Proyecto de Intelligencia Estadounidense para ‘vigilar’ America Latina

POR PATRICE McSHERRY | GLOBAL RESEARCH | MARCH 13, 2013

El nuevo proyecto de supercomputadoras está a cargo de un organismo poco conocido, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (Iarpa), que funciona bajo la orientación del director de Inteligencia Nacional de los EE.UU.

El gobierno de los Estados Unidos, con el apoyo técnico de algunas universidades estadounidenses, quiere utilizar información “pública” que los usuarios colocan en Facebook, Twitter, páginas de web, webcams, blogs y otros medios sociales para acumular una enorme base de datos con el propósito de predecir tanto las crisis políticas, es decir, revoluciones, inestabilidad o estallidos sociales, como crisis económicas. Al igual que el Proyecto Camelot de los años ’60, este proyecto de vigilancia y espionaje estará dirigido a América latina.

El nuevo proyecto está a cargo de un organismo poco conocido, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (Iarpa), que funciona bajo la orientación del director de Inteligencia Nacional de los EE.UU. El proyecto copiará, automáticamente, por medio de supercomputadoras, datos de 21 países de América latina, por un período de tres años que comenzaría en 2012. Hay un proyecto similar para Afganistán, patrocinado por Darpa (la organización “hermana” militar, del Pentágono) para identificar redes sociales de potenciales terroristas en este país.

En 1964, la Oficina de Investigación y Desarrollo del ejército de los Estados Unidos patrocinó el Proyecto Camelot, que fue un esfuerzo de recopilación de información en el contexto de la estrategia de contrainsurgencia. Camelot fue concebido, originalmente, para tener una vasta cobertura, abarcando países en todo el mundo en desarrollo. Sin embargo, el proyecto se implementó solamente en Chile y no por mucho tiempo.

Los objetivos declarados del proyecto eran “diseñar procedimientos para evaluar la potencialidad de que se desarrollara una guerra interna al interior de las sociedades nacionales” e “identificar… aquellas acciones que un gobierno pudiese de- sarrollar para mitigar las condiciones favorables a ella”. Bajo el camuflaje brindado por un proyecto universitario de ciencias del comportamiento, que se ubicaba en la Oficina de Investigación de Operaciones Especiales de la American University (financiada por el ejército), Camelot era un proyecto encubierto de inteligencia. Un general del ejército estadounidense afirmó que dicho proyecto “nos ayudaría a predecir la utilización potencial del ejército estadounidense en cualquier número de casos en donde la situación pudiese desbordarse”.

En Chile, Camelot fue presentado como una encuesta académica, escondiéndose su relación con el Pentágono. Los investigadores encuestaron a chilenos de todos los sectores de la sociedad para establecer sus creencias políticas, su compromiso con la democracia y otra información personal y política. Según una chilena que fue entrevistada, cada persona fue luego puesta en categorías de conformidad con el nivel de peligro o de “potencial subversivo”. Cuando esta persona trataba posteriormente de obtener una visa de los Estados Unidos, las autoridades estadounidenses tenían un archivo completo sobre ella, con toda la información supuestamente confidencial que ella había colocado en el formulario.

Las bases de datos de Camelot también fueron utilizadas para la guerra psicológica. Sirvieron para influir en las actitudes políticas y, de esa manera, para manipular ciertas elecciones clave. La CIA digitalizó los datos recopilados por Camelot y los analizó y utilizó para producir atemorizantes anuncios anticomunistas durante la campaña eleccionaria de 1964 de Eduardo Frei, candidato demócrata cristiano, contra el izquierdista Salvador Allende. Por ejemplo, se les dijo a las mujeres que, de ser electo Allende, sus hijos serían enviados a Cuba y sus esposos a campos de concentración. La naturaleza contrainsurgente del Proyecto Camelot fue descubierta por el gobierno chileno y fue clausurado en 1965, luego de audiencias tanto en el Congreso de Chile como en el de los Estados Unidos.

No es la primera vez que en época reciente el gobierno de los EE.UU. ha acumulado grandes cantidades de datos en proyectos de data mining (extracción masiva de datos). Durante la administración de George Bush, la National Security Agency empezó la extracción de datos de millones de ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos –de llamadas telefónicas, correos electrónicos, fax y otras fuentes– en un programa secreto sin autorización judicial, supuestamente para descubrir y vigilar a potenciales integrantes de redes terroristas. Dicha administración también trató de implementar otro enorme proyecto, que se llamó Total Information Awareness, para acumular una base de datos para buscar patrones de conducta o tendencias en los correos, llamadas telefónicas, transacciones financieras, información de visas, etcétera, supuestamente para identificar enemigos. Este programa fue rechazado por el Congreso después de que se produjera una reacción muy negativa del público.

