Yahoo Plans "Smart Billboards" That Watch and Listen To You

Smart billboards in the movie Minority Report

by Gaius Publius

Those billboards in the movie Minority Report, the ones that watch you, listen as you speak, then address you by name? They're on the drawing board at Yahoo. You can look at this product as another form of "targeted marketing," like when the google sends ads your way based on the latest text in your gmail account. Or you can look at it as a way for a company to profile you as completely as possible when you move around in public — connecting your public behavior with all of your other stored behaviors — then do anything it wants with that information.

The Yahoo story was broken by Ethan Baron in the San Jose Mercury News. Here's his report (my emphasis):

Yahoo eyes billboard that can spy on drivers inside their cars

Yahoo, under fire over this week’s revelation that it helped the federal government spy on its users, has applied for two related patents describing a camera-equipped billboard that can spy on drivers.

The patent applications, submitted in March 2015 and made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, describe a billboard that has sensors including cameras, microphones and even retina scanners built in or positioned nearby.

“Image or video data may be processed to determine whether any individuals looked directly at the advertising content (e.g., using image recognition and/or eye tracking techniques),” said the patent documents, which use much of the same language in describing the technology.

Verbal reactions by passersby could be collected via microphones. “Audio data captured by one or more microphones may be processed using speech recognition techniques to identify keywords relating to the advertising that are spoken by members of the audience,” the documents said. “Image data or motion/proximity sensor data may be processed to determine whether any members of the audience paused or slowed down near the advertising content, from which it may be inferred that the pause or slowing was in response to the advertising content.

The tech site The Stack, in its own report on the project, appears to be quoting from Yahoo's product description when it includes this quote:

‘Various types of data (e.g., cell tower data, mobile app location data, image data, etc.) can be used to identify specific individuals in an audience in position to view advertising content. Similarly, vehicle navigation/tracking data from vehicles equipped with such systems could be used to identify specific vehicles and/or vehicle owners. Demographic data (e.g., as obtained from a marketing or user database) for the audience can thus be determined for the purpose of, for example, determining whether and/or the degree to which the demographic profile of the audience corresponds to a target demographic.’

So, a billboard that watches and listens inside every passing car to the best of its ability, then matches what it sees and hears with vehicle navigation and tracking systems (like Onstar?) — and certainly the DMV data, right? — as well as with "demographic data" from "marketing or user" databases. Welcome to ... what? A world in which you're always monitored, in which you're basically an extension of the state, if by the "state" we mean "the collective corporate-political super-entity that pretends to hold open elections from time to time, but regardless of that, can't ever be stopped or dismantled."

The concept of constant surveillance leading to near-perfect compliance on the part of the watched is not a new one. Jeremy Bentham designed a prison, called a Panopticon, this way:

The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman. ...

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."[1] Elsewhere, in a letter, he described the Panopticon prison as "a mill for grinding rogues honest".[2]

"Panopticon" means "all-seeing." You can see an image of his Panopticon prison here.

Another tool for the all-seeing state? And note, once Yahoo or whoever builds it, you know who will find a use for it. After all, the people at Yahoo did this:

Reuters reported last week, citing sources, that Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, a move that raised a lot of human rights concerns.

Why would anyone think the folks at Yahoo wouldn't do this again, just more surreptitiously?

A brave new world indeed, that has such people in it.

GP
  

Bi-partisan For The Sake Of America, Not For The Sake Of Wall Street

Justin and Ted-- good bipartisanship

In DC, there's good bipartisan and there's bad bipartisan. Bad bipartisan, which is far, far more prevalent, usually revolves around corruption like, for example, when Wall Street whores from both sides of the aisle-- lets' say Republican Sean Duffy (WI) and New Dem Patrick Murphy (FL)-- get together to try to hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That's bad bipartisan and that's what usually happens on Capitol Hill. Every now and then you'll find a dedicated progressive and a dedicated conservative-- one Democrat and one Republican-- with the intent and the savvy to go around their parties' establishments to pass legislation that's actually good for America... a concept that sleaze-bags like Sean Duffy and Patrick Murphy would never grasp.

Remember about a week and half ago-- when there were far fewer women on TV recounting stories about Trump grabbing their pussies-- a real scandal broke (for a few hours), the one about Yahoo spying on all their customers? Crooks like Sean Duffy and Patrick Murphy are still rooting around for bribes from Wall Street but 2 congressmen who take this kind of thing seriously, progressive Democrat Ted Lieu (Los Angeles) and conservative Republican Justin Amash (Grand Rapids) decided to do something about it, something that didn't go through establishment hacks Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan, avatars of the status quo.

