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JULY 2, 2013

Beyond Borders: What is Domestic Surveillance?

LAURA WALKER 112 COMMENTS BLACK OPS & INTEL

With all the hoopla surrounding the recent leaks about the NSA’s PRISM program, one of the main issues of concern seems to be that the NSA is monitoring cell phone records and internet accounts in the United States – and that is tantamount to monitoring United States citizens. Cue the outrage.

Related Posts

• SOF fielding New High-Tech Surveillance Gear
• Domestic Counter-Insurgency: Green Beret Style
• The Technology of Lashkar-e-Taiba
• Domestic Terrorism: Coming To A Neighborhood Near You

Under U.S. law, intelligence agencies can monitor the communications of foreign terror suspects, but need the permission of a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to tap into the communications of U.S. citizens and legal residents on U.S. soil.

Do you really think there is some magical formula in place that bars international criminals and terrorists from availing themselves of technology based in the United States? The internet has blurred, if not wholly eradicated, the idea of sovereign borders. And mobile phones have just about achieved the same.

Some examples:

Burn Phones

A burn phone used by terrorists to trigger an IED

A “burn phone” is a temporary cell phone you can purchase all over the place. It is prepaid and loaded with minutes. You do not need a contract, you just buy the phone outright and it is ready to go. In many cases you don’t need to give any personal identification to purchase a burner, and when you do, well . . . god knows how easy it is to get a fake ID. Also, you don’t have to use a credit card to get one – you can buy them with cash on the street. Or online. Or at Walmart. You can give some kid on the street the cash to buy one for you. They’re inexpensive ($20-$50 or so), and they cannot be traced because they do not use a SIM card. And burn phones can be used to remotely trigger IEDs.

There is nothing preventing a member of al Qaeda from getting ahold of a US made burn phone. Criminals and terrorists have been using them for years to communicate under the radar ofintelligence and law enforcement surveillance.

The 9/11 hijackers used burn phones to communicate in the months before their attack. Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb plot suspect, used his burn phone to purchase the Nissan Pathfinder he planned to load up as a VBIED for Times Square.

When a burner phone number comes up as a contact in an ongoing case or intelligence operations, should it be magically exempt from surveillance on the possibility it might belong to a US citizen?

Servers and Hosts

Hezbollah, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, has websites hosted on servers in Miami, Florida. And you can watch Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, which is banned from doing business in the United States, on your smartphone by using a streaming application made in Texas.

Convicted terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman, “the Blind Sheik”, who orchestrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, has had his websites hosted on servers in Chicago.

The writings of drone fodder terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was al-Qaeda’s chief recruiter, are for sale on Amazon.

Islamist hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who recently went about praising the vicious machete murder of British Soldier Lee Rigby on the streets of the UK, has long had his website hosted with San Mateo, California host Dynadot. (That website might be experiencing terminal technical difficulties these days).

Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist organization who carried out the bloody 2008 Mumbai Massacre, has their farcical ‘charity’ front Jamaat ud Daawa (listed as a terrorist organization front for LeT by the US State Department) website hosted in California. Under their real name.

The list goes on and on.

Yahoo, Gmail and Any Other Email Account

Terrorists and their affiliates enter the United States and hang out here, whether as students, legal residents or visitors. And they use email like anyone else. Ever sign up for an email account using a fake name? Yeah, it’s easy.

Terrorist take advantage of our civil liberties by using them against us all the time. Lashkar-e-Taiba specifically trains their operatives to use United States servers and IP addresses in the hopes of hamstringing our Intelligence and avoiding the less restricted communications surveillance of their own governments.

The foxes are in the henhouse. They don’t even have to be in our country to be in our henhouse.

Signals Intelligence has long been a tool of military force against enemies. During the Civil War, both sides tapped the telegraph communications of the other, and we’ve used technologically advanced SIGINT against enemies since WWII. But the explosion of the internet and real time international communication via the web, cell phones or that hybrid beast we call the smartphone, has literally made it possible for anyone to communicate with anyone else across the world using a variety of open and stealth communication options. But to have the enemy on OUR soil using OUR communications complicates things a bit.

