How Google and Amazon Are Killing Those Protected by the “Witness Protection Program”
It was first reported on early this year. People have suspected it for closer to two. Your cell phone’s microphone is eavesdropping on your private conversations and using the transcripts of those private conversations in order to show you targeted advertisements. A growing body of testimony from insiders reveals that both Google and Amazon are storing a recording of as well as a transcript of every conversation had by every person in the world that comes in proximity to one of their devices.
Unbelievably, instead of protesting en masse in the streets, the American people show no signs of true outrage at this breach of privacy, and instead have written it off as the cost of doing business. Now, however, there is evidence that consumer apathy combined with an unaccountable corporatocracy may be systematically killing people the government promised us would remain safe – no matter what. They said it was what we owed them for their courageous help fighting organized crime, drug cartels, and the like. For several dozen people in the past two years, that has been a promise broken.
Despite the most stringent precautions, in the past two years between 50 and 100 individuals and families have died or simply disappeared under suspicious circumstances from the Witness Protection Program. These were people who followed the advice of their handlers and refrained from any contact with people from their past. They didn’t access old email accounts, they abandoned their old social media accounts, and they kept their head down. They didn’t use online dating services or any other website that required them to post a photo of themselves online. They worked in jobs that allowed them to keep a low-profile, and many of them changed their physical appearance. In all cases, there was nothing to suggest that protocol had been broken – the leading cause of harm coming to protectees. Despite all of this, they weren’t well-protected enough.
Did someone in the federal government squeal? Was there a mole on the inside? That possibility was certainly considered, but was debunked. So, who ratted out the witnesses?
In addition to transcribing conversations, Google and Amazon are employing voiceprint analysis comparable to that used by intelligence agencies for the past two decades. Google and Amazon have the capability of flagging any user’s voice with as little as 30 seconds of sample data and linking it to other samples collected in association with different accounts. Even if an individual avoids smart devices entirely, they must live and work around others who use the devices. As such, their voice is captured by the devices of others. Google’s system even has the ability to automatically flag dialogue from television commercials frequently caught in the background of the audio collected using an algorithm similar to that used in the popular music app ‘Shazam.’ Simply not purchasing a smart device is not sufficient to keep out of their databases. When a voiceprint is identified as belonging to a particular individual, it goes into their “master file”. Once the system “knows you well,” which the insider we spoke said required only “three minutes of continuous speech,” it can correctly identify a person any time they speak in the presence of any smart device running their software. If you buy a new phone, open an account under a new name and social security number, or simply steal a phone, that will not be sufficient to protect you, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.