“If you have a Fire TV device, unplug it when you’re not using it. You’ll save a small amount of electricity, but more importantly you might also save your privacy from the prying eyes at Amazon, the NSA and the CIA, . . .” M Adams
NaturalNews ~ Amazon.com is building the CIA’s new $600 million data center, reports the Financial Times. (1) At the same time Amazon.com is building this massive cloud computing infrastructure for the CIA, the company is also shipping millions of Fire TV set-top devices to customers who are placing them in their private homes. I have one myself, and it’s a terrific piece of hardware for delivering Prime video content. In fact, in terms of its usability and specs, it’s far superior to Roku or Netflix-capable devices. Fire TV is, hands down, the best set-top video delivery device on the market today.
But there’s something about it that always struck me as odd: it has no power button. There’s no power button on the remote, and there’s no power button on the box. It turns out there’s no way to power the device off except for unplugging it.
This is highly unusual and apparently done by design. “It is not necessary to turn off Amazon Fire TV when you are finished using it,” says the Amazon.com website. (2) “Your Amazon Fire TV is designed to go into sleep mode after 30 minutes, while continuing to automatically receive important software updates.”
Note carefully that this does not say your Fire TV device WILL go into sleep mode after 30 minutes; only that it is “designed” to go into sleep mode after 30 minutes. As lawyers well know, this is a huge difference.
Fire TV devices linked to your identity
So far, you might not be convinced this is anything to write home about, but there’s much more to this story. What we know so far is that Amazon.com is building the CIA’s new cloud computing data center, and we also know the company’s Fire TV devices have no way to be turned off and are being placed in the living rooms of private homes.
What starts to make this really interesting is when you realize these devices are linked to your identity before they’re shipped to you.
Ever notice that when you power on your Fire TV device, it already knows who you are? Your entire library of video purchases on Amazon.com is already available, and those purchases are of course linked to your credit card, which is linked to your social security number, which is linked to your identity.
In other words, Amazon.com knows the identity of the owner of every Fire TV box currently sitting in living rooms across America. This mean it can connect everything that happens around that box (including audio monitoring, as you’ll see below) to your personal identity.
Fire TV devices listen to your voice and upload audio to Amazon servers
Here’s the next piece of this puzzle that may give you pause: There is a built-in microphone on the Fire TV remote.
When you click the search button, your voice is recorded and uploaded to Amazon.com servers where it is analyzed by Amazon cloud computing applications — the same kind of thing Amazon is building for the CIA — in order to return search matches to your local TV screen.
Now, I fully realize that most Americans are too gullible and naive to believe their audio recordings get uploaded to Amazon.com servers, so I’m going to quote CNET.com here which published an article earlier this year entitled: “How to delete your Fire TV voice recordings – Amazon stores your recordings on its servers to improve accuracy of voice searches. Here’s how you can delete that data.” (3)
As this article openly states, “To improve the service and the voice results, however, Amazon records and stores the voice samples associated with your account to its servers.”
It goes on to warn readers that “there is no way to opt-out of Amazon’s voice storage.”
And there you have it: the Fire TV device was engineered from the start to record your voice, upload it to Amazon’s servers — now being expanded to the CIA — and link those voice recordings to your identity.
Nothing written in this article so far should be debatable in the least: it’s all fact, openly admitted by the company itself. Then again, the average Netizen is so clueless about reality that you’ll probably see people denying the fact that Fire TV set-top boxes have microphones and the ability to upload voice recordings to Amazon.com. Some will call that a “conspiracy theory” even though it’s part of the published specification of the device.
But there’s even more to this story that does legitimately qualify as a debatable topic. Let’s explore…
The perfect spy devices for monitoring private conversations in your home
How hard would it be for Fire TV devices to monitor and upload your conversations 24/7?
Think about it: Fire TV devices already have the hardware, software and bandwidth to record audio and upload it to Amazon.com. That’s part of the spec and functionality of the system. The devices have no power off button to discourage people from turning them off. The devices are already linked to your personal identity via your credit card on file with Amazon, and this is the same company that’s now building a massive storage and data center for the CIA, which for some reason now needs massive data storage capacity and the ability to process that data using buildings full of servers.
