{"id":116160,"date":"2019-02-10T14:40:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T18:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=116160"},"modified":"2019-02-10T14:40:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T18:40:45","slug":"bezos-the-hypocrite-blindsided-by-invasion-of-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=116160","title":{"rendered":"BEZOS the Hypocrite Blindsided by Invasion of Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else<\/h2>\n

Glenn Greenwald
\nThe Intercept<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER HAS<\/u>\u00a0engaged in behavior so lowly and unscrupulous that it created a seemingly impossible storyline:\u00a0the world\u2019s richest billionaire and a\u00a0notorious labor abuser<\/a>, Amazon CEO\u00a0Jeff Bezos, as a sympathetic victim.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Bezos\u00a0published emails<\/a>\u00a0in which the Enquirer\u2019s parent company explicitly threatened to publish intimate photographs of Bezos and his mistress, which were\u00a0apparently exchanged between the two through their iPhones, unless Bezos agreed to a series of demands involving silence about the company\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world, none of the sexually salacious material the Enquirer was threatening to release would be incriminating or embarrassing to Bezos: it involves consensual sex between adults that is the business of nobody other than those involved and their spouses. But that\u2019s not the world in which we live: few news events generate moralizing interest like sex scandals, especially among the media.<\/p>\n

The prospect of naked selfies of Bezos would obviously generate intense media coverage and all sorts of adolescent giggling and sanctimonious judgments.\u00a0The Enquirer\u2019s reports of Bezos\u2019 adulterous affair seemed to have already played at least a significant role, if not the primary one,\u00a0in the recent announcement of Bezos\u2019 divorce<\/a>\u00a0from his wife of 25 years.<\/p>\n

Beyond the prurient interest in sex scandals, this case entails genuinely newsworthy questions because of its political context. The National Enquirer\u00a0was so actively devoted<\/a>\u00a0to Donald Trump\u2019s election that the chairman of its parent company admitted to\u00a0helping make hush payments to kill stories of Trump\u2019s affairs, and received immunity for his cooperation in the criminal case of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, while Bezos, as the owner of the steadfastly anti-Trump Washington Post, is\u00a0viewed by Trump as a political enemy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of this raises serious questions, which thus far are limited to pure speculation, about how the National Enquirer obtained the intimate photos exchanged between Bezos and his mistress. Despite a lack of evidence, MSNBC is\u00a0already doing what it exists to do<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 implying with no evidence that Trump is to blame (in this case, by abusing the powers of the NSA or FBI to spy on Bezos). But, under the circumstances, those are legitimate questions to be\u00a0probing (though responsible news agencies would wait for evidence before airing\u00a0innuendo\u00a0of that sort).<\/p>\n

If\u00a0the surveillance powers of the NSA, FBI or other agencies were used to obtain incriminating information about Bezos due to their view of him as a political enemy \u2013 and, again, there is no evidence this has happened \u2013 it certainly would not be the first time. Those agencies have a long and shameful history of doing exactly that, which is why the\u00a0Democratic adoration for those agencies<\/a>, and the\u00a0recent bipartisan further empowerment of them<\/a>, was so disturbing.<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the\u00a0stories we were able to report using the Snowden documents<\/a>, one that received less attention that it should have, is an active NSA program to collect the\u00a0online sex\u00a0activities, including browsing records of porn site and sex chats, of people regarded by the U.S. Government as radical or radicalizing in order to use their online sex habits to destroy their reputations. This is what and who the NSA, CIA and FBI are and long have been.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

IF BEZOS WERE<\/u>\u00a0the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Amazon, the company that has made\u00a0Bezos the planet\u2019s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon\u2019s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos\u2019 vast wealth and power, is working with the Pentagon and the NSA to empower the U.S. Government with more potent and more sophisticated weapons, including surveillance weapons.<\/p>\n