The two of them are heading up an ad hoc coalition of 46 congressmembers from both sides of the aisle who sent a letter to the administration asking for a briefing about the Yahoo domestic spying. Many serious members-- so not the grubby slimy little creeps like Patrick Murphy and Sean Duffy-- signed on, Republicans like Thomas Massie (KY), Raul Labrador (ID), Walter Jones (NC), Tim Huelskamp (KS) and Jason Chaffetz and Democrats like Barbara Lee (CA), Jim McGovern (MA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Mike Honda (CA) and Donna Edwards (MD). "As legislaslators," they wrote, "it is our responsibility to have accurate information about the intelligence activities conducted by the federal government. Accordingly, we request information and a briefing as soon as possible for all members of Congress to resolve the issues raised by these reports."

LibertarianRepublic.com explained that Lieu and Amash have been heavily opposed to the use of mass surveillance. Amash led a bipartisan coalition to bring down the NSA’s mass surveillance programs back in 2013, only to be defeated at the last moment. Lieu was one of the first critics of the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to break into the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist. Both Lieu and Amash have teamed up on other issues in the past as well. The two were a part of a bipartisan coalition that penned a letter asking for President Obama to delay arms sales to Saudi Arabia due to their campaign in Yemen."

This morning we spoke with Congressman Lieu and he was characteristically straightforward and write to the point:

It is unacceptable that the people's representatives, empowered with the highest levels of security clearance, are left in the dark by our intelligence agencies. Conflicting news reports suggest that the NSA's directive to Yahoo could either be an unprecedented abuse of surveillance powers or a routine warrant with unsettling actions taken by Yahoo. Either way, Congress should not be learning about this through public sources, nor should we be forced to write a letter to be fully briefed by our own government on what took place.

The NSA repeatedly acted with disregard to our Fourth Amendment rights with regard to the bulk collection program and is now facing increasing backlash by Congress and the American people. It is incumbent on the intelligence community to demonstrate to Congress that it acted in accordance with the law. The Yahoo scandal also shows, once again, that the FISA courts are incapable of effective oversight and serve as mere rubber-stamps for our intelligence agencies. It is time to overhaul the entire FISA court system.

That's what we call good bipartisan. It's important to elect more skilled legislators like Ted Lieu who know how to work across the aisle for the good of the country and who are not smarmy political hacks like Patrick Murphy and Sean Duffy. (By the way, Blue America helped elect Ted Lieu to Congress in 2014 and Justin Amash in the only Republican we ever recommended voting for over a Democrat.) Among the best candidates this cycle with experience doing just that are Pramila Jayapal (WA), Ruben Kihuen (NV), Zephyr Teachout (NY), Nanette Barragán (CA), Paul Clements (MI), DuWayne Gregory (NY), Bao Nguyen (CA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Doug Applegate (CA) and, of course, Carol Shea-Porter(NH). You can find all of them by tapping the thermometer below.

Would The Government Spy On You And Your Family?

Tuesday, we were looking at some of the reasons Hillary is doing less well-- even in states trending her way like Florida is now-- than she could be doing. While I was writing the post, I got a note from Ted Lieu about the Yahoo revelations. And, the malaise of some millennials who are smart enough to know they're not voting for the narcissistic racist and psychopath but are reticent to commit to Hillary are just uncomfortable with her old school, conservative attitudes about issues around national security state surveillance-- or, as Lieu referred to the Yahoo revelations, "big brother on steroids." He said "it must be stopped." She should too, unless she wants to spend the rest of the campaign pining for those millennial voters. As Lieu said, a government "directive to Yahoo to write a software program and search all of its customers’ incoming emails for certain content is a gross abuse of federal power... Law enforcement and the NSA did not have warrants for the hundreds of millions of customers that had their privacy violated." Justin Amash (R-MI) was as disturbed by this as Lieu was. But you know who felt even stronger about the revelations? Yeah... Ed Snowden. He was tweeting up a storm as soon as the news broke:

His first reaction was to urge everyone with a Yahoo email account to close it. Sounds like an excellent idea to me. He also brought up that "With Verizon buying Yahoo, who was revealed today to be spying on all of their customers, this seems relevant." Very relevant. Did anyone think it was worth mentioning at the VP debate a few hours later?

