May 24, 2009
By Rady Ananda
A friend writes, “This item was installed this past week on the street light on my street & also more in the area. Are we being monitored by big government? I hope not, but does anyone care to explain or otherwise serve up your best guess?”
and a close up view showing control knobs:
Here are some of the responses he got:
If you use the Lord’s name in vain, you will get fined $150 over the internet
Free wi-fi for everybody
Has everybody got their tinfoil hats yet?
Nobody saw this thing being installed so shoot it & wait & see who comes to fix it!
I sent him some images from my collection of tech-weaponry:
Well, yes, we are being spied upon by our government. Every email, every phone convo… Thank you Bush-Obama for shredding the Constitution, etc., etc.
My guess is it’s a device that will receive or allow transmission. They can track anyone with a cell phone – maybe this device boosts or hones the info from satellites, sending it on to the police. It has two antennae.
Have you seen these devices?
Dragonfly bot – supposedly still in the lab. It can pick up and transmit audio and visual.
Send that bot into a crowd and listen up. Grab facial images. But maybe that little bot needs a boost in transmission power, so the device on your streetlamp may be to assist the little bug.
Talon Storm – here’s another miniature device supposedly still in the lab stage. Notice this lethal mini weapon has the same two antennae like the device on your street lamp. I gotta think this is to allow remote control.
Here’s a mini flying spy device – notice the antenna?
Now, you really wanna start worrying if you see opium plants like this one… an I-Pod
I’d have to vote for the last suggestion – shoot it down and wait to see who fixes it.
On a more serious note, check out Ray Louis’ Twitphilia & Twitanoia: Controlling Technology.
Practical Populism 
This is the article that got me banned from a Left Gatekeeper site, where I had volunteered for two and a half years, giving them 20 hours a week as an editor.
This was a light-hearted, fun article posted on a Sunday afternoon. It prompted exactly the kind of discussion I thought it would – COTO folks chimed in about the potentials of such technology.
The board of that other site swooped down to comment, obviously highly upset that we would dare discuss the political and social ramifications of such technology.
This was the final straw for them – in my comment, I posted a COTO logo. Although there were no rules that COTO was a verboten word, I was banned for my “extreme” positions. Here’s the pic I posted:
Don’t you wonder why the board of the other site was threatened by you, by COTO?
Personally….I think someone had their hands way deep in someone elses pockets. Take that any way you like!
Marti
yeah, it’s all so interesting … like a nightmare.
Reminds me of books I used to read about Nazi Germany, and the resistance network that learned to speak in code, eventually, because speech was so suppressed.
Like a dark cloud, we’re watching our avenues of free speech being closed down (bought out or newly controlled by today’s fascists).
saw the newest camera?what is this antenna? here IN PEORIA ILL. on w candletree dr .looks a little dif.than yours! found description&schematic of your antenna pic doing a bing search patent search,g@#gle is censoring this info.
thx, joe – when the article was first posted at opedsnooze, the coto folks solved the puzzle immediately. the antennae can be used for wifi; they can also be used to pick up local convos – depending on what’s attached or how it’s programmed.