FBI Is Behind Mysterious Flights Over US Cities 167
New submitter kaizendojo sends a report from the Associated Press indicating the FBI has a small fleet of planes that fly across the U.S. carrying surveillance equipment. The planes are registered with fictitious companies to hide their association with the U.S. government. The FBI says they're only used for investigations that are "specific" and "ongoing," but they're often used without getting permission from a judge beforehand. "Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they're not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare." The AP identified at least 50 FBI-controlled planes, which have done over 100 flights since late April. The AP adds that they've seen the planes "orbiting large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection."
Don't worry about it! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Obama will stop this nonsense just as soon as he's President and Bush is out of office...
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Re:Don't worry about it! (Score:4, Insightful)
After he is elected for life!
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If you can name a tyranny that allows the citizens to keep and bear arms, I'm all ears.
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No no no, we only need to grant him emergency powers for the duration of this crisis.
Re:Don't worry about it! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure it'll happen in his first hundred days.
He's not a corrupt stooge for corporate interests like Bush, and he says he really cares about me as an individual. The whole world will be different once Barack Obama is president.
I can't wait for Bush and his cronies like Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, to leave office.
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Are you the Koch heads or the Russian Trolls? Hard to tell apart.
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I'm complaining about Bush, naturally. That man has made nothing but messes for the last 15 years, and it's about time that somebody with the good of the American people in mind took power.
President Obama will end these ridiculous abuses of power just as soon as he takes office - once he's in charge, Bush won't be able to screw ANYTHING up!
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Looking for a better word than "bastard". Must be 2 syllables and strongly suggest "inimical to civilization". Reply below
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it's not trolling. it's a fair point. On a whole host of issues, most notably privacy and executive power, the Obama administration is lock step a continuation of the bush administration.
"The buck stops here." The FBI is using spy planes over US cities. Obama is either complicit or ignorant, neither of which leaves him innocent.
GP is a mocking rebuttal to those who thought he election of Obama would solve all problems, and his messianic persona during the first campaign.
Yeerks (Score:2, Insightful)
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Bah... It's gotta be a false story. I mean think of the fuel costs from having these things perpetually in the....
Who the hell am I kidding? These are the same people who purchase hammers for $200 just to justify a bigger budget for their existence...
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At first I was going to make a joke about chest rails or whisper copters, but the reality is just as ugly.
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The "$200 hammer" was because the corporation that sold it wasn't willing to go through the paperwork for less.
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how the frig would congress or whoever foots the bill know? the flights are on purpose not registered to the fbi.
on what purpose? well because it's illegal on variety of levels.
though, because of the structure, the fronting companies should be sued by the fcc among other parties.
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My summary of the summary:
Interviewer: So, you are spying on us with flying drones that can't be traced back to you and that you use without a warrant?
NSA: They barely do anything, and we hardly ever use them. And we only ever use them for good. You have nothing to worry about. Leave us alone.
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What they're doing is legal. It's spelled out in plain English in the PATRIOT act.
This [congress.gov] represents "plain English" to you? Seems to me that the Fourth Amendment is written in much plainer English than the PATRIOT act.
Go to the Wikipedia page right now and read it top to bottom. It's simplified there, and it cites the legal document itself.
All anyone has to read is the last word of "UNITING AND STRENGTHENING AMERICA BY PROVIDING APPROPRIATE TOOLS REQUIRED TO INTERCEPT AND OBSTRUCT TERRORISM". Unless you believe that the FBI's use of these planes is solely for thwarting terrorists, these activities require judicial oversight.
In any case, just because some dipshit congressmen passed some opportunistic legisla
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""Electronic communications" is the term used in the USA PATRIOT Act itself and was intentionally vague to cover everything from the telegraph to whatever gets invented in the future."
That's why I went back to messenger pigeons.
Exchanging birds every week is easier than setting up PGP.
Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure it's the FBI and not the Stasi? I'm having more and more trouble telling them apart.
Re:Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or communist.
East Germany was a communist state and this sort of thing was right up their alley.
The common feature of both is collectivist authoritarianism.
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't FBI come to life inspecting brothels?
Yes, but since most of the johns turned out to be Secret Service agents, they decided to focus their efforts elswhere.
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The Stasi was much worse. Read about "Zersetzungsmaßnahmen". But they were also extremely low tech.
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The Stasi would get their pants in a wet bunch if they were around today :) USA has become a fascist state.
