Die Deutungen der vermeintlichen Vorzüge dieser KI-Überwachung finden sich insbesondere prominent im Mediendiskurs, der von Akteur*innen der inneren Sicherheit und ihren Bewertungen geprägt ist. Kritische Positionen kommen vor, aber werden nicht zum Anlass der Berichterstattung. Was sich da im Diskurs zeigt, nennen wir eine Purifizierung, eine rituelle Läuterung also, durch die bisherige zentrale Kritiken an Formen der Videoüberwachung direkt adressiert und gleichzeitig abgestreift werden. Die Purifizierung erhöht die Durchsetzbarkeit der Maßnahme, weil die Bewegungsmusteranalyse jetzt als sozusagen gute Überwachung erscheint.
Archiv: field tests / experiments / laboratory tests / door opener / test ballons (metaphorical)
ICE‘s killing in Minneapolis shows American empire has come home
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was created in the shadow of the so-called Global War on Terror that followed the attacks of 11 September 2001.
It became a key pillar of the architecture of repressive surveillance and militarised tactics that emerged during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
ICE itself was specifically designed to pursue „national security threats“ within the United States, granting agents sweeping discretion over who could be deemed to „pose a threat to public safety or national security“.
Since then, it has come to represent a rogue operation, its reputation clouded by harrowing stories of abuse, impunity and a near total lack of oversight.
Its close association with Palantir, a surveillance firm accused of helping generate kill lists for Israel, has also further embedded it within the US military-industrial complex.
Scalawag Magazine described Palantir‘s partnership with ICE as „one of the many links comprising the military-industrial surveillance connections between ICE and Israel Defense Forces“.
These links, it wrote, illustrate the ideological and practical ties between the two bodies, as they work to advance the militarisation of policing through the weaponisation of surveillance technology.
ICE has also participated in several exchanges with the Israeli military, and during the student protests for Gaza, it lifted names from the blacklisting website Canary Mission to identify and arrest protesters.
Trump claims Herzog told him Netanyahu pardon ‘on its way’; Israeli president denies it
Speaking during his meeting in Florida with Netanyahu, Trump said he believed a pardon was on the way: “How can you not?” he said. “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?”
(…)
“There has not been a conversation between President Herzog and President Trump since the pardon request was submitted,” Herzog’s office said in a statement issued just a few minutes after Trump’s comments.
Human Rights Expert Sounds Alarm Over Israeli Firm’s ‘Dystopian’ Video-Altering Tech
(December 27, 2022)
The company, whose activities are overseen by the Israeli Defense Ministry, “was set up in 2018 and has offices in Tel Aviv and Washington,” Haaretz reported. “It works solely with state clients in government, intelligence bodies, and law enforcement agencies, almost exclusively—but not just—in the West. According to the internal documents, as of 2021, the company had contracts with Israel valued at $6 million, and had also planned an ‘expansion of existing deployment’ in Israel.”
Toka can tap into web-connected cameras found virtually everywhere—intersections, parking lots, malls, hotels, airports, and even homes. Haaretz compared the firm’s “cyberoffense” capabilities to the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven.
This Tattoo Could Land You in Guantánamo
Yes, the U.S. government is using tattoos, sometimes nothing more than a name, a date, or even a tribute to a favorite athlete, as justification to label migrants as “gang-affiliated” and ship them off to Guantánamo Bay.
Take Luis Castillo, a 23-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker, who was detained at the border and later sent to Guantánamo simply because he had a Michael Jordan tattoo.
Let that sink in.
‚He‘s Building a Concentration Camp‘: Fears Grow as Images Emerge of Offshore Prison at Gitmo
(February 9, 2025)
Fears are growing that the offshore U.S. detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are an ominous sign of what President Donald Trump has in store as he further disregards the rule of law and normalizes actions that previously would have been unthinkable or faces immediate, bipartisan opposition in Congress.
After the first pictures emerged Saturday of still unidentified persons transferred to the island from the U.S. mainland by immigration officials, progressive journalist Nathan Robinson was among those raising the alarm, accusing Trump of „building a concentration camp and deliberately putting it where it is hardest to monitor or enforce the law.“
A Tent City Is Rising at Guantánamo Bay
(February 8, 2025)
On Friday a military cargo plane transported deportees from El Paso, Texas, to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They are among the latest arrivals in the Trump administration’s week-old migrant relocation operation.
Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, is the first senior member of the Trump administration to visit the migrant mission on the base.
So far, none of the first arrivals have been taken to an emerging tent city that has been set up for migrants. Instead, they have been housed in the military prison.
Trump says he’s ordering Guantanamo Bay to be prepared to host up to 30,000 migrants
“Today, I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said from the White House.