An article published by MHP Books (4) reveals that Amazon may already be working with the NSA to provide surveillance data on U.S. citizens:
…One mainstream source — Businessweek — rather perversely observes that the leaked documents show Dropbox was about to be added to the PRISM program, then goes on to say that “This is a weird one because Dropbox stores its customers’ files on Amazon.com’s cloud computing service, yet Amazon appears nowhere in the Prism documents.” It fails to note that not all the companies suspected of supplying the NSA with info were named in the documents — that those documents were in fact redacted — although it does show a modicum of due diligence in asking Amazon if it was participating in the NSA program, and a spokeswoman responds with an apparent two word answer: “Not cooperating.”
But are they to be believed? Other non-mainstreamers report bluntly that Amazon was part of PRISM. To still other observers, such as this reader in the Guardian, it seems obvious: “Does this explain the apparent immunity to tax of Apple, Amazon and co?” she asks.
Full details on the PRISM infrastructure exposed by Edward Snowden are described in this Market Oracle article. We’ve also covered it here on Natural News.
Another article entitled, “Snowden slams Amazon for leaking customer data to the NSA” reveals how former NSA contractor Edward Snowden harshly criticized Amazon.com for allowing intelligence agencies to read everything you browse on Amazon.com, including book titles, movies and more. This is happening due to Amazon.com’s failure to implement proper encryption protocols, Snowden explains. (5)
Corporations spying on their own customers is a conspiracy FACT
You can fully expect that many people who are still living in the pre-Snowden era will immediately decry this article as a “conspiracy theory.” But doing so only paints a dunce label on their foreheads, because thanks to Snowden, we already know as a matter of record that nearly all the large data companies routinely spy on their own customers and hand over that data to the NSA. Welcome to 1984, three decades later.
Perhaps in 2004, the idea that all your phone calls, emails, credit card transactions, banking activities, web surfing habits and social media posts were monitored by the NSA could be considered kooky and weird. But today, ten years later, all this (and more) is known to be historical fact.
If you don’t believe me, listen to the words of former high-level NSA architect William Binney who now warns that “the ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control,” according to a headline in The Guardian. (6)
That Guardian article goes on to report:
Binney recently told the German NSA inquiry committee that his former employer had a “totalitarian mentality” that was the “greatest threat” to US society since that country’s US Civil War in the 19th century.
The era of mass surveillance has gone from the fringes of public debate to the mainstream, where it belongs… One of Europe’s leading web creators, Lena Thiele, presented her stunning series Netwars in London on the threat of cyber warfare. She showed how easy it is for governments and corporations to capture our personal information without us even realising.
That may be exactly what Amazon is doing right now with Fire TV set-top boxes: capturing our personal information without us realizing.
Huge intelligence value of recording your private conversations
Imagine the intelligence value of having 24/7 audio streams of private household conversations that are linked to all the other information Amazon already has on us: book purchasing habits, video viewing habits, shopping behaviors and more. While many people concerned about digital privacy often point to Google’s tracking of your search queries, in truth Amazon.com has a far more intimate knowledge of your psyche than Google because Amazon knows what you’re buying, watching, reading and consuming.
I’m sure my own Amazon.com purchase history would be a goldmine of data revealing a long history of purchases of laboratory equipment, firearms accessories, rare books and products related to special interest areas such as aviation history and aquaponics. Imagine the value of this information if combined with live audio of someone holding private conversations in their own living room.
With Fire TV, Amazon may have already displaced Google as the internet company that knows more about your psyche than anyone else. And Amazon is the company that’s now building the CIA’s new cloud computing center.
Gives you something to ponder, doesn’t it?
All Fire TV devices are one update away from being activated as spy devices
I fully realize there may be many skeptics who can’t possibly fathom the idea of Amazon.com spying on them in their own living rooms. Then again, there are still people who believe that concrete-and-steel buildings collapse like a perfect demolition job following a few small office fires. Go figure.