Technically, becoming a fascist state would require the government taking control of the corporations rather than the corporations taking control of the government, a one party government rather than two, and a nationalistic sense of ethnicity within the country (targeting enemies of the state) rather than "I got mine, fuck you" sectarian agenda. Whatever the US is working toward, it is not a fascist state, but something else, perhaps "neo-fascist". Still, we are not there yet. With respect to those that ha
specific and ongoing (Score:3)
The FBI says they're only used for investigations that are "specific" and "ongoing,"
glad they're not using them for their nonspecific and already ended investigations.
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I bet the victims of the Stasi could put out the difference to you.
Hail Hydra! (Score:2)
n/t
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The Stasi looked more stylish, in a sort of Kardashian way.
The FBI's suits fit, albeit a bit on the baggy side.
POE OPE DOPE (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, FBI and NSA, you only use it for good, as opposed to Putin, who uses it for evil. The goodness in your heart will prevent your panopticon from being misused to fall into dictatorship, even though nothing in human history gives you confidence in that theory, and the Founding Fathers, who barely freed themselves from a much less intrusive entity, took great care to prevent government from doing what you are doing now, because they knew the flaw in allowing government any power like that was indeed the purity of your heart and your promise not to abuse.
Batman: Beautiful, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lucius Fox: Beautiful... unethical... dangerous. You've turned every cellphone in Gotham into a microphone.
Batman: And a high-frequency generator-receiver.
Lucius Fox: You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is *wrong*.
Batman: I've gotta find this man, Lucius.
Lucius Fox: At what cost?
Batman: The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.
Lucius Fox: This is too much power for one person.
Batman: That's why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.
Lucius Fox: Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description.
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Oh Batman, please tell me more about your NULL KEY ENCRYPTION.
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Re:Batman: Beautiful, isn't it? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh great, now I have to change the combination to my luggage, garage door, cellphone, and bike lock, because you posted all of them on the internet. Jerk.
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Actually, that's 00000000.
This is all Bush's fault!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's too bad we couldn't elect a president that promises transparency and who will work to end these practices...
Oh he heard about it in the news just like you and now he's focused like a laser on the problem.... We will get to the bottom of this, at least we will try for as long as the news cycle lasts.
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In a few weeks it will become a fabricated issue. Then our next President will ask, "what difference does it make now anyway?"
Same shit, different day.
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No! You would reveal the Bat-secret of the null key Bat-encryption Bat-(R)-algorithm to the Joker!
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Don't worry. Some of us are still waiting for 1 October, 1993.
And this is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Reform of the FBI, NSA, etc is unlikely, they just "keep doing it".
These guys are supposed to be the watchers, but who is watching the watchers? And even if someone was what can they do about it?
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I'm just wondering, what do we think they are doing? Where I agree it looks bad, but do we have any real information about what they are doing and if the data, pictures or what have you being collected really is somehow a problem.
Re:And this is why (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just wondering, what do we think they are doing? Where I agree it looks bad, but do we have any real information about what they are doing and if the data, pictures or what have you being collected really is somehow a problem.
Right.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
TFA notes that the FBI's surveillance is "generally" done without a judge's approval. The problem here is obvious.
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Yes, but.. The courts have established that law enforcement CAN do surveillance in public areas and collect evidence of crimes. Plus, if they are doing warranted surveillance of one thing and happen to see evidence of an unrelated crime they can use that evidence. This is what the local traffic cop is doing when he drives around looking for speeders or people who blow though red lights and it's all perfectly legal.
So given that, if they are up taking video of a valid target from a public space (and they ar
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People's back yards are not public areas. Also law enforcement cannot use tools that are not generally available in order to spy into people's houses (specifically, the case was about thermal imaging, but using a plane to see into private back yards is exactly the same).
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I was addressing the PREVIOUS post where they where claiming that the apparent flights over Baltimore and Ferguson riots where scooping up cell phone data, not that the FBI doesn't have the capability to do it.
By the way, the WSJ article you are pointing too is pretty much just rumor without substantiation when it starts to talk about the FBI improperly collecting cell phone data. First, the source is not revealed, and although they claim to be well placed in the operation, we don't know exactly what rol
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If it's spoofing a cell tower the way the Stingray does then it's getting every phone attached to the spoofed tower, it is "scooping" it all up.
Especially in a case like Ferguson or Baltimore, you would want to scoop it all up.
