San Bernardino Sheriff Has Used Stingray Over 300 Times With No Warrant 104
An anonymous reader writes: After a records request by Ars, the sheriff in San Bernardino County (SBSD) sent an example of a template for a "pen register and trap and trace order" application. The county attorneys claim what they sent was a warrant application template, even though it is not. The application cites no legal authority on which to base the request. "This is astonishing because it suggests the absence of legal authorization (because if there were clear legal authorization you can bet the government would be citing it)," Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, told Ars. "Alternatively, it might suggest that the government just doesn't care about legal authorization. Either interpretation is profoundly troubling," he added. Further documents reveal that the agency has used a Stingray 303 times between January 1, 2014 and May 7, 2015.
Are they LEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
Is an apparent law enforcement officer (or group thereof) who is conducting their work illegally, really a law enforcement officer?
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:5, Funny)
It's quite simple.
They are acting as agents of State Security, or "SS".
The SS operates without regard to laws or Constitutionally-mandated limits/restrictions to government powers. They believe as tyrants always have, that power comes from the barrel of a gun.
At a 2008 "distressed investors" forum, Ron Bloom, appointed Senior Counselor to President Obama for Manufacturing Policy in September 2009, said:
"Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market. Or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money, 'cause they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao, that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
This mentality is not uncommon across government, especially the higher one looks.
Strat
Re: Are they LEOs (Score:2, Interesting)
That attitude isn't uncommon among business executives either. They also know that the name if their game is to lie, bribe, cheat, and steal because the one thing they can't stand is a fair society where everybody has a reasonable chance.
That's why they buy governments, and of course we continue to elect officials who can be bought. You don't think the stingray devices are used anywhere in the country in support of investigations into corruption in government or business do you? They're used as part of c
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
This mentality is not uncommon across government, especially the higher one looks.
It is common across humankind, or even all animals in general. Looking out for yourself is a survival trait we all have. The whole idea that there is a Boogeyman (police/govt/terrorists/bankers/Bill Gate etc) is a myth. We're all the same, Milgram proved that. Given similar circumstances you or I would behave the same way, so let's stop perpetuating the stereotypes.
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:4, Informative)
We're all the same, Milgram proved that. Given similar circumstances you or I would behave the same way, so let's stop perpetuating the stereotypes.
No, Milgram did not prove that we are all the same. Quoting wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, subjects displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures.
So, 100% of the participants knew that they were doing something wrong and spoke up. Some 35% of the participants did stand up to the authority figure and refused to follow their orders. As I remember it, the initial experiment was conducted on white middle class college students, so I would be very hesitant to use it to generalize anything about the rest of us.
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What probably can be generalized is that only a minority refuses clearly unethical (some may say evil) orders from authority, as long as there is at least some, with Milgram not very large, force behind these orders.
Probably one of the reasons totalitarianism raises its ugly head time and again (and it is well on its way in the west this time): There are just too many participants that can be recruited with minimal effort and they tend to pile up. Humans are mostly still cavemen.
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So, 100% of the participants knew that they were doing something wrong and spoke up.
Spoke up, but 65% still acted. Talk is cheap...
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Given similar circumstances you or I would behave the same way,
We'll never know, because you or I would never have the opportunity to be in similar circumstances without being a shitbag in the first place. Only shitbags need apply to the upper echelons. People with a conscience will either kill themselves of be deposed before they reach those heights.
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One day our grand-kids will ask us the same questions German kids asked their grandparents.
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You and I are already shitbags. We all stood by and let our govts invade a sovereign nation and assassinate a foreign leader without a fair trial.
I refuse to feel bad about that, because I have zero chance to change it while the majority still believes the lies. I do what I can to wake my neighbors up to the facts, because without them, there can be no popular uprising.
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We're all the same, Milgram proved that. Given similar circumstances you or I would behave the same way, so let's stop perpetuating the stereotypes.
Erm, no, we're not. There are George Washingtons, for example.
That trope is a nice way of not having to make choices, and also of course excusing one's own transgressions, though.
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Erm, no, we're not. There are George Washingtons, for example.
The same George Washington that owned other humans? Is that the same guy?
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderated funny, of course because if you don't laugh about it, you'll cry. Big belly laughs instead of uncontrolled sobbing at realising that freedom and democracy were stolen right out from under our noses.
Isn't this the thing the Second amendment was supposed to prevent? By all rights the US Government should be afraid of the American people, however this kind of thing shows they're not. Not that I have anything against firearm ownership however, I think more people should be armed with pens - they're more powerful tool where the state is concerned.
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this the thing the Second amendment was supposed to prevent?