But consider this: Even if Fire TV boxes aren’t currently being used to spy on you, they could be activated as spy devices with a simple software update.
And guess what? Those software updates are automatic and selective. In other words, Amazon.com could turn on spying functions for certain selected Fire TV boxes belonging to certain people the NSA or CIA wanted to monitor.
The updates happen quietly, in the background, without your knowledge. One day you wake up and your Fire TV box is suddenly monitoring everything you say, without your knowledge, right in your own living room.
Anyone who thinks this isn’t possible is living in a world of delusion. Corporations routinely spy on their own customers and turn over that data to the NSA or CIA. The more realistic question is: why wouldn’t Amazon already be doing this?
Simple solution: UNPLUG!
Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to all this: UNPLUG it!
In fact, the mantra “Unplug” might be the perfect word for the greatest wisdom of our time. If you don’t want to be spied on, unplug from the grid: don’t shop at Amazon.com, don’t run search queries on Google, don’t use email, don’t use credit cards and don’t install spy devices in your own living room.
By simply unplugging these devices, you deny them the stream of electrons they need to spy on you. That’s their Achilles Heel: they all need electricity, and YOU control the electricity.
Personally, I love using Fire TV, but I now unplug it when I’m not watching something. This not only protects my privacy from Amazon snoops, it also seems to make the device function a lot better by rebooting it each time.
If you have a Fire TV device, unplug it when you’re not using it. You’ll save a small amount of electricity, but more importantly you might also save your privacy from the prying eyes at Amazon, the NSA and the CIA, all of which are aggressively expanding their monitoring and surveillance of Americans.
Sources for this story include
- (1) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/10e229b8-fbbd-11e3…
- (2) http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/displ…
- (3) http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-delete-you…
- (4) http://www.mhpbooks.com/is-amazon-one-of-the…
- (5) http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/18/snowden-sl…
- (6) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/201…
Mike Adams says: “If you have a Fire TV device, unplug it when you’re not using it. You’ll save a small amount of electricity, but more importantly you might also save your privacy from the prying eyes at Amazon, the NSA and the CIA, . . .”
Is he kidding?
He thinks people should just giving them money and just unplug sometimes? And does he think people shouldn’t mind them recording everything they say when they are watching shows? Or that the device will eventually not depend on being unplugged to keep recording?
There should be a giant class action suit with the country suing them – for fraud, for violation of people’s privacy and homes, for all the crimes involved in covertly setting up such an invasion of people’s lives!
Or maybe it’s more important to get Amazon’s selection of movies than to have the most basic of rights.
This is bigger than TV.
Amazon Is Truly a Beast: Its Convenience Kills
by Will U Stopp?
“Now comes a new revelation that Amazon.com Fire TV devices are *engineered* to record your voice and upload those recordings to Amazon’s servers for storage. This is the company that just received a $600m contract to build the CIA’s new “cloud computing” data center, and it’s the same company that knows what you read, what you watch and what you consume.
“Here’s the full story ….
http://www.naturalnews.com/046009_Amazon_Fire_TV_audio_surveillance_perfect_spying_device.html
The “cloud computing” data center is not about clouds. It’s about drones. So, to be clear, Amazon is working with the CIA on drones that kill people. http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/12/amazon-the-cia-and-assassinations/
And Amazon, the friendly book seller, is also now crushing publishers in the UK, not just destroying local bookstores as it is doing there and here as well. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2014/04/16/uk-publishers-and-amazon-keep-calm-and-carry-on/
Still want to order through them? Or might it be worth your time – for the sake of local book stores, publishing itself, your privacy, your freedom, and peace in the world – to buy locally? And if you want to send a present, would it worth your time to do a search for local stores in that area and make a long distance call to order locally so your friend or family could pick up a gift there? And might it be good to get rid of Amazon’s TV device so your family can talk freely without being spied on by a company working for the CIA?