Este tipo de proyecto tiene implicancias sumamente preocupantes para los ciudadanos, tanto de América latina como de los Estados Unidos y cualquier otro país. Es el punto de partida para una vigilancia masiva a toda la población, a través de su vida personal y social, violando su libertad personal y sus derechos. La idea de que organizaciones de inteligencia y militares estén vigilando y realizando seguimientos de los ciudadanos –todos bajo sospecha– para predecir actos de violencia en el futuro es autoritario y orwelliano, y evoca la doctrina de seguridad nacional. El aparato de seguridad nacional estadounidense parece estarse extendiendo y ampliándose fuera de control, con proyectos cada vez más intrusivos y antidemocráticos. Ahora que los ciudadanos en muchos países están cada vez más indignados con los respectivos sistemas y recurren a actos de protesta para plantear cambios económicos, sociales y políticos, se hace necesario conocer y desafiar a este tipo de proyectos.

J. Patrice McSherry : Directora del Programa de Estudios sobre América latina y el Caribe en Long Island University, Brooklyn. Autora de Los Estados Depredadores: Operación Cóndor y la Guerra Encubierta en América Latina.

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Raytheon + Social Networks = Data Mining Riot

“Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search.”

By RYAN GALLAGHER | SMH | FEBRUARY 12, 2013

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an “extreme-scale analytics” system created by Raytheon, the world’s fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing “trillions of entities” from cyberspace.

The power of Riot to harness websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns.

Using Riot it is possible to gain a picture of a person’s life – their friends, the places they visit charted on a map – in little more than a few clicks of a button.

In the video obtained by the Guardian, Raytheon’s “principal investigator” Brian Urch explains that photographs which users post on social networks sometimes contain latitude and longitude details – automatically embedded by smartphones within so-called “exif header data”. Riot pulls out this information, showing the location at which the pictures were taken. Riot can display online associations and relationships using Twitter and Facebook and sift GPS location information from Foursquare, a mobile phone app used by more than 25 million people to alert friends of their whereabouts. The Foursquare data can be used to display, in graph form, the top 10 places visited and the times at which they visited them.

Mining from public websites for law enforcement is considered legal in most countries. But, Ginger McCall, a lawyer at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the Raytheon technology raised concerns about how user data could be covertly collected without oversight or regulation.

“Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search.”

Raytheon, which made sales worth an estimated US$25 billion in 2012, did not want its Riot demonstration video to be revealed on the grounds that it says it shows a “proof of concept” product that has not been sold to any clients.

Jared Adams, a spokesman for Raytheon’s intelligence and information systems department, said in an email: “Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation’s rapidly changing security needs. Its innovative privacy features are the most robust that we’re aware of, enabling the sharing and analysis of data without personally identifiable information being disclosed.”

In December, Riot was featured in a new patent Raytheon is pursuing for a system to gather data on people from social networks, blogs and other sources to identify whether they might be a security risk.

In April, Riot was scheduled to be showcased at a US government and industry national security conference for secretive, classified innovations, where it was listed under the category “big data – analytics, algorithms”.

Corruptocracia no Brasil pede ao Twitter Censurar Usuários

A tirania fora de controle no Brasil quer impedir os condutores de alertar outros motoristas sobre blitz e bloqueios inconstitucionais nas estradas. Enquanto isso, a corrupção do governo em todos os estratos continua impune.

Por Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
09 fevereiro de 2012

A pedido de uma liminar para impedir os usuários do Twitter de alertar os motoristas sobre bloqueios policiais, armadilhas de radar e postos de controle ilegais poderia tornar o Brasil no primeiro país a aceitar a oferta do Twitter em seu plano de censurar o conteúdo quando pedido pelos governos.

O Twitter revelou planos no mês passado para permitir que os países censurem os tweets que podem “violar” as leis locais.

“Tanto quanto sabemos esta é a primeira vez que um país tem tentado tomar a oferta de Twitter,” disse Eva Galperin do Electronic Frontier Foundation, em uma
entrevista por telefone quinta-feira.

Galperin, que descreveu a sua fundação como “uma organização que atua em defesa da liberdade digital”, previu os governos vão tomar oportunidades semelhantes para censurar o tráfego no Twitter.

“O Twitter deu a estes países a ferramenta e agora o Brasil optou por usá-la “, disse ela. Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, porta-voz do gabinete do promotor federal, disse que o pedido de liminar foi apresentado segunda-feira. Ele disse que um juiz deveria anunciar nos próximos dias se ele vai emitir a ordem contra os usuários do Twitter.

O gabinete do procurador-geral disse em um comunicado que twittar alertas sobre operações policiais comprometem os esforços para reduzir acidentes de trânsito e coibir roubos de veículos e transporte de drogas e armas.

Segundo o comunicado, os acidentes de trânsito em todo o Brasil matam 55.000 pessoas a cada ano e custam ao país 24,6 bilhões de reais, ou cerca de $ 14,3 bilhões.