In the Afterward to Michael Gurnow's 2014 book, The Edwards Snowden Affair, Gurnow wrote, "Somewhat predictably given Clapper’s adamant defense, the NSA hasn’t changed its policies; it has merely tightened its security. Instead of conducting surveillance in a manner that won’t plague an employee’s conscience and spur another Snowden to action, the agency instituted an information lockdown. Shortly after the disclosures stared appearing, a two-person data extraction rule was instituted.

Perhaps the greatest cultural signifier of Snowden’s impact is seen in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Shortly after the world saw Snowden’s face for the first time, sales of the 64-year-old classic skyrocketed. It witnessed a 5,800% overnight increase in sales. The novel went from 7,397 to 125 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

...[T]he public has only heard of the questionable means Washington goes to acquire data directly from communication sources. What is not being talked about is the intelligence it obtains from civilian data mining enterprises. These businesses come in two flavors: Private data collection companies and corporate retailers. The latter consists of commercial retail and fast food establishments. Considering Microsoft, Yahoo, AT&T, Google, Sprint and Verizon’s relationship with the federal government, it is not unreasonable to assume the data these two types of businesses collect is also sequestered by Washington.

Target’s ability to determine a young woman was pregnant before she knew is the tip of the spying iceberg. For example, many cell phone owners forget wifi usage is a revolving door. Most give little thought to accessing and using a store’s wifi, not realizing the company’s systems may be programmed to exploit the Internet connection. Once a connection is made, customer data-- including gender, address, telephone number and a consumer’s personal interests (via Internet searches and an individual’s social network pages, which are frequently left open for convenience)-- are recorded. In retail outlets, a corporation’s programming may also be set to track a person’s movements throughout the building and catalog the individual’s browsing habits. For the customer, the result is customized advertisements and coupons; for the company, consumer analysis is completed at a fraction of the traditional cost. Sadly, advances in technology permit businesses to supersede any attempts at protecting one’s privacy. Much like the U.S. intelligence’s ability to stalk a phone that is turned off, corporations are now able to access phones even if they aren’t deliberately connected to a store’s wifi.

The other and much darker side of corporate surveillance is data mining companies. These include firms such as Acxiom, Datalogix, Euclid, Federated Media, Epsilon, Digital Advertising Alliance, BlueKai and Network Advertising Initiative. Acxiom, the leader in the industry, has over 190 million profiles on American adults.

These entities make it their business to collect every conceivable type of knowledge about U.S. citizens. They first scour the Internet for any information a person is willing to make known before proceeding to public records. Yet these techniques are time and labor-intensive. Both data mining companies and corporations have a surveillance tool which is much more thorough, revealing and, most importantly, automated. They hire software engineers to design and implement third-party cookies. Unlike a first-party cookie, which initiates a discussion between a user’s computer and a specific website, a third-party cookie is equivalent to someone eavesdropping on a person’s power lunch conversation and selling the transcript to a competitor. One method software designers use to hide third-party cookies is by embedding them in advertisements. When an individual enters a website with an ad, a third-person cookie is set. If the user moseys over to another website with an ad by the same company, a notice of the individual’s continued interest-- including the time, date and computer’s IP address-- is sent to the business. By this time, the third-party cookie is controlling a person’s computer. When someone looks at shoes on a retailer’s website and then checks the local news, only toeerily find an ad of the footwear in a sidebar, a third-party cookie is at work. Third-party cookies essentially track and stalk Internet users. Aside from the invasive privacy violations, there are drastic, long-term psychological effects which result from the repetition of third-party cookies’ advertising. Many were confused by Snowden’s objection to surveillance on grounds that it stifled creativity and free thought. When an ad is designed to reappear time and again, it is reinforcing an idea or brand image in a potential consumer’s mind. The Familiarity Principle states a person becomes more comfortable and accepting of an image the more frequently it is encountered. This is basic biology. Familiarity instills trust, often at a subconscious level. Though customers believe they are expressing freedom of choice by picking Brand X over Brand Y, they may be unaware they saw Brand X in a sidebar while browsing online recipes the week before. They purchase Brand X without realizing the subconscious motivations for doing so. They have literally been brainwashed.

