You are being spied online: What happens with just one click?

Image Source: http://dottech.org/145495/you-are-being-watched-infographic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=you-are-being-watched-infographic

4 Tips to protect your smartphone:

1. Keep a Clean Machine

Mobile devices are computers with software that needs to be kept up-to-date (just like your PC, laptop or tablet). Security protections are built in and updated on a regular basis. Take time to make sure all the mobile devices in your house have the latest protections. This may require synching your device with a computer.

Keep security software current: Having the latest mobile security software, web browser, and operating system are the best defenses against viruses, malware and other online threats.

Protect all devices that connect to the Internet: Computers, smartphones, gaming systems and other web-enabled devices all need protection from viruses and malware.

2. Protect Your Personal Information

Phones can contain tremendous amounts of personal information. Lost or stolen devices can be used to gather information about you and potentially, others. Protect your phone like you would your computer.

Secure your phone: Use a strong passcode to lock your phone.

Think before you app: Review the privacy policy and understand what data (location, access to your social networks) the app can access on your device before you download.

Only give your mobile number out to people you know and trust and never give anyone else's number out without their permission.

Learn how to disable the geotagging feature on your phone.

3. Connect with Care

Use common sense when you connect. If you're online through an unsecured or unprotected network to get online, be cautious about the sites you visit and the information you release.

Get savvy about Wi-Fi hotspots: Limit the type of business you conduct and adjust the security settings on your device to limit who can access your phone.

Protect your money: When banking and shopping, check to be sure the site is security-enabled. Look for web addresses with "https://" or "shttp://," which means the site takes extra measures to help secure your information. "Http://" is not secure.

When in doubt, don't respond: Fradulent texting, calling and voicemails are on the rise. Just  like email, requests for personal information or for immediate action are almost always a scam.

4. Be Web Wise

Stay informed of the latest updates to your device. Know what to do if something goes wrong.

Stay current. Keep pace with new ways to stay safe online: Check trusted websites for the latest information, and share with friends, family, and colleagues and encourage them to be web wise.

Know how to cell block others: Using caller ID, you can block all incoming calls or block individual names and numbers.

Use caution when meeting face-to-face with someone who you only "know" through text messaging: Even though texting is often the next step after online chatting, it does not mean that it is safer.
http://www.govtech.com/security/Celebrate-Data-Privacy-Day-with-5-Tips-to-Protect-Your-Phone.html

NATO 3 trial exposes illegal police surveillance tactics used to discourage and frighten activists

Chicago. IL - Testimony given by an undercover officer in a state terrorism prosecution in Illinois sheds new light on the Chicago Police Department's surveillance of dissidents, including what appears to be a targeted campaign to keep an eye on the activities of people who call themselves anarchists.

Journalist Kevin Gosztola is in Chicago covering the trial of the NATO 3, protesters who may have been set up by undercover Chicago police officers and are facing state terrorism and felony conspiracy charges. Gosztola's reporting provides new insight into the CPD's modern day red squad.

The three men charged—Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase, and Brent Betterly—were arrested in a pre-dawn raid before the major anti-NATO protests took place in the spring of 2012. Their defense has argued that by charging the defendants under a state terrorism statute, the government could “maximize the sensationalism of the announcement of charges the day before a massive non-violent anti-NATO protest in Chicago in order to discourage and frighten people from attending the protest, and to justify the massive expenditure of public and private dollars to host and provide security for the NATO conference.”

During the trial, which began this week, defense attorneys have had the opportunity to cross examine one of the undercover police officers who infiltrated leftist movements in Chicago in advance of the NATO summit. Officer Nadia Chikko explained to the court that her job was to monitor these dissident groups, to see if activists were violating the law. According to her testimony, as relayed here by Gosztola, she found no criminal activity:

Chikko was tasked to go undercover with the police intelligence unit in February 2012. For two months prior to the summit, in March and April, she went to community meetings, cafes, concerts, protests, etc, in order to—as she stated multiple times from the stand—”observe, listen and report back any criminal activity.” But there was no criminal activity to report. 

Despite this fact, Chikko wrote reports on what was happening at these public gatherings and events and wrote about the people who attended. She and her partner took photographs of license plates, which Chikko justified by saying, “If we needed to look into that, we would.”

