Meet “BOSS”: The Department of Homeland Security’s Facial Scanning Program

Ever heard of BOSS? Didn’t think so.

BOSS stands for Biometric Optical Surveillance System, and it is a crowd-scanning program that has been in development by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for almost three years now.

Did you catch that? This is the DHS, the ridiculously dangerous, cancerous, gargantuan waste of money our “leaders” foolishly created after 9/11 to prevent “terrorism.” Whereas in the beginning most people actually believed the DHS was there to stop cave dwellers with terroristic tendencies, it is now completely clear that its primary mission is to protect the oligarchs and political criminals from domestic dissent. For example, the New York Times notes that:

In a sign of how the use of such technologies can be developed for one use but then expanded to another, the BOSS research began as an effort to help the military detect potential suicide bombers and other terrorists overseas at “outdoor polling places in Afghanistan and Iraq,” among other sites, the documents show. But in 2010, the effort was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security to be developed for use instead by the police in the United States.

It now should be abundantly clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that the DHS has one mission and one mission only. Bring the degenerate activities we consistently engage in abroad back home for use on “we the people.” You know, to protect us. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The federal government is making progress on developing a surveillance system that would pair computers with video cameras to scan crowds and automatically identify people by their faces, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with researchers working on the project.

The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System — or BOSS — last fall after two years of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used.

I’m sure the secret FISA court is all over it.

The automated matching of close-up photographs has improved greatly in recent years, and companies like Facebook have experimented with it using still pictures.

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Retired Marine Colonel to New Hampshire City Council: “We’re Building a Domestic Army”

We’re building a domestic army and we’re shrinking the military, because the government is afraid of its own citizens. The last time more than 10 terrorists were in the same place at one time was September 11th, and all these vehicles in the world wouldn’t have prevented it, nor would it have helped anybody. So I don’t know where we are going to use this many vehicles and this many troops…We’re building an army over here and I can’t believe people aren’t seeing it. Is everybody blind?

– Retired Marine Colonel Peter Martino

The above quote is taken from a powerful 4 minute video taken at a Concord, NH council meeting to discuss whether or not the city should proceed with a request to obtain a BearCat G3 armored vehicle. I reported on the controversy behind this vehicle request earlier in the week, after the city’s application was made public and showed officials explained it was needed to deal with “domestic terrorists,” which included libertarians and Occupy New Hampshire.

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IRS Agents are Training with AR-15 “Assault Weapons”

Another day, another headline that must surely be “conspiracy theory,” but unfortunately for us all turns out to be conspiracy fact.  While Obama was rolling out intense anti-gun propaganda and demonizing “assault weapons” such as the AR-15, his Administration seems to have no problem with the political group targeting, corrupt beyond belief IRS using them in training.  It’s simply mind-boggling to think about this bureaucracy being armed with such weapons, and totally exposes what I wrote at length about earlier this year:  The Gun Control Hypocrite.  From Politico:

As chairman of the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee, Duncan (R-S.C.) toured a federal law enforcement facility in late May and noticed agents training with the semi-automatic weapons at a firing range. They identified themselves as IRS, he said.

While Duncan acknowledges that the IRS has an enforcement division, he questions if that level of firepower is appropriate when they could coordinate operations with other agencies, like the FBI, especially in a time of austerity.

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Department of Homeland Security: We Can Search and Confiscate Electronic Devices Based on a “Hunch”

Regular readers know my complete and total disdain for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). An organization that is quite clearly gearing itself up for confrontation with the American public, rather than offering any meaningful protection from foreign “terrorists.” These folks think that because they have a big budget and a badge they do not have to abide by the Constitution.  They have such little respect for the supreme law of the land that they claim they can search through travelers’ electronic items, and even confiscate them, based on a “hunch.”  No, really.

Terrorists don’t take away freedoms.  Governments take away freedoms…and ours is doing a damn good job of it.

From CBS:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

The 23-page report, obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S.

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Department of Homeland Security: Selling Counterfeit Goods is Now “Terrorism”

If the IRS scandal wasn’t enough to convince you that bloated, corrupt, bureaucratic government institutions pose a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist attack ever could, this story should settle it once and for all. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not only wasteful, power hungry, and entirely unnecessary, it is also … Read more

How the Boston Police Were Too Busy Monitoring “Occupy Boston” to Notice Tamerlan

After reading the article below, it’s almost impossible to think that the never-ending “war on terror” has anything to do with foreign radicals that “hate us for our freedoms.”  As I and many others have noted for years, the surveillance state being put in place is intended to deal with domestic unrest.  Unrest the oligarchs know is coming as a result of their unprecedented reign of theft and corruption. So now we discover that the Boston Police counter-terror intelligence unit was too busy monitoring anti-Wall Street demonstrations to notice Tamerlan Tsarnaev right under their noses.  From NBC:

In the fall of 2011, a key Boston police counterterror intelligence unit — funded with millions of dollars in U.S. homeland security grants — was closely monitoring anti-Wall Street demonstrations, including tracking the Facebook pages and websites of the protesters and writing reports on the potential impact on “commercial and financial sector assets” in downtown areas, according to internal police documents.

The police monitoring of the activities of Occupy Boston — an off-shoot of the Occupy Wall Street protests that swept the country in 2011 — came during a period after the U.S. government received the second of two warnings from the Russian government about the radical Islamic ties of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

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Guess What’s Hidden in the Immigration Bill? A National Biometric Database for Citizens

Oh just another eight hundred page “bipartisan” bill that nobody will read,  mainstream media will refuse to cover, and that will merely further destroy any remnants of freedom left in these United States.  Never forget the George Carlin quote on bipartisanship:

“Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

From Wired:

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf)  is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

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Advice from the Department of Homeland Security: If Attacked by a Shooter, Grab Some Scissors

I first heard about this from a New York Post article on the topic.  Then I watched the video for myself.  It’ll make you want to defund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immediately.  While the whole “grab scissors” to defend oneself during a mass shooting is pretty amusing, the more disturbing part is that … Read more

Department of Homeland Security to Purchase 7,000 “Assault Weapons”

The hypocrisy of the government knows no bounds.  I have said repeatedly, and continue to say, that I am against all gun control at the moment because our government is extremely violent and not only do I not expect it to protect the American people in general, I believe it is far more concerned with protecting the status quo from the people.  It has become crystal clear that the political and financial oligarchs are quite intentionally attempting to disarm the populace while arming themselves to the teeth in anticipation of some horrible economic event they know is inevitable.  From the Blaze:

The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians. The solicitation, originally posted on June 7, 2012, comes to light as the Obama administration is calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.

Citing a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP), Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com reports that DHS is asking for the 7,000 “select-fire” firearms because they are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.” The term select-fire means the weapon can be both semi-automatic and automatic. Civilians are prohibited from obtaining these kinds of weapons.

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It’s Official: The FBI Classifies Peaceful American Protestors as “Terrorists”

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), we have details for the first time of how government intelligence organizations and the corporate state worked together in secret to battle the Occupy Wall Street movement.  The best report I have read on this story comes from the PCJF themselves.  Here are some of their key findings:

“This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement.

FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at occupy protests.

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