In active mode, the StingRay will force each compatible cellular device in a given area to disconnect from its service provider cell site (i.e., operated by Verizon, AT&T, etc.) and establish a new connection with the StingRay.[12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
In any case why trust them? They are using front companies to do this with and they don't have a real good reputation these days.
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Oh please.. Think about it a bit..
IF you are investigating people for crimes they are currently involved in, you don't go around telling everybody who you are investigating. Making all this public record would be stupid because it would be like telling the criminals when and where you are watching.
The FBI must be able to keep secrets and operate out of public view to do their jobs.
Before you go off half cocked and start claiming this isn't fair or right because there isn't any accountability... Remember
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The remedy for violations of the 4th Amendment is exclusion of evidence but this does cannot apply unless you have a trial. If they did charge you, then parallel construction wo
Re:And this is why (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that meant as sarcasm? If it was meant to be serious, then you are seriously mis-informed. Google "Parallel construction"
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Parallel construction is illegal. It is a method of hiding illegally obtained evidence. If a defense attorney can prove it is being done the evidence becomes inadmissible under the "Fruit of the poison tree" doctrine.
Does it happen? We know it does, but that doesn't make it legal or permissible.
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Monitoring Ferguson, Baltimore, chasing after certain individuals you can Google this too, someone even has their flight paths up showing where they were circling.
In addition they scoop up all cell phone data in the area as well as video below, so if you're in the area you get recorded and videoed.
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You are just making blind assumptions. We don't know they are scooping up cell phone data, doing wire taps or just providing real time tactical data to law enforcement so they knew where to send reinforcements or the fire department....
In fact, WE DON'T KNOW what data they where collecting, though I have some plausible theories that don't involve needing a warrant to do.
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We don't know they are scooping up cell phone data...
From TFA [csmonitor.com]
"Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they're not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare."
The FBI admits they are scooping up cell phone data.
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Not so fast... I was talking about the Baltimore/Ferguson flights over the riots.... Nobody I know of is admitting to sweeping up cell phone information there..
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For goodness sake, that's a news story about general capabilities (which the FBI does admit to) and some "we think it's being inappropriately used" statement from an unknown, unidentified source who we are just supposed to assume knows what's going on and that his theories that the capability is being misused are actually true. Truth be told, even their source doesn't know and is just making assumptions and the story says as much if you pay attention.
Plus... This story is NOT about what they where doing du
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but who is watching the watchers?
I dunno. The Coast Guard?
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Reform of the FBI, NSA, etc is unlikely, they just "keep doing it".
These guys are supposed to be the watchers, but who is watching the watchers? And even if someone was what can they do about it?
What could they do about it?
That depends... Who do the Joint Chiefs of Staff really serve? The President? Someone else?
Do the military's generals serve our elected leaders?
If so, I hate to say it, but that is the only recourse. You aren't going to stop the NSA/CIA/FBI using... themselves... It would take the military getting involved...
The CIA might be powerful, but so is the 101st Airborne...
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well if people in SUVs crash into enough coal trains, enough pipelines are bored, all the natural gas wells set aflame, the power will go out and they will never regain control over the computers again.
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wait i'm wrong look at north korea. they tried the same thing already.
50 aircraft (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a big fleet of planes. Just think, one "not secret" program inside one bureau of one branch of our Federal Government controls 50 aircraft, and we're not even allow to know what this operation is called, as they smother the whole thing under shell companies.
Isn't having a giant government great? Lets give them more money and see what they do with it.
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How about you take ownership of yourself, your family, neighbors friends and communities, learn about voluntary association and non use of force...
and then tell your useless unnecessary government rulers and tax, spend and enrichers to the poverty and control of the people... to fuck off.
Worked pretty good in 1776, and needs to happen again.
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That's a big fleet of planes. Just think, one "not secret" program inside one bureau of one branch of our Federal Government controls 50 aircraft, and we're not even allow to know what this operation is called, as they smother the whole thing under shell companies.
I'm not saying it is, but I could see how this is a reasonable situation. Flying 50 Cessna 182's around isn't all that expensive considering.... Actually a 182's cost a drop in the bucket compared to an F-18's cost per hour...