Who is the enemy? Who is chatting with the enemy? Who is that guy in Boise on that burn phone number that the guy from Lahore visiting his aunt in Jersey City keeps texting? Do you need a warrant to scope that out? Well sure, if you cross certain thresholds. And if you do, the FISA court is right there to deal with the who, what, when, where, how and why. But in the stages of picking up the pings and dings of who is connected to who on the borderless web, asking our Intelligence agencies to pretend the cyber borders of the United States have any structural integrity is absurd.

When the NSA knows with certainty the data they are looking at, or want to look at, is tied to a citizen of the US, they must get a warrant to search the content of that data. When they are not sure, they can retain intelligence data with the assumption the target is not a US citizen. Any indication the target is or could be in the US, requires an analyst to investigate and determine the status.

This morning, UK newspaper The Guardian again released classified documents from FISA. Despite the writers’ focus on portraying the NSA’s procedures for collecting intelligence as overly broad, they give out a lot of information about the safeguards in place that prevent the NSA from just grabbing communications content from US citizens. I won’t link to an article containing classified documents, but here are some samples of the procedures as The Guardian explains them:

“Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which was renewed for five years last December, is the authority under which the NSA is allowed to collect large-scale data, including foreign communications and also communications between the US and other countries, provided the target is overseas.

FAA warrants are issued by the FISA court for up to 12 months at a time, and authorise the collection of bulk information – some of which can include communications of US citizens, or people inside the US. To intentionally target either of those groups requires an individual warrant.”

Where the writers get upset is the reality that the metadata (which is what the “bulk information” is) may contain communication information of US citizens and it’s often retained for years. But again, to actually DO anything with it requires a warrant.

So what if some information or indication arises that the target the NSA is looking at is actually in the United States?

“If it later appears that a target is in fact located in the US, analysts are permitted to look at the content of messages, or listen to phone calls, to establish if this is indeed the case.”

An analyst looks to see if that is the situation. Why? Because if it is, they have to go get a warrant. So they are allowed to peek to see if they need a warrant or need to stop monitoring the communication while the target is in the US.

“NSA minimization procedures signed by Holder in 2009 set out that once a target is confirmed to be within the US, interception must stop immediately”

Okay. Get a warrant.

The metadata cannot be filtered this way if there is no information about the location of the target. What does that mean? That means if Target A (presumably under surveillance authorized by a warrant) is communicating with phone number B, and no one can tell who owns phone number B, the data tied there (logs off calls from A to B) doesn’t have to be destroyed. If an analyst determines these communications look to have significant intelligence value, they will . . . get a warrant.

The writers at The Guardian are ginning up outrage over the fact that it is Intelligence Analysts who are determining whether a potential target is in the United States and whether they need to get a warrant to eyeball that target a little harder. What do they think Intelligence Analysts do? The alternative is to have a slew of US Attorneys bogged down reviewing every single bit of metadata BEFORE an analyst sees it, and then have to whip together warrants in singularity for every one on the potential chance that the information ties to someone who may or may not be in the United States and may or may not be a target of interest to the NSA. That is ridiculous. The majority of data sets are of no interest to theNSA. Having a pack of attorneys and a court reviewing each as a prophylactic measure would be a procedural and logistical nightmare – not to mention it would require a massive budget to pay all the attorneys reviewing the metadata.

At some point common sense has to prevail. The legislature and the courts have established procedures to handle these cases in a manner that allows the NSA to do what it is supposed to do with as much reasonable legal oversight as can practically be implemented. And they follow those procedures to the letter as best they can.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, people expressed outrage because the Tsarnaev brothers were not under surveillance. Well one of them is a US Citizen and the other was a legal resident of the US. Neither were suspects in any crime before they set off bombs at a foot race. There was no probable cause to get a warrant on them, and obviously, the NSA wasn’t listening in on their phone calls, reading their emails or bugging their house. Even with all the potential flags going on, even with Russian Intelligence warning about their activities, the Tsarnaevs were not under domestic surveillance. They were living their lives under the protection of the 4th Amendment.

