Why Facial Recognition is Not Limited to Microsoft Governance

[As submitted to the IAPP]

Dear Editors,

I listed constituent objections to Microsoft running up the privacy flag here.

Facial Recognition Technology and other commercialized versions of biometrics were driven by the will of DARPA investors to get their money and mass surveillance intelligence back to the Department of Defense. While I realize this is under-reported, you should understand that the millions of DoD civilian servants, their dependents, veterans and active service members are all familiar with base mandates for use and employment requirements of biometric ID. There is literally a standing army of non consenting Americans who were compelled to use biometrics in public service. Do not underestimate what they have to tell the public about FRT or any other biometric technology.

Whatever this is about, it's not about Julie Brill. When she carried the USG, she was impotent against [Obama’s] NatSec forces, PRISM and violence to 4th Amendment, as FTC head. [So will be all FTC agency heads. This is a principled reason why “privacy” cannot be a consumer matter delegated to the FTC. DoD and DNI overreach and employment of the private sector will continue, as federal contractors. While predictably uncaring anti-personal liberty Berkeley CS grads, local Communitarians standing behind the Lenin statue in Seattle’s Fremont district, DSA lefitists, and Obama “flat earthers” make their nests on mass surveillance, China scraped everyone. Brill, like many Obama supporters, now carries the burdensome voting record of tacit support of his mass surveillance plan. She cannot carry the flag of public trust from those whom she failed in America’s computing contractor. That leaves the very hard policy work to the people who have to live with what Washington State permits as law.]

Sincerely,

Sheila Dean

NYTimes Editorial Tries Victim Blaming As Consumer Protection Strategy

Dear Editors,


This NYTimes ’Opinion Editorial sends an error signal.

It's not voiced enough: as data generation is a natural byproduct of technical use, no company CEO would die if [they] did not sell consumer surveillance. That inverted power differential comes from another area of our society: government, specifically, first funders at DARPA and the Department of Defense who put onereous weaponization uses on any technology they create, fund or license. Facial Recognition is one BIMA licensed technology.

The Army and it's First Party contractors, Microsoft and possibly Amazon, suggest such sweeping public capture is for your benefit and your personal security. Nevermind the pesky fact, that the government literally violates its reason for being by asking corporations to do their job for them and then sell the data to them. It does not make us more secure when China, and other rogue nation states can steal our technology from the private sector, derived from US military patents, break our technical layers of security and then park an advanced persistent threat AI in the networks to just hoover up as much individual intelligence they can on our citizens- because we decided to do it first!!

If they can't protect it, they shouldn't collect it.

The other point, past it's not legal for the federal government to commit mass surveillance, is the consumer owns themselves and any data which comes from marketing their likeness. Companies don't like it when I assert this, but it's totally true.

As I own myself, as property owner, there is something fundamentally flawed in asking me to submit to a digital contract that states: I shall rent data peep shows to [unknowable faceless 3rd party] through the phone I own, not see the rental price or price of admission to the peep show because,"It's proprietary". It sounds like larceny and a recipe for a human trafficking scam. In fact, it sounds like the reasoning of someone in the throes of psychological projection.

I am not in any way consenting to mass surveillance by using a mobile phone. The unethical engineers ordered to weaponize ordinary means of communication and its byproduct data into a mass surveillance aperture according to spec are only partially at fault. The order was given by policy administrators to use economic lawfare as coercion (as social engineering, suitcases of cash to Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon - whatever works) for foreign intelligence gathering on the American people. If you believe the contrary, you're a simpleton for sending your taxes to pay to undermine your rights without contest.

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In other news, Dustin Volz.

Politicized Social Media Platforms [or Why I Dumped Twitter]

“Some” social media accounts are more American than US citizens?

By Sheila Dean

On October 18th, 2017 Twitter joined a small league of American social media companies who decided to monitor naturalized US citizens.  In 2013, Twitter distanced itself from National Security agencies, denouncing NSA PRISM program surveillance of its social media accounts.  So what changed? 

Come to think of it, not much has changed at all. We should readily realize virtually no single social media platform or US media company has consistent integrity conforming to US public Constitutional protections. The general rule is if you have to agree to a Terms of Service agreement to do anything online you are paying with your private data; which may used with or without your consent.

For instance, Comcast believes it has the right to demand the last four of your SSN#. If they never overtly asked you for permission to use the last-4 of your Social Security Number via a customer service rep in the Philippines or Latin America; they have zero right to ask you for it for account verification purposes. If a company asks for the last 4 of your SSN and you never gave it to them in the first place for credit approvals, treat it like a phishing attack.  Hang up the phone and visit a store in person to administrate your account.  

Companies may ask for verification of identity, but they never have the right to use your personal information without your permission. There has to be a specific purpose for the use of your information. For that purpose, they need documented consent. They’re not in a position to really make demands for government mandated identity.

The SSN# is especially sensitive information. It is even more so now due to the Equifax breach. You can ask for a passcode or 2-factor authentication number to be generated for your online accounts.  I have also included an example letter to  help request your SSN removal for customer authorization purposes at the end of this blog. 

CONVENIENCE VS. PERSONAL SOVEREIGNTY

You are in the drivers seat.  If convenience is more important than privacy - keep doing what you’re doing. Just know you are developing media companies’ private data sales kiosk of You; which they do in fact readily sell to any paying government customer who will purchase your information. Media companies like Twitter and Xfinity aren’t picky.

When DHS or the NSA won’t obey US agency legal compliance, neither will media companies.  You can enter in a civil suit to sue both.  You might lose; but you also might win. They brought the Constitutional fight to you.  You didn’t beg Twitter, a social media company, to treat your citizenship like a subjective matter and as a personal speech surveillance tool.

I think the messages from US media companies are pretty clear: US citizens don’t have any observable rights we need to care about.  They may as well be China, Russia or any other totalitarian regime on earth completely forfeited from the value of US Constitutional protections.  We all know there is no US Embassy in Cyberspace. 

Actions at Twitter now work to exclude naturalized US citizens from those who would have lawful protections under the US government.  Both Bush and Obama presidencies put unsecured access to mass surveillance ahead of domestic information security interests.  Trump, who is only informed by precedent, thinks readily some citizens are more protected than others.

When citizens aren’t really citizens in the United States for personal rights in protected speech and 4th Amendment limits, either we are not living in America or America isn’t really a Constitutional Republic with equal protections under the law.  In reality, both of these ideas are parasitic falsehoods hooked up by corrupt interests to siphon off resources of your labor, your money, your family and your freedom.

When a US soldier dies for US Constitutional freedoms and guaranteed rights, they don’t get to pick which citizens get the benefit of their sacrifice.  So no social media company should decide whose US citizenship rights and protections are denied. You are either a US citizen or you are not. If you are, it definitely means more than having someone parse your rights from a corrupt legal ivory tower in Silicon Valley.

So I scheduled deletion of all of my Twitter accounts.

Certain media denizens will decry it’s a “chilling effect”. They think far too much of global online services. Twitter only has the information power you give it. They need you to farm information.  If you stop giving them information, they will develop similar problems to Facebook's “news shortage”.  

US identity is only for approved use by the worthy.

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