I can attest to the validity of this
claim as I have seen with my very own eyes. This is not an isolated
case for Seattle alone. Similar boxes are appearing on utility poles
all over the Austin, Pflugerville and Round Rock areas here in Texas,
equipped with cameras. They are not just facing the expressways
they are also facing the streets.
If they are just cameras then why do they require their own poles and antennae?
There are plenty of cameras already in place for traffic surveillance. So then it begs the question......
Why are these different and for what purpose?
The
amount of cameras going up is incredible and quite eery considering
all the information becoming available on surveillance every day.
So
,our national economic situation is dire enough to warrant budget
cuts affecting the funds used to feed the poor, but it does not apply
to wasting our tax dollars on expanding the surveillance state?
Look around your town or city and see for yourself, you may be surprised at how many you may find there.
~Desert Rose~
..........
What Are The Off-White Boxes That Are Going Up On Utility Poles All Over Seattle?
By Michael Snyder, on November 11th, 2013
The
Big Brother control grid is constantly growing and expanding all over
America. Right now, a “wireless mesh network” is in the process of
being installed in Seattle that
some believe
will ultimately have the capability of tracking the location of every
wireless device in the city. If you live in downtown Seattle, just look
for the little off-white boxes that are being attached to utility poles
all over the place. You can see a bunch of pictures of these little
boxes
right here.
Meanwhile, other major U.S. cities have been installing vast networks
of surveillance cameras and listening devices. We are being told that
such measures will help police “solve more crime”. We are being told
that such measures will “keep people safe”. But what about our
privacy? Doesn’t that count for something? What about the Fourth
Amendment? Are our most cherished liberties and freedoms going to be
thrown into the trash just because we live “in a more dangerous world”?
The Stranger is a Seattle newspaper
that recently did a major story about this “wireless mesh network” that has been going up all over the city. What they found out is extremely disturbing…
If
you’re walking around downtown Seattle, look up: You’ll see off-white
boxes, each one about a foot tall with vertical antennae, attached to
utility poles. If you’re walking around downtown while looking at a
smartphone, you will probably see at least one—and more likely two or
three—Wi-Fi networks named after intersections: “4th&Seneca,”
“4th&Union,” “4th&University,” and so on. That is how you can
see the Seattle Police Department’s new wireless mesh network, bought
from a California-based company called Aruba Networks, whose clients
include the Department of Defense, school districts in Canada,
oil-mining interests in China, and telecommunications companies in Saudi
Arabia.
The question is: How well can this mesh network see you?
How
accurately can it geo-locate and track the movements of your phone,
laptop, or any other wireless device by its MAC address (its “media
access control address”—nothing to do with Macintosh—which is analogous
to a device’s thumbprint)? Can the network send that information to a
database, allowing the SPD to reconstruct who was where at any given
time, on any given day, without a warrant? Can the network see you now?
The Seattle police did not want to talk to the newspaper about this.
Neither did the Department of Homeland Security.
But the newspaper did find some technical experts that actually work with Aruba products that were willing to talk…
After
reviewing Aruba’s technical literature, as well as talking to IT
directors and systems administrators around the country who work with
Aruba products, it’s clear that their networks are adept at seeing all
the devices that move through their coverage area and visually mapping
the locations of those devices in real time for the system
administrators’ convenience. In fact, one of Aruba’s major selling
points is its ability to locate “rogue” or “unassociated” devices—that
is, any device that hasn’t been authorized by (and maybe hasn’t even
asked to be part of) the network.
Which is to say, your device. The cell phone in your pocket, for instance.
The
user’s guide for one of Aruba’s recent software products states: “The
wireless network has a wealth of information about unassociated and
associated devices.” That software includes “a location engine that
calculates associated and unassociated device location every 30 seconds
by default… The last 1,000 historical locations are stored for each MAC
address.”
Will these kinds of systems soon be going up in major cities all across the country?
That is a very good question.
Meanwhile, it has also been revealed that very powerful listening grids have been installed
in more than 70 cities around the country…
The Washington Post recently published a
feature length article on
gunshot detectors, known as ShotSpotter, which detailed how in
Washington DC there are now, “at least 300 acoustic sensors across 20
square miles of the city,” microphones wrapped in a weather-proof shell
that can detect the location of a sound down to a few yards and analyze
the audio using a computer program.
While the systems are touted as “gunshot detectors,” as the
New York Times reported in
May 2012, similar technology is already installed in over 70 cities
around the country, and in some cases it is being used to listen to
conversations.
“In at least one city, New Bedford,
Mass., where sensors recorded a loud street argument that accompanied a
fatal shooting in December, the system has raised questions about
privacy and the reach of police surveillance, even in the service of
reducing gun violence,” states the report.
That same article from
Infowars.com
also discussed the “Intellistreets” lighting systems that are being
installed around the nation that are capable of listening to and
recording conversations on a massive scale…
As
we have also previously highlighted, numerous major cities in the
Unites States are currently being fitted with Intellistreets ‘smart’
street lighting systems that also have the capability of recording
conversations and sending them directly to authorities via wi-fi.
As we reported on Sunday, the Las Vegas Public Works Department has
begun testing the devices, which act as surveillance cameras, Minority Report-style advertising hubs, and Homeland Security alert systems. As
ABC 7 reported in 2011, they are “also capable of recording conversations.”
If
you are reading this article in the downtown area of a major U.S. city,
there is a good chance that you are surrounded by a whole host of
surveillance cameras, listening devices and automated license plate
readers. The authorities probably already know more about you and your
movements than you ever dared to imagine.
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