Cuomo Administration Uses Surveillance Cameras To Monitor State Workers

I bet you're not surprised by this news:

A state workers union has filed a grievance over the Cuomo administration's use of surveillance cameras to gather evidence in cases of employees allegedly taking time off from work improperly.

The Public Employees Federation, in a grievance filed this month with the Department of Environmental Conservation, said that using cameras to track work habits violates a section of its labor contract that states that "no employee in this unit (PEF) shall be required to punch a time clock or record attendance with a timekeeper.''

"Our members have the contractual right (as professionals) to record their own times of arrival and departure from work, free of surveillance,'' PEF spokeswoman Jane Briggs said in an email about the case. "We argue that using time records generated by security systems/cameras to monitor our members' time and attendance violates..." the contract.

Not so says the Cuomo administration:

The recent grievance, which has not yet been resolved, is being viewed by some as a dispute over semantics.

DEC managers say they used the cameras not as timekeeping devices but to verify the comings and goings of state workers, according to documents reviewed by the Times Union.

Briggs said another section of the union's contract, known as a side letter, says electronic surveillance is allowed if it furthers the health and safety at state workplaces.

"We believe this means the state can use security systems and the information that is generated from them for valid security purposes," she said. "They cannot use that information to track/document time at work.''

And how is the state using the surveillance cameras to "further the health and safety at state workplaces?

This kind of thing:

At least three DEC employees have been disciplined for lengthy lunch breaks at the agency's Broadway headquarters or for other absences during the 7.5-hour work day.

In one case, managers referred to a video of a person coming and going during a one-hour lunch break that was allegedly recorded as a half-hour on a time card, known as a leave and accrual tracking sheet.

Another employee was rebuked after moving a vehicle to avoid a ticket.

Oh, yeah - everybody's workplace health and safety was put into jeopardy because some dude went out to move his car.

I understand that state workers are paid for working a certain amount of time and they are responsible for working that time.

And I understand that there are times when employees take advantage of the system and have to be disciplined.

The DEC biologist who skipped out of work to drink in a bar comes to mind.

But for the Cuomo administration to use the surveillance cameras under the guise that they are furthering health and safety in the workplace is jive - they're using them to monitor employees time and attendance, which is against the PEF contract.

You ever notice how the state (or the city) loves to hold workers to the contract when it's to their advantage but loves to stretch contractual language when it's not?

Weiner Backs Bloomberg On Occupy Camp Attack

Carlos Danger, AKA Anthony Weiner, backed Mayor Bloomberg on his nighttime removal of the Occupy encampment at Zuccotti Park.

Weiner, seen above running in the Ecuadorean pride parade and shouting “Que viva Ecuador!” through a bullhorn as parade-goers chanted Carlos! Carlos!", responded to a Wall Street Journal inquiry about how each prospective mayor would have handled the Occupy encampment and other so-called permit-less protests like this:

Breaking with the other Democrats, former Rep. Anthony Weiner said he largely agreed with how Mr. Bloomberg handled Occupy Wall Street. He said the mayor gave protesters enough time to "blow off some steam," and then "ultimately the police and the mayor were right to move the encampment."

Mr. Weiner said the next mayor would have to decide whether to continue what appears to be the NYPD's current policy on spontaneous Occupy-style marches—allowing permit-less protests and making arrests when safety is jeopardized.

"I think the ideal is to allow people to blow off steam in a way that doesn't endanger their neighbors," he said Sunday.

If anything, Weiner is moving to the right of Bloomberg on permit-less protests, suggesting that the current policy is endangering citizens.

Odd that Carlos Danger, the menace of the Internet, is worried about endangering citizens, and yet there it is, in black and white.

The truth is, Weiner has always been a right-winger/neo-con on foreign policy issues, on so-called law-and-order issues, on Surveillance State issues.

It's not a surprise that he would be to the right of Bloomberg on protests.

Even his choice of words - he wants to allow protesters the right "to blow off steam" - suggests that he doesn't particularly care what protesters have to say or want to engage in dialogue over the issues they're raising.

He simply wants to let them steam blow off and continue on with the status quo.

If there's anybody out there still convinced Weiner is a "liberal" and a "progressive," his stance on issues like Occupy and permit-less protests ought to be disabuse them of that notion.

Weiner, despite his cable TV image and his powder blue pants and the clown circus that follows him, is squarely in the reactionary neo-con/Surveillance State political camp.

Just take a look at his voting record in Congress for proof of that.

