SCOTUS Declines To Interrupt Jack Smith’s Election-Interference Probe Of Trump’s Private Data

The Supreme Court will not halt Special Counsel Jack Smith's review of private messages between former President Donald Trump and Twitter.

FTC Commissioner Warns New Report Could Be Used By Big Tech To Justify Censorship

Melissa Holyoak is concerned that the FTC’s repeated calls for 'more stringent testing and monitoring standards' could put Americans’ First Amendment rights at further risk of infringement.

Tech titan Larry Ellison teases AI-powered surveillance state that will keep you on your 'best behavior'



Oracle chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison, the world's second-richest man, recently revealed how his company could furnish authorities with the technological means to better surveil the populace and socially engineer those involuntarily living their lives on camera.

"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on," Ellison said last week at the database and cloud computing company's financial analyst meeting. "It's AI that's looking at the cameras."

After discussing broadening and implementing surveillance systems in the health and education sectors, Ellison raised the matter of law enforcement applications and police body cameras.

'Truth is we don't really turn it off.'

"We completely redesigned body cameras," said the billionaire. "The camera's always on. You don't turn it on and off."

Whether an officer is having lunch with friends or in the lavatory, Oracle will never shut its eyes.

Ellison noted, for example, that if a police officer wants a moment of relative privacy so that he can go to the washroom, he must notify Oracle.

"We'll turn it off. Truth is, we don't really turn it off. What we do is we record it so no one can see it," said Ellison. "No one can get into that recording without a court order. You get the privacy you requested ... but if you get a court order, we will judge — I want to look at that, this so-called bathroom break."

"We transmit the video back to headquarters," continued the Oracle CTO, "and AI is constantly monitoring the video."

If AI spots behavior it has been trained to regard as suspicious, then it will flag it and issue an alert to the relevant authorities.

By constructing what is effectively a high-tech panopticon, Ellison indicated that police officers and citizens alike would be more inclined to behave as convention and law dictated they should "because we're constantly recording — watching and recording — everything that's going on."

Ellison indicated that this system of digital eyes on cars, drones, and humans amounts to "supervision."

The tech magnate framed these applications as benign — as ways to curb police brutality. However, Oracle has recently given cause to suspect that there is potential for abuse.

In July, Oracle agreed to pay $115 million to settle a lawsuit in which the company was accused of running roughshod over people's privacy by collecting their data and selling it to third parties, reported Reuters.

According to the plaintiffs, Oracle created unauthorized "digital dossiers" for hundreds of millions of people, which were then allegedly sold to marketers and other organizations.

Critics responding online to Ellison's remarks also expressed concerns over how such applications will all but guarantee a communist Chinese-style surveillance state in the West — something that's already under way in the U.K., one of the most surveilled countries on the planet.

'There isn't much not being watched by somebody.'

The U.K.'s former Home Office biometrics and surveillance commissioner Fraser Sampson told the Guardian before ending his term last year that AI was supercharging Britain's public-private "omni-surveillance" society.

"There was a lawyer back in 2010 who used the expression 'omni-surveillance,' and I think, yes, we are in that. There isn't much not being watched by somebody. The thing is, almost all of it's been watched by people on private devices. And they now share it, whether they want them to or not, with everybody, the police, the state, the foreign government, anybody," said Sampson.

"When all that needed a human to edit it, it wasn't an issue because no one was going to live long enough to get through 10 minutes. But now you can do it with AI editing. All of a sudden you can tap that ocean," added the watchdog.

The U.K. has ostensibly taken a turn for the worse under the current Labor government, which is working to greatly expand the use of live facial recognition technology.

While some have taken to keyboards to bemoan the growth of the Western surveillance state, so-called Blade Runner activists have, in recent years, taken to chopping down public and private cameras, including low-emission cameras.

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Blue Cities Like Philadelphia Feeds Citizens’ Private Data To Democrat Vote-Harvesting Outfit

Philadelphia has collected personal citizen information for years through a company now instructing Democrat get-out-the-vote foot soldiers.

'Patriot Act 2.0' — Lindsey Graham's DANGEROUS plan after Trump shooting



FBI whistleblower Steve Friend has a warning in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump — and it’s not for former President Trump.