Re:50 aircraft? Actual count: 97 (Score:2, Informative)
I have been tracking this myself for the previous two weeks. I have identified 97 aircraft by N number from the FAA database that are registered to 15 non existent entities like "NG Research" and "RKT Productions". The bulk purchases of Cessna 182T aircraft started in 2010. Several sequentially serial numbered 182's are licensed to different FBI shell companies. Mostly, the fleet consists of 182's and Cessna 206's. There are also a couple of helicopters and a Cessna Citation V jet.
Personally, it has be
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my information is clearly more complete than what is in the AP story
They're doing what they always do; drip drip drip out the bad news, a little worse each time. Fifty?!! Wow. 97?? Well, that's only 47 more than 50 so; "no new information," as their spokes-fucks will say.
It's going on right now with the anthrax news. Yesterday the DOD revealed they sent live anthrax into Canada, in addition to the 12 US states they had already admitted to.
The Clintons have been pulling this crap since the 90's. They're dripping out Foundation donor information one foreign turd at a
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Dude, your moniker is a reference to the Navy.
The Navy isn't hiding its entire fleet of war planes behind shell corps and surveilling US cities with them. There is a big difference between the sovereign armed forces of a nation and a creepy, clandestine, unaccountable government operation to surveil its citizens, and I make exactly that distinction, so this supposed "hypocrisy" is nothing more than your fevered imagination.
I'm no conspiracy nutter; this whole kerfuffle is nothing more than what happens when you employ way too many government employe
From who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hide their association from who, exactly? Air traffic control? It's not like you can see who registered a plane from the ground.
This statement just screams "we are breaking the rules and don't want to get caught"
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Hide their association from who, exactly? Air traffic control? It's not like you can see who registered a plane from the ground.
Ummmm, planes have these big numbers and things on the side that you can go look up here [faa.gov], and those same numbers are often used while talking to ATC by radio. That wireless thing that anyone can listen in on.
This statement just screams "we are breaking the rules and don't want to get caught"
No, this statement screams "there are nuts who would do deliberate damage to an airplane if they knew it was operated by the FBI and we're protecting the lives of the people who fly in them."
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Fair points. I didn't know you could see registration numbers from the ground.
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and those same numbers are often used while talking to ATC by radio. That wireless thing that anyone can listen in on.
Heck, in 5 years when ADS-B becomes mandatory you won't even have to listen, just fire up a receiver and you'll know everyone who is overhead.
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This statement also screams "we'd rather obfuscate what we're doing so the guy who sees our plane flying around his building doesn't google the registration and figure out instantly that it's the FBI, and they've found him and are monitoring his actions."
Thing is, the only groups who fly planes in these circles are government agencies. They should really switch to drones :D
Re:From who? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hide their association from who, exactly? Air traffic control? It's not like you can see who registered a plane from the ground.
This statement just screams "we are breaking the rules and don't want to get caught"
Bullshit.
Let's make one thing clear right now. Our Government doesn't give a shit about being "caught". They haven't cared about this for quite some time now.
They don't give a shit because they know there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Classified operations staying classified for other reasons? Sure, but I fail to see why they need to hide any unconstitutional/illegal operation anymore. Ever.
Re:From who? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even the fact that there are 50 of them doesn't bother me, really. It's a huge country, and the FBI is national in scope. A little single engine prop plane isn't going to be able to go out of Indiana to eavesdrop on a suspect in Montana very easily.
SPying on a particular suspect in an ongoing investigation? I've got no problem with that, but get a warrant. The lack of any warrant necessary to send a plane after you and record your every move is unsettling. If they are indeed for specific investigations, it should be no problem to get one.
The article mentions that they were also used during the recent unrest in Baltimore. I think this type of use is probably okay, but it again depends on what exactly their purpose is, and what kind of information they are extracting from the crowds below. And we don't know that. Reporting crowd movements and/or new gatherings of people away from the riot police? Videotaping the rioters? A-OK by me. Cell phone tower spoofing? Now I think you are back into warrant territory.
Lastly, we need to know more about when these things are deployed. If they are generally flying around willy-nilly with no particular purpose and recording everything, I have a problem with that. THey say that is not happening, but we as yet have no transparency to ensure that.
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There's a scene in Casino where the feds plane runs out of gas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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'Mysterious' flights happen because they *like* breaking the law. It's really not saving them much in the way of time, effort, cost, etc. There is no shortage of legitimate ways for the FBI to conduct surveillance. And for situations requiring warrants, warrants are laughably easy to obtain.