On March 16, 2012, around two months before the “NATO 3″ would be arrested in a preemptive police raid, Chikko went to a concert by a female band. She submitted a report that indicated, “This band has been known to attract anarchists in the past.”

Chikko explained to the court that “violent anarchists” were known to “infiltrate peaceful protesters or peaceful organizers” and get them to commit criminal acts. “We were trying to weed them out,” she added. 

She and her partner spent an hour walking around the concert and then wrote down license plates of people there,” which she justified by saying, “That’s our job as police.” Police “run intelligence.” That is our “job when we go out there.”

On March 17, at the Permanent Records Store, Chikko and her partner made their way to the second floor where a band was playing and stayed for an hour. They found no criminal activity. They then went to another event, where they took down more license plates of cars.

“If there was license plates, we’d record them,” Chikko said, as if it was absolutely no big deal at all.

Deutsch asked why they would run the license plates at public events. She answered, “Sir, we’re police officers. That’s what we do.” They run the license plates to find out if there are warrants on them.

“We did attend a lot of cafes,” Chikko stated. One of those cafes was a well-known cafe in Chicago called the Heartland Café

The Chicago police intelligence unit, at one point prior to the summit, deployed six police officers to go to the cafe and conduct surveillance.

“Any sort of suspicion at all that any violent anarchists were sitting in the Heartland Cafe?” Deutsch asked. Chikko answered no.

Deutsch asked if she was just eavesdropping on people, who were eating in the Heartland Cafe. “As police officers, you have a right to go into anywhere and listen to conversations to if they’re talking about criminal activity?”

The state objected to this question and it was not answered.

On Division Street, a major thoroughfare in Chicago, the police apparently had gone up and down the street looking for graffiti from “anarchists.” They were looking to find and identify “anarchists” too, according to Deutsch, who was referencing police reports. But Chikko denied that they had been looking for “anarchists.”
http://privacysos.org/node/1310

Dissent on  Terror: How the nation’s counter terrorism apparatus, in partnership with corporate America, turned on occupy Wall Street
http://www.prwatch.org/files/Dissent%20or%20Terror%20FINAL_0.pdf

Corporate and police spying on activists undermines democracy:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/ipr/pdf/policy-briefs/corporate-and-police-spying-on-activists.pdf

Police State Amerika wants to use homeowners cameras to spy on citizens:

San Jose, CA - Police would be able to tap into private video camera recordings from San Jose residents who agree to provide access to authorities under a new proposal that would expand investigators' watchful eye over the city but already is raising big brother-type privacy concerns.

While the proposal suggests that police would have access to the cameras after a crime, remote accessibility means that cops could potentially monitor camera feeds in real time, which would amount to a violation of the Fourth Amendment

Councilman Sam Liccardo's proposal, unveiled Thursday and set to be discussed by a City Council committee next week, would allow property owners voluntarily to register their security cameras for a new San Jose Police Department database. Officers then would be able to access the footage quickly after a nearby crime has occurred.

Already police can ask property owners like the ones in the arson-ravaged neighborhood for surveillance footage but have to go door-to-door searching for cameras, a cumbersome process for a police force that is understaffed.

The new program would allow property owners to sign up for a security camera database so that police responding to burglaries, assaults and other crimes would see a map of nearby locations with cameras. As long as property owners agree, police would be able to remotely tap into feeds for high-tech cameras, but older models would require residents to turn over the actual tapes.

Privacy groups say the latest proposal is part of a broader trend toward a world where authorities have more surveillance access to places that once were considered private.

"To me the really interesting and troublesome part of it is the way we are starting to privatize government surveillance -- to enlist private citizens in a way that is kind of unprecedented and could be potentially really dangerous," said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit. "Once you give the police unfettered access 24/7, you're relying on them to exercise their restraint."

The proposal is not limited to San Jose, cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as towns such as nearby Los Gatos and Monte Sereno have already launched similar systems of surveillance.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_24979753/san-jose-police-would-tap-into-residents-private
http://intellihub.com/authorities-want-remote-access-to-californians-home-cctv-footage-for-the-greater-good/

  

NSA uses "leaky" smartphone apps like 'Angry Birds' to spy on users' private information

The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents.

The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the documents state, can share users' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation – and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger.

Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet, and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realize that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect.

Dozens of classified documents, provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica, detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes.