A minha pergunta é quanto custa a corrupção do governo federal, não quanto custa o número de acidentes nas estradas do país. A resposta é pelos menos 50% do PIB.

Se o juiz decidir em favor da liminar, qualquer pessoa que viole poderia ser atingido com uma multa diária de 500.000 reais ($ 291,000), segundo o comunicado.

Twitter Inc. disse em um e-mail que não tinha “nada a dizer sobre este assunto.”

Sob a nova política do Twitter, um tweet que viola uma lei em um país pode ser censurado em esse país a pedido do governo. Mas ele acrescenta que os tweets censurados ainda serão vistos em outro lugar.

O Twitter disse que vai colocar um aviso sempre que censura um tweet e irá postar os pedidos de remoção que recebe.

Ele disse que não tem planos para remover os tweets a menos que receba uma solicitação das autoridades do governo, empresas ou outra entidade que acredite que a mensagem é ilegal.

Traduzido do artigo original: Corruptocrazy in Brazil asks Twitter to Censor Users

Corruptocrazy in Brazil asks Twitter to Censor Users

The out-of-control tyranny in Brazil wants to prevent drivers from warning other drivers about unconstitutional police check points and road blocks. Meanwhile, government corruption on all strata goes on unpunished.

by Stan Lehman
Associated Press
February 9, 2012

A request for an injunction to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police roadblocks, radar traps and drunk-driving checkpoints could make Brazil the first country to take Twitter up on its plan to censor content at governments’ requests.

Twitter unveiled plans last month that would allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

“As far as we know this is the first time that a country has attempted to take Twitter up on their country-by-country take down,” Eva Galperin of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Galperin, who described the foundation as “a digital liberties organization,” predicted governments will be taking similar opportunities to censor Twitter traffic.

“Twitter has given these countries the tool and now Brazil has chosen to use it,” she said.

Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, said the injunction request was filed Monday. He said a judge was expected to announce in the next few days whether he will issue the order against Twitter users.

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that tweeted alerts about police operations jeopardize efforts to reduce traffic accidents and curb auto thefts and the transportation of drugs and weapons.

According to the statement, traffic accidents throughout Brazil kill 55,000 people each year and cost the country 24.6 billion reals, or about $14.3 billion.

If the judge rules in favor of the injunction, anyone who violates it could be hit with a daily fine of 500,000 reals ($291,000), the statement said.

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. said in an email that it had “nothing to share on this issue.”

Under Twitter’s new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there at a government’s request. But it adds that censored tweets will still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter has said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives.

It said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal.

Is the Internet Making People Dumber?

If you think the Internet was invented by DARPA to make it easier for us to live, enjoy life and more easily buy slave-made products, you are damn wrong.

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanetLive
July 6, 2011

Like any technology, the Internet is a double-edged sword, but is the world wide web literally re-wiring our brains, dumbing us down by destroying our ability to think analytically and infantilizing our minds in the process?

Are we becoming a world of wireheads as the constant onslaught of new information reduces our attention span to nothing – eviscerating our ability to concentrate?

Some neuroscientists say the Internet is re-moulding brains to rely on associative thinking – which leaves us incapable of reading or writing at length.

But Oxford University’s Susan Greenfield goes further – warning that the likes of Facebook and Twitter are giving people what amounts to a lobotomy of empathy.

“We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist,” she told the UK’s Daily Mail. “My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights; who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.” Greenfield even fears that real conversation may give way to sanitized screen dialogues.

There are Facebook and Twitter obsessives who can barely visit the bathroom without posting a status update about it. To these people, privacy, individualism and merely the nagging voice of their own conscience are terrifying prospects. They constantly need to fill their environment with sound and fury, signifying nothing. To them, silence is torture – considered thought and peace of mind is anathema.

How do we reach out to people with often complex information when their brains have been frazzled to the point where they can barely maintain a conversation?

This is a book — remember these things? 40 per cent of Americans read one or less over the course of a whole year. A quarter of Americans don’t read any books at all. A lot of our young people only read books because they are forced to do so for school and college. Too many words, not enough pictures, definitely no videos of dancing penguins.

American technologist Nicholas Carr fears that someone, or something, has been tinkering with his brain, remapping the neural-circuitry, reprogramming the memory. His friends tell him how they find it impossible to absorb the information contained in a longer article. Writing for Atlantic Magazine, Carr asks, is Google Making us Stupid?

Now we’ve had to adapt our message to still be relevant in this brave new world of superficial soundbites – if I’d have written all this up in a three page article a lot of people would have simply ignored it.

What do you think? Are social networking websites and the Internet general destroying our ability to think analytically and in any significant depth? How can we craft our message to compete in this world of information overload and 21st century wireheads?