Data brokers take their information, organize it into concise little profiles, and offer it to anyone with an open checkbook. This includes the obvious customers, U.S. government and corporations, but they have other steadfast clients. Many “people locator” websites purchase data mining profiles and resell them to the general public. For a nominal fee, anyone can access a person’s birthday, place of birth, current and past residences, family relations, social security and phone number, educational background, email address, place of current and former employment, and medical, property and court records. Medical insurance firms are curious whether a potential client prints Internet coupons for over-the-counter headache medicine and pays in cash to avoid a rate-hiking paper trail.

Employment agencies want to know an applicant’s hobbies and proclivities without having to ask. Loan companies are interested in a candidate’s choice of recreational locales, be it a casino, truck rally or library. Once this data is combined with receipts from many of the major corporations, buying habits are then merged with wants and desires. The result is a very concise, detailed picture of an individual’s possessions, activities and goals. This is then compared to established buying patterns. The end result is daunting. The owner of an analyzed profile knows who a person was, is, and is going to be. Corporations refer to this as market research. Privacy advocates consider the process an infringement upon the Fourth Amendment and argue third-party cookie usage violates the last sanctuary of privacy, one’s thoughts. Orwell’s prophecy is modestly conservative by 21st-century standards. The main character in Nineteen Eighty-Four believes, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”

The surveillance debate has intensified since June 5 and lent new perspectives upon the concept of the safety technology can provide. The underlying political issue is who has the right to particular varieties of information. The public believes there are two types of conversations, public and private. The intelligence community doesn’t agree.

In the Internet Age, a person can “Like” the activity of fishing enough to let the world know by making it public knowledge on one’s Facebook profile. The individual can also choose to obtain a vanity Facebook URL by confidentially submitting one’s telephone number to the social networking site. The phone number is used for authorization purposes to verify the request is coming from the Facebook account holder. Though it is not placed online, the number is nonetheless (questionably) stored on the company’s servers. David Omand, former head of GCHQ, has no problem with collecting the publicly-known fact Bob likes fishing along with his cell number via Facebook’s FISC order permitting the U.S. government access to the information.

For the watchers, there is no line dividing what an individual puts on the Internet and what people have privately entrusted to another party, be it a website, bank, doctor or telephone company. Government spies also scoff at the notion of intellectual property rights. Bought-and-sold politicians agree. If something is publicly or privately posted online, it automatically becomes the property of the website’s owner. (This is also why most businesses permit and encourage employees to use their company-issued phones and email accounts for personal communications-- the firms have legal license to review an employee’s private network and communications, because they own the devices and programs and therefore the data on them.) It is an absurd proposition analogous to stating an individual surrenders rightful ownership of a vehicle to a bank when it is parked on property whose tenant has yet to pay the mortgage in full. This policy refuses to acknowledge the resources and labor provided by the Facebook account holder, i.e., the computer used to access the social networking site, time it took to create a profile and mental ingenuity in deciding how and what to say about oneself. It is understood that the website has issued the venue which, in turn, makes the information available worldwide but the skewed exchange undermines the statement that profiles are “free.” No profit sharing is offered the user. Without account holders, social networking sites would be empty voids on lonely servers and not multinational corporate affairs.

In the surveillance communities’ opinion, everything is public domain and no one has the right to ask “Do you mind?” to someone eavesdropping on a conversation. Their argument is that if a person doesn’t want what is being said to be known (by whomever), the individual best not speak at all. In the cloak-and-dagger world of data mining, the person having a discussion cannot reasonably expect privacy, because the individual is voicing one’s thoughts, period. It does not matter whether they are spoken in confidence and directed to a particular person, much like an email is addressed “To: Bob” and not “To: Bob; Bcc: The NSA.” If the speaker is naïve enough to say something at a volume where a microphone can detect it, it is de facto public knowledge. Whereas government surveillance only exchanges the recorded conversation with its own kind, corporate surveillance broadcasts the discussion to anyone who is willing to pay to hear it. In the surveillance world, the only guarantee of privacy is dead silence.