As I understand it, the 2nd Amendment was supposed to ensure against invasion from the British Empire by keeping the population armed, so any attempt at invasion would allow the armed population to spark a popular insurrection.
But it is really beside the point. A population is only able to stand up to oppression if it is organized, and in most advanced countries, governments and corporations are going to back down if an organized population demands change, e.g. Eastern Europe in the late 80s and early 90s. In most cases governments and corporations will just be biding their time, waiting for people to go home and settle back down into their lives, so they can roll back the concessions. A recent example is Egypt. Sometimes they will fight, but it is extremely dangerous, as there is no telling where it will end, e.g. Syria and Libya, not to mention destructive.
Going back to the US, it should be clear for everyone that the US rulers have successfully managed to keep its population disorganized through a variety of techniques such as sowing distrust between its citizens, massive surveillance, union-busting, mass media and the stacked circus of democracy.
Re:Are they LEOs (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't this the thing the Second amendment was supposed to prevent?
As I understand it, the 2nd Amendment was supposed to ensure against invasion from the British Empire by keeping the population armed, so any attempt at invasion would allow the armed population to spark a popular insurrection.
I think the founders also feared the power (both militarily and politically) of a large standing army. If the US is invaded, armed locals operating as militia can either harry the invaders or supplement the small professional army for local engagements.
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Isn't this the thing the Second amendment was supposed to prevent?
As I understand it, the 2nd Amendment was supposed to ensure against invasion from the British Empire by keeping the population armed, so any attempt at invasion would allow the armed population to spark a popular insurrection.
The explicit purpose is to make sure the government doesn't have a monopoly on power:
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org... [buckeyefirearms.org]
That our country is basically uninvadeable is a decent side benefit.
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Our country is "uninvadeable" because of geography, not people with small arms. You can bet if a large standing army were to decide to enter the US, a handful of people with 9mm pistols aren't going to stop it. Thankfully, we have oceans to our east and west, Canada is too passive to do anything, and Mexico's largest standing army is in the hands of drug cartels who would much rather sell us drugs than try and take over.
The total war scenario was enacted in Europe in two acts, showing that even with millions of armed men defending a country it was possible to invade and conquer if the invading army also had millions of armed men. Armed populations did, however, make it a lot more difficult for the Nazis to hold (e.g. Russia and Greece). But if we are looking at present day, nuclear weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles pretty much means an end to that kind of invasion. At least until one side manages to nullify th
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Our country is "uninvadeable" because of geography, not people with small arms. You can bet if a large standing army were to decide to enter the US, a handful of people with 9mm pistols aren't going to stop it.
There's more guns than people in the USA, and the majority of them are not 9mm pistols.
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Yes, that's what I came to say. I have many firearms, most of them far more powerful than a 9mm pistol. There are more guns than people, and that's just civilian arms.
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Not just that, but many people stockpiled ammo when shortages were announced. Whether that was a bid to get people to stockpile ammo or just a handout to ammo manufacturers, either way there's a whole lot of ammunition out there as well as firearms. There's probably more ammo privately stockpiled now than at any time in history.
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Exactly, and that's why the restrictions on so-called "assault weapons" are an unconstitutional travesty.
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Bullshit. They're not rare in crime because they're highly regulated; they're rare in crime because they're the wrong tool for the job. After all, WTF does a criminal care if he breaks the law by carrying a "regulated" gun? He's planning to commit a bunch of other crimes anyway!
Moreover, when automatic weapons are the right tool for the job, then criminals will have them. The Mexican d
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And if you think organization is necessary and only a big military machine can win, are you familiar with what's happening in the middle east? Have you ever heard of a place called Vietnam?
Where in my post did I write that organization is the same as a "big military machine"? Regarding your second point, I think that Islamic State and the Vietnamese Liberation Front qualifies as organizations.
The people don't need to be organized to hold their own, they simply need to all agree.
They need to agree on what to do and do it. In my view that is organization, even if the structures are informal.
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This is a beautiful post.
Bloom is explaining how investors view the market. You re-interpret it as if it represents the Obama administration. Nicely done. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be proud of you.
Don't you have FEMA concentration camps to find? Or contrails to track? Or welfare queens who are really prostitutes to bust? Are you finding evidence on the intarwebs that 9/11 was an inside job?
Seriously though, you should read Animal Farm. Here: https://www.marxists.org/subje... [marxists.org] Pay attention
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They Enforce, they don't Obey. That would just be silly, because it would spell LOO, which is limey-talk for a toilet.
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Which is pretty much what the bulk of american Police are.
Moron toilets that just blindly do whatever they are told. Most dont have the IQ to make a decision on their own.
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Keep knocking them in, lad.
Haven't you heard? (Score:1)
They ARE the LAW.
