Articles:Watch the Watchers with Federal Contracts Database

(Original Article & Comments)

The EFF has put together a quick tutorial[1] on finding out what sorts of surveillance technologies US federal agencies have been buying. This is accomplished with the search feature on FedBizOpps[2], a website for government contractors to find "federal business opportunities".

Examples of documents that anyone can retrieve from the database include the Director of National Intelligence's funding of a program to dramatically increase facial recognition algorithms[3], the FBI purchasing fiber-optic tapping systems[4] and a contract for drone programs in Burundi, Kenya and Uganda[5].

External links / Further reading

EFF Tutorial

Example of FBI Soliciting Malware

About the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Home page of the FBO (government contractors site)

Revisions

Included Explanation of FedBizOpps

Links to the FedBizOpps site and example results mentioned in the article

Link to "About" page of the EFF, for background