Researching How To Cook Lentils Gets A Woman A Visit From The Police For Terrorism

Because we now live in a complete and total police/surveillance state:

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks, and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".

Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. A spokesman for the FBI told to the Guardian on Thursday that its investigators were not involved in the visit, but that "she was visited by Nassau County police department … They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department."

Catalano, a writer for indie music and politics magazine Death and Taxes wrote:

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband's Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two tow ard the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

A million things went through my husband's head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.

"Are you [name redacted]?" one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.

They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son's bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.

At this point, Catalano said, the police were "peppering my husband with questions".

"Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked."

It was at this point that the conversation took a delightfully culinary turn, with quinoa making an unlikely appearance in the FBI's inquiries:

Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

The joint terrorism task force did not press Catalano's husband on the dilemma facing liberals over whether quinoa consumption is ethically sound – many Bolivians can no longer afford their staple food now everyone in Brooklyn is eating it.

"By this point they had realized they were not dealing with terrorists," Catalano said.
Still, she was left worried by the visit, which she attributes to her family's internet history.

I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety.

This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online.

I'm scared. And not of the right things.

If you're not scared of all the surveillance and police paramilitary action these days, you're not paying enough attention.

You can bet the government is watching everything you do these days.

Everything.

Even looking up lentil recipes.

1984 is here.

CIA Agents Joined NYPD In Doing Domestic Surveillance

Not only does Bloomberg have his own army, he has his own spy agency too:

WASHINGTON — Four Central Intelligence Agency officers were embedded with the New York Police Department in the decade after Sept. 11, 2001, including one official who helped conduct surveillance operations in the United States, according to a newly disclosed C.I.A. inspector general’s report. 

That officer believed there were “no limitations” on his activities, the report said, because he was on an unpaid leave of absence, and thus exempt from the prohibition against domestic spying by members of the C.I.A. 

Another embedded C.I.A. analyst — who was on its payroll — said he was given “unfiltered” police reports that included information unrelated to foreign intelligence, the C.I.A. report said. 

The once-classified review, completed by the C.I.A. inspector general in December 2011, found that the four agency analysts — more than had previously been known — were assigned at various times to “provide direct assistance” to the local police. The report also raised a series of concerns about the relationship between the two organizations. 

The C.I.A. inspector general, David B. Buckley, found that the collaboration was fraught with “irregular personnel practices,” that it lacked “formal documentation in some important instances,” and that “there was inadequate direction and control” by agency supervisors. 

“While negative public perception is to be expected from the revelation of the agency’s close and direct collaboration with any local domestic police department, a perception that the agency has exceeded its authorities diminishes the trust placed in the organization,” Mr. Buckley wrote in a cover memo to David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A. director.

Just another example of how we now live in a fascist police state where they're watching everything and spying on everybody.

Remember when the CIA wasn't supposed to operate domestically?

Oh, yeah - I remember.

That was back in the day.

 A day that is no more.

Barack Obama, Warrantless Surveillance And Classroom Technology

Two stories about Barack Obama I want to look at today.

The first is an education story:

President Barack Obama imagines a country where teachers know what's happening in their students' brains.

He wants "teachers to have an ability to assess learning hour by hour and day by day," a senior White House official said Wednesday. "That vision ... is really not possible with the connectivity we have today."

That's why on Thursday Obama will speak at a school in Mooresville, N.C., to unveil an initiative that aims to give 99 percent of America's public schools high-speed connectivity over the next five years.

The project, called ConnectED, also seeks to get devices into the hands of teachers and students so they can experience digital lessons and software designed for the classroom. Districts will be in control of their own purchasing. The plan would also use existing money within the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to fund professional development to "help teachers keep pace with changing ... demands," according to a background memo provided by the White House.

The second story is this:

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights. 

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers. 

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls. 

A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.” 

That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where. 

This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy. 

Does anyone else see the connection between the Obama education policy, the data tracking, the technologizing of everything, and the Obama surveillance system?

Mr. Obama can keep his ESEA money for increased technology and bandwidth.

At this point, given the realities of data tracking both by private enterprise and the federal government, I'll take a couple of bucks for pens, pencils, paper and chalk, thanks.

Bloomberg: We Have To Shred The Constitution In Order To Save Ourselves

Our inevitable post-9/11 slide into an authoritarian state run by plutocrats continues:

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.

“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who has come under fire for the N.Y.P.D.’s monitoring of Muslim communities and other aggressive tactics, said the rest of the country needs to learn from the attacks.

“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” he said.