The U.S. government knows the difference but deliberately ignores it. It does not want a distinction to be made, because it would restrict its power and the power of those who fund political campaigns: defense contractors, telecoms, Internet companies, corporate retailers, fast food enterprises and multimillion-dollar data mining firms. The last thing the U.S. government or private business wants is account holders to have control over their own information. Snowden’s skepticism of political solutions is understandable. The people who were hired to watch the watchmen did a poor job. American citizens were told their rights were being protected as a secret oversight court rubberstamped itself into extraneousness while never bothering to see what the NSA might be hiding. Regardless whether a new law is created or a task force is assigned, it can be expected that parties in possession of private information will continue to swear a consumer’s data is sacrosanct and they would never dream of violating a client’s privacy; all the while information is being steadily placed on the open market, swapped and surveilled. Every data mining opt-out form absolves itself by including the clause that the representative business cannot guarantee a person’s information will not conveniently fall into the company’s lap at a later date. If a causal web search produces an individual’s home address alongside the resident’s place of employment, a robber can look up the employer’s hours of operation and know when the house will likely be vacant. When situations like these are presented to those in power, the ball of accountability is bounced back and forth as witnessed when the U.S. government and telecoms pointed the finger of blame at one another after Greenwald exposed Verizon. No one is held accountable, violations continue and people are put at risk. Snowden was correct once again. Current surveillance practices make us less safe.

Regardless of how futile a circumstance may appear, it is instinct to try to defend oneself from perceived harm. Both businesses and private citizens reacted to the disclosures, some rather violently.

Why Isn't Hillary Doing Better In Florida?

How to guarantee that Florida millennials sit out the election

Swing state Florida looms large for both campaigns. Hillary is partially hampered by a moribund state Democratic Party that has been whittled down to a Debbie Wasserman Schultz incumbent protection racket. It barely functions in statewide races at all. Still, Hillary's RealClearPolitics polling average as of today is +2.0, not bad, considering Obama beat Romney 50.01% to 49.12. That was a 0.89% win-- a mere 74,309 votes giving Obama all 29 of Florida's electoral votes. In 2008, Obama won by a larger margin-- but still very tight: 51.03% to 48.22%, a 2.81% difference over McCain.

The just released Mason-Dixon poll of likely Florida voters is significantly better for Clinton; after the first debate she opened a 4 point lead over Trump-- 46-42% when the third party candidates are included. Hillary would probably be doing better if local candidates were creating a compelling case on the ground. Instead. Democrats are saddled with incompetent and corrupt "former" Republican spoiled brat, Patrick Murphy as their top statewide candidate. Chuck Schumer, doing Wall Street's bidding, spent millions of dollars to knock progressive icon Alan Grayson out of the primary and hand it to the GOP dream candidate. Today the Democrats have given up on even seriously fighting Marco Rubio and the DSCC is just allowing Murphy's political corpse to rot on the vine and stink up the Sunshine State. His RealClearPolitical polling average is dismal, with the unpopular and barely competent Rubio beating him with a +5.3 margin. The new Mason Dixon poll of the Senate race is ominously titled Rubio widens lead over Murphy in Senate race. The margin is 7 points now!

Republican incumbent Marco Rubio has increased his lead over Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy in the Florida Senate race. Statewide, 47% of likely voters support Rubio, while 40% back Murphy, Libertarian Paul Stanton draws 5%, 2% are split among the other four candidates on the ballot and 6% are still undecided. In late August, before the state primary election, Rubio held only a narrow 46%-43% advantage.

The Rubio campaign has been successful in raising Murphy’s negative rating, which now stands at 27% favorable/25% unfavorable. In August it was 30% favorable/11% unfavorable. Rubio’s own numbers are stronger (45% favorable/34% unfavorable) and have not significantly changed since last month.

The key to Rubio’s success is his ability to run stronger than the average Republican among Hispanic voters. Currently, Hispanics favor Rubio over Murphy 53%-38%, which is helping him pull 16% of Democratic voters. It is extremely difficult now for a Democrat to win in Florida while losing the Hispanic vote. In the presidential race, for example, Hillary Clinton’s margin over Donald Trump with Hispanics (64%- 29%) is the primary reason she is currently holding a slight statewide lead.

15% of Florida voters don't even recognize Murphy's name, even though as of the August 10 reporting deadline he had already spent $7,770,908 (not counting a half million from the DSCC, $441,350 from Murphy's father's corrupt superPAC, and a whopping $1,698,134 from the Schumer and Reid-controlled Senate Majority PAC (most of that to destroy Grayson's reputation with baseless lies concocted by Schumer). Aside from the 15% of likely voters who still haven't heard of Murphy, 25% of voters have a negative opinion of him (to 27% who have a positive opinion), a plurality of voters have no opinion at all. Today the NY Times changed their assessment of the Florida Senate race from "competitive" to "likely Republican."  Too bad they can't reassess the Democratic Senate Leadership race and move it from "likely Schumer" to "competitive."

