Tag: surveillance

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international affairs national politics & policies

Identified Floating Object?

China, balloon, surveillance, spying

It’s always something. 

Last week, it was a Chinese spy balloon floating over Alaska, Canada and then across the continental United States from Montana all the way to South Carolina — repeatedly loitering over strategic military installations — before being downed by a Sidewinder missile fired by a U.S. military jet over the Atlantic.

China claims it was a civilian balloon gathering meteorological data that had accidentally blown off course; the U.S. says its flight path was deliberate and “We know it is a surveillance balloon.”*

With growing controversy about why the Biden Administration allowed a spy balloon to traverse the country, the Pentagon shockingly stated that the Chinese had done this before — once earlier in Biden’s term and three times during the Trump Administration. 

So just normal stuff, eh? 

Well, no. As Byron York sorts out at The Washington Examiner, those Chinese spy balloons were “near” U.S. territory, just possibly crossing into our airspace — nothing like last week’s cross-​country cruise.

So, just what are the Chinazis up to?

“[The Chinese] want it to be seen,” argues Professor Michael Clarke, a defense analyst for Australia’s Sky News. “They want it to be noticed. My view is that it is all about the Philippines.” 

Clarke points to the South China Sea where China has been illegally building militarized artificial islands in areas that rightfully belong to the Philippines. Last week, the Philippines agreed on opening four more bases to the U.S. military, sending a strong message that Chinese aggression will be met with force. This was the Chinese government bringing the conflict to people in North America. Us!

While we still lack important information, analysis of the wreckage may allow us to learn more.

On the other hand, don’t we already know everything we need to know about the CCP? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* I have nearly zero trust in ‘fog of war’ U.S. government pronouncements, but less than zero in the great gaslighting Chinazis.

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First Amendment rights Internet controversy public opinion social media

The Mockingbird Shuttle

Twitter, Elon Musk, censorship, surveillance

“After weeks of ‘Twitter Files’ reports detailing close coordination between the FBI and Twitter in moderating social media content, the Bureau issued a statement Wednesday,” journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted on Christmas Eve. “It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency.’”

Taibbi offered a droll retort: “They must think us unambitious, if our ‘sole aim’ is to discredit the FBI. After all, a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the #TwitterFiles. Why stop with one?”

Indeed. The federal government is full of rogue, anti-​constitutional cabals.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Files release of behind-​the-​scenes Twitter deliberations over which political news stories and Twitter accounts to trounce upon, and what medical information to declare as “misinformation” and which to allow, yielded more than just the influence of J. Edgar Hoover’s legacy outfit.

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

Twitter employees referred to these other outfits as “OGA” — for “Other Government Agenies.”

There were so many that Twitter “executives lost track.”

The vastness of the operation boggles the mind. “The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm.”

It is worth remembering that the lore of the Deep State includes the controversial but rarely-​mentioned “Operation Mockingbird,” whereby the CIA fostered paid mouthpieces (disinformation agents) throughout the media, back in the Sixties.

Now we have uncovered an operation that dwarfs this by several orders of magnitude.

Certainly, the behavior of the FBI and these OGAs has had an effect: they directed public opinion during the pandemic and in the lead-​up to the 2020 election. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture nannyism social media

Reversal of Charge

paypal, government, surveillance, censorship

Using PayPal never guaranteed smooth sailing.

But until recently, the problems users encountered mostly pertained to PayPal’s targeting of fraud — not with whether a user uttered wrong thoughts or pursued projects disfavored by corporate implementers of a Chinazi-​style social credit system.

More and more, though, PayPal is informing individuals with unwelcome thoughts that they can no longer use PayPal and that PayPal will hold their funds “for up to 180 days … we’ll email you.…”

PayPal has, for now, rescinded — or partially and temporarily rescinded — policy provisions pledging to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation” or “hate speech.” 

But PayPal is still targeting thinkers of wrongthink.

An example is Eric Finman, whose Freedom Phone provides access to apps banned elsewhere. After ousting him, PayPal held onto $1.2 million in his PayPal balance. Finman eventually recovered the money, but the delay “killed all the momentum.”

Biologist Colin Wright was ejected for criticizing gender ideology. PayPal won’t confirm this without a subpoena. But these and many other examples follow a similar pattern. Often, PayPal comes down like a ton of bricks right after a user utters a viewpoint PayPal dislikes.

