New Jersey cops turn citizens’ phones into surveillance devices – for their own good, of course

RT

A New Jersey police department has unveiled technology that allows 911 operators to stream video from callers’ smartphones. Sounds like a good idea, at first – but where does the surveillance stop?

Gloucester Township Police’s new 911eye emergency dispatch system lets emergency service operators see video live-streamed from a caller’s phone, giving first responders an idea of what they’re getting into before anyone is sent to the scene. For now, the caller has to activate the livestream with a link sent by the 911 dispatcher, which allows operators to use the phone’s camera and microphone. But this is the first step down a very slippery slope. 

911eye, developed by Capita Secure Solutions and Services in conjunction with West Midlands Fire Service in the UK, represents a step toward frankly terrifying surveillance infrastructure that can turn any internet-capable device into a remote-activated surveillance tool. West Midlands Police were the first to embrace “pre-crime” technology in the UK, developing the National Data Analytics Solution to sniff out potential offenders and divert them with ostensibly therapeutic “interventions.”

If the fact that it was developed by the people behind the real-life version of ‘Minority Report’ isn’t enough reason to give 911eye a wide berth, take a look at Carbyne911, one of its competitors. Funded by deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein through former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, Carbyne911 markets itself as the solution to mass shootings. The program – founded by current and former Israeli intelligence personnel, which isn’t at all worrisome given that this country spies on the US so extensively it scares Congress – lets emergency dispatchers commandeer the camera and microphone of any internet-capable device within a certain range of the person who made the call.

Investors include Peter Thiel, whose company Palantir has been described as “using war on terror tools to track American citizens,” and its advisory board includes Patriot Act co-author Michael Chertoff, the former Department of Homeland Security chief. At least two US counties have reportedly adopted Carbyne911, despite obvious privacy issues (and the fact that while most of its employees and personnel have military-intelligence connections, few have a background in emergency services).

Of course, bad actors don’t need an “emergency services” app to turn your phone into a spying device. Israeli spyware manufacturer NSO Group’s Pegasus software has been wielded against human rights campaigners, journalists, and even politicians by governments including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Amnesty International, which has sued the company for allowing its software to be weaponized against peaceful activists.

And how does Pegasus work? The hacker sends the target a link, and as soon as they click on it, the hacker can use the target’s smartphone camera and microphone as surveillance devices. Which sounds an awful lot like 911eye’s business model – but you can trust them. They’re the police, and they’re here to help.

https://www.rt.com/usa/467351-new-jersey-cops-carbyne-911eye/

One thought on “New Jersey cops turn citizens’ phones into surveillance devices – for their own good, of course

  1. I suspect this may be a good idea for first responders, whether they be government first responders or community private individual first responders. But this whole discussion raises a few questions.

    First question: does the captured video get protectively saved and archived somewhere?
    Second question: Is the captured video available to the public, or is it only available for government use?
    Third question: Can this same captured video stream application be used to collect and save videos from police cameras, including their body cams and dash cams?
    Fourth question: Can dashcam data in non-government cars and trucks, also be captured and saved?
    Fifth question: Can videos from all of the police state cameras (traffic cams, surveillance cams, etc.) be similarly collected, saved, and made available for use by the public?.

    This may be a good tool if the videos are saved somewhere that is available to the public, but I doubt that the government wankers will want the public to know what they know, and know what they do. It is hellishly unreasonable to expect the government to actually be of service to the people. Right? We, the public, now realize that government is only in place to control us according to the rules established by the powerful and the wealthy. Serve and protect? Not so much.

    I’m looking for a way that the public can benefit from all of this captured video crapola. Inasmuch as the government illegally spies on the public, is this a tool with which the public can spy on and monitor their own ‘public servants’ without having to be a hacker?

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