Report: Thousands of Amazon Workers Listen to Your Alexa Conversations

TOM CICCOTTA11 Apr 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/04/11/report-thousands-of-amazon-workers-listen-to-your-alexa-conversations/

A report from Bloomberg News claims that Amazon workers are listening to your conversations with your Alexa device.

According to the report, thousands of Amazon workers are listening to the conversations that Alexa devices are having with their owners.

The workers are primarily based in Amazon facilities in Boston, Costa Rica, India, and Romania. The workers spend nine hours each day sifting through various conversations to ensure that Alexa understands what users are saying.

The team comprises a mix of contractors and full-time Amazon employees who work in outposts from Boston to Costa Rica, India and Romania, according to the people, who signed nondisclosure agreements barring them from speaking publicly about the program. They work nine hours a day, with each reviewer parsing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift, according to two workers based at Amazon’s Bucharest office, which takes up the top three floors of the Globalworth building in the Romanian capital’s up-and-coming Pipera district. The modern facility stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure and bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.

According to the report, these workers are hearing more than just the users Alexa prompts. Workers reported that they heard one user singing in the shower and a child screaming for help.

The work is mostly mundane. One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as “Taylor Swift” and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist. Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.

Two workers claim that they heard what they believed was an ongoing sexual assault. The workers were told by Amazon management that it wasn’t their role to violate the privacy of their customers.

In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson claimed that the company only reviews a small portion of Alexa conversations. “We take the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information seriously,” the Amazon spokesman said in the statement. “We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order [to] improve the customer experience. For example, this information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone.”

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.

Report: White House wanted to release immigrants into sanctuary cities to punish Democrats

Christal Hayes, USA TODAY Published 9:25 p.m. ET April 11, 2019 | Updated 6:29 a.m. ET April 12, 2019

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/11/white-house-release-immigrants-sanctuary-cities-report/3442543002/

WASHINGTON – The White House tried to pressure immigration authorities into releasing captured immigrants into sanctuary cities, particularly targeting liberal strongholds in hopes of hurting Democrats, according to a report from The Washington Post.

The report noted that the White House has attempted to pitch the idea to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at least twice since November. The White House suggested both transporting migrants who were captured at the border and those currently being held in facilities to sanctuary cities where local authorities don't cooperate with federal immigration enforcement authorities.

Among the areas targeted: Democratic strongholds, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco.

The Post reported that the proposal sought to ease the bed shortage at immigration detention centers and "send a message to Democrats."

The White House did not immediately respond to inquires about the proposal. In a statement to the Post, the White House admitted it was "just a suggestion that was floated and rejected."

The Department of Homeland Security echoed the White House in a statement to USA TODAY, saying, "this was a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion."

'His immigration legacy': Immigration policy legal challenges? Advisers urge Trump to ignore setbacks, charge ahead

Indeed, ICE's legal department pushed back against the White House proposal, pointing out the legal concerns, budget issues and "PR risks as well," according to the Washington Post, which cited both emails and officials within the DHS.

Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for Pelosi, derided the administration's idea to use immigrants in an attempt to hurt Democrats, including the idea to target her district.

"The extent of this Administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated," Etienne said. "Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable, and in some cases, criminal. The American people have resoundingly rejected this Administration’s toxic anti-immigrant policies, and Democrats will continue to advance immigration policies that keep us safe and honor our values."

The first time the White House brought up the idea was in November, around the time of the midterm elections, as a migrant caravan was approaching the southern U.S. border, the Post reported.

President Donald Trump repeatedly brought up the caravan and the southern border as a crucial issue in the lead up to the midterm races, even deploying 6,000 troops to the border in the days before voters cast their ballots.

"The idea has been raised by 1-2 principals that, if we are unable to build sufficient temporary housing, that caravan members be bussed to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities," May Davis, a deputy assistant to Trump wrote in an email to officials at ICE. The email's subject line read: sanctuary City Proposal," according to the Post.

>>6149491

Matthew Albence, who two administration officials say will be tapped as ICE's acting director by Friday, wrote back and pointed out the flaws with the plan, including the "operational burden" in transporting so many migrants.

"Not sure how paying to transport aliens to another location to release them — when they can be released on the spot — is a justified expenditure. Not to mention the liability should there be an accident along the way," he wrote, according to the Post.

President Donald Trump says he's not looking to reinstate the much-criticized practice of separating migrant families at the border with Mexico. (April 9) AP

The White House again brought up the proposal in February amid the government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history after Trump and congressional Democrats hit an impasse over funding for a wall along the southern border.

The president has continued to push his aggressive immigration agenda, even using his executive powers to implement policies or kickstart projects, such as his declaration of a national emergency in February that freed up billions to construction a wall along the southern border.