And so are you.

Read more: http://sofrep.com/22385/beyond-borders-what-is-domestic-surveillance/#ixzz2Y4Y6Amsd

Through the wormhole and why I cannot put the article here

I was sent the program to watch " Through the Wormhole",, all about mind control, we as TI's know this science is so far advanced. It is even way beyond that is stated as  possible.

I could not add it here as it is copywrited and do not want anyone to distribute for any reason. Ok,, I understand you do not want this information disseminated. . Even if we need it  to inform others. May you not regret that decision when it comes your turn for mind control
.
Anyway it talks about mind control on a very basic level , still using MRI,,instead of handheld devices and so on and so on,,, all bullshit as we know. But at least they are sticking a pinkie toe out of the closet to inform, somewhat,,I am not impressed,,hear me guys,, you suck..

Talk to me I'll tell you what is going on ,,boots on the ground"  this is another Ventura bullshit thing.. so tired of the media crap. The media and corporation and the military already know how far advanced this stuff it, so there just trying to fuck with us, because as TI's we know too.The joke is on the public,, you know the great unwashed masses, the cattle, the uninformed,, the joke is on them, they are the only one's who don't know,,yet... and don't get it ,,,,Yet..I wonder how they will feel about this when it does all come out.. Of course it will be presented as benign... and lethal way downplayed as non existent as our lives will be.

Fuck you all.

bjg

Censorship of the Media

The U.S. Media

Kristinn  Hrafnsson an Icelandic journalist of the year, 3 years running . Is a spokesperson for Wikileaks. 2 July 13 spoke on DemocracyNow. org with Amy Goodman.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/2/wikileaks_blasts_us_for_leaving_snowden 

 He said something that did not surprise me, he said the media in the country instead of concentrating on Snowden's whereabouts should be concentrating on what he is leaking, which our media is totally ignoring.

 I have known for years our media in the U.S. is censored. Totally censored. They are afraid to end up like Michael Hastings. I know journalists in D.C. whom I have begged to go public with my story,  did help me at first, but now they are afraid, and refuse to have anything to do with me. I do not blame them..

 I do understand  their fear but we are at a point in our country where we all have to step up to the plate,,ourselves,,,not to hide behind others or watch others do the hard work for us, by exposing what is going on in the very guts of our country.

No wonder people around the world hate us, but we are afraid to speak out we have indeed become a imperialistic regime and a nation of sheep as de Tocqueville also stated, we have much to lose by speaking out and many do not want to lose what they have. 

I quote from Democracy In America , the chapter,, Freedom of the Press in the United States;" So, where the press is concerned, there is not in reality any middle path between license and servitude. to  cull the inestimable benefits assured by freedom of the press, it is necessary to put up with the inevitable evils springing therefrom. " According to Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville the media cannot sit on the fence, they are either censored or not, and evidently in our country they are very censored. 

Owned by the corporations.

He also states one of the first tactics of despotism is isolation of the individual. 

This did start with Bush and Cheney and as we all know Eisenhower did warn us.. He did and we did not listen , Not that I think we had the knowledge or know how to prevent this.

chapter 22

"After all, one does, a large army in a democracy will always be a serious danger, and the best way to lesson this danger will be to reduce the army. But that is not a remedy which every nation can apply"

I add this also,,"Once the American Republics begin to degenerate, I think one will easily see that this is so; it will be enough to notice whether the number of political judgements increases."

This means the number of impeachments will increase signaling deterioration of the political system. Nixon , Clinton , Bush they wanted to, many called for it. 

In my next post I will try to outline the steps of a despotic state.