“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. This will double our capacity immediately.”
While signing Laken Riley Act, Trump says he’ll send ‘worst’ criminal migrants to Guantanamo
“Some of them are so bad that we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re gonna send ’em out to Guantanamo,” Trump said. He said that he would soon sign an executive order directing federal officials to get facilities in Cuba ready to receive migrant criminals.
US would support limited, pinpoint IDF op against high-value targets in Rafah — report
Two Israeli officials told Politico that the Israel Defense Forces is still developing a plan for protecting the civilians.
But unnamed US officials told Politico that in private meetings, top administration officials have told the Israelis that the US would back a strategy for “counterterrorism operations” in Rafah rather than the full-scale war waged elsewhere in Gaza.
Elon Musk‘s Neuralink implants brain chip in first human
The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said previously, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.
Neuralink Is Now Recruiting Human Subjects
(20.09.2023)
It‘s only a tiny incremental step towards Musk‘s sweeping vision for his company‘s brain chip. In 2020, Musk promised Neuralink devices could solve numerous neurological conditions, including addiction or memory loss, or restore movement for people with spinal cord injuries. He‘s even promised that one day, a Neuralink brain chip could allow for human-to-human telepathy.
In short, despite Musk‘s grand ambitions, Neuralink still has a lot of work to do to catch up with its competitors — and isn‘t about to completely revolutionize the field just yet.
The Gaza-ification of the West Bank
(November 1, 2023)
And also just to be very clear, everything that I’ve been describing, all of these various mechanisms that the state has been using, are backed by Israeli courts, and backed by the Israeli legal system. This is not some random phenomena that is happening uniquely to a single unlucky community far from the eyes of the state. On the contrary, this is part of an ongoing Israeli state project of trying to push, to cleanse, as many Palestinians out of Area C, using all available state mechanisms in order to accomplish this goal. (…)
There are checkpoints. There are threats. And all this goes on for years. And yet somehow you managed to stay on the land and make a living and try to raise a family under these conditions. And that in and of itself is horrific and criminal and appalling, and also happens in broad daylight. Everything I’ve been talking about now and describing has been documented for years already by Palestinian, Israeli, and international human-rights organizations. But Israel never relented and never stopped because, as I said, it’s part of the state’s goal to accomplish that. What has escalated in recent weeks is that you have repeated reports of masked men showing up in the middle of the night. Armed, masked men.
Maybe they are settlers, maybe they’re soldiers, maybe they’re a mix. And they openly threaten the people in the community and tell them that they have twenty-four hours to leave, and if you say otherwise we would wipe you out.
‘They Are Behaving in a Fascist Way:’ An Israeli-Arab Lawmaker on the Stifling of Anti-War Voices
(November 11, 2023)
We told the police that we are going to have this protest, that it’s going to be only leadership, that it’s not going to be a massive demonstration or something like this. The next day, when Barakeh was heading to Nazareth, they arrested him.
How do you interpret these crackdowns? Is this an attempt by the Israeli government to effectively criminalize expressions of Palestinian identity and solidarity?
Not only the Palestinian identity. I think that whatever they couldn’t pass through the judicial overhaul, they are passing now under the cover of the war.
Israel‘s Intelligence Ministry is marginal and not setting Israeli policy. But important to keep on the radar (in part because it‘s led by a Netanyahu party mate) that it‘s been internally circulating a plan for forced relocation of Gazans into Sinai.
Israeli think tank lays out a blueprint for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza
(October 23, 2023)
On October 17, the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy published a position paper advocating for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.” The report advocates exploiting the current moment to accomplish a long-held Zionist goal of moving Palestinians off the land of historic Palestine. The report’s subtitle makes it clear: “There is at the moment a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government.”
The Misgav Institute is headed by former Netanyahu National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, who remains influential in Israeli security circles. The Institute’s former chairpersons and founding associates include Yoaz Hendel (chair 2012-19), a right-centrist who was Minister of Communications intermittently in the years 2020-22; Moshe Yaalon, former Defense Minister (note that both Hendel and Yaalon have become opposed to Netanyahu in the recent years); Moshe Arens, also former Defense Minister — and other top political personas.
Israel clinches largest-ever defense deal with Germany for $3.5 billion after securing US approval
Although Israel has long had close economic and military links with western European countries, the deal with Germany could draw the attention of Russia. Israel has maintained working relations with Russia throughout the war in Ukraine and has repeatedly rebuffed requests to sell arms to Kyiv for fear of antagonizing Moscow.
