American Cities Are Installing DHS-Funded Audio Surveillance (csoonline.com)

"Audio surveillance is increasingly being used on parts of urban mass transit systems," reports the Christian Science Monitor. 

 Slashdot reader itwbennett writes "It was first reported in April that New Jersey had been using audio surveillance on some of its light rail lines, raising questions of privacy.

This week, New Jersey Transit ended the program following revelations that the agency 'didn't have policies governing storage and who had access to data.'"

 From the article:  

New Jersey isn't the only state where you now have even more reason to want to ride in the quiet car. The Baltimore Sun reported in March that the Maryland Transit Administration has used audio recording on some of its mass transit vehicles since 2012. 

It is now used on 65 percent of buses, and 82 percent of subway trains have audio recording capability, but don't use it yet, according to the Sun. And cities in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon and California have either installed systems or moved to procure them, in many cases with funding from the federal Department of Homeland Security. 

 ***

Just in case you are thinking that all of this has gone way to far, your laptop, your cell phones and other things you have connected to the internet have been listening to you for years.

And some of them even access your cameras.

Recently there was a photo of Mark Zukerberg, of facebook fame, and his laptop with tape over the cam and the mic.

Should you?

 What I am reporting on here is another kind of manipulation:

How Facebook and other social media use the information we for the most part unknowingly provide it—including even words we speak in the privacy of our own homes—to advertise products that we didn’t request and almost certainly don’t want, and pass data on to the government.

 Can it be stopped?

 Yes, it can.

You can restrict Facebook’s access to the iPhone or Android device’s microphone in order to limit its reach.

 The feature was introduced in 2014, targeting only US users.

 Turning it off is not only possible, but advisable.

UN Council: Seriously, Nations, Stop Switching Off the Internet! (article19.org)

"The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday," reports the Register newspaper, saying Friday's resolution "effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet," including freedom of expression.
 "The resolution is a much-needed response to increased pressure on freedom of expression online in all parts of the world," said Thomas Hughes, Executive Director of Article 19, a long-standing British human rights group which had pushed for the resolution.
 "From impunity for the killings of bloggers to laws criminalizing legitimate dissent on social media, basic human rights principles are being disregarded to impose greater controls over the information we see and share online." 

Thirteen countries, including Russia and China, had unsuccessfully urged the deletion of the text guaranteeing internet access, and Article 19 says the new resolution even commits states to address "security concerns on the Internet in accordance with their obligations to protect freedom of expression, privacy and other human rights online." But they also called the resolution a missed opportunity to urge states to strengthen protections on anonymity and encryption, and to clarify the boundaries between state and private ICT actors.

Ya stop turning off your internet because we can't spy on you if you do!