Maine police using a controversial tool to monitor what you say online

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine police have been using a controversial computer program developed to monitor the public’s social media posts.

The program, known as Geofeedia, works by pinpointing the location of people who are posting publicly on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Geofeedia was developed with financial support from the CIA. As it has gained traction with police who use it to track protests and look for danger signs like the word “gun” online, it has also become the center of a national debate over privacy and government surveillance.

“People don’t realize that the government is monitoring the personal information they share,” said Zachary Heiden, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. “This isn’t just the police standing in a public square. This is the police standing in our bedrooms and living rooms.”

<more>

Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2016/11/30/news/portland/maine-police-department-has-been-using-a-controversial-tool-to-monitor-what-you-say-online/

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And so it begins...

[crim son]

1. So.

Here in Maine we (and by "we" I mean "not me&quot voted against institution stronger background checks for GUN purchases because we are all so responsible with our firearms. Apparently it makes more sense to spy on us. Wow.

[jpak]

2. Yup

Go Figure

[Feeling the Bern]

3. gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun

gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun gun

Come find me fuckers.

[sarcasmo]

7. Machine Gun.

[paleotn]

16. full automatic

gun gun gun gun gun rifle pistol grenade launcher thermonuclear bomb

The thing is, if they start tracking, tailing me or whatever, they're sure to die of sheer bordum. And I'll get the last laugh. Suckers!!!

[Equinox Moon]

23. TY for the rebellion

I needed that today.

[Lint Head]

26. Need to post this on the Maine forum.

[brush]

27. No need to find you. DU just got shut down, remember.

A shot across the bow if there ever was one to let us know we are being watched.

[Feeling the Bern]

28. Watch me then. I hope the voyeurs get a good look at me writing screenplays for my boss,

going to the gym, playing my guitar, working in the Asian film market and making love to my wife.

In fact, you voyeurs, watch that closely. You may learn something.

[Sherman A1]

4. Charming

Simply charming.......

[montana_hazeleyes]

5. George Orwell predicted all this. Quite an amazing dude.

But, I thought it was the bush** era as it was happening.

But now is much, much more seeming the time is here. Good grief, this is the "perfect storm" for evil.

So I will not say GUN or PROTESTS or any words like that.

[Best_man23]

6. Beginning to wonder if I need to download Tails

And start learning how to use it.

[avebury]

8. What is Tails? nt

[rpannier]

11. https://tails.boum.org/

Tails is a live operating system that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card.

It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity, and helps you to:

use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship;
all connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network;
leave no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly;
use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging.

https://tails.boum.org/about/index.en.html

[FuzzyRabbit]

10. Governments target users of programs like Tails

Tails ( https://tails.boum.org/ ) uses the TOR network, which is heavily targeted by many governments, including yours and mine.

I think the only safe form of communicating is something like the samizdat, which we used during the late 1960s after we figured out the telephones of our peaceful church sponsored anti-war organization were tapped by the FBI.

Actually, since the before 1990s, the US government has been monitoring all phone calls, email, and internet communications. Remember Echelon? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Britain's The Guardian newspaper summarized the capabilities of the ECHELON system as follows:

A global network of electronic spy stations that can eavesdrop on telephones, faxes and computers. It can even track bank accounts. This information is stored in Echelon computers, which can keep millions of records on individuals.

Officially, however, Echelon doesn't exist.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22.

[Equinox Moon]

25. Use the TOR browser

free download

www.torproject.org

It works great!

[metalbot]

31. NSA owns tor

I mean that not in a legal sense. But the NSA owns enough of the exit nodes to know who you are and what you are doing.

[Equinox Moon]

36. It's still the best I can do, with my low tech knowledge

for security.

[bdamomma]

9. This is unconstitutional

Facebook and twitter??? interesting twitter.

[Kilgore]

13. And available to anyone including a download from google

The version for your pc

https://geofeedia.com/products/how-it-works/

The version for android can be downloaded from the google store.

[bdamomma]

18. wow thats pretty

interesting. So can we get something like that?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. gun cat terror dog riot mouse civil war cheese death milk destruction pie

gun cat terror dog riot mouse civil war cheese death milk destruction pie

[Ruth Bonner]

14. What's the milk for?

[dhill926]

19. the cat?

[Ruth Bonner]

22. Ok. The cheese is for the mice and pie is for the dog. Sounds fair. :-)

[elmac]

15. fits right in to the fascist agenda

?1446948044

[mainer]

17. Total waste of money according to S. Portland police.

funny quote here:

But thousands of dollars later, the South Portland police say that, at least for their department, the high-tech surveillance hasn’t led to any arrests.

Geofeedia has cost the South Portland department $13,500, which was mostly paid for through a grant, according to the department.

But the program mostly returns false hits.

“Most of the hits we get are someone going hunting and talking about their shotgun, so we get some nice pictures of a freshly killed deer,” said Gerrish. “We haven’t had very much success. I think it’s a program that a bigger city might benefit more from it.”

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

38. It does seem like a waste of money of Maine.

I think there's not enough crime going on here to make it worth it. Not really any big cities in Maine.

[wildeyed]

20. This goes on everywhere and has been for some time.

Ask anyone who does serious protest organization. I assume that whatever I post online is public. There are encrypted messaging apps like Whatsapp if you want to communicate securely.

[niyad]

21. this is just a technological update to the spying that has been going on for decades.

cointelpro, anyone? the major communications companies letting the feds spy?

and what was that program a few years ago that monitored keystrokes--stryker something or other?

the only difference now is that they are being blatanly open about it. makes one wonder what they are doing in the dark.

[Equinox Moon]

24. Use the TOR browser

free download

www.torproject.org

Your IP is re-routed three times all over the world. It works great.

[Historic NY]

29. LOL is this nationwide.

[Kennah]

30. Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits (n/t)

[ManiacJoe]

32. Data feeds being cut off from multiple sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/technology/aclu-facebook-twitter-instagram-geofeedia.html

[ManiacJoe]

33. If you turn off your GPS before you post to social media sites....

[ProfessorPlum]

34. I'll point out that this "begins" under Obama

and ask where the hell the Democrats are on all of this? Wakey, wakey, Trump isn't the cause of this, he will just make it worse.

[Nitram]

35. Big Brother has a foothold in Maine? No real Yankee should stand for that!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

37. I'm not quite as alarmed as some others, because what you say online has

been watched for a long time.

I'm an administrator at another forum. I'm checking this minute, and I see that we have 71 "entities" online. Of these 71 entities, 3 are members, 53 are guests, and 15 are robots. The robots consist of Yahoo, Baidu, Bing, Google, Google AdSense, and Majestic-12 (whatever that is). Some of robots show up several times.

If you're posting in a public forum, someone or something is looking at it.

It's always been that way.