Peeping Toms of the Intel World: Recording Bulk Private Yahoo Webcam Chats
http://www.juancole.com/2014/03/peeping-recording-private.html
Peeping Toms of the Intel World: Recording Bulk Private Yahoo Webcam Chats
By Juan Cole | Mar. 1, 2014
In the same way that pedophiles are attracted to professions where they come into frequent contact with children, peeping Toms surely are attracted into electronic surveillance work.
That seems to me the only explanation for the US National Security Agency and British intelligences Optic Nerve program, just revealed by The Guardian from the Snowden files. The analysts sneaked into millions of peoples private webcam conversations without a warrant and appropriated them, that is, actually downloaded and stored still images from them. If a private hacker did that to even one person and was caught, that hacker would be tossed in a prison cell for life and the key would be thrown away.
Up to 11% of the video they spied on and captured was lovers engaged in nudity and long-distance video intimacy with one another. Although the agencies are said to have attempted to limit employees access to this enormous government-funded porn movie industry, we know from the Snowden case that even relatively low-level contractors could get access to millions of such records.
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The Guardian points out that Optic Nerve bears an uncanny resemblance to the surveillance cameras the government had in every home in George Orwells novel, 1984 .