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camera.]] Mass surveillance is the pervasive Surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof. Mass surveillance may be done either with or without the Consent of those under surveillance, and may or may not serve their interests. For example, the monitoring of the population for Disease in Epidemiology would generally be viewed as a benign form of mass surveillance, whereas a network of Secret Police informers would be regarded as Surveillance Abuse . COMMERCIAL MASS SURVEILLANCE As a result of the Digital Revolution , many aspects of life are now captured and stored in digital form. Concern has been expressed that governments may use this information to conduct mass surveillance on their populations. One of the most common forms of mass surveillance is carried out by commercial organizations. Many people are willing to join Loyalty Card programs, trading their personal information and surveillance of their shopping habits in exchange for a discount on their groceries, although base prices might be increased to encourage participation in the program. Since a significant proportion of purchases are carried out by Credit Or Debit Cards , which can also be easily tracked, it is questionable whether loyalty cards provide any significant additional privacy threat. European Union The Legislative Body of the European Union passed the Data Retention Directive on 2005-12-15. It requires telecommunication operators to implement mass surveillance of the general public through retention of metadata on telecommunications and to keep the collected data at the disposal of various governmental bodies for substantially long times. Access to this information is not required to be limited to investigation of serious crimes, nor is a warrant required for access. Russia The SORM (and SORM-2) laws enable complete monitoring of any communication, electronic or traditional, by eight state agencies, without warrant. United Kingdom cameras monitoring people exiting Birmingham New Street Station , a major British railway station.]] Amongst the western Democracies , the United Kingdom is perhaps the country subject to the most surveillance. A the Government's own Information Commissioner , talking about the proposed British National Identity Database gave a warning of this, stating, "My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society." Other Database s causing him concern are the National Child Database , the Office For National Statistics' Citizen Information Project , and the NHS National Programme For IT . , some with a Facial Recognition capacity, with practically all town centres under surveillance. Serious concerns have been raised that the Facial Biometric information which will be stored on a central Database through the ID Card scheme could be linked to Facial Recognition System s and state-owned CCTV cameras to identify individuals anywhere in the UK, or even to compile a database of wanted citizens' movements without their knowledge or consent. Currently, in the City Of Westminster , Microphone s are being fitted next to CCTV cameras. Westminster council claims that they are simply part of an initiative against urban noise, and will not "be used to snoop", but comments from a council spokesman appear to imply that they have been deliberately designed to capture an audio stream alongside the video stream, rather than simply reporting noise levels. {Link without Title} In system, although an anonymous option is available, while the London Congestion Charge uses Computer Imaging to track Car Number Plates . Across the country efforts are increasingly underway to track closely all Road Vehicle movements, initially using a nationwide network of roadside cameras connected to Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems ("Project Laser"). In the longer term mandatory onboard Vehicle Telematics systems are also suggested, to facilitate Road Charging (''see Vehicle Excise Duty ''). The , affecting children as young as three. In 2002 the UK government announced plans to extend the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act , so that at least 28 government departments would be given powers to browse citizens' web, email, telephone and fax records, without a warrant and without a subject's knowledge. Public and security authorities made a total of 440,000 requests to monitor people's phone and internet use in 2005-6. Rest of Europe The Netherlands and Germany are reputed to have the highest levels of covert governmental Mobile Phone tapping. The article on Telephone Tapping states: :"There were proposals for European mobile phones to use stronger encryption, but this was opposed by a number of European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, which are among the world's most prolific telephone tappers (over 10000+ phone numbers in both countries in 2003)." In 2002 German citizens were tipped off about the scale of tapping, when a software error led to a phone number allocated to the German Secret Service being listed on mobile telephone bills. {Link without Title} United States See Also: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy In early 2006 , '' USA Today '' reported that several major telephone companies were cooperating with the National Security Agency to monitor the phone records of U.S. citizens. This report came on the heels of allegations that the U.S. government had been conducting electronic surveillance of domestic telephone calls without warrants. Many of the phone companies listed in the report have refuted this claim.http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm Just prior to the USA Today article, AT&T's role in helping the government spy on millions of ordinary Americans came to light from documents used in their San Francisco office. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit against the telecom giant and has managed to keep the proceedings open. Recently the documents showing schematics of the massive data mining system were made public.http://eff.org/legal/cases/att/SER_klein_exhibits.pdfhttp://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_06.php Traffic Cameras , installed in 18 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. and meant to help enforce traffic laws at intersections, have also sparked some controversy.http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/42961/article.html There have been reports that the NSA has been gathering information on financial records, internet surfing habits, monitoring e-mails, and surveillance on social networks such as Myspace.http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6082047.html The NYPD infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention, leading to over 1,800 arrests and subsequent fingerprinting. This is a direct attack on political dissent and the city lost an appeal before a federal judge to prevent release of the documents. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/nyregion/07police.html?ref=nationalspecial3 If you were in Las Vegas in the last two weeks of 2003, the FBI probably collected your hotel, airline, rental car, gift shop, and casino records. The FBI requested all electronic data of hundreds of thousands of people based on a very general lead for the Las Vegas new years celebration. The Senior VP of the Mirage went on record with PBS' Frontline describing the first time they were requested to help in the mass collection of personal information.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/script.html Not only can you be targeted with warrantless wiretaps, the FBI is now using cell phones as roving bugs. If you happen to pass too close to a target, then your cell phone, ''even if it is off'', can be used to capture audio of nearby conversations. This almost certainly puts you into a database, because they will need the records for any potential judicial action.http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6140191.html East Germany Before the Digital Revolution, one of the world's biggest mass surveillance operations was carried out by the Stasi , the Secret Police of the former East Germany . By the time the state collapsed in 1989 , the Stasi had built up an estimated civilian network of 300,000 informants (approximately one in fifty of the population), who monitored even minute hints of political dissent among other citizens. Many West Germans visiting friends and family in East Germany were also subject to Stasi spying, as well as many high-ranking West German politicians and persons in the public eye. Most East German citizens were well aware that their government was spying on them, which led to a culture of mistrust: touchy political issues were only discussed in the comfort of their own four walls and only with the closest of friends and family members, while widely maintaining a façade of unquestioning followership in public. LITERATURE AND MOVIES CRITICAL OF MASS SURVEILLANCE
LITERATURE AND MOVIES PRAISING MASS SURVEILLANCE
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