In December, 2017,\u00a0Amazon boasted<\/a>\u00a0that it had perfected new face-recognition software for crowds, which it called Rekognition. It explained that the product is intended, in large part, for use by governments and police forces around the world. The\u00a0ACLU quickly warned<\/a>\u00a0that the product is \u201cdangerous\u201d and that Amazon \u201cis actively helping governments deploy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPowered by artificial intelligence,\u201d wrote the ACLU, \u201cRekognition\u00a0can identify<\/a>, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces.\u201d The group warned: \u201cAmazon\u2019s Rekognition raises profound civil liberties and civil rights concerns.\u201d In\u00a0a separate advisor<\/a>y, the ACLU said of this face-recognition software that Amazon\u2019s \u201cmarketing materials read like a user manual for the type of authoritarian surveillance you can currently see\u00a0in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

BuzzFeed\u00a0obtained documents showing details<\/a>\u00a0of Amazon\u2019s work in implementing the technology with the Orlando Police Department, ones that\u00a0\u201creveal the accelerated pace at which law enforcement is embracing facial recognition tools with limited training and little to no oversight from regulators or the public.\u201d Citing Amazon\u2019s work to implement the software with police departments, the ACLU explained:<\/p>\n

With Rekognition, a government can now build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone. If police body cameras, for example, were outfitted with facial recognition, devices intended for officer\u00a0transparency and accountability<\/a>\u00a0would further transform into surveillance machines aimed at the public. With this technology, police would be able to determine who attends protests. ICE could seek to continuously monitor immigrants as they embark on new lives. Cities might routinely track their own residents, whether they have reason to suspect criminal activity or not. As with other surveillance technologies, these systems are certain to be disproportionately aimed at minority communities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Numerous lawmakers, including Congress\u2019 leading privacy advocates,\u00a0wrote a letter<\/a>\u00a0in July, 2018,\u00a0expressing grave concerns<\/a>\u00a0about how this software and similar mass-face-recognition programs would be used by government and law enforcement agencies. They posed a series of questions based on their concern that \u201cthis technology comes with inherent risks, including the compromising of Americans\u2019 right to privacy, as well as racial and gender bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0a separate article<\/a>\u00a0about Amazon\u2019s privacy threats, the ACLU explained that the group \u201cand other civil rights groups have repeatedly warned that face surveillance poses an unprecedented threat to civil liberties and civil rights that must be stopped before it becomes widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s extensive relationship with the NSA, FBI, Pentagon and other surveillance agencies in the west is multi-faceted, highly lucrative and rapidly growing. Last March, the Intercept\u00a0reported on a new app<\/a>\u00a0that Amazon developers and British police forces have jointly developed to use on the public in police work, just \u201cthe latest example of third parties\u00a0aiding<\/a>,\u00a0automating<\/a>, and in some cases,\u00a0replacing<\/a>, the functions of law enforcement agencies \u2014 and raises privacy\u00a0questions<\/a>\u00a0about Amazon\u2019s role as an intermediary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Beyond allowing police departments to \u201cstore citizens\u2019 crime reports on Amazon\u2019s servers, rather than those operated by the police,\u201d the Amazon products \u201cwill allow users to report crimes directly to their smart speakers,\u201d an innovation\u00a0David Murakami Wood, a scholar of surveillance, warned \u201cserves as a startling reminder of the growing reach that technology companies have into our daily lives, intimate habits, and vulnerable moments \u2014 with and without our permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there are the\u00a0serious privacy dangers<\/a>\u00a0posed by Amazon\u2019s \u201cRing\u201d camera products,\u00a0revealed in the Intercept last month by Sam Biddle. As he reported, Amazon\u2019s Ring, intended to be a home security system, has \u201ca history of lax, sloppy oversight when it comes to deciding who has access to some of the most precious, intimate data belonging to any person:\u00a0a live, high-definition feed from around \u2014 and perhaps inside \u2014 their house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among other transgressions, \u201cRing provided its Ukraine-based\u00a0research and development\u00a0team virtually unfettered access to a folder on Amazon\u2019s S3 cloud storage service that contained every video created by every Ring camera around the world.\u201d Biddle added: \u201cThis would amount to an enormous list of highly sensitive files that could be easily browsed and viewed. Downloading and sharing these customer video files would have required little more than a click.\u201dAbout the Ring surveillance in particular, the ACLU explained:<\/p>\n

