Tuesday, 6 July 2010

Spy tech that ‘monitors conversations’ being launched in Europe: report




nday, July 4th, 2010 -- 3:51 pm





Europe are raising the alarm about a new surveillance system that monitors conversations in public.



The surveillance system, dubbed Sigard, has been installed in Dutch city centers, government offices and prisons, and a recent test-run of the technology in Coventry, England, has British civil rights experts worried that the right to privacy will disappear in efforts to fight street crime.

The system's manufacturer, Sound Intelligence, says it works by detecting aggression in speech patterns.

"Ninety percent of all incidents involving physical aggression are preceded by verbal aggression," the Sound Intelligence Web site says. "The ability to spot verbal aggression before it turns into a violent outbreak delivers valuable time to security personnel and enables speedy intervention."

According to the UK's Sunday Telegraph, the city of Coventry recently finished a six-month test run of the system, which involved the installation of seven microphones around a crime-prone nightlife district. A spokesperson for the city said the system is "no longer in use."

The Herald in Scotland reported last month that the system has also been tested in London, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester.

"In Hackney in London, the system detected up to six crimes a night, including fights and guns being fired," the paper reported.

Sigard's use is more widespread in the Netherlands, where the system's manufacturer is located. According to the Sound Intelligence Web site, the system has been installed in Amsterdam's train station, as well as police headquarters, and has also been installed inside a number of prisons and the city centers of Dordrecht and Groningen.

Sound Intelligence says that the technology focuses principally on tone of voice, and is not designed to listen to the content of conversations. But opponents say the technology is open to abuse.

"There can be no justification for giving councils or the police the capability to listen in on private conversations," Dylan Sharpe of the UK's Big Brother Watch told the Sunday Telegraph. "There is enormous potential for abuse, or a misheard word, causing unnecessary harm with this sort of intrusive and overbearing surveillance."

In a sarcastic editorial, the Herald argued that crime could be eliminated altogether if the government were to install Sigard technology in all homes and offices.

Let’s install surveillance cameras and microphones in every room of every new home that is built. Make it a condition of planning consent. ... It won’t just leave terrorists with no place to hide, it’ll expose criminals wherever they’re holed up or plotting. Isn’t this the logical extension of what is already happening, of what we’re allowing with barely a squeak of protest?

The police could be at the door, handcuffs at the ready, before a drunken man can punch his wife or say “domestic violence”. ... Cameras in the home would eradicate child abuse. Burglary, too, would be obliterated since the thief would know the police had a ringside seat. Think of the benefits. Peace would reign in every household, the crime rate would plummet and prisons would no longer be overcrowded.

  • Priceless. And to think I still get called paranoid & crazy. I have no choice but to conclude people have been so dumbed down by the MSM & infantilizing goverments that they are utterly incapable of recognizing the global police state being erected before our very eyes.

    Its like entire section of reality is completely off limits to some.
  • siofthsh
    Disgusting,
  • panamarick
    The only good I can see coming out of this approach to mass population control and intimidation is a lot of corrupt cops, politicians, preachers and other assorted sewage will be invariably caught in their own trap. Then when Ernestine hears them she can gossip it all over the place until they are ruined.

    What? Did you say "all corrupt cops, politicians, preachers and other assorted sewage are exempt? ...Sorry...silly me for thinking again.
  • we need to get a good solid grip on what those unemployed people are doing too. Drug testing just isn't good enough!
  • smiling_assassin
  • smiling_assassin
    If you think listening in on the public is scary read
  • Little_Me
    A bit late, but here nevertheless: "1984"...
  • Big_Alpha1
    So now that the word is out you can bet the bad people are going to tell the person they're going shoot they're doing so in a Cinderella tone of voice. Or maybe they just won't say anything and just start shooting.
  • rxgary
    really if real criminals know about this, why wouldnt they have a large number of people get into strong verbal arguements, then when all police resources are being used checking out arguements, the real crimes take place unabated.

    these so called elites really arent very smart. they have no ability to think situations through
  • theoracle
    Something, or someone, seems to be bugging the public. But then, right-wing for-profit corporations are now the world's newest aristocratic incarnation, the new tyranny, just like the old aristocrats and old tyrants, and once again on a global scale.
  • C.P.T.L.
    It may appear the rise and availability of this technology causes it to be an economical and logical choice, and thus it spreads, but the driving force must exist elsewhere. 

    It is the most historically dangerous and retrograde a societal step of all possible steps - not in some speculative theory, but in the living memory of many citizens of Europe, who suffered, who lost loved ones and families, and who shed blood to put down the fascism this technology would lock into place. 

    It completely upends sound reason. It is the poorest of intellectual choices. How is it that the very country who gave the world George Orwell, inexplicably marches straight down the center of the highway, to a police state in the very model of Orwell's warning?

    The motive behind this type of technology is directly tied to furthering and enabling the wealthy to keep the money they've fleeced from the world's economies. They are planning on future economic unrest and putting in place the police structure necessary to keep our money from being taken back.