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Well, they're *enforcing* the law (against you). Their methods are just illegal (to them).
So technically still correct - they're enforcing the law.
Now, if you want to talk about upholding the law...
End-to-end encryption cannot come fast enough. (Score:1)
That's all.
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Redphone since 2010 https://whispersystems.org/ [whispersystems.org] .
Silent Phone since 2012 https://silentcircle.com/ [silentcircle.com] .
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Why is this modded up? Stingrays are mostly for metadata capture. End-to-end encryption is completely orthogonal to that.
TIL about wiretapping without wires (Score:5, Informative)
I always assumed that the exception to anti-wiretapping laws for pen registers was some kind of case law.
But not only is 18 USC 3121 is a specific law about pen registers, looking at 18 USC 3127 and the definitions that are incorporated from 18 USC 2510 , it's clearly intended to include radio communications.
For radio that's "readily accessible to the general public" the interception and disclosure rules have an exception, as you might expect, but no sign of that sort of thing in this pen register law.
Cool.
Re:TIL about wiretapping without wires (Score:5, Informative)
Also, cell frequencies aren't "readily accessible to the general public" - Congress has passed laws which specifically prohibit the public from accessing those frequencies and prohibits the manufacture of general purpose radios (scanners) which can receive them.
Re:TIL about wiretapping without wires (Score:5, Insightful)
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So if the perpetrators are still walking free that means ????
That it's business as usual for the LEO.
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18USC1029 would come into play too, just guessing.
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There are many laws created so law enforcement can stick it to people they don't like, while letting everyone else skip by.
Re:TIL about wiretapping without wires (Score:4, Interesting)
I always assumed that the exception to anti-wiretapping laws for pen registers was some kind of case law.
I speaking from readings of Australian law as it seems we are on the leading edge of destroying the freedom and point of western democracies, however my understanding of the parallel US Act is that this right would have been repealed in the Patriot Act or another act shortly after that one. Specifically US law should now allow for wire-taps/voice-mail/sms and email surveillance without an 'interception warrant' regardless of any case law before 2001. I don't know for sure, but I'd be very surprised if US law doesn't allow the same. Of course it was only meant for Intelligence agencies to us against terrorist operations.
It seems because we don't have a bill of rights like the US or UK the laws get framed here, tested, passed and then the US/UK take out the unconstitutional bits and pass that. I note that the fucked laws passed here because the population are largely apathetic, then they seem to make it to the US/UK lawmakers roughly a year later.
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Maybe it's time for the operators to be licensed with mandatory education (it is a transmitter after all). The device shouldn't operate unless the operator enters their license number and the court document number authorizing the interception. A third party should audit the operational log.
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Since they cannot be trusted to obey the law, additional legal requirements are irrelevant.
The telecommunication companies are hardy going to implement secure encryption and authentication so it would be better to use end-to-end encryption and authentication controlled by the users. That screws over all lawful interception but if this happens, law enforcement has nobody to blame but themselves for not abiding by the law. End-to-end encryption would also enforce *only* being able to capture true metadata.
Looking from afar (Score:1)
Looking at the activities of the police and security organs in the US from abroad, one gets the feeling that US is a typical fascistic country.
Basically in fascism the state works for the big businesses, the security services ignore laws they do not want to follow and there is commonly widespread spying on the population.
All those seem to be true at least to some degree, it is hard to judge how far gone/wide spread it is, but seems true nevertheless.
Points of note:
At least NSA and local police spying on the
Short version ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the company who sells this, or the agencies using this, have convinced themselves they live in a special area of law in which reality is as they have decided it to be.
They do not care if other people say they have no legal basis for this, they either don't care, or believe they do have a legal basis for this.
Which basically means law enforcement is in the hands of a bunch of idiots who don't know or care the law.
American law enforcement have become like the police in a banana republic ... they'll do whatever the hell they wish, and if you don't like it, they'll probably try to find some way to abuse the law against you.
But make no mistake about it, these people aren't going to obey the law unless until they find themselves under threat of being in a cell themselves. And then they'll just pretend to obey the law.
Law enforcement now believes they can do anything they want to achieve their ends. Because they're idiots who don't know or care about the law.
Re: So..... (Score:1)
Re:Short version ... (Score:4, Interesting)
From the moment the young LEO is put into a cruiser to enforce traffic laws he himself doesn't have to obey, there is an expectation of the "rules do not apply to me."
This is the way of it. Thanks to the FOIA, conscientious questioners of authority like Ars, and the Courts, we are not beholden to live in a police state unless we choose to sit around and accept it. Legislation to restrict the use of these Stinkrays has already been employed in Washington State and a bill is brewing in California.