“There was an exchange between deputy director Paul Abbate and Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, where to the layperson it seems reasonable the FBI wants to open up all avenues, remove the blindfold, have no blinders on, consider the fact that this could be assassination, this could be domestic terrorism,” Friend tells Jill Savage of “Blaze News Tonight.”

However, to the non-layperson — this could mean something more sinister.

“When you designate something as a domestic terrorist investigation, that enables you to make it classified, and when you have a classification code on there, you have to have a need to know in a security clearance,” Friend explains.

Because of that, the FBI can withhold information.

“The American people are not going to have the transparency that we ultimately need for this investigation,” he says.

While the FBI’s actions are concerning, that’s not Savage’s only concern.

“Lindsey Graham had a very concerning solution for the issues with the investigation,” Savage tells Friend.

“We have encrypted apps of an assassin, a murderer, and we can’t get into them all these days after,” Graham said. “That needs to be fixed folks. I’m all for privacy, but to a point.”

“What if, in the future, somebody’s using these apps to communicate with a foreign power. I think we need to know these things. We need to know them in real time,” he added.

Friend says that Graham’s suggestion would effectively render the Fourth Amendment a “dead letter, at that point.”

Graham’s use of the phrase “real time” is also concerning.

“Real time, which means continually monitoring it,” Friend explains.

“This is the government assuming that a tool will be used for ill, when it is just a tool. Because we don’t trust the government in this country. The job of law enforcement is not supposed to be easy. You’re supposed to have reasonable suspicion, probable cause, the burden is supposed to be there,” he adds.


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Is your car spying on you? Here's how to check



At least eight carmakers in the U.S. have admitted they would backtrack on a voluntary privacy agreement and turn over personal customer data to government and police, prompting calls for an investigation.

Automotive News reports 19 carmakers had voluntarily signed up for the Consumer Privacy Protection Principles in 2014 — standards that would require U.S government agencies (including police) to obtain a warrant or court order to access customer location data.

However, eight automakers misled customers about giving driver data to police, and now U.S. lawmakers are raising questions about whether automakers can be held to account for departing from promises made about user privacy.

So who is giving your information to others? Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, BMW, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, and Kia would turn over the data if a subpoena was produced — in violation of the standards they signed up for. More smoke and mirrors when it comes to your privacy.

These car companies are following the agreement they signed: General Motors, Honda, Ford, Stellantis, and Tesla require a warrant for location data, unless it is an emergency or customer consent was provided. Tesla is also the only brand to notify its customers of legal demands.

This has not only raised concerns about what other privacy promises carmakers have made that they won’t keep but has led two U.S. senators to call for the companies to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.

“Automakers have not only kept consumers in the dark regarding their actual practices, but multiple companies misled consumers for over a decade by failing to honor the industry’s own voluntary privacy principles,” said Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) in a letter to the FTC.

“Vehicle location data can be used to identify Americans who have travelled to seek an abortion in another state, attended protests, support groups for alcohol, drug, and other types of addiction, or identify those of particular faiths, as revealed through trips to places of worship.”

Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Kia all defended their practices, while the Alliance for Automotive Innovation — a lobby group for the car industry — claimed government agencies only request location information when there is clear danger to an individual.

“Vehicle location information is only provided to law enforcement under specific and limited circumstances, such as when the automaker is provided a warrant or court order or in situations where there is an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to an individual,” an AAI spokesperson told Automotive News.

The calls for an investigation into the data-sharing habits of carmakers comes after General Motors ended its partnerships with two major data brokers, following accusations of sharing information on drivers without their consent.

In March, the New York Times published an in-depth investigation about a Chevrolet Bolt owner who had been quoted a significantly higher insurance renewal premium, later discovering his driving data was being sold to insurance firms by data broker LexisNexis.

This was followed by a second report, detailing a proposed class action lawsuit put forward by a Cadillac XT6 owner who claimed he was denied insurance by seven companies on account of his LexisNexis driving report provided to the firms without his knowledge.

Both of the vehicles were equipped with OnStar, GM’s connected services brand, which gathered data used by LexisNexis.

