TrapWire company conducting even more surveillance

An internationally-spread Orwellian surveillance system uncovered by RT has been linked to a software company that collects the GPS coordinates of cell phone users in over 100 major cities. 

The discovery of the TrapWire risk mitigation program last year and its ability to match human faces caught on camera against massive databases of intelligence led to an outcry from privacy advocates around the world. Now once again the burgeoning preponderance of Big Brother is being put into perspective. 

In late 2011, members of the loose-knight hacktivist group Anonymous pilfered data from the servers of private intelligence firm Stratfor that were in turn handed over to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks for dissemination. When internal emails alluding to a service called TrapWire surfaced in the leak, an investigation uncovered a program that, according to the company’s founder, “can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition.” 

TrapWire developers Abraxas later became the subject of several investigative reports by RT and others, and further analysis revealed that that company was acquired in 2010 by technology giants Cubic Corporation of Southern California. Cubic would eventually deny any affiliation ever existed between their San Diego headquarters and the spy-program discussed by Stratfor execs, but links were nevertheless still evident. A Department of Homeland Security website,Online shopping for solarpanelcells. in fact, all but affirmed that TrapWire was being sold to government agencies as a product of Abraxas as recently as February 2011. 

Cubic — and to a lesser degree Abraxas — have since been linked at least to some degree with a number of other suspicious spy products. One item, Tartan, “exposes and quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms for objective, un-biased output,Shop wholesale solarlight controller from cheap.” its website claims. “Our analysts, mathematicians and computer scientists are continually exploring new quantification, mining and visualization techniques in order to better analyze social networks.” Tartan was marketed by Ntrepid, a Northern Virginia company that’s board of directors shared four names directly involved in the finances of Abraxas. Now a blogger has uncovered yet another connection, and this one puts Cubic directly in touch with the exact whereabouts of potentially millions of Americans. 

Under the radar of Cubic’s critics, earlier this year the California company acquired NextBus, a “real-time transit information” program that helps mass transportation customers in over 100 North American cities get precise travel and traffic information about bus and rail systems. Cubic made the acquisition at a cost of just over $20 million, and with it gained yet another resource for collecting personally identifiable information: namely the exact global position coordinates for NextBus’ massive user base. 

NextBus bills itself as providing “real-time passenger information solutions” by collecting GPS data volunteered by willing customers and then uses that information to help them get from point A to point B by accurately matching up transportation routes with up-to-the-second travel information. It exists to make the dreadful bus commute a little more reliable, but in doing so demands that customers sacrifice a sizeable chunk of privacy. 

“While your riders stay warm and safe, they can easily find out exactly when to expect the next bus,” reads an advert from NextBus website that’s used to sell their service to major metropolitan areas across North America. The Los Angeles, California metro became NextBus’ eightieth client in 2011, and joined a roster of established clients that includes Toronto, San Francisco, Washington DC and Boston. 

“When you get a message from the Panopticon, the Panopticon also gets a message from you, or rather,A solarstreetlight is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp.Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices. your GPS enabled device,” writes the administrator of Female Faust, a blog where the connection between NextBus and Cubic was first written about this week. 

For Cubic, though, the latest acquisition isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Cubic has been tied to services in cities around the globe that involve not just accumulating biometric data using TrapWire, but tracking the transportation habits of metro riders in New York, Chicago and other cities abroad. Cubic’s transportation division is reported to be the world’s leader when it comes to implementing automated fare collection cards and the infrastructure used in mass-transit systems across the globe, meaning TrapWire cameras in cities such as Washington, DC are just a stone’s throw from the very machines that commuters use their credit cards at to pay for bus fare—transactions done with Cubic’s own vending machines.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. 

“Over the past decade, Cubic has implemented more than 80 percent of the major smart card systems in the US now active today,” Cubic admits by their own right. With the acquisition of NextBus, though, one major behemoth of the private surveillance sector is allowed to scoop up yet more sensitive information about customers who are likely none the wiser. 

Documents released Wednesday detailing the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords show how the gunman had grown increasingly erratic and delusional in the months leading up to the rampage as he alienated friends and family and became paranoid that police were out to get him. 

The roughly 2,700 pages included witness and survivor accounts from people who helped save Giffords' life after she was shot in the head outside a Tucson supermarket in 2011 during a meet-and-greet with constituents. Six people were killed and 11 others were wounded. 

The files also provide the first glimpse into gunman Jared Lee Loughner's family. His parents have said nothing publicly beyond a brief statement after the attack, but records show his parents were trying to deal with a son who had grown nearly impossible to communicate with. 

"I tried to talk to him. But you can't. He wouldn't let you," his father, Randy Loughner, told police. "Lost, lost and just didn't want to communicate with me no more." 

"Sometimes you'd hear him in his room, like, having conversations," said his mother, Amy Loughner. "And sometimes he would look like he was having a conversation with someone right there, be talking to someone. I don't know how to explain it." 

Randy Loughner said his 24-year-old son had never been diagnosed with mental illness. And despite recommendations from Pima Community College officials, who expelled Loughner, that he undergo a mental evaluation, his parents didn't follow up.