Fail (Score:2)
Should be a &@.; .no carrier, or at least"BRB, door. I mean, large gentlemen in dark suits where the door used to [BADAMMADAMM THUNK]"
Not just the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
This article is from Bristol, UK. They've been flying planes there for years.
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/S... [bristolpost.co.uk]
One assumes in the UK it's linked to this:
http://leaksource.info/2014/09... [leaksource.info]
but that's pure speculation.
Why hide it? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Why hide this behind shell companies if it's all above board, authorized and legal? Oh, wait, anything that law enforcement does must be legal right? /sarcasm Wouldn't it be a more effective crime deterrent if the aircraft had large bold block letter lighted signs that said FBI on them?
The same reason that you don't go around blabbing your bank account number and transit number, even though it's likely public record.
When things are too easy to know, a larger percentage of the population will take advantage of the knowledge.
And you already knew that the FBI's mandate wasn't to deter crime... it's in their TLA ;)
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Because this isn't about deterring active crime. It's about monitoring the population at large, compiling the data, and then if someone gets on the bad side of The Man they can go through the data to find ways to discredit or arrest said someone.
It's not about deterrence, or threat assessment, it's about threat creation and control.
So what exactly are they doing wrong? (Score:2)
I'll be the first to admit that it sure seems strange that they are doing this, but does anybody really know bad things are being done here?
If they are doing electronic based collections on cell phones and such and doing so without specific warrants, that's an issue. However, if they are just up flying in circles looking at what they can see from the air, how's that a problem even without a warrant?
The article behind the Slashdot story makes a number of "leaps of faith" and implies that the FBI is someho
Re:So what exactly are they doing wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
they're flying a fleet of 50 planes, doing dragnet surveillance by spoofing cell phone towers. Okay.
When it comes to these people, benefit of the doubt is not something that should be extended.
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they're flying a fleet of 50 planes, doing dragnet surveillance by spoofing cell phone towers. Okay. When it comes to these people, benefit of the doubt is not something that should be extended.
But those planes are circling Mall of America, for and the article says they only "trick pinpointed devices", like the roughly 11,000 and roughly 100,000 shoppers [mallofamerica.com].
I mean, probably maybe one of them is a terrorist, especially since organizations like PETA, Greenpeace, and other environmental activists have all been classified as terrorist organizations by the government. Anti-war organizations have also repeatedly been lumped under the terrorist umbrella.
So probably someone in the crowd of a tenth of a m
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they're flying a fleet of 50 planes, doing dragnet surveillance by spoofing cell phone towers. Okay.
No they are not. They say they have the capability to do surveillance on cell phones, but nobody knows for sure that they are just out scooping up cell phone data willy nilly anytime it suits their fancy. We have some unnamed sources who claim to know, but we don't know anything about these sources. These sources then only really suspect this MIGHT be happening based on their observations, but they don't really know. Such "news" is really nothing more than rumor at this point. Something on par with tha
At least they're not black helicopters... (Score:5, Funny)
...cause that would just be creepy.
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Sssssh.... Just put the tinfoil back on, they won't be able to see you, but you can still hear them... They go Chirp Chirp, especially at night, just remember they are EVERYWHERE...
Genuine question: why should I be afraid of this? (Score:2)
I usually have my tinfoil hat screwed on pretty tight, but I'm really not feeling this one. Ignore questions about the Stringray-like devices. That's a completely separate issue regardless of whether the cell tower spoofers/listeners are mounted on a plane or a rooftop or a truck. Assuming planes and cameras..so what?
1) The FBI has planes. Okay. Lots of law enforcement agencies have aircraft. Any reasonably sized city has police helicopters.
2) Does the FBI have no legitimate use for planes? I would think th
Sounds like Stingray (Score:3)
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Stingray phone tracking has been going on in secret for a while now. Even by some local police departments.
And equipment to do the same thing to them is easily obtainable by the public.
http://www.testequipmentdepot.... [testequipmentdepot.com]
If it's not illegal for them to do without a judge/warrant then it's not illegal for citizens either. Just make sure to stream the data obtained in realtime to storage located outside the Five Eyes nations.
Strat
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Did anyone NOT think it was the FBI?
I would've guessed NSA first. Actually FBI would be my fourth, after DEA and DHS.
... not without precedence (well, fictionally) (Score:2)
And to think M*A*S*H was outraged that CIA had its own bomb (The Army-Navy Game, TV episode 29)