EDWARD SNOWDEN: I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model. When you are subverting the power of government, that that’s a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy. And if you do that in secret consistently, you know, as the government does when it wants to benefit from a secret action that it took, it will kind of get its officials a mandate to go, "Hey, you know, tell the press about this thing and that thing, so the public is on our side." But they rarely, if ever, do that when an abuse occurs. That falls to individual citizens. But they’re typically maligned. You know, it becomes a thing of these people are against the country, they’re against the government. But I’m not. I’m no different from anybody else. I don’t have special skills. I’m just another guy who sits there, day to day, in the office, watches what happening—what’s happening, and goes, "This is something that’s not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." And I’m willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, "I didn’t change these. I didn’t modify the story. This is the truth. This is what’s happening. You should decide whether we need to be doing this."

The highlited words mean the people who are not voted into office. They are outside the perview of the vote, they cannot be kicked out of office, for instance , Henry Kissinger who stepped in for Nixon , and Eric Prince head of Blackwater USA. 

most interesting post

The Guardian: NSA collected US Email Records in Build For More than Two Years Under Obama June 27, 2013 Summary: More secret documents obtained by The Guardian reveal a detailed timeline of events from inside the federal government leading up to the implementation of the data–mining PRISM program and this month’s other groundbreaking disclosures. This latest article, along with this companion piece, reveals that the Stellar Wind program – started in the months following 9/11 (see GAP clientsBill Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe) to collect and create chains of users’ online metadata – continued for at least two years under the Obama administration. While that program has ended, additional documents suggest that the NSA launched a new communication analysis program as late as December 2012. The email metadata collection being revealed is significantly more intrusive on Americans’ private lives than toll records or telephone metadata. According to the article: "The calls you make can reveal a lot, but now that so much of our lives are mediated by the internet, your IP [internet protocol] logs are really a real-time map of your brain: what are you reading about, what are you curious about, what personal ad are you responding to (with a dedicated email linked to that specific ad), what online discussions are you participating in, and how often?" said Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute. "Seeing your IP logs – and especially feeding them through sophisticated analytic tools – is a way of getting inside your head that's in many ways on par with reading your diary," Sanchez added. GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack responded to the most recent Guardian article here. The new documents also show that the 2004 hospital room confrontation between then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and acting Attorney General James B. Comey (now President Obama’s nominee for FBI head) had to do with the legality of NSA surveillance. These documents vindicate former AT&T technician and whistleblower Mark Klein, whose 2006 disclosure to Wired magazine alleged that the telecom company passed domestic and international online user data to the NSA. The New York Times: The Criminal NSA June 27, 2013 Summary: An op-ed from two prominent law professors challenges the federal government's contention that the recently revealed domestic surveillance programs are legal, saying they "violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law." The piece picks apart the rationale provided thus far by federal officials seeking to justify a constitutional violation. Key Quote: The government claims that under Section 215 [of the Patriot Act] it may seize all of our phone call information now because it might conceivably be relevant to an investigation at some later date, even if there is no particular reason to believe that any but a tiny fraction of the data collected might possibly be suspicious. That is a shockingly flimsy argument — any data might be “relevant” to an investigation eventually, if by “eventually” you mean “sometime before the end of time.” If all data is “relevant,” it makes a mockery of the already shaky concept of relevance.  NBC: Obama – Not “Scrambling Jets’ To Get Leaker Snowden June 27, 2013 Summary: President Obama, speaking in Senegal yesterday, said he would not be “wheeling and dealing” with China and Russia in order to extradite “29–year–old hacker” Snowden. The President also mentioned his concern that Snowden may continue to release top-secret documents to the press and has urged both Russia and Ecuador – where Snowden has filed his request for asylum – to “recognize that they are part of an international community” and extradite Snowden to the US. GAP National Security & Human Rights Counsel Kathleen McClellan, speaking with Ian Masters, responded to the President’s remarks by saying, “I think it’s a case of classic whistleblower retaliation. Institutions often focus on the messenger rather than the message … the fact that the story is about Mr. Snowden rather than that the government has been spying on innocent Americans … is evident of just how anti–whistleblower the culture has become in the national security state.” New Yorker: Demonizing Edward Snowden – Which Side Are You On? June 24, 2013 Summary: This analysis of the media response to Edward Snowden and the impact of his disclosures attempts to reach the core of the world’s reaction to the NSA whistleblower. To do this, the editorial points out that Snowden’s disclosure created no serious threat to national security, and therefore reactions to Snowden’s behavior and actions must be much more personal than political. The article also uses a quote from NSA whistleblower/GAP client Thomas Drake as its core argument in support of Snowden. Key Quote: “I consider Edward Snowden as a whistle-blower. I know some have called him a hero, some have called him a traitor. I focus on what he disclosed. I don’t focus on him as a person. He had a belief that what he was exposed to—U.S. actions in secret—were violating human rights and privacy on a very, very large scale, far beyond anything that had been admitted to date by the government. In the public interest, he made that available.” – NSA whistleblower/GAP client Thomas Drake Washington Post: Protections for Pending Federal Whistleblower Cases June 27, 2013 Summary: In a landmark victory for whistleblowers, the Merit Systems Protection Board has ruled that the provisions of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) signed into law last year will be applied to whistleblower cases filed within the agency before the legislation became law. Key Quote: “This is a major victory for whistleblowers,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group. “We all should be grateful to the Merit Systems Protection Board majority for leadership restoring credible whistleblower rights to pending challenges of retaliation, not merely new harassment. The ruling will have a professional life-or-death impact in numerous pending cases. It also means the WPEA will control newly-filed challenges to harassment that occurred while passage was delayed through secret Senate holds for eight years.” Gannett: House Passes Whistleblower Protections for Sexual Assault Victims in the Military June 27, 2013 Summary: The House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill, 423–0, that will require military inspector general office investigations into all service member complaints of sexual assault. Representatives hope that the bill will decrease fears of retaliation and encourage more to come forward so that the widespread and systemic problem of sexual assault in the military may be dealt with effectively. The measure awaits consideration in the Senate before it can become law.

