In Baltimore and Elsewhere, Police Use Stingrays For Petty Crimes 213
USA Today reports on the widespread use of stingray technology by police to track down even petty criminals and witnesses, as well as their equally widespread reluctance to disclose that use. The article focuses mostly on the city of Baltimore; by cross-checking court records against a surveillance log from the city’s Advanced Technical Team, the USA Today reporters were able to determine at least several hundred cases in which phony ("simulated") cell phone towers were used to snoop traffic. In court, though, and even in the information that the police department provides to the city's prosecutors, the use of these devices is rarely disclosed, thanks to a non-disclosure agreement with the FBI and probably a general reluctance to make public how much the department is using them, especially without bothering to obtain search warrants. From the article:
In at least one case, police and prosecutors appear to have gone further to hide the use of a stingray. After Kerron Andrews was charged with attempted murder last year, Baltimore's State's Attorney's Office said it had no information about whether a phone tracker had been used in the case, according to court filings. In May, prosecutors reversed course and said the police had used one to locate him. "It seems clear that misrepresentations and omissions pertaining to the government's use of stingrays are intentional," Andrews' attorney, Assistant Public Defender Deborah Levi, charged in a court filing.
Judge Kendra Ausby ruled last week that the police should not have used a stingray to track Andrews without a search warrant, and she said prosecutors could not use any of the evidence found at the time of his arrest.
Judge Kendra Ausby ruled last week that the police should not have used a stingray to track Andrews without a search warrant, and she said prosecutors could not use any of the evidence found at the time of his arrest.
The Wire (Score:2)
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Except those wiretaps were lawfully obtained with a search warrant approved by a judge.
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Except those wiretaps were lawfully obtained with a search warrant approved by a judge.
Better watch more closely - or watch the whole thing :-)
Re:The Wire (Score:4, Funny)
Boy, you are just throwing that word around with wild abandon, now, aren't you?
Re: The Wire (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Thankfully that is not how it works, Police cannot throw a net randomly and see what they catch. When Otis argued "A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle." He was saying what I do in my world is of no concern to you as long as I do not mess up and make it public. I can smoke a bong in my living room because the current law may be out of whack with reality and life can continue on underground until that shit straightens out as is slowly happening. If we could just kick the door down on anyone then people would not have the opportunity to make their own decisions on what is right. In Otis' time this had more to do with illegal smuggling because capalists felt it was in their own right to make their gains with strategic dealing supplying the demand better than their competitors without the King upsetting that advantage by collecting their gains but the concept extends to all aspects of life.
Re:The Wire (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't do anything illegal? Including in the privacy of your home? Oh, that's swell.
You sure? I mean, especially considering all the out of whack laws concerning who may have sex with whom an how? But maybe you're chaste, or live in a country with more sanity when it comes to laws.
But are you sure it stays that way? Laws change, you know, and what you like doing today may well be illegal tomorrow. Like running around naked at home? Hope that none of the thinkofthechildren crowd fears that one of the little ones could see your naked tits