Your local beauty shop or internet cafe might be reporting you to the FBI or DHS!
FBI and DOJ documents reveal a new spying campaign aimed at every American.
A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called “Communities Against Terrorism”, lists the use of “anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address” as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity.
The flyer recommends that anyone “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others” should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities.
Logging into an account associated with a residential internet service provider (such as Comcast or AOL), an activity that could simply indicate that you are on a trip, is also considered a suspicious activity. Viewing any content related to “military tactics” including manuals or “revolutionary literature” is also considered a potential indicator of terrorist activity. This would mean that viewing any number of websites, could be construed by an employee as a highly suspicious activity potentially linking you to terrorism.
The “Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities” contained in the flyer are not to be construed alone as a sign of terrorist activity and the document notes that “just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different; it does not mean that he or she is suspicious.”
Many of the activities described in the document are basic practices of any individual concerned with security or privacy. The use of PGP, VPNs, Tor or any of the many other technologies for anonymity and privacy online are directly targeted by the flyer, which is distributed to businesses in an effort to promote the reporting of these activities.
The following collection of 25 flyers produced by the FBI and the Department of Justice are distributed to local businesses in a variety of industries to promote suspicious activity reporting. The flyers are not released publicly, though several have been published in the past by news media and various law enforcement agencies around the country.
To view the documents, click on a threat area in the menu to the left and the PDF will appear on the right side of the page. You can also download the complete collection of files (ZIP Archive, 6.27 MB).
http://publicintelligence.net/fbi-suspicious-activity-reporting-flyers/