GAP's mission is to promote corporate and government accountability by protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists. GAP has been the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization since 1977. The Government Accountability Project 1612 K Street NW, Washington DC 20006

The gods that be

So the gods that be are angry with me,,

I'm getting my ass slammed, and my perps use stupid LICENSE PLATES TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME.. How is this done you ask? 

The car can be parked or a drive by, they do both.

Well you are triggered, it can be general , humorous or a threat.  Certain letters and numbers have meaning,,,for instance 4 refers to my family I live with, 9 is canine, and I am 54, or 46, s or c mean see, and T means town and L means leave. I have been seeing a lot of LV's lately.   Meaning they want me to leave town,, this is childish but effective.  These people are mentally ill.

 When the stupid childish locals want to get a message across they use this and it has been very very threatening as is the pulsing, they seem to go in cycles.  They hit you hard and then lay off, and let you rest and feel normal for a day or two or a week , then they make up some shit you do, or you try something else,, a walk or a ride on your bike and they slam you again. 

I also think this is synchronized with other Ti's,, I know 2  TI's in NY who are getting slammed as well. It may be others too.

Seems like I pissed off the powers that be, but I  give up on that theory, because they have been doing this so long it is their cycle. Not mine. I do not think it matters a rat's ass what I do , they just do what they do anyway. They just try to synchronize it with some behavior. Don't ask me why I do not know nor do I give a shit to speculate.  I have peeled back the skull of the rich and insane and all I find is insanity, torture and death.  That seems all these fucks have to offer. Good things are far and few between and used as a treat when they feel you have kissed their ass or feet enough or carried out your task , whatever that is, and did a good job..Fuck you, I hate your guts.

After all we are dealing with the real insane here. Real psychopaths. Those who have those weapons and devices feel they are gods, they can do anything and the real bad and sad part of that is they can. As long as they have the secrets to all these weaponry we are helpless. We can only fight back with low tech, but that might work as well. You know burn them out, use other means I will not mention here. 

