“Surveillance Society”

Self-checkout theft causing problems for retailers — and shoppers who despise receipt checks

Doyle said in his experience, self-checkout thieves tend to be average shoppers looking to cut down their bill.

For Brian Simpson, a recent routine shopping trip to a Canadian Tire store in Toronto turned into an unsettling experience. He says after paying for his items at a self-checkout, a security guard blocked him from exiting and demanded to see his receipt.

“It made me feel like a suspect, like I had done something wrong,” Simpson said. “I don’t like that they’re … painting us all with the same brush, that they’re assuming that everyone who uses self-checkout is going to steal.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence", "Surveillance Society", Automation

The news from England presages where America is heading

In the 18th century, the American colonies got their notion of liberty from Great Britain. To quash the colonies, Parliament officially abandoned its ideas of liberty, a decision that, over the centuries, has slowly turned England from a free country into a totalitarian one. We need to pay attention to what’s happening there because the Democrats again view totalitarian England as a role model—and they really like how England’s institutions are “gender identity” and race to silence the people.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society"

After my banking travails, I fear Britain is lost

When moving around London this week, it’s been impossible not to notice a symbol adorning the premises of many of our corporations, including the banks: the multicoloured Pride flag. We are living through the politicisation of our corporate sector. Woe betide you if you do not conform with its worldview.

This was brought home to me when I was recently told by my bank that it is closing all my accounts without explanation. It is impossible to function without a bank account. It should alarm everybody that a bank has the power to punish those it considers to have erred or strayed.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Cancel Culture", "Surveillance Society"

Things will be even better once a digital currency is the coin of the realm!

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", "Surveillance Society"

Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition

British merchants are increasingly using the technology to combat shoplifting, raising questions about its spread as artificial intelligence rapidly improves it.

Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at the discount retailer QD Stores outside London, was short of breath. He had just chased after three shoplifters who had taken off with several packages of laundry soap. Before the police arrived, he sat at a back-room desk to do something important: Capture the culprits’ faces.

On an aging desktop computer, he pulled up security camera footage, pausing to zoom in and save a photo of each thief. He then logged in to a facial recognition program, Facewatch, which his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence", "Surveillance Society"

IMF Pushes Global Central Bank Digital Currency Platform as Cashless Trend Gains Momentum

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is working on a platform that would allow various central bank digital currencies (CBDC) to interoperate on a global scale, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told participants at a conference.

“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions … To have more efficient and fairer transactions, we need systems that connect countries—we need interoperability,” Georgieva said in Rabat, Morocco, on June 19.

“For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform,” she added.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", "Surveillance Society", WTF?

United Nations Planning Digital ID Linked to Bank Accounts

The United Nations (UN) is planning to introduce a global digital ID system that is linked to individuals’ bank accounts.

The plan, which is similar to the system developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is outlined in three new policy briefs from the UN titled, “A Global Digital Compact, Reforms to the International Financial Architecture, and The Future of Outer Space Governance.”

The goal of the briefs is to advance UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s “vision for the future.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", "The Great Reset", United Nations

WEF report admits digital ID could be used for ‘surveillance and persecution’

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has admitted in a new report that digital IDs are exclusionary by nature and can facilitate “the identification, surveillance and persecution of individuals or groups.”

In its June 2023 Insight Report titled “Reimagining Digital ID,” the WEF described the potential risks of the widespread implementation of a digital ID.

“Perhaps the greatest risks arising from digital ID are exclusion, marginalization and oppression,” the report warns.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", World Economic Forum

Intel agencies buying files of ‘sensitive and intimate’ data on US citizens: report

Government agencies including the FBI, DHS and NSA have their tentacles deep into US society and have amassed huge caches’ of “sensitive and intimate” data on citizens by “flouting the law” according to privacy advocates.

The startling overreach into citizens’ lives was flagged in a report to the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines which has only just been declassified.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", WTF?

If Amazon Thinks You’re a Racist, It Will Shut Down Your Smart Home

You no longer control your home. Amazon does.