Imagine if a neighborhood was set up with these doorbell cameras. Simply walking up to a friend\u2019s house could result in your face, your fingerprint, or your voice being flagged as \u201csuspicious\u201d and delivered to a government database\u00a0without your knowledge or consent. With Amazon selling the devices, operating the servers, and pushing the technology on law enforcement, the company is building all the pieces of a surveillance network, reaching from the government all the way to our front doors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bezos\u2019 relationship with the military and intelligence wings of the U.S. Government is hard to overstate. Just last October, his company, Blue Origin,\u00a0won a $500 million contract<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0the U.S. Air Force<\/a>\u00a0to help develop military rockets and spy satellites. Bezos personally thanked them in a tweet, proclaiming how \u201cproud\u201d he is \u201cto serve the national security space community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the patent Amazon obtained last October,\u00a0as reported by the Intercept<\/a>, \u201cthat would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user\u2019s physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice.\u201d In particular, it would enable anyone using the product to determine a person\u2019s accent and likely place of origin: \u201cThe algorithm would also\u00a0consider a customer\u2019s physical location \u2014 based on their IP address, primary shipping address, and browser settings \u2014 to help determine their accent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

All of this is taking place as Amazon vies for, and is the favorite to win, one of the largest Pentagon contracts yet: a $10 billion agreement to provide exclusive cloud services to the world\u2019s largest military. CNN reported just last week that the company is now enmeshed in scandal over that effort,\u00a0specifically a\u00a0formal investigation<\/a>\u00a0into \u201cwhether Amazon improperly hired a former Defense Department worker who was involved with a $10 billion government contract for which the tech company is\u00a0<\/strong>competing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bezos\u2019 relationship with the military and spying agencies of the U.S. Government, and law enforcement agencies around the world, predates his purchase of the Washington Post and has become a central prong of Amazon\u2019s business growth. Back in 2014, Amazon secured\u00a0a massive contract with the CIA<\/a>\u00a0when the spy agency agreed to pay it $600 million for computing cloud software. As the Atlantic noted at the time, Amazon\u2019s software \u201cwill begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given how vital the military and spy agencies now are to Amazon\u2019s business, it\u2019s unsurprising that the amount\u00a0Amazon pays to lobbyists<\/a>\u00a0to serve its interests in Washington has exploded: quadrupling since 2013\u00a0from $3 million to almost $15 million last year, according to Open Secrets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

JEFF BEZOS IS AS ENTITLED<\/u>\u00a0as anyone else to his personal privacy. The threats from the National Enquirer are grotesque. If\u00a0Bezos\u2019 preemptive\u00a0self-publishing of his private sex material reduces the unwarranted shame and stigma around adult consensual sexual activities, that will be a societal good.<\/p>\n

But Bezos, given how much he works and profits to destroy the privacy of everyone else (to say nothing of the labor abuses of his company), is about the least sympathetic victim imaginable of privacy invasion. In the past, hard-core surveillance cheerleaders in Congress such as Dianne Feinstein, Pete Hoekstra, and Jane Harman\u00a0became overnight, indignant privacy advocates<\/a>\u00a0when they learned that the surveillance state apparatus they long cheered had been turned against them.<\/p>\n

Perhaps being a victim of privacy invasion will help Jeff Bezos realize the evils of what his company is enabling. Only time will tell. As of now, one of the world\u2019s greatest privacy invaders just had his privacy invaded. As the ACLU put it: \u201cAmazon is building the tools for authoritarian surveillance that advocates, activists, community leaders, politicians, and experts have repeatedly warned against.\u201d<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/02\/08\/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}