One other thing this cycle seems to be triggered for me with my application to GAP.. (past post)  maybe GAP asked questions in all the right places. because this full story of my harassment is not here. I have left out a major component of names , those in power, and those who are major players in this story. They have these weapons and punish me when ever they feel necessary. So I do not mention them here..I think they are the one's who broke my grandson's arm.  I have been warned.

FRAZIER AND JARVIS

The other night I was HSS to watch this local program on politics, I have not watched this in a long time, it's a call in show.  Run by a Dick Jarvis, who was married to rep, Joyce Spiliotis who died last Nov.  her eulogy is on Dick's Facebook page,, Her last name is Burns which stunned me, for Scott Burns,  who worked for Eastman Gelatin was responsible for much of my harassment when all this started, , another log on the pile. Everyone in this town is connected and related in one way or another. 

Anway,, Frazier lives to my left,, he works for the local quarry. When I first moved here I was getting pulsed wicked, hit and tossed out of my bed. I thought I would be dead. I complained to Dick and he told me he sent the police to the residence and what he was told is that how I was being pulsed is because of a game, the pulsing stopped. This was my first inclination that the xbox or wii could be used in an other manner than a game and I have seen this happen. 

My other neighbor Cherie, jewish girl,, lots  of anxiety expels it through her chatter as is common with people put under stress. She has a back closed in porch and her TV, an old big one is on the corner of her porch, facing sideways to my house. I saw her son on it playing some game and the sparks from the TV were traveling out of  porch, to across the street to my house. Exactly where my bed is. I know these games run on microwave and after the pulse passes through the TV where does it go? Can it be intensified or manipulated or changed to become a device of harassment.  I stood for a few minutes and watched him play and the spark go across the street to my bedroom. I mentioned this to her, she said nothing and the next time I walked by her shades were drawn. I do not know if her shades were drawn for privacy or security or what. 

I do not know if she knew the capability of all this, I think she does, for the other night I was walking down our walk in front of her house and felt and saw a beam of energy,,,, aimed at,,, it looked like my neighbors house and my house. Or somewhere in between, as I looked up and saw it they shut it down so they were aware of my actions.  This came from Cherie's house. Her husband is a mechanical engineer and the guy next door is an electrical engineer, he works for the feds and David who lives up the street, is best friends with Jeremiah, (Cherie's husband) and David works for the city. So they do have the expertise and knowledge to create or convert some of these devices to weapons.

To bad I'm the target.

I think the killing of michael hastings scared much of the press/media,,, but they are part of the problem, they did not inform us of the weapons, they used them instead, they kept this secret. Now it may be to late, back in 97,,we still had a chance, maybe, but now,,, I wonder if we can go anywhere with this. Alda read in Ants talkshoe call not recorded,, 141846 last night, about our spying on everyone in Europe, no one is surprised this just makes it public,.. we may not have any friends,,,, welcome to my world.
My neighbors could of been my friends, but they hate me and are perps against me, maybe the rest of the world will do that to us, I hope not. Things are scary and crazy at this time. Lou Dobbs,,, has a list on his show about all the nasty derogatory names he could call President Obama... thats a first.

FAR VIEWING AND THRU THE WALL TECHNOLOGY

If nothing scares the shit out of you with all this new technology this should be right up their at the top of your list...I was not scared when it happened. More curious about all this technology than  anything.   I was intrigued and wanted the most to find out more.
My fist exclamation in my mind when I was first subjected to the vibratory effects was "What to hell is this" and I want to know more". I have never been afraid of technology rather I embraced it as the wave of the future.. I also enclose a link here and I think you can judge the video for yourself. Sent to me by another Ti,,thank you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9l6VPpDublg

FAR VIEWING 

That is the name I know the technology by and it is technology. 

 I had it done to me as I wrote letters. They wanted me to write a letter and make sure it was written just so.   Sooo , they used far viewing.  I think it works like this , but could be wrong, I am basing this on reading and on my experience.;

I think it is a beam of something energy. and it locks on the the optic nerve, meaning they can see what you see. Only one eye was used and it had a telescopic ability. I controlled one eye they controlled the other. They could read what I was writing as I wrote it. I have never seen the device.