I’m appalled. Many of PayPal’s founders — Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, David Sacks and Max Levchin — are appalled. They say that PayPal’s original mission of empowering people is being perverted.

We’ve seen how government officials and partisan political operatives have whispered in the ears of Facebook and Twitter, instructing such companies to censor and deplatform users. Are they also instructing PayPal?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fourth Amendment rights general freedom tax policy

Not Inadvertent

political donations, IRS, government surveillance, privacy

Maybe we can put a stop to the assault on the privacy of donors to political causes.

By “we” I mean The Buckeye Institute and the Institute for Free Speech, who have teamed up to challenge “a decades-​old law that forces the IRS to demand that nonprofit charities hand over the private information of their largest donors every year.”

The IRS itself admits that collecting this personal data “poses a risk of inadvertent disclosure.”

Also a risk of fully advertent disclosure. 

The IRS has often been used to harass the political enemies of federal officials in a position to tell the agency what to do.

Buckeye Institute President Robert Alt reports the Institute’s own experience as Exhibit A. In 2013, soon after it had urged Ohio to reject Obamacare-​inspired efforts to expand Medicaid, the Institute was subjected to an IRS harassment-audit.

The specter of this investigation was a scary one for the Institute’s major donors, who reasonably assumed that the audit was retaliatory. They worried that if their own names came up during the audit, they too would be subject to IRS attention. Many donors drastically scaled back their giving so they’d be less of a target; others stopped donating altogether.

Prospects for the Institutes’ litigation are good. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in a 2021 ruling that the government must at least consider “the potential for First Amendment harms before requiring that organizations reveal sensitive information about their members and supporters.”

Anonymity in political activism has a long American history — from the start, actually.

It’s what democracy looks like.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom international affairs

An Invisibility Cloak We Can Use

Chinese invisibility cloak

It’s not quite the magical invisibility cloak worn by Harry Potter. But it’s the next best thing.

Chinese students have created apparel that human eyes can see but that hides the wearer from security cameras and recognition software.

The InvisDefense coat looks ordinary. So it won’t by itself arouse the suspicion of other people on the street. But it is designed in such a way as to foil the kind of cameras that, for example, try to identify who is protesting Chinazi lockdown insanity.

During the day, the printed pattern of the InvisDefense coat blinds cameras. At night, the coat emits heat signals that disrupt infrared. It was invented by Chinese graduate students at Wuhan University under the guidance of computer science professor Wang Zheng. Their coat won first prize in an innovation contest sponsored by Huawei.

Wang observes that “many surveillance devices can detect human bodies. Cameras on the road have pedestrian detection functions. And smart cars can identify pedestrians, roads, and obstacles. Our InvisDefense allows the camera to capture you. But it cannot tell if you are human.…

“We use algorithms to design the least conspicuous patterns that can disable computer vision.”

And the coat costs only seventy bucks or so.

I’m not always a fan of the algorithms. In this case, shout Hooray for algorithms and for those who put them to such good use by inventing the InvisDefense coat. 

I hope these students sell about eight billion of them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Coffee Connection

coffee, surveillance, China

We have another indication now that the Internet of Things can be a mixed blessing. Perhaps not every gadget in our homes should be linked to the Worldwide Everything?

The great thing about a coffee maker with a Wi-​Fi or Bluetooth connection is that you can set things up with a few taps on your smartphone. Brewing times, strength, temperature, etc., can all be arranged without ever having to trudge from bedroom to kitchen.

The horrible thing, though — in addition to the slim possibility that a hacker will take your coffee machine hostage — is that a Wi-​Fi-​capable coffee maker made in China may be spying on you on behalf of the Chinazi government.

This is the conclusion of Christopher Balding, a researcher who finds evidence that coffee machines manufactured by Kalerm in Jiangsu, China, collect a diverse array of data.

About their users. 

Stuff like the users’ names and general locations as well as usage patterns.

Balding doesn’t know for sure that the company simply turns over such data to the government. But Chinese companies must cooperate with any government demands, and Balding notes that China often gathers as much data as possible and figures out what to do with it later.

The data-​scavenging of the Chinese government is not exactly unique. Think Ed Snowden and the program he revealed, for example. But “the breadth and depth of their data-​collection efforts” are in a class by themselves, Balding says.

It seems that my lack of a connected coffee machine, coupled with my chronic dependence on Starbucks, is proving very wise indeed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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