In the wake of the reports, General Motors subsequently ended its partnership with both LexisNexis and Verisk, a similar company that also sold driving data to insurance companies.

According to the New York Times, an internal document circulated within General Motors showed more than 8 million vehicles were actively supplying data through OnStar’s Smart Driver program as of 2022.

Here's how to find out what your car is revealing about you:

  • See the data your car is capable of collecting with this tool.
  • Check your connected car app, if you use one, to see if you are enrolled in one of these programs.
  • Do an online search for “privacy request form” alongside the name of your vehicle’s manufacturer. There should be instructions on how to request information your car company has about you.
  • Request your LexisNexis report.
  • Request your Verisk report.

Remember, you own your data, not these companies. Just because they make the software doesn’t mean they get to control what happens to your information. The problem is that you sign away your ownership when you use the systems. Keep an eye out for opt-out options and support government bills that protect your privacy.

Microsoft CEO boasts about new AI chatbot that will surveil users aided by 'photographic memory'



Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently sat down for an interview with the Wall Street Journal to promote his company's new Windows AI Copilot+ computers. Nadella appeared excited about one feature in particular — AI software that will memorize users' every action on the device with photographic clarity.

Critics, particularly those keen on maintaining some modicum of privacy and autonomy in the age of ubiquitous surveillance, have expressed concerns about the "Recall" feature.

'It can recreate moments from the past, essentially.'

Nadella indicated that the company has long dreamt of introducing "photographic memory into what you do on the PC, and now we have it."

"It's not keyword search, right. It's semantic search over all your history," Nadella said enthusiastically. "It's not just about any doc — it can recreate moments from the past, essentially."

The Wall Street Journal indicated Recall "constantly takes screenshots of what's on your screen then uses a generative AI model right on the device along with the [Neural Processing Unit] to process all that data and make it searchable. Even photos."

To run Recall, a PC must have at least 16 GB RAM, 225 GB of storage, and an NPU that can swing 40 tera operations per second.

When the interviewer pressed Nadella about the notion that Recall is "creepy," the tech CEO — whose company recently built a generative AI model for American spies, regularly services the intelligence community, and has suffered major data breaches in recent years — said, "I mean, that's why you could only do it on the Edge. ... You have to put two things together: this is my computer, this is my Recall, and it's all being done locally, right. So, that's the promise."

"That's one of the reasons why Recall works as a magical thing because I can trust it," added Nadella.

Even though Microsoft has vowed to protect users' privacy by granting them the choice of turning off Recall or filtering out what they don't want tracked, some critics are not convinced.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote, "This is a Black Mirror episode. Definitely turning this 'feature' off."

Venture capitalist Roger McNamee noted, "Given that Microsoft has not been able to prevent massive hacks of its servers, this product — which will record everything you do on a Windows PC — qualifies as criminally insane."

— (@)

"Microsoft's like 'here NSA we made this present for u,'" tweeted Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online.

It appears Microsoft is focused on producing prescient AI bots as well archivists of users' correspondences, written thoughts, and virtual actions.

At a recent Microsoft event in Redmond, Washington, Nadella said Recall is a step toward machines that "instantly see us, hear, reason about our intent and our surroundings," reported MarketWatch.

"We’re entering this new era where computers not only understand us, but can actually anticipate what we want and our intent," added the CEO.

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'FBI violated American citizens' 4A rights 278,000 times': Bureau blasted over attempt to put gloss on Section 702



The FBI is attempting to rehabilitate the public image of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as Congress has until April 19 to reauthorize it. The bureau recently posted a video to X that features FBI Director Christopher Wray attempting to put a gloss on Section 702 as part of this monthslong campaign.

The bureau's timely propaganda did not escape the attention of critics on X, where the post received a community note that read, "The FBI violated American citizens' 4A rights 278,000 times with illegal, unauthorized FISA 702 searches."

Among the critics was Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who wrote, "FBI just got called out in a community note on X. Congress — take note. FISA 702 has been used for warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of times. Yet FBI demands 702 be reauthorized by April 19 WITHOUT a warrant requirement for searches of U.S. citizens."

"Many in Congress will want to reauthorize FISA 702 — which is set to expire April 19th — either without modification or (more likely) with fake reforms that fail to impose a warrant requirement for searches directed at Americans," added the senator.

