The NSA was accused of invading American civil liberties during the scandals of the Watergate era in the 1970s. ibid.
Privacy has become an illusion. ibid.
The government accounting office found 199 data mining projects in more than 50 government agencies. ibid.
In 2007, nearly two years after this programme was broadcast in the US, the National Intelligence Director confirmed that US telecommunication companies had played a key role in the domestic eavesdropping program. The telecoms companies have been granted immunity by the US courts for cooperating with the government in its surveillance activities but it’s for the federal courts to decide such scheme’s constitutionality. ibid.
One of the things we’re doing is developing all sorts of technology, not to spy on the Russians, not to spy on the Chinese, not to spy on Osama bin Laden, but to control the American people. We have satellites ... We have a programme known as Echelon, where they listen to every telephone call, every email, record every fax here in the United States ... as we move from freedom to fascism. Dr Stan Monteith, physician & author & radio host
Surveillance breeds conformity. Glenn Greenwald
The surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than I would have imagined and far greater than the American public has been able to debate. Barton Gellman
US surveillance of Pakistan extends far beyond its nuclear program. There are several references in the black budget to expanding US scrutiny of chemical and biological laboratories. Barton Gellman
As digital communications have multiplied, and NSA capabilities with them, the agency has shifted resources from surveillance of individual targets to the acquisition of communications on a planetary scale. Barton Gellman
Study after study has shown that human behaviour changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free. Edward Snowden
When we’ve got these people who have practically limitless powers within a society. If they get a pass without so much as a slap on the wrist, what example does that set for the next group of officials that come into power? To push the lines a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further, and we’ll realize that we’re no longer citizens – we’re subjects. Edward Snowden
These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power. Edward Snowden
The Irish situation was only one part of a decisive shift inside MI5 toward domestic concerns. The growth of student militancy in the 1960s gave way to industrial militancy in the early 1970s ... But the wholesale surveillance of a large proportion of the population raised more than a question mark. Peter Wright, Spycatcher p359
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised. George Orwell, 1984
The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately. ibid.
You might have bought the phone but whoever hacked it, they’re the ones that own it … If your phone had been hacked, you would never know it. Vice: State of Surveillance, Edward Snowden, HBO 2016
Apple has the exclusive technical means to get into this phone. ibid.
They moved from the exceptional surveillance to the surveillance of everyone. ibid.
IMSI catcher: every police department in the United States seems to be buying these things these days. ibid.
Frequently they’re monitoring protesters rather than violent criminals. ibid.
It’s just twenty-five years since the world wide web was created … It’s now caught in the greatest controversy of its life: surveillance. Inside the Dark Web, BBC 2014
Thanks to a new digital currency this new technology is sending law-makers into a panic due to the growth of a new black market in the dark web. ibid.
Tapping the wires is surprisingly simple. The data carried by the fibre-optic cable just needs to be diverted … and that’s just what GCHQ did. ibid.
Watching isn’t just done by governments; the most detailed documenting of our lives is done by technology companies. ibid.
Silk Road and its imitators difficult to stop: you paid with a new currency that only exists online. ibid.
So is anonymity a genuine threat to society? ibid.
Nobody can say this government doesn’t listen to its people. Spitting Image s2e10, Thatcher assists phone-tapping, ITV 1985
Film 93 Barry Norman: At last the British film industry is enjoying a renaissance with a host of gritty realistic new releases dubbed ‘surveillance videos’, like our first offering tonight The Blurred Man which was filmed entirely at a supermarket in Dudley. Spitting Image s14e4, ITV 1993
The police state and how’s it being slotted into place even as we speak in the so-called free western democracies … The domestic spying program which partially broke… It was admitted that the NSA is listening to domestic calls without proper warrants … The surveillance program is much broader. Corbett Report: #10 The Police State’s Noose is Coiling Around Your Neck, James Corbett online 2007
Citizens are deluded into believing they are still free people. ibid.
The most surveilled country in the world – the UK. ibid.
We are being incrementally introduced to the idea that surveillance is good for us, and the government cannot be wrong when it surveils us. ibid.
Trump’s Homeland Security Team Likely to Emphasize Facial Recognition and Biometric Surveillance. The Corbett Report: The War of Terror is a CIA-Sponsored Psy-Op, James Corbett online 2017, The Intercept online
Vault 7: On March 7th the Transparency Disclosure activists at Wikileaks began releasing a series of documents … describing sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency … The Corbett Report: What is the Deep State? James Corbett online 2017, Adask
Your smart appliances will be a valuable tool for the CIA and other intelligence agencies to collect information about you. This has been talked about for years. ibid. Corbett
Smart technology represents less of a breakthrough in power distribution and more of a revolution in complete constant panopticon surveillance of everyone. The Corbett Report: Data is the New Oil, November 2017, James Corbett online
The STASI developed some of the best surveillance equipment in the world. Master Spies s1e1: Spy vs Spy, Discovery History 2017
We’ve got your reg, pal. And your fucking face. You are under surveillance big style. Perrier’s Bounty 2009 starring Gabriel Byrne & Cillian Murphy & Michael McElhatton & Don Wycherley & Jodie Whittaker & Brendan Coyle & Conleth Hill & Domhnall Gleeson & Patrick McCane & Jim Broadbent et al, director Ian Fitzgibbon, opening commentary, clamping dude
Oh look that’s terrible … Every time I see one of those old guys I, I always think the same thing: I always think that he was once somebody’s baby boy ... half dead on a park bench. The Conversation 1974 starring Gene Hackman & John Cazale & Allen Garfield & Cindy Williams & Frederic Forrest & Harrison Ford & Michael Higgins & Elizabeth MacRae & Teri Garr & Mark Wheeler & Robert Shields et al, director Francis Ford Coppola
Don’t get involved with this, Mr Caul. These tapes are dangerous … Someone may get hurt. ibid. Harrison Ford
Some guy’s following me. I don’t know. It has something to do with the assignment last week. ibid.
Wiretaps without warrants, surveillance of everyone: who’s in charge, and who’s watching the watchers? Will anything change? And does this massive spending actually make America more secure? Empire: Empire of Secrets, Al Jazeera 2013
A secret empire of surveillance and spying that constantly regenerates itself. ibid.
If the call to secrecy makes the world safer or more dangerous. ibid.
Amazon’s Echo is recording everyone’s conversations in the house. Truth Rising, Melissa, Youtube 1.00.03, 2017
Officer Jim Lehey, ex-officer, doing surveillance on Julian who appears to be renovating his trailer with stolen building materials and tools. Trailer Park Boys s6e3: High Definition Piss Jugs, Mr Lehey to hidden camera
This is officer Jim Lahey – I’m installing a hidden camera in the dressing room to prove that Julian is forcing my Randy to be here tonight: that’s human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery. The shit cheese is in the shit trap. Trailer Park Boys: Live at the North Pole, Netflix 2014
Today the mass surveillance of all Americans by the US government and its corporate partners is a totally normalised reality. Despite its widespread acceptance it is an outrageous blatant violation of our constitutional rights. The Empire Files: NSA Whistleblower: Government Collecting Everything You Do, 2019