These are individual choices in our day to day life but they are of immense consequence. And taken en masse, they are devastatingly powerful. Amazon could be stopped, even ended, by simply not using it. It assumes that people have become addicted to convenience and since it offers the most, it is untouchable. But maybe we can see our family and our world and our very lives are worth more than a moment’s convenience.
When we ask, what can we do personally to make a difference, here it is.
Buying locally destroys the globalist threat to our lives. In doing that, without protesting a thing, you would be taking a major stand for human privacy, for the existence of books, and for people around the world (and here, including you yourself) not being killed by drones.
Buy local. And if there is a choice between anything made in the US and made elsewhere, choose here. And if any of this costs more, chalk it up to your donation to your own life – to books and freedom and a safe country not bombed by CIA/Amazon drones.
Convenience doesn’t just sap the life out of people and the social life and financial base out of communities, it turns out – as Amazon has proven – that convenience is a literal killer.
We see the impact of the same convenience formula – easier, faster, cheaper – in food, too. There, too, it is killing us.
The same with money. Oh, the convenience of credit. But, oh, the deadliness of debt.
The same with health. Here, take this pill, and then that one to make up for side effects of the first one. You are being offered the convenience of drugs over eating real food and of getting out and moving around and doing. You are offered convenience – in the form of a tiny object you swallow or of a injection of unknown substances – over your making a small effort and taking rational care of your own body.
Convenience is an addiction. Convenience undergirds and is also the allure of all the other addictions – debt, drugs, fast phony food, sound bites rather than information, cool techy things (that spy on us). Doing less and less for ourselves and letting corporations do everything for us, is the ultimate addiction sold at every turn, in every ad, by corporate elite.
“Make no effort,” they say. “Here, this is easy, it’s fun, it’s way cool. We’re out here to make your life wonderful and so much simpler!” But what they don’t say is “We’re manipulating every possible thing we can in your life, from what you eat and drink, to what you wear and sit on, to what you see and hear, and even to the diseases you get, and with it all, we’re watching you and recording everything you say and do.”
Buy local. Break the addiction to convenience. And when you buy in your community, buy from local shops, not the corporate chains.
This is what you can do to save the world and your family. It’s not small. It’s huge.
Hi Sam, thanks for your very insightful comment. You say “Amazon could be stopped, even ended, by simply not using it. It assumes that people have become addicted to convenience and since it offers the most, it is untouchable.”
Well, this is very true. I, for one, used to cart around hundreds of pounds of books that took up 4 floor-to-ceiling bookcases. I now carry around double the number of books – many of them classics – in a 5″x7″ kindle. Doesn’t matter where I am in the world I have my library with me. So there are most definitely positives that counteract the negatives of Amazon, Google and the like.
It is difficult to see things “redefined” in our lifetimes. However, there was a period when horse-drawn carriages and autos shared the same cobblestones. And then they didn’t. There was a time when candles ruled the night. Now they don’t. There is a sadness associated with the passing of an era. However, the era could never have been passed unless there were something more appealing beckoning beyond it. the fact of “appeal” does not mean it’s “good” or that, even if “good,” it can’t be used nefariously.
That is why this is such a seminal time in humanity’s evolution. This is a time calling for utmost discernment. There are real dangers in too much technology and too much centralized control. There are great benefits in harmonious integration of technology under INDIVIDUAL rather than centralized control. Getting there safely remains the challenge. g
Do I really need to say it?
For it is quite obvious.
GET RID OF YOUR T.V. INFOTAINMENT SYSTEM, NOW.
Use the internet for alternative news.
Talk to your neighbors, etc.
People, you should know by now that the T.V. is designed to PROGRAM you into, “consumer servitude,” resulting in deep slave debt and choosing the, “politically correct candidate,” etc.
And the ELF radiation from the device does, “wonders” for your DNA.
We MUST return to a COMMUNITY base exchange of TRUTHFUL info to each other and to other communities.
Our FUTURE depends on it.
Namaste.