What is Section 702?

Section 702 is a provision of FISA enacted by Congress in 2008 that enables the state to spy on foreign nationals located outside the U.S. with the compelled aid of electronic communication service providers.

This was the law exploited by the FBI to spy on members of the Trump campaign in 2016 without probable cause.

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Congress enacted Section 702 in order to "address a collection gap that resulted from the evolution of technology in the years after FISA was passed in 1978."

"Many terrorists and other foreign adversaries were using email accounts serviced by U.S. companies," claimed the ODNI. "Because of this change in communications technology, the government had to seek individual court orders, based on a finding of probable cause, to obtain the communications of non-U.S. persons located abroad."

Supposedly, going through the courts proved too costly "because of the resources required and because the government couldn't always meet the probable cause standard, which was designed to protect U.S. persons and persons in the U.S."

Warrantless spying on Americans

While 702 targets must be foreign nationals believed to be outside the U.S., the FBI readily admits that "such targets may send an email or have a phone call with a U.S. person."

As a consequence, multitudes of American citizens have been subjected to warrantless surveillance and have had their phone calls, text messages, emails, and other communications tapped and stored.

Blaze News previously reported that during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June 2023, the FBI admitted there had been at least 278,000 "unintentional" back-door search queries of the 702 database for the private communications of Americans between 2020 and 2021 alone.

Among those Americans caught up in the warrantless searches were Jan. 6 protesters, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, and BLM protesters.

The Hill reported that long after the FBI ran numerous searches of people suspected of partaking in the Jan. 6 protests, the Department of Justice concluded the bureau had not met the standard required for such a search.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at the June 2023 hearing, "Your institution is the one that, according to the court, the FISA court, ran 278,000 unwarranted — probably illegal — queries on Americans, right? That was your institution, correct?"

Abbate responded, "With respect to the compliance incident, yes."

Reauthorization

Wray sang praises to Section 702 when testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December and did so again before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on March 11.

In his March 11 testimony, Wray stated, "The FISA Court itself most recently found 98% compliance and commented on the reforms working. The most recent Justice Department report found the reforms working, 99% compliance. And so, I think legislation that ensures those reforms stay in place but also preserves the agility and the utility of the tools, what we need to be able to protect the American people."

The FBI's March 25 social post containing an excerpt from Wray's testimony was not well-received.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) wrote, "The FBI was correctly called out in a community note for lying about its unconstitutional, warrantless surveillance of Americans. Congress must eliminate FISA abuse and protect the American people's privacy."

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) tweeted, "The FBI has been corrected in community notes and rightfully so."

FBI whistlelower Steve Friend reiterated that the FBI "violated constitutional rights and abused FISA Section 702 over 278,000 times in a single year."

Sen. Lee emphasized that he and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) have introduced a bill that would reauthorize 702 but in a fashion that would supposedly safeguard American privacy and liberties.

Their so-called Security and Freedom Enhancement Act would require intelligence agencies to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant prior to accessing the contents of Americans' communications collected under Section 702.

"While only foreigners overseas may be targeted, the program sweeps in massive amounts of Americans' communications, which may be searched without a warrant. Even after implementing compliance measures, the FBI still conducted more than 200,000 warrantless searches of Americans' communications in just one year — more than 500 warrantless searches per day," said Durbin.

Durbin figured this legislation would make reauthorizing Section 702 palatable.

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Biden joins 'Chinese spy app' TikTok despite White House ban on federal accounts: 'lol hey guys'



The Biden campaign unveiled its new TikTok account Sunday — just days after Republican and Democratic lawmakers jointly called on the Biden administration to blacklist TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance and two weeks after FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress the app enables the communist regime to "control data collection on millions of users."

Critics have blasted President Joe Biden over the decision to risk additional exposure to America's pre-eminent adversary in an admittedly self-interested bid to connect with potential voters. After all, Biden figured TikTok to be enough of a threat in recent years to ratify legislation banning millions of federal employees from using the compromised software.

"Hey by the way, we just joined TikTok," the Biden campaign noted Sunday on X.