They say that a fool and his cloud are easily parted.

We talk a lot about deplatforming, but when a single corporation doesn’t just control a site you use, but controls most of your life, everything from your doorbell to your vacuum, your music and your lightbulbs, and it decides that your politics are bad, you’ve got problems.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", WTF?

Why the “15-minute city” has sparked protests

… Though the concept seems innocuous—who wouldn’t want everything you need nearby?—plans to adopt it have lately ignited street protests, press denunciations, and social-media warfare, especially in European cities. One spark has been a move by the city of Oxford in England to impose traffic restrictions, including closing off some neighborhoods to cars during the day, to encourage more biking and walking. Protesters hit the streets in February to fight the initiative, with signs reading “NO TO 15-MINUTE CITIES” and complaints that the traffic restrictions recalled the lockdowns. Marchers also objected to the traffic cameras being installed to scan license plates to see if a car had entered a no-go area—deeming it a troubling expansion of the surveillance state.

It’s worse than thought.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", Green-Scam

CRTC erred in its decision on Radio-Canada ̷N̷-̷w̷o̷r̷d̷ “White Niggers Of America” broadcast, court finds

A federal court has ruled that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) erred in its decision penalizing Société Radio-Canada (SRC) for broadcasting the N-word.

In a unanimous decision released Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal said that the broadcast regulator made several mistakes when it ruled against SRC in response to a complaint.

In particular, the court ruled, the CRTC cited sections of the Broadcasting Act which do not give it the authority to regulate speech on the airwaves. The court sent the decision back to the CRTC for reconsideration.

 

What a stupid country we have become.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society"

DHS: First You Watch FOX News, Then PragerU, Then You Become a Nazi

This is about criminalizing political dissent.

Disinformation and counter-extremism programs have become little more than tools for suppressing the political opposition. With DHS handing out grants to study extremism, the Media Research Center has information on what may be the single most explicit attempt at using counter-extremism funding to go after the opposition.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Criminalizing Dissent", "Surveillance Society"

Question immigration? CSIS is watching. Question Covid policy? CSIS is watching. Speak out against the sexual mutilation of children? CSIS is watching.

Jamie Sarkonak: Is wokeness driving CSIS’s new approach to counter-terrorism?

Half of the country’s counter-terrorism resources are dedicated to ideological threats, says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). With such a strong focus, it’s worthwhile to ask whether CSIS is a hammer in search of a nail.

… Indeed, COVID misinformation is included as a threat factor to Canada, along with Chinese interference and targeting by ISIL, or DAESH. From a distance, it’s hard to say whether this is actually a rising threat, or whether CSIS is simply expanding the scope of national security to appear more inclusive. It’s a distinction that should be made clear.

Ideological extremism of concern is classified by CSIS into four categories: xenophobia, anti-authority sentiments, anti-identity and anti-gender sentiments, and “other” ideological motivations. The final “other” category would include environmental and typically left-wing motivations like environmentalism, though CSIS has said this does not include actions like Indigenous rail blockades.

No wonder CSIS has a patriotic leaker. It appears that another Canadian institution has been compromised by the Liberal Party.

It’s worth noting that the FBI has been caught out fudging the numbers to amplify the “Right-Wing threat.” To the benefit of the Democratic party of course: Democrats Cook the FBI’s Books on Domestic Terrorism

The UK’s “PREVENT” anti-terrorism program went completely off the rails and classified an appreciation of Shakespeare as an indicator of “Right-Wing Extremism” – Is Shakespeare ‘far-right’ now?

In Germany anti-semitic attacks by Muslims are routinely blamed on the “Far-Right” – Germany is accused of downplaying anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims

In Canada we’ve seen our government media work hand in glove with a hate group supporting “Hate Manufacturer” to demonize any opinion to the right of Antifa as “extremist.”

Am I detecting a trend? Bet that gets my name on a list.

Of course reading this blog will likely land you on a CSIS watch list. Sorry bout that;)

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Surveillance Society", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Censorship, CSIS