“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he said.

It never seems to occur to the plutocrats and other Surveillance State functionaries that part of the reason why "we live in a very dangerous world" is because U.S. foreign policy makes it so.

Think of the ways our laws and interpretation of the Constitution have changed since 9/11.

We now condone torture.

The president says he has the right to assassinate anyone at any time for any reason, so long as that person is a "terrorist."

We hold "terrorists" or those we suspect are terrorists but can prove are so without a reasonable doubt in perpetuity in Guantanamo.

We drop drone bombs every week onto suspected terrorists all over the world, often killing innocents in the fallout.

Are we safer because of these acts and policies?

Or do we end up radicalizing many people, some of whom end up trying to take American lives?

I am of the opinion that the U.S. government and the plutocrats who run it were very happy 9/11 occurred.

They needed another endless "war" after the Cold War to use to control the populace through FEAR.

The never-ending War on Terror fits that bill perfectly.

They don't care about keeping people safe.

They care about control and power.

And they love when some horrific event like the Boston bombing occurs, because it helps along their cause - to impose as much surveillance on and control over people as possible.

Bloomberg: Get Used To Big Brother

The Little Oligarch had a wet willie this morning talking about surveillance and drones and all kinds of other spy equipment and how wonderful that stuff is going to make the world:

Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the eye of Big Brother in the city.

“You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras every place,” Bloomberg said during his weekly radio appearance. “Get used to it — whether you like it or not.”

The Police Department already has a network of its own surveillance cameras throughout the city, including in Times Square. And in Lower Manhattan, an initiative developed after 9/11 known as the “Ring of Steel” integrates the NYPD’s cameras with those of banks and other institutions.

The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians — but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM.

“The argument against using automation is just this craziness that 'Oh, it’s Big Brother,’” Bloomberg said. “Get used to it!”

In the future, the cameras won't just be limited to buildings and red lights. Some of them will be able to fly, the mayor pointed out.

“It’s scary,” he said. “But what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you're gonna have face recognition software. People are working on that.”

Bloomberg warned that drones would be able to peep into a home’s windows — adding that Peeping Tom legislation could help maintain some privacy.

“It's just we’re going into a different world, unchartered...,” he said, adding that you “can't keep the tides from coming in.”

 

Gee, what a great world Bloomberg envisions.

 

I bet many in the oligarchy class like that vision.

 

Total control, total surveillance.

 

What's scary is how Bloomberg thinks that's just inevitable and nothing can be done about it.

 

Here's a guy who wants to get guns out of people's hands even as he and his fellow oligarchs use drones to spy on everybody.

 

Total control, total power.

NYPD Ends Spying On Muslims After Six Years - Not One Lead Came From The Effort

But since this was a Bloomberg/Kelly effort, of course it must be successful - after all, everything they do is successful:

New Jersey's attorney general has assured a group of Muslim leaders that a New York police department unit that conducted surveillance of Muslims is no longer operating in the state.

A spokesman for attorney general Jeffrey Chiesa confirmed that Chiesa told a private meeting of New Jersey law enforcement officials and Muslim leaders Wednesday that the NYPD's demographics unit had ceased operating in New Jersey.

The NYPD's covert surveillance program faced scrutiny after an investigation by the Associated Press beginning in August of last year detailed the extent of the operations.

Following September 11, with the help of the CIA, the NYPD's counterterrorism surveillance efforts included spying on Muslim neighborhoods, infiltrating Muslim-owned businesses and cataloging mosques in the north-east.

The demographics unit gathered information on people based on their language and ethnicity, though there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the individuals.

Muslim college students at more than a dozen colleges in the north-east US were a particular focus of the program which would monitor Muslim students' websites on a daily basis and monitored Muslim student associations.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie criticized the police department's operations in the state as did Newark mayor Cory Booker who said in February that he didn't know about the program that mapped and photographed 16 mosques in Newark and profiled several restaurants.

The NYPD has defended its surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey as legal, and Chiesa has said New York police did not violate New Jersey laws.

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, who has defended the program, said Wednesday he wasn't aware of the New Jersey meeting.

In late August, the police department acknowledged that the secret demographics unit did not generate a lead or case in the six years the program has been in place.

Not one lead or case generated after six years.

And you can bet had there not been push back from Jersey on this, they would still be doing it.

Actually given that both Bloomberg and Kelly are liars, I wouldn't be so sure they still aren't doing it anyway.

Just because they say they stopped something doesn't mean they really stopped something.