    It fits the modus operandi of the corporate wealthy to a 't.' They cause the economic shortfall, they drum up in the media and through their influence on governments the fears and the phony need for the 'product' - a grand diversion from the historical answers; and from us seeking to get the money we need for a sound society from the place it is, in their bank accounts and yachts - form the companies or divisions of companies that build the apparatus, then sell it to governments to get more of the tax-payer's money. 

    The historical answer - for the past 2000-4000 years - to the problems of violence and drunkenness, has been to put more police on the streets to deter crime, change laws such that bars must close earlier or not be clustered in city centers; and for governments to thwart the inducements to crime; to insure there is enough money in the pockets of citizens so their lives are not a relentless fever pitch of anxieties running the range from finding a job, to paying the bills, to having enough time to spend with family, etc.

    It’s a damned corporate business model, and it serves none of us; it serves them completely and diabolically. Don’t be fooled for one second. Oppose this sneaky, underhanded, creeping takeover of our lives before you no longer can.
  • rts111
    Same logic can be applied to why stage G20 meetings in the center of an urban metropolis: to upgrade the fibre optic grid to support current and future surveillance systems. For as you write, the corporate plutocracy needs to hide the wealth they have fleeced from the hard-working people of this world. They realize that eventually regular people will demand change and then it will be too late, for how long does it take you to say, police state.

    I think we need to put our amazement aside and accept the fact that our political/corporate
    leaders are no longer benevolent to the needs of the people, and that Orwell's 1984 has become the playbook of how to bring a society to it knees while laughing all the way to the bank.
  • Savantster
    Police to civilians is always a ratio. At some point the ratio will need to be 1:1, and you won't find many societies where you can leverage that kind of control... 1/2 the society beating the other half into submission for their pay. No one in my family would beat the rest of the family into submission for money, and while there are other families that would happily beat on my family for their pay, they would need 3:1 to hold down me and mine.

    They don't have the numbers, and never will. They survive today on lies and deceit and propaganda and distraction, but that will fail eventually as well. They are fighting the human spirit, and that has survived 10s of thousands of years of trials and tribulation and will _eventually_ outlive the tyrants and their plans.

    The only question is, how much death and destruction will take place while they get torn down.
  • They're going to very busy chasing down false leads. Although "Ninety percent of all incidents involving physical aggression are preceded by verbal aggression", you also have to consider that 99% of arguments do not lead to violence. I guess if the alarm goes off they'll listen in to see if its serious enough for them to respond.

    I don't think its a big deal, but it obviously is open for abuse.
  • 3arthling
    Tourists need to boycott these surveillance states.
  • Benway for the Nova Police
    Speak softly and carry a big stick.
  • yvonneo
    Want to know what the world elites are talking about and planning in their secretive meetings? Well, here is a MUST read article that gives a pretty good idea:

    "The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order
    The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part 1"



    Here are some excerpts:

    "Brzezinski...wrote that we are “witnessing the emergence of transnational elites” who are “composed of international businessmen, scholars, professional men, and public officials. The ties of these new elites cut across national boundaries, their perspectives are not confined by national traditions, and their interests are more functional than national.” Further, writes Brzezinski, “it is likely that before long the social elites of most of the more advanced countries will be highly internationalist or globalist in spirit and outlook...Brzezinski also wrote about “the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society,” in the “technetronic revolution;” explaining:

    Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances, the scientific and technological momentum of the country would not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits."

    "Further, writes Brzezinski, “Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society...The traditionally democratic American society could, because of its fascination with technical efficiency, become an extremely controlled society, and its humane and individualistic qualities would thereby be lost.”

    "...Brzezinski called for a “Community of the Developed Nations,” consisting of Western Europe, North America and Japan, to coordinate and integrate in order to shape a ‘new world order’ built upon ideas of global governance under the direction of these transnational elites. In 1972, Brzezinski and his friend, David Rockefeller, presented the idea to the annual Bilderberg meetings. Rockefeller was, at that time, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and was CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank. In 1973, Brzezinski and Rockefeller created the Trilateral Commission, a sort of sister institute to the Bilderberg Group, with much cross-over membership, bringing Japan into the western sphere of economic and political integration."

    "International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.”[

    "In 2006, a groundbreaking and comprehensive report released by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) reported that, “The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth.” An incredibly startling statistic was that:

    [T]he richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.[44]

    This is worth repeating: the top 1% owns 40% of global assets; the top 10% owns 85% of world assets; and the bottom 50% owns 1% of global assets; a sobering figure, indeed. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

    "Thus, the majority of the world’s people live in absolute poverty and social dislocation. This is directly the result of the globalized world order that has been and is being constructed."

