..."#AlJazeera captured the underlying posture in a 2014 email referenced in the files. The reporting does not frame this as a theoretical debate. It presents an #operational sequence: #insecurity creates #political demand; demand legitimizes #foreign “#solutions”; “solutions” generate access, which is then #leveraged into broader deals.

#DropSite reported that in May 2015, Barak and his business partner, Gary Fegel, made a $15 million investment in FST #Biometrics, a #facialrecognition / #accesscontrol firm founded by Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, a former head of [#IOF] #military #intelligence.

The #technology’s lineage matters to how it was marketed. Drop Site reported that Farkash developed the concept of “#remote #identification” during the Second #Palestinian #Intifada at [IOF] checkpoints on the #Gaza border; in 2003, [IOF] deployed the “Basel” system at the #ErezCrossing, using facial scans to identify and process #Palestinians going to work....

In #Nigeria, the same reporting describes how Boko Haram’s attacks—often framed through a sectarian lens—created a ready-made narrative for pitching #biometriccontrol at a #Christian institution. Drop Site reported that a pilot was implemented at #BabcockUniversity, and by July 2015, an “in-motion #identification” system was live, with staff #training and #promotionallanguage emphasizing the #filtering of “unwanted persons.”

Al Jazeera’s account similarly notes that a #pressrelease at the time boasted the technology would “filter away all unwanted persons,” presenting #surveillance as safety while normalizing #populationcontrol logics in a #crisis setting..."

#Intelligence and #consciousness are linked but there's #no #guarantee that the consciousness will behave with what we would call high intelligence. Because as we see unfolding before us, stay leaned in, they will come undone. Every single virtual swing of the ax must happen to take down the tree.

Don't even think about stopping swinging. This lower quality of #consciousness may be tied to high #intelligence, but cuz of its lack of integrity, which is somehow a palpable element, it fails in its mission. I think it's easy to understand why that is ultimately guaranteed. They have no mission.

"Four years on, there are many lessons to be drawn from these events about how #intelligence is collected & analysed. Perhaps the most pertinent, as the world appears more unpredictable than at any time in recent #history, is that it is dangerous to dismiss a scenario because it seems to fit outside the realm of what is rational or possible."