— (@)

The post linked to the newly created account on TikTok, which presently hosts a Super Bowl-themed interview video of the geriatric president captioned, "lol hey guys."

Although now apparently a laughing matter, Biden ratified a spending bill in December 2022 banning the use of TikTok by millions of federal employees.

The social media platform made it an easy decision, having confirmed ahead of the bill's signing that it spied on Western journalists. Months earlier, BuzzFeed News obtained 14 statements from TikTok employees and leaked audio from internal company meetings revealing that China-based employees of ByteDance repeatedly accessed private data about American users.

A member of TikTok's Trust and Safety department reportedly also admitted in a September 2021 meeting, "Everything is seen in China."

The FBI and the Federal Communications Commissioned have since indicated ByteDance could share users' browser history, locations, and biometric identifiers with the communist regime, reported the Associated Press.

A compromised TikTok would amount to an additional weapon in the arsenal of an adversary that has sent spy craft over the mainland U.S.; operated illegal police stations on American soil; threatened diplomats; dispatched agents to execute espionage and political destabilization missions; and attempted to hunt down dissenters stateside.

The company has struggled to address security and privacy concerns with its "Project Texas" operation, which allegedly keeps American user data on U.S.-based Oracle servers. However, the Wall Street Journal reported two weeks before Biden's TikTok adoption that the social media platform continues to share data with its Chinese masters through unofficial channels.

FBI Director Wray told the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party last month that "[TikTok's] parent company is effectively beholden to the Chinese government and that is what in turn creates a series of national security concerns in the [Chinese] government's ability to leverage that access or that authority."

TikTok gives Beijing the ability "to control data collection on millions of users, which could be used for all sorts of intelligence operations or influence operations," added Biden's FBI director.

— (@)

"I think it is a threat that is very significant," Wray stressed ahead of the Biden campaign's TikTok adoption.

Congressional lawmakers from both major parties noted in a Feb. 8 letter to Biden Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that "TikTok's software engineering personnel ultimately report to ByteDance leadership in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Moreover, any ByteDance data that is viewed, stored, or that passes through China is subject to the laws of China, a one-party authoritarian state hostile to American democracy."

"TikTok, which is legally specified as a subsidiary of ByteDance, updated its EU privacy policy in November 2022 to confirm that its staff in China have access to user data outside China to perform 'important functions,'" continued the letter. "From a security standpoint, this means that TikTok provides the CCP with the ability to weaponize the platform by suppressing, magnifying, and otherwise constructing narratives to target specific audiences abroad."

The Biden campaign told NBC News that its new TikTok account is "part of an effort to meet voters where they are."

Pew Research data revealed that as of late 2023, 32% of U.S. adults ages 18-29 regularly get news from TikTok. This demographic is presently the most favorable to the deeply unpopular president, who continues to trail former President Donald Trump in the polls.

The latest Economist/YouGov polling data indicate that Biden's job approval is 48% among the 18-29 age group — four points higher than his approval rating among the 30-44 age group and 10 points higher than among those ages 45 and older.

TikTok may be welcome stomping grounds for the Democratic president for reasons other than demographics.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) asked FBI Director Wray during a congressional hearing last month, "If the CCP were to want to change TIkTok feeds to bias one candidate or another in the upcoming presidential election, would they be able to do so?"

Wray answered, "My understanding is that under Chinese law that would be something that they would be permitted to do."

Following the Biden campaign's TikTok announcement Sunday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote, "Biden campaign bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices."

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote, "Panic is when the Biden campaign joins TikTok after the White House banned the app from devices a year ago."

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) tweeted, "Hey @joebiden, you've done a lot of dumb things over the last 3 years. Handing your data over to China may be the dumbest."

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said he was not "surprised President Biden has just joined #TikTok — a company that steals our private information & hands it over to the Communist Party of #China. Biden plays for #TeamCCP, not #TeamUSA."

"Nothing like giving the CCP all the data from a Presidential campaign," wrote Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.). "Open invitation for election influence!"

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Is The Revival Of The Dumb Phone The Solution To Our Tech Addiction Woes?

Flip and feature phones are often deemed a 'product of the past,' but could they be the future of ditching tech addiction?