Exploiting phone information and location is a high-priority effort for the intelligence agencies, as terrorists and other intelligence targets make substantial use of phones in planning and carrying out their activities, for example by using phones as triggering devices in conflict zones. The NSA has cumulatively spent more than $1bn in its phone targeting efforts.

The disclosures reveal easy it is to spy on smartphones.

One slide from a May 2010 NSA presentation on getting data from smartphones – breathlessly titled "Golden Nugget!" – sets out the agency's "perfect scenario": "Target uploading photo to a social media site taken with a mobile device. What can we get?"

The question is answered in the notes to the slide: from that event alone, the agency said it could obtain a "possible image", email selector, phone, buddy lists, and "a host of other social working data as well as location".

In practice, most major social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, strip photos of identifying location metadata (known as EXIF data) before publication. However, depending on when this is done during upload, such data may still, briefly, be available for collection by the agencies as it travels across the networks.

Depending on what profile information a user had supplied, the documents suggested, the agency would be able to collect almost every key detail of a user's life: including home country, current location (through geolocation), age, gender, zip code, martial status – options included "single", "married", "divorced", "swinger" and more – income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education level, and number of children.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/spy-agencies-scour-phone-apps-for-personal-data.html?_r=0

FAQ about NSA’s interest in Angry Birds and other ‘leaky apps’
http://www.propublica.org/article/faq-about-nsas-interest-in-angry-birds-and-other-leaky-apps

EPA to track (spy) keywords about the flu on Twitter:

A new solicitation on the government’s Federal Business Opportunities website involves a five-year Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study trolling Twitter with algorithms for keywords about the stomach flu:

The Office of Research and Development (ORD), National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) located in Cincinnati, OH is requesting a BPA to purchase Twitter messages based on search criteria EPA provide the vendor. The information gather will then be used to compile cause and affect analyses for research. The following example search terms are considered evidence of AGI:

Stomach flu, stomach bug, stomach ache, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

The solicitation document goes on to say that these Twitter messages, “will be evaluated by U.S. EPA human health specialists to determine if they are indicative of AGI.”

Because the agency used the phrase “human health specialists” — plural with an ‘s’ — that means that multiple people over at the EPA will be employed to sit around and analyze (spy) Tweets with the words “vomiting” and “diarrhea” in them.

It isn’t going to be cheap, either — as Elizabeth Harrington at The Washington Free Beacon points out: Similar projects have cost millions.

The National Institutes of Health recently allotted $5 million for several studies of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for research on drug abuse over a three-year period. The NIH also awarded a one-year $82,800 grant to research how to use Twitter for surveillance on depressed people.

No word on why the EPA is conducting this study instead of the CDC (which already tracks the flu on the agency’s “Flu Activity & Surveillance” webpage) or the Department of Health and Human Services which runs the government’s official Flu.gov website (tagline: “It’s not too late to vaccinate!”)
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=7fa52123ab6a973ca2804444165e82d3&tab=core&tabmode=list&
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/more-govt-data-mining-epa-to-track-keywords-about-the-flu-on-twitter_012014

Senator Schumer wants $10 million to buy GPS devices to track (spy) autistic children:

The federal government would pay for GPS tracking devices for autistic children under legislation proposed Sunday by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and named for a New York City boy who wandered away from his school three months ago and was found dead in a city river.

"Avonte's Law," named for 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo, would provide $10 million to pay for the high-tech device that could be worn on the wrist, kept in a wallet or sewn into clothing.

The program would resemble one that Schumer said has successfully kept track of people with Alzheimer's disease using a computer-programmed alert system. That program signals police departments when someone wearing the device leaves a place where they are supposed to be.

Each device costs about $85, plus a few dollars in monthly fees, the senator said, adding that hundreds of families with autistic children already have used privately funded tracking devices.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/01/schumer_seeks_10_million_to_buy_gps_devices_to_track_autistic_children.html

Is America a police state?

D.C. - Police state response to mall shooting: ID’s required to leave Maryland mall

Once again, another shooting in a US mall has led to a highly militarized police response and an ID check for everyone attempting to leave the mall, view the video below. With three people confirmed dead, including the gunman according to published reports, this is another extremely high profile shooting in the backyard of Washington DC that further consolidates the unfolding police state.

 

Here are some alarming developments in the militarization of US police forces from around the country. These stories are from the past two weeks alone, and there are tens more like them that I don't cite.