One of the problems is that Rubio is beating Murphy among independent voters-- 46-38%. It's incredible that as manifestly terrible a candidate as Rubio is, he's still beating Murphy, who can't even quailfy as a lesser-of-two-evils candidate. Had Schumer not interfered on behalf of Murphy and Grayson been the candidate today he would at the very least be waging an exciting ideological battle against Rubio, an easy target for a progressive. Unlike Murphy who supported the Keystone Pipeline every single time the GOP brought it up and voted for oil drilling off Florida's beaches, Grayson could be credibly attacking Rubio on Climate Change. When Rubio attacks Clinton-- which he does every day-- Grayson could easily attack her and go after Trump. Murphy on the other hand, voted with the GOP to fund a witch hunt against Clinton (the notorious Benghazi Committee he championed) and has been in business with Trump building shoddy condos for years!

Nope, Schumer, Reid and Tester forced a real pig in a poke down Florida Democrats' throats and now they're giving up an opportunity to win back the Senate and to end the slimy political career of Marco Rubio.

And Murphy's race is hardly the only uninspiring campaign causing Democrats to yawn in Florida (bad for Hillary). Going for the Treasure Coast seat Murphy is giving up, is another utterly worthless non-Democrat multimillionaire, Randy Perkins, who has nothing to offer Florida voters but who had, by August 10, already spent $3,017,688 out of his personal fortune on the race-- and is losing anyway! On top of that, almost all the rotten, corrupt incumbents-- think beyond just Wasserman Schultz to Alcee Hastings for example). A nice blue 27th congressional district is being protected by Wasserman Schultz for her GOP corny Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, so... nothing going on there. Wassermann Schultz is also trying to sabotage Alina Valdes, the progressive Democrat running against another Republican Wasserman Schultz ally, Mario Diaz-Balart. Wassermann Schultz has made sure the Florida Democratic Party and the DCCC have completely-- and I mean completely starved Alina's campaign of any resources whatsoever. (You can contribute to her campaign here.)

Instead DCCC help is going to the worthless conservative Perkins and to four more right-of-center Democrats not doing anyone any good: the corrupt New Dem Joe Garcia, another former Republican, Charlie Crist, bungling ex-police chief and relicious fanatic Val Demings, and NRA-darling, New Dem Darren Soto, as bad an offering of Democrats as any state has ever vomited up for the voters.

So don't ask yourself why is Hillary only leading Trump by 2 points in Florida, ask yourself who, in their Democratic dead-zone, she's even running ahead at all. Imagine, for example if Grayson was the Senate candidate and Tim Canova was running in Broward instead of someone who makes progressive voters want to stay home of election day, the odious and toxic Wasserman Schultz!

And in a more general sense... this kind of thing gets some people totally pissed at the establishment, in Florida and everywhere else. Who wants a government breaking the law to spy on us? Reuters reported earlier that last year Yahoo "built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials... The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI."

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to a spy agency's demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.

Reuters was unable to determine what data Yahoo may have handed over, if any, and if intelligence officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo with this kind of request.

According to the two former employees, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's decision to obey the directive roiled some senior executives and led to the June 2015 departure of Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, who now holds the top security job at Facebook Inc."Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the company said in a brief statement in response to Reuters questions about the demand. Yahoo declined any further comment.

Are they now? Los Angeles area congressman and Constitution-defender Ted Lieu wasn't happy. Moments ago he issued a statement saying that "If true, the government’s directive to Yahoo to write a software program and search all of its customers’ incoming emails for certain content is a gross abuse of federal power.  Private sector companies and private citizens are not an arm of law enforcement or an extension of our intelligence agencies. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is clear: government cannot search or seize your private information without a warrant.  Law enforcement and the NSA did not have warrants for the hundreds of millions of customers that had their privacy violated. This revelation is particularly troubling because Congress, on a bipartisan basis, reigned in the NSA’s unconstitutional bulk collection of phone records last year.  It appears law enforcement and the NSA have continued to violate the Constitution and the American people’s right to privacy despite clear signals from Congress to follow the Constitution.  Forcing a private sector company to search emails is even worse than the NSA’s bulk collection program because now the federal government is seizing and searching content, not just meta data, without a warrant. This is big brother on steroids and it must be stopped."

Hillary would be smart to distance herself from this crap as fast as possible-- or is she going to give up on her drive to woo millennial voters? There are people who take this kind of stuff really, really, really seriously.