Sanctuary cities have long drawn Trump’s ire. Just days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order in 2017 that cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities, calling undocumented immigration a "clear and present danger" to national security. The order was immediately challenged in court and so far, judges have found the president’s order unconstitutional, though the Trump administration continues to appeal.

Trump's immigration policies have been a focal point of his presidency with his administration continuing to pose hardline stances on the issue, including a policy that led to the separation of migrant children from their families at the border.

That approach might be intensifying. Last week, Trump said he was pulling his nomination for a new director of ICE so they could go in a “different direction” with someone “tougher.”

The president’s comments came amid a massive shakeup within DHS that led to a handful of the department’s top officials leaving, including Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

#SanctuaryCities is starting to trend on Twitter. Interesting to see the comments, if anyone is interested in the border.

>>6149570

You see how they spin it too….to punish the democrats…pressured immigration authorities etc.

I hope the President will reconsider the idea!!

>>6149638

Oh and the big spin:

Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for Pelosi, derided the administration's idea to use immigrants in an attempt to hurt Democrats, including the idea to target her district.

"The extent of this Administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated," Etienne said. "Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable, and in some cases, criminal. The American people have resoundingly rejected this Administration’s toxic anti-immigrant policies, and Democrats will continue to advance immigration policies that keep us safe and honor our values."

Who falls for this shit?

https://twitter.com/45_Schedule/status/1116534759964971008

POTUS_Schedule

‏ @45_Schedule

10h10 hours ago

Daily Public Schedule for April 12, 2019:

11:30AM POTUS receives his intelligence briefing.

2:25PM POTUS delivers remarks on United States 5G deployment.

3:15PM POTUS meets with the Fraternal Order of Police Executive Board.

Exclusive–Study: Over 10K Illegal Aliens in U.S. from Terrorist-Sponsored Countries

JOHN BINDER11 Apr 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/11/exclusive-study-over-10k-illegal-aliens-in-u-s-from-terrorist-sponsored-countries/?__twitter_impression=true

There are more than 10,000 illegal aliens living in the United States who are from foreign countries that have been designated as state sponsors of terrorism by the State Department.

Newly obtained federal data from the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) reveals there to be over 10,000 illegal aliens living in the U.S. from countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan.

All of the illegal aliens have either been already ordered deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or have pending deportation orders, despite remaining in the U.S. The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens, once resettled in the interior of the country, are never deported. There are more than 1.7 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. who have not been deported despite having been ordered deported or having pending deportation orders.

In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight, IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said the issue of having thousands of illegal aliens living in the U.S. from countries that sponsor terrorism is a “very dangerous situation.”

Wilcox said:

We have 10,000 aliens … some of them are criminals and that’s why they’ve been ordered removed. You could have some that might have come into the country legally at some point. However, they’ve committed crimes and they’ve been ordered removed. [Emphasis added]

Then of course you have your variety of illegal aliens who have jumped the border or overstayed a legitimate visa. And they’ve been told to go home and yet they’re continuing to hide out in this country which only stresses the danger of sanctuary jurisdictions. [Emphasis added]

California has the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran. California is a sanctuary state. California is not cooperating with immigration authorities, so their sanctuary law is preventing ICE from removing these individuals. Of that number 10,000 … 6,000 of these individuals are Iranian. We’ve had hearings here recently in Congress where U.S. intellegiance officials have said there are Iranian sleeper cells inside the United States, ready and waiting for the order. [Emphasis added]

People have to understand how dangerous this is with these sanctuary cities because the first attack on the World Trade Center … the New York subway bombing conspiracy and 9/11, all of these plots were perprated by immigration violators. This is a very dangerous situation. [Emphasis added]

Specifically, more than 6,000 — or 61 percent — of the 10,000 illegal aliens are from Iran, while 20 percent are from Syria, 18 percent are from Sudan, and less than one percent came illegally from North Korea.

“We saw on 9/11 the damage that only 19 sleeper cell terrorists could cause,” Wilcox said. “This is just the latest example of the disaster of sanctuary laws, which force ICE agents to operate with one hand tied behind their backs while making our communities inherently more dangerous.”

Despite sanctuary cities shielding all illegal aliens from deportation, regardless of their criminal history, ICE agents were able to deport on average about 44 illegal aliens in the last two fiscal years who were known or suspected terrorists.

As Breitbart News has chronicled, the Diversity Visa Lottery — which imports more than 50,000 random foreign nationals to the country every year through a random drawing — has brought nearly 30,000 legal immigrants to the U.S. in the last decade from countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism. Roughly 30 percent of all Visa Lottery immigrants who have been brought to the country in the last five years have come from countries that sponsor terrorism.