• The police department in Ithaca, NY, population 30k, has just received a $100k grant from the Department of Homeland Security “to improve and develop tactical team capabilities through equipment, training, and planning projects that support counter terrorism missions.” The local news reports “the funding will be used to help the SWAT team maintain their services, but they'll also purchase a robot for tactical operations, new chemical suits, and night vision goggles.” The upstate, New York community is known to be “haunted by a reputation for suicides,” but is it a major terrorism destination? Not so much. The number of terror attacks to have ever occured in Ithaca, NY stands at zero.

• Not to be outdone by Ithaca, the police department in the City of North Tonawanda, NY, population 31k, also recently received about $100k from DHS. The city's SWAT team plans to use the funds to buy new tactical vests. That's a lot of vests!

• South Carolina’s Richland County Sheriff department announced “secretive,” likely “loud” training exercises to be held with unnamed military units from Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is home to some of the US Army’s most elite fighting units, including the notorious Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). As journalists Jeremy Scahill, Nick Turse, and Tom Engelhardt have demonstrated, JSOC commandos operate as a sort of Presidential Kill Force in hundreds of countries worldwide. These highly-trained killers were responsible for a raid on a civilian home in Gardez, Afghanistan, where numerous people from one family were killed in cold blood. Survivors say US special forces dug their bullets out of the bodies of their victims, the first step in what would become a failed coverup that finally ended when then JSOC commander Admiral McRaven admitted responsibility and apologized to the family. Do you feel safer knowing these special operations forces may be training your local police?

• Police in Amirillo, Texas used chemical agents and flash bangs attempting to arrest someone wanted on a parole violation. Businesses and residents nearby complained about the militarized operation, which included a special operations command center and a military robot. “We had a job we were trying to finish off,” one man said. “Now we can’t make phone calls or send emails.” Just another day in the militarized USA.

• After raiding his home, Los Angeles SWAT officers shot and killed a man suspected in a robbery of an LA Fitness. No officers were injured.

http://privacysos.org/node/1309

Disney's 'Shutterbug" kids show prepares children for the American Surveillance state

Shutterbug Time - Music Video - Special Agent Oso - Disney Junior Official:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hLowmoU5nU

  

Disney's Shutterbug website:

http://disneyjunior.com/watch/disneyjunior-music-video-shutterbug-time-4bb39c07ebd80a8833003b15

Police state Amerika plans to open a DHS college

NY - Senator John DeFrancisco says he has been quietly pushing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Syracuse University in past months to put the nation's first college focused on emergency management and homeland security on the SU campus.

Cuomo mentioned the creation of a new state-run College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity in his State of the State speech today in Albany. The governor didn't say where the college could go, but DeFrancisco said afterward he's met with Cuomo's staff and SU officials about the possibility of creating a joint SUNY/SU campus in Syracuse.

"It was our proposal from the Senate that ignited this mention in the State of the State," DeFrancisco said after the speech at the Empire State Convention Center in Albany. But establishing the campus in Syracuse is far from done, DeFrancisco said. "The governor's got to be convinced. And I hope he will be."

Under DeFrancisco's idea, the homeland security school would be a joint effort between Syracuse University and the State University of New York system.

DeFrancisco said he's been working with the institute's director, William Banks, on the idea, and has met with SU officials, who have embraced the idea. DeFrancisco also talked with SU's new chancellor, Kent Syverud, about the idea.

"They are not only aware of it," he said of SU officials, "they are pushing for it as well."

During his speech, Cuomo said former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly would help establish the school.

"Believe it or not, there is no such college," Cuomo said during his fourth State of the State. "I believe this is a field that is only going to grow. Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse. And we want this college right here in the state of New York, training our people and training others from around the country."
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/01/homeland_security_college_could_land_at_syracuse_university_defrancisco_says.html

How many Americans are on the DHS no-work list?

DHS is expanding their security lists to screen not just for potential terrorists and extremists boarding airplanes, but those who are seeking employment.

It’s been aptly named the “no work list,” and is designed to vet employees prior to being hired. For the time being, it is limited to about 500 organizations – namely in the contractor community – which deal primarily with industries like construction, ports and transportation:

TWIC is short for Transportation Worker Identification Credential and SWAC stands for Secure Worker Access Consortium.  

