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Anonymous: anti-surveillance protest tomorrow

Last Updated on Friday, 19 October 2012 16:07 Published on Friday, 19 October 2012 16:07

Anonymous said it is planning a global protest tomorrow.

In a campaign called Operation Big Brother, the Worldwide Day Of Protest Against Surveillance appears to be plotting action from citizens in over a dozen countries in an organized effort against government use of surveillance systems such as Europe's INDECT and America's Trapwire.

Using a Google Map to pull in and track protesters by location, Operation Big Brother is supposed to visibly demonstrate what's going on during the protest. Yet little is known about how it will be implemented other than the suggestion, "IRL protest (...) unofficial information and defacing."

 

News of the protest is being shared on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Pastebin, while opt-in protest locations are being tracked with a Google Map.

The protest was announced in August just after a Wikileaks leak of private intelligence firm Stratfor's documents revealed the global use and implementation of American surveillance system Trapwire. It was first tacked onto a pre-existing European anti-government-surveillance protest, Stop INDECT.

But now on its Operation Big Brother Twitter feed and ancillary online outlets, Anonymous is hinting at bigger plans.

Information about the protest is being shared by Operation Big Brother (@OpBigBrother) and there is a #OpBigBrother Worldwide call to protest against Surveillance Systems Facebook Event Page.

Both TrapWire and INDECT combine various intelligent surveillance technologies with tracking and location data, individual profile histories from various sources (data mining and social media), and image data analysis (such as facial recognition; TrapWire's video component) to monitor people.

TrapWire is used by private entities, the US government "and its allies overseas."

In mid-August when the Google Map and Operation Big Brother became public there was only a small cluster of pins indicating participants for the Oct. 20 protest only in Europe.

Now, dozens of cities in 15 countries around the globe and in nearly every continent have joined the protest against government use of the surveillance technologies on citizens. Countries include Germany, the UK, the United States, Australia, Russia, Philippines, Venezuela, Pakistan and many more.

TrapWire and INDECT's opponents believe the surveillance systems to be direct threats to privacy, certain civil freedoms and that their implementation could constitute human rights violations. [cnet]