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But make no mistake about it, these people aren't going to obey the law unless until they find themselves under threat of being in a cell themselves. And then they'll just pretend to obey the law.
No, they won't. What they will do is prosecute the people who expose them under new anti-whistle blower provisions in the law. Then put those people in jail for daring to defend their country from domestic enemies spreading corruption through the system. If people can't realise the benefits of living with the rule of law, knowing that it applies to everyone, then eventually no one respects the law.
Law enforcement now believes they can do anything they want to achieve their ends. Because they're idiots who don't know or care about the law.
The people rolling out these laws aren't idiots. They know exactly what they are doing and what they want to ac
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"Law enforcement now believes they can do anything they want to achieve their ends. Because they're idiots who don't know or care about the law.
Not because they are idiots, but because they are right-wing authoritarians. Here's a free E-Book all about their thinking. You will be amazed at the part where the professor wondered if their predilection for forming posses to round up "enemies of the state" had any limits, so he asked them if they would round up each other, and most still said yes! http://members.shaw.ca/jeanalt... [members.shaw.ca]
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Which basically means law enforcement is in the hands of a bunch of idiots who don't know or care the law.
The high-end cops, the chiefs and sergeants and whatnot, know the law well enough to know they're breaking it. The low-end beat cops know fuck-all about the law, this has been shown again and again. It's what happens when you only need a couple of years of community college and a pat on the ass to become a cop.
But make no mistake about it, these people aren't going to obey the law unless until they find themselves under threat of being in a cell themselves. And then they'll just pretend to obey the law.
And that's why every cop needs a camera on all the time, and they should never ever be taken at their word. If there's no video evidence of what they're saying, then they should be assumed to be lying
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There is basically no way to challenge it so it is legal. If you are innocent, then the court enforced 4th amendment remedy of exclusion of evidence does not apply. If you are charged with a crime, then parallel construction prevents you from challenging the evidence.
Re: Stingray (Score:1)
Fucking google it. Jesus.
A fish (Score:2)
Called Wanda.
San Bernardino County Resident (Score:2)
"Alternatively, it might suggest that the government just doesn't care about legal authorization."
As a resident of San Bernardino county (for 15+ years) who has personally known many members of the Sheriff's Department, I'd suggest that this is indeed the case. This county is the largest in the nation and has population widely dispersed throughout a vast majority of it's area, making deployment difficult. The attitude I saw most prevalent was one of "I don't care, just get it done". A perceived relative la
Re: San Bernardino County Resident (Score:2, Informative)
They do, however, and more often then not, get the job done.
As documented here [ktla.com]
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I have the best punishment... (Score:3)
Set up a video camera and he get's tazed once for every time he violated the law. This video is posted to youtube.
Scumbag cops like that dont care about fines, They need to be tazed in the scrotum. THAT they will understand.
Taser (Score:1)
Honestly, it's amusing to think about this but not likely to happen. What should happen, legally, is he should either be dismissed from his position, charged, or both.
Unfortunately this is about as likely to occur as said testicle-tasing.
the civil rights culture is past now because of... (Score:1)
You don't really understand what is going here. Aren't you lucky to have me to explain it to you?
Look, all these things with civil rights and warrants and etc are really more or less an outgrowth of the civil rights era and the overclass educated culture that gave rise to that civil rights era.
And, please, do not lecture me on the constitution. I am a lawyer. I know al
Smith v. Maryland (Score:4, Informative)
According to Smith v. Maryland, Law enforcement doesn't need a warrant for pen registers, because people have no expectation of privacy in the numbers they called. That one decision has led to the entire NSA metadata collection, as well as unrestrained use of Stingrays and similar devices. Remember that next time someone sneers at the slippery slope.
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According to Smith v. Maryland, Law enforcement doesn't need a warrant for pen registers, because people have no expectation of privacy in the numbers they called. That one decision has led to the entire NSA metadata collection, as well as unrestrained use of Stingrays and similar devices. Remember that next time someone sneers at the slippery slope.
I'm sneering at your "slippery slope"
You're saying case law is a slippery slope, which is asinine because a judge's job is to interpret the law that legislators write. It's not to make you happy, and that's why you don't elect them. In this case, we're talking about Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution - it doesn't do what you want it to.
If you don't like that, then man up and talk to your legislators and get new laws or amendments passed, or at least acknowledge that's what's needed. Laws
"We don't need no stinkin' legal authorization" (Score:2)
This is astonishing because it suggests the absence
of legal authorization (because if there were clear legal authorization
you can bet the government would be citing it),"
Law enforcement can still conduct an illegal search to further their investigation. They cannot use evidence in court that they directly discovered as a result of the search; However, they can still use the information to help develop their investigation, And once they've found what they think is the truth, they will be able to lev
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