TWIC is a biometric credential that ensures only vetted workers are eligible to enter a secure construction site, unescorted, Ironworkers Local 361 in Ozone Park, New York, explains. Before issuing a TWIC, TSA must conduct a security threat assessment on the TWIC applicant. An applicant who, as a result of the assessment, is determined to not pose a security threat, will be issued a TWIC card. 

In other words, construction workers in New York will need permission from the TSA and DHS in order to practice their profession and earn a living. It was much the same in the former Soviet Union and authoritarian states such as China where the government determines all aspects of an individual’s life and where even the mildly rebellious are severely punished.

Truck drivers with a CDL 'Hazmat' license must be cleared by DHS's 'Hazmat Endorsement Threat Asssessment Program'. 

How long will it be before DHS checks driver's licenses and decides if we're a threat to America? Is a 'No Drive List' that far away?

Because securing every aspect of our lives from “terrorists” now falls on the Department of Homeland Security, we can see continued expansion of this program, eventually leading to employee security checks for any jobs that may be deemed important to national security.

Those with a limited view may see this as a necessary security implement. We need our ports secured from terrorists right? And anyone working on large-scale skyscrapers should be vetted so they don’t plant explosives that could threaten the stability of steel buildings.

Considering, however, that just about anything these days can pose a national security threat, it’s only a matter of time before the program goes mainstream.

Mall employees, for example, work in public venues that see thousands of shoppers come and go on a daily basis. One threat, real or perceived, may immediately lead to a security partnership between DHS and mall management companies that may one day require all employees of a mall to be biometrically vetted prior to being hired.

The same holds true for pretty much any industry segment. Want to be a teacher, or a waiter, or even a call center representative? Because you’ll be dealing with the public, you’ll probably need to be screened to make sure you don’t pose a threat.

One day, those job applicants who indicate on their resumes that they are “TWIC Certified” may be put at the top of the hiring list, while those without TWIC certification will be moved to the bottom of the barrel.

For those with the credentials to get hired by a TWIC Employer, their certification can be taken away just as quickly as it was granted. So, if you’re ever listed as a potential “threat” or “domestic extremists” your employer can be immediately notified by DHS:

I acknowledge that if TSA or other law enforcement agencies determine that I pose an imminent threat to national security or transportation security, my employer may be notified. Source: TSA TWIC Disclosure Certification

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/dhs-no-work-list-coming-to-an-employer-near-you_12172010

Baseball, America's pastime now controlled by DHS:

Major League Baseball teams began announcing new metal detection screening measures Tuesday, a mandatory league-wide policy expecting full implementation by 2015.

Using the Boston Marathon bombing as justification, all venues are now required to subject fans to hand-held metal detection sweeps or walk-through magnetometers, a result of the Department of Homeland Security’s encroaching relationship with professional sports leagues.

“This procedure, which results from MLB’s continuing work with the Department of Homeland Security to standardize security practices across the game, will be in addition to bag checks that are now uniform throughout MLB,” baseball spokesman Michael Teevan told the Associated Press.

Following a preliminary test phase at several ballparks, teams such as the Seattle Mariners have announced the implementation of walk-through detectors for the upcoming season, a policy the MLB claims no fan opposes.

“We conducted testing of these measures at the All-Star game and at both World Series venues last year, and we were pleased that it was effective and received without issue from fans,” Teevan said.

Commenting on the new policy in an official press release, Seattle Mariners Security Director Sylvester Servance reassured fans that the screening process was in their best interests.

“The Mariners and Major League Baseball are keenly aware of the current security environment at public events,” Servance said. “We believe this step is necessary, poses minimal inconvenience, and ultimately will serve the best interests of all fans.”

Despite evidence indicating clear foreknowledge, the federal government has continued to use the Boston Marathon as justification for increased police state measures across the board.

Just last year, bags and purses were banned from all National Football League stadiums at the discretion of the DHS. Claiming bombs are likely to be smuggled through items such as seat cushions, fans are now required to carry their possessions in one-gallon clear plastic freezer bags.
http://www.storyleak.com/mlb-prepares-new-dhs-screening-measures-stadiums/

DHS funding SWAT teams:

The police department in Ithaca, NY, population 30k, has just received a $100k grant from DHS “to improve and develop tactical team capabilities through equipment, training, and planning projects that support counter terrorism missions.” The local news reports “the funding will be used to help the SWAT team maintain their services, but they'll also purchase a robot for tactical operations, new chemical suits, and night vision goggles.” The upstate, New York community is known to be “haunted by a reputation for suicides,” but is it a major terrorism destination? Not so much. The number of terror attacks to have ever occured in Ithaca, NY stands at zero. 