    "‘Fiscal austerity’ is a vague term that in actuality refers to cutting social spending and increasing taxes. The effect this has is that the public sector is devastated, as all assets are privatized, public workers are fired en masse, unemployment becomes rampant, health and education disappear, taxes rise dramatically, and currencies are devalued to make all assets cheaper for international corporations and banks to buy up, while internally causing inflation...‘fiscal austerity’ implies ‘social destruction’ as the social foundations of nations and peoples are pulled out from under them. States then become despotic and oppress the people, who naturally revolt against ‘austerity’: the sterilization of society."

    "This new reality in the world, coupled with the fact that the world’s population has never been so vast, presents a challenge to elites seeking to dominate people all over the world who are aware and awakened to the realities of social inequality, war, poverty, exploitation, disrespect, imperialism and domination. This directly implies that these populations will be significantly more challenging to control: economically, politically, socially, psychologically and spiritually. Thus, from the point of view of the global oligarchy, the only method of imposing order and control – on this unique and historical human condition – is through the organized chaos of economic crises, war, and the rapid expansion and institutionalization of a global scientific dictatorship. Our hope is their fear; and our greatest fear is their only hope."

    http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&a...
  • 3 Point Plan to Repair our Government:

    >Repair election process - stop the cheating (some effort is slowly haphazardly happening, but not much)

    >Reinstate fairness doctrine or equivalent effect - stop the constant GOP/neocon disinfo propaganda campaigns (doubtful to happen, but improvement has already happened to a small extent)

    >Take money out of elections - stop the pay for play (probably never happen, plus SCOTUS just gave the ok to big biz to buy elections)

    If these things were to happen a slightly left of center reformist government would be elected who would try to represent the people against the elites. But I think they'd probably just get assassinated as many have throughout history. If the people really start to gain power against the elites... At least that's my crackpot theory.
  • I'm very familiar with Brzezinski, GR, this article, & these excerpts from his earlier book.

    Unfortunately, the author of this GR article, like most GR articles, mingles facts to unverified rumors & conspiracy theories & everything between together like they are all verified fact.

    Based on my many years of research & being a news junky, enough of this stuff is true or is seems to be so, but this nothing new in history & its seems to be a normal evolution of things. If you thought you were living in a perfect Utopian time, sorry, there's never been such a thing.

    Unfortunately I don't see any way of even just putting the path of the US in a truly reformative direction. I know what changes would have to happen, but the roadblocks are insurmountable. I doubt even a revolution could change it.

    But, if you look at the US compared to 100 years ago or even to most of the world today, things don't look so bad. Also there is a lot of basic logic in Brzezinski's writings, so its not like he's exposing new r secret information. And dictatorships are basically what we've always had to some extent in our modern history. Sure they throw us a bone once in a while to make us think we're making a difference, but that's about it.

    Also, there is a great deal of infighting amongst those in power, there's a lot less consensus even within our own government elites, many of whom are members of the global elite's clubs, such as Bilderberg, Trilaterlal, & CFR. Unfortunately some elites are so powerful they can force other elites to do things they don't want to whether they like it or not. Its much messier in real life than outlets like GR make it sound. I can tell you one thing, the necons have always been called the crazies in DC & they were in charge for 8 years & we are still dealing with their disastrous policies. Their circle of elites is by far the scariest from what I know, & I know a great great deal. PS: Brzezinski is not a neocon or a communist.

    I think people (the public) are basically naive, ignorant, & brainwashed. They want the sausage, but don't want to know how its made. And when the curtain is pulled back, they're obviously upset. This is geopolitics, which has existed for thousands of years & its always run by ultra-elites, which usually hold most of the wealth. Is this fair? Who said life is fair?

    Some of this stuff is truly vile, but most of it is absolutely nothing new. Unfortunately people have been fed a lot of disinformation & thought we lived in some sort of Utopian free society or even a democracy, which neither is true.

    Grow-up people!
  • dabubba
    Scary stuff , yvonneo . ... but Mika likes it . She and Joe sell Daddy's message almost every morning .
  • Yes, YES!!!!!!!!!!

    Just like Josef Stalin said would happen.....The NEW WORLD ORDER of COMMUNIST rule has arrived!!!

    Praise Jebus!!!!!11111


    (Even though this kind of stupid, ludicrous and ignorant thing is exactly why we fought two revolutions and refuse to give up our 2nd amendment for any reason....Any idiot who actually wanted to stop crime, would tax the private prison systems, eliminate the whole entire Federal Reserve; and put most non-violent drug offenders into rehabilitation programs before they became "out of control" criminals.)
  • oktoss
    No need for Europe to worry, it was tested in the USA and works fine. Just have your highest elected official write a bunch of orders that bypass the Magna Carta. If he doesn't know how, W Bush knows someone who can help.
  • Benway for the Nova Police
    The Magna Carta? I thought that was British.
  • when_the_whip_comes_down
    I noticed that despite the occurrences of aggression that were detected that there was no mention of any successful intervention or data of deterrence.
    If these guys want to tap the dwindling spring of govt/security contracts they should at least indicate some kind of a benefit for the taxpayer.
  • Benway for the Nova Police
    It's not about violence. It's about spying on the people.

Posted by Britannia Radio at 14:48