This must be the end of Rishi Sunak’s green obsession
It was Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to outer London that won it for the Tories. This diabolical scheme to penalise drivers of older cars and van-owning tradesmen in the outer suburbs has aroused a level of rage which must now be a lesson to all serious contenders in the general election. The ramifications go far beyond this single, apparently anomalous, success for the Conservatives.
By-election results live: Scrap 2030 petrol car ban, Tories urge Sunak
Rishi Sunak has been urged to scrap the ban on new petrol and diesel cars scheduled for 2030 after a surprise Tory by-election win was driven by a green scheme revolt.
While the Tories fell to substantial defeats in the Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome polls, their victory in Boris Johnson’s former constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip came after a campaign centred on opposing the expansion of Sadiq Khan’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez).
What is the Ultra Low Emission Zone?
If your vehicle doesn‘t meet the ULEZ emission standards and isn‘t exempt, you will be required to pay a £12.50 daily charge to drive inside the zone. This charge can amount to over £4,500 a year, per vehicle.
When does Ulez expand? How Sadiq Khan’s expansion of the zone helped to decide the Uxbridge by-election
Sadiq Khan’s controversial Ulez scheme has been described as the deciding factor in the Conservatives holding onto Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
The cleaner-air levy has faced opposition since it was introduced 2019, with the intention of purifying London’s air. Drivers of more-polluting vehicles are subject to a £12.50 tax in the ultra low emission zone, in a move similar to the congestion charge.
U.S. Examines Whether Saudi Nuclear Program Could Lead to Bomb Effort
(Aug. 5, 2020)
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, included a provision in the intelligence budget authorization bill requiring the administration to submit a report about Saudi efforts since 2015 to develop a nuclear program, a clear indication that the committee suspects that some undeclared nuclear activity is going on.
The report, the provision stated, should include an assessment of “the state of nuclear cooperation between Saudi Arabia and any other country other than the United States, such as the People’s Republic of China or the Russian Federation.”
SDG16: Part 1 — Building the Global Police State
(June 5, 2023)
There is no reason to believe that the SDG16’s pretensions to promote peace and justice and inclusivity will do anything for the world as a whole, much less anything to resolve the fundamental failings inherent in the UN’s scurrilous and disreputable system of alleged “global governance.”
You may wonder what Sustainable Development Goal 16—or this article about it—has to do with protecting the planet and its inhabitants from the predicted “climate disaster.” The answer is: nothing at all. But then, “climate change” is merely the proffered rationale that purportedly legitimises and lends urgency to sustainable development.
Establishing firm global governance—in effect, a world dictatorship—through the implementation of SDGs is the United Nations’ real objective. “Climate change” is just the excuse. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than SDG16.9. And this is why we will exclusively focus on 16.9 in Part 2 of our exploration of SDG16.
Russia says military coordination with Israel in Syria will continue as usual
(27 February 2022)
Russia is a main player backing the Syrian government in a grinding civil war, while Israel has waged a years-long campaign of airstrikes aimed at pro-Iranian fighters located there and at preventing the transfer of Iranian-supplied weaponry.
“Our military officials discuss the practical issues of this substantively on a daily basis. This mechanism has proven to be useful and will continue to work,” the Russian embassy said in a statement to The Times of Israel.
‚Israel, Russia to coordinate in air, sea, and electromagnetic arena‘
(October 27, 2015)
In Russia, Eisenkot met with his Russian counterpart, General Valery Vasilevich Gerasimov – the first time chiefs of staff from Russia and Israel held a direct meeting in Moscow. Eisenkot also participated in part of the meeting held between Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Afterward, the two sides agreed to set up a joint working group led by the deputy chiefs of staff from each country.
In Poland, COVID-19 exposes progressing societal militarization
(May 31, 2020)
As the lockdown unraveled, the disoriented Polish public swiftly learned from the media that the country is “at war with an invisible aggressor”, one that requires the Minister of Health to act like a “Commander in Chief” and puts the medical staff on the “front lines”. This military rhetoric was soon multiplied by media reports on the spike in Russian and Chinese “information warfare” against the European Union over COVID-19. Far from being purely discursive, this warlike response to the pandemic has also involved a wide deployment of close to ten thousand military personnel across the country. Already in March, the newly-founded Territorial Defense Forces (TDF) were mobilized for the first Polish comprehensive anti-crisis military operation after 1989.
Eyeing Russia nervously, Poles enrol in volunteer militias
(March 20, 2015)
The Polish government has kept its distance from the unofficial civilian militias but, with anxieties about Moscow’s intentions growing, the professional military is now looking for ways to harness the volunteer groups.
There are an estimated 120 such groups in Poland, with total membership around 10,000. Eight hundred members gathered on Friday in Warsaw at a meeting organised by the Defence Ministry, the first time they have been given official recognition.