“Surveillance Society”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A special Customs and Border Protection unit used sensitive government databases intended to track terrorists to investigate as many as 20 U.S.-based journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, according to a federal watchdog.

Yahoo News, which published an extensive report on the investigation, also found that the unit, the Counter Network Division, queried records of congressional staffers and perhaps members of Congress.

Jeffrey Rambo, an agent who acknowledged running checks on journalists in 2017, told federal investigators the practice is routine. “When a name comes across your desk you run it through every system you have access too, that’s just status quo, that’s what everyone does,” Rambo was quoted by Yahoo News as saying.

For years, he was only known as Septic Tank Sam — a macabre nickname the RCMP pinned on a disfigured body pulled from a septic tank in rural Alberta in the late 1970s.

But this past summer saw a breakthrough: Septic Tank Sam got his name back.

Through a Texas-based DNA lab that uses genetic genealogy, the RCMP in Alberta was able to identify the deceased as Gordie Sanderson, who had been reported missing decades earlier.

Using DNA extracted from his bones, Othram Inc. was able to build a genetic profile by uploading his information to public genetic databases.

The Liberal government’s upcoming legislation to address “online harms” could undermine Canadians’ freedom of speech and render diasporas from authoritarian countries more vulnerable, says the director of an internet security advocacy group.

Between July 27 and Sept. 25, the federal government held public consultations on its proposal to introduce new legislative and regulatory frameworks for social media platforms that aim to address five categories of “harmful content” online: hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual exploitation, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

The days of working from home while lounging in your sweats and cuddling with your pandemic pet may be over.

Now, employers want to ensure you’re as productive as possible — by using surveillance technology.

Since the start of the pandemic, demand for employee surveillance measures jumped 54%, according to research by online privacy review site Top10VPN.

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy service said on Friday it was increasingly concerned about the rise of violent ideologically motivated online rhetoric, which it blamed in part on tensions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) said since the start of the pandemic, threats posed by extremists had “evolved with unprecedented multiplicity and fluidity.”

COVID-19, it said, had worsened existing strains of xenophobia and anti-authoritarianism. Violent extremists were exploiting the pandemic by amplifying false information about government measures and the virus, it said.

Another manufactured crisis.

In his years as a welder, David Muhanlal would start the day by checking in with his supervisor. That changed in 2017, when his employer asked its workers to download an app on their phones and clock in and out through that instead.

Mr. Muhanlal didn’t mind too much at first, until one day he left the job site without punching out. He did an errand at a bank, then remembered that he had to clock out.

The next morning, he says, his supervisor was livid about the mistake. Mr. Muhanlal understood the clock-out time was wrong – but he was disturbed to learn that his supervisor knew his exact whereabouts in the 20 minutes he was off-site, because the mobile app’s GPS locator had followed him every step of the way.