Not to be outdone by Ithaca, the police department in the City of North Tonawanda, NY, population 31k, also recently received about $100k from DHS. The city's SWAT team plans to use the funds to buy new tactical vests. That's a lot of vests!
http://privacysos.org/node/1309

War on terror is a lie: U.S. commander tells world Taliban on 'edge of defeat'

 

The second-ranking U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said on January 23 that Afghan forces overmatched the insurgency during the last fighting season, adding that the Taliban is on the “edge of strategic defeat.” (Ask yourself,  if they're on the edge of defeat why do we need DHS? Fear mongering is at an all-time high, Wake up America!)

However, speaking live from Afghanistan, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, commander of the U.S./NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Joint Command (IJC), told Pentagon reporters that there is more to be done.

“We have got to continue to build the institutions to ensure that this [Afghan] security force can continue to stand on their own,” he said, “and then that security force provides the shield to buy the time and space for the rest of the society to develop in health, in education, in government, in economics and so on and so forth.”

“That’s the fundamental premise in order to stabilize this place and prevent it from ever again becoming a haven for terrorists who attack the United States and I think it can work,” continued Lt. Gen. Milley. “I think it is working.”

He said Afghan forces, now in the lead of security in their country, bore the brunt of military fatalities during the 2013 fighting season.The fighting season occurs in the Afghanistan summer months of June to September.

Taliban militants “lost the fight in the summer of 2013 and the ANSF [Afghan National Security Force] acquitted themselves extraordinarily well,” added Lt. Gen. Milley.

The ANSF includes the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP).
“Strategically, the tide of the war is not with the Taliban and their fellow travelers,” he also said, adding that the Taliban knows “they are on the edge of strategic defeat.”

The Afghan combat units “really do not need, with very few exceptions, tactical advisors with them on combat operations on a day in day out basis. We know that the Afghan battalions can fight. We know they can shoot, move, communicate,” Milley said.

He said that the Taliban has lost popularity and credibility in Afghanistan.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/23/U-S-Commander-Afghan-Forces-Overmatch-Insurgency-Taliban-On-Edge-of-Defeat

Common Core creates a womb-to-tomb dossier on kids and families

The type and amount of personal, family, and non-academic data collected by the schools, reported in state longitudinal databases and used for research by the federal government was stimulated by the passage of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA) and has grown rapidly since then.  Loss of student and family data privacy has been accelerated by the proliferation of education programs funded by the federal government, especially in the early childhood realm and including home visiting programs that collect a plethora of medical, psychological, and family data and the effort to integrate standards, programs and data literally from “cradle to career” through P-20W education program integration.

The ESRA law allows the National Center for Education Statistics to collect data “by other offices within the Academy and by other Federal departments, agencies and instrumentalities.” and “enter into interagency agreements for the collection of statistics.”  That data covers from preschool through the work life of every American citizen and includes “the social and economic status of children, including their academic achievement,” meaning every aspect of their lives and the lives of their families.  This combined with the weakening of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to be described below is a great danger to the privacy of American families and makes the data collection by the IRS and NSA look tame.

NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley won the award for  most tone deaf presentation title, calling his introductory keynote speech (not kidding!) “We Are From the Federal Government and We REALLY Are Here to Help You.”  In that talk, while acknowledging that the” balance [between privacy and the government's desire for data] is in a very delicate place, and that if we fail here in a very spectacular way, much of what we have done in the last ten to fifteen years could be undone,” he also spoke of “balancing the rights of our students & their families to keep their data confidential & secret as appropriate, but also to balance the needs that we have for the massive investment in education, of understanding its returns, of understanding how the system is working, how do we improve it, with the ultimate goal always of improving the educational outcomes of our citizens…” It is clear that the “massive investment” is more important than privacy.