That is all I know about it,,,except later I was told by someone , years ago when I had another discussion about far viewing I was told if you blink rapidly it disturbs the process and destroys concentration with them and of course with you. I never tried the blink technique as by the time I acquired the knowledge, they never used it again. 

You can tell that something is definitely going on, for one eye has its own depth perception increased and almost telescopic. 

I have never spoken to any other Ti who has really stated this happened to them. 

SENT TO ME BY ANOTHER TI,,

The comic-book hero Superman uses his X-ray vision to spot bad guys lurking behind walls and other objects. Now we could all have X-ray vision, thanks to researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

I also want to add that the blue collar workers   who live in my neighborhood are given high tech by gov't... they also make their own,, and on several occasions I have suspected  a compressor was modified and used. I'm thinking of getting one

Credit:  Christine Daniloff

Researchers have long attempted to build a device capable of seeing people through walls. However, previous efforts to develop such a system have involved the use of expensive and bulky radar technology that uses a part of the electromagnetic spectrum only available to the military.

Now a system being developed by Dina Katabi, a professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and her graduate student Fadel Adib, could give all of us the ability to spot people in different rooms using low-cost Wi-Fi technology. “We wanted to create a device that is low-power, portable and simple enough for anyone to use, to give people the ability to see through walls and closed doors,” Katabi says.

The system, called “Wi-Vi,” is based on a concept similar to radar and sonar imaging. But in contrast to radar and sonar, it transmits a low-power Wi-Fi signal and uses its reflections to track moving humans. It can do so even if the humans are in closed rooms or hiding behind a wall.

As a Wi-Fi signal is transmitted at a wall, a portion of the signal penetrates through it, reflecting off any humans on the other side. However, only a tiny fraction of the signal makes it through to the other room, with the rest being reflected by the wall, or by other objects. “So we had to come up with a technology that could cancel out all these other reflections, and keep only those from the moving human body,” Katabisays.

Motion detector

To do this, the system uses two transmit antennas and a single receiver. The two antennas transmit almost identical signals, except that the signal from the second receiver is the inverse of the first. As a result, the two signals interfere with each other in such a way as to cancel each other out. Since any static objects that the signals hit — including the wall — create identical reflections, they too are cancelled out by this nulling effect.

In this way, only those reflections that change between the two signals, such as those from a moving object, arrive back at the receiver, Adib says. “So, if the person moves behind the wall, all reflections from static objects are cancelled out, and the only thing registered by the device is the moving human.”

Once the system has cancelled out all of the reflections from static objects, it can then concentrate on tracking the person as he or she moves around the room. Most previous attempts to track moving targets through walls have done so using an array of spaced antennas, which each capture the signal reflected off a person moving through the environment. But this would be too expensive and bulky for use in a handhelddevice.

So instead Wi-Vi uses just one receiver. As the person moves through the room, his or her distance from the receiver changes, meaning the time it takes for the reflected signal to make its way back to the receiver changes too. The system then uses this information to calculate where the person is at any one time.

Possible uses in disaster recovery, personal safety, gaming

Wi-Vi, being presented at the Sigcomm conference in Hong Kong in August, could be used to help search-and-rescue teams to find survivors trapped in rubble after an earthquake, say, or to allow police officers to identify the number and movement of criminals within a building to avoid walking into an ambush.

It could also be used as a personal safety device, Katabi says: “If you are walking at night and you have the feeling that someone is following you, then you could use it to check if there is someone behind the fence or behind a corner.”

The device can also detect gestures or movements by a person standing behind a wall, such as a wave of the arm, Katabi says. This would allow it to be used as a gesture-based interface for controlling lighting or appliances within the home, such as turning off the lights in another room with a wave of the arm.

Unlike today’s interactive gaming devices, where users must stay in front of the console and its camera at all times, users could still interact with the system while in another room, for example. This could open up the possibility of more complex and interesting games, Katabi says.

Contacts and sources:
Sarah McDonnell

Written by Helen Knight, MIT News Office