Every SMART Device is an Apparatus of Big Brother

America’s Secret Police (Part 24)

Instead of obtaining retroactive cell phone location data by buying it from data brokers (see Part 14) DHS signed a $5 million contract with surveillance capitalist Penlink on an all in one tool that can monitor social media and track cell phone locations simultaneously while tying social media posts to specific cell phones and computers. As part of the contract, Penlink, which acquired these programs after merging with Israeli spy firm Cobwebb Technologies, who created them, will provide ICE and HSI real-time cell phone location tracking capabilities with the ability to link that data with social media accounts and the people behind those accounts. They will be able to do all of this without a warrant, probable cause or even reasonable suspicion. WebLoc allows them to track specific cell phones in real time through geofencing while Tangles allows them to correlate real time cell phone location with the digital footprints of social media accounts by ingesting data on mobile forensics (i.e. IMEI), geolocation, biometrics, IP address, user accounts, passwords, medical and financial records, including sensitive data that is hacked and sold on the dark web, and use a proprietary AI software to create a comprehensive profile of people’s social media posts, contacts, attended events, and physical locations. Since, the Feds can obtain all of this otherwise private information without probable cause or reasonable suspicion of a crime they will be able to gangstalk and harass political dissidents much more efficiently on a much larger scale than ever done before in history without ever having to add them to secret and unappealable watchlists or hire informants to keep tabs on them since it can all be done remotely. These programs also move us much closer to the Bush Jr Admin’s totalitarian vision of Total Information Awareness where any semblance of privacy, even in our own home, vanishes, as everything, including basic appliances, are turned into SMART devices connected to the internet. Laptops, SMART TVs, SMART Thermostats, the SMART health bands RFK Jr thinks everyone should wear. They are all fair game for programs like Tangles and Webloc. Anything that has an IP address, that reports data back to the Tech company that sold it, that reports data that is commercially aggregated into data blocks and sold by data brokers, that can be hacked and sold on the dark web is fair game for the government under this new precedent. It's not that the devices themselves are built for federal spying, but their constant data exhaust—routed through IP addresses, apps, and clouds—gets commodified, leaked, or scraped into the same commercial pipelines these ICE/HSI tools ingest. If this is allowed to stand, the government will not only be able to track all your movements and activity outside of your home but also your habits inside your home where you expect privacy the most. Today it is being beta tested on immigration enforcement; tomorrow it will be used against you.