 It is important to note that the DQC is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Alliance for Early Success,, AT&T, and Target, all entities that will profit heavily by having lots of data collected on our children.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also funding a very alarming student database project called inBloom that already  holds data that includes “name, address and sometimes social security number…learning disabilities…test scores, attendance…student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school – even homework completion.”
Buckley also complained about he and his fellow federal data gatherers  being of accused of an “attempt to catalog students and track them for life based on their eye color or their genetic code…”  Apparently, he was not aware of the content of all the presentations planned for the conference.  Interestingly enough one of the sessions in the conference was called P-20W Data Standards for More Successful Student Transitions and Life-Long Learning.  In that session, they spoke of the data collection from early childhood through the workforce, including health and developmental (mental health) data in early childhood.  Libery Watch asked about the state’s 'Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Application' to combine health data, including the newborn screening, i.e. genetic, data with their preschool and K-12 data..

“Rhode Island’s proposed early learning data system will be linked to both the state’s K-12 data system and to the state’s universal newborn screening and health data system, helping to identify children with high needs, track participation in programs, and track children’s development and learning.” This is a classic example of the rapidly expanding philosophy that the government owns every single bit of medical and education data about you and every family member from conception until after death. We are seeing this played out in the realm of DNA medical data and now private mental health data through these subjective and worthless assessments.   These assessments will then be added and linked to health data so that government bureaucrats will be able to label the young children they consider to be mentally ill or flag them for future evaluations.

The Obama preschool plan is largely based on the ideas of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge. That plan is to also expand home visiting programs which are accompanied by even more data collection on infants and families. 

In addition, although ESRA makes an effort to prohibit a national database of individually identifiable student data in section 182 by saying, “Nothing in this title may be construed to authorize the establishment of a nationwide database of individually identifiable information on individuals involved in studies or other collections of data under this title;” that language appears to be negated by this language in Section 157:

“The Statistics Center may establish 1 or more national cooperative education statistics systems for the purpose of producing and maintaining, with the cooperation of the States, comparable and uniform information and data on early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education, adult education, and libraries, that are useful for policymaking at the Federal, State, and local levels.”

That language is even more worrisome in light of the grants to fund and promote state longitudinal databases in section 208 of ESRA, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and even more heavily promoted in the Race to the Top K-12 and Early Learning Challenge programs.

 

Both Head Start and Race to the Top heavily promoted national standards and the integration of those standards across the age spectrum.  Both programs also heavily rely on standards and assessment and or screening in the mental health (psychological and socioemotional) realm.

 

·         According to the United States Department of Education (USED) document entitled Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century, the Common Core standards system will both teach and assess these “non-cognitive” (psychological) parameters:
 

o   “In national policy, there is increasing attention on 21st-century competencies (which encompass a range of noncognitive factors, including grit), and persistence is now part of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.”

o   [A]s new assessment systems are developed to reflect the new standards…attention will need to be given to the design of tasks and situations that call on students to apply a range of 21st century competencies…A sustained program of research and development will be required to create assessments that are capable of measuring cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal skills.

·         According to the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant applications, several states are aligning their preschool standards and their K-12 standards, these standards teach psychological  issues, which are then used for “screening” young children for mental health issues, even though the screening instruments are notoriously inaccurate.

 

  Here are some examples of the types of the very subjective and non-academic standards used:

o   “Progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, or angry, and in expressing empathy or caring for others.”

o   “Develops ability to identify personal characteristics including gender and family composition”

o   “Develops a growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.” 

 

The testing of psychological parameters in the national assessments is especially disturbing when it is understood that the national testing consortia signed an agreement with USED to submit individually identifiable student data to the federal government from the tests.

Perhaps Commissioner Buckley and the DQC are not aware that the Fourth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution still exist.  Perhaps they are also not aware of the data in these graphs showing that the $2 TRILLION federal “massive investment” in education has not yielded any return as far as improving student achievement or narrowing the achievement gap and that we should not be spending this money at the federal level with all of these mandates, especially for data collection.

The illegal weakening of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that both expands the number of ways data can be collected without parental consent and increases the numbers of people and groups who may receive that personally identifiable information to the unconstitutional federal expenditures on these invasive and ineffective programs and the expansion of the kinds and amount of private data collected on students, and I believe we can all say to Commissioner Buckley that we do not want the federal government’s “help.”
http://edlibertywatch.org/2013/08/feds-resolute-yet-tone-deaf-on-data-collection-part-1/
http://edlibertywatch.org/2013/09/problems-with-data-privacy-in-relation-to-common-core-standards-the-family-education-rights-and-privacy-act-and-the-education-sciences-reform-act/

(VIDEO) Common Core: Dangers And Threats To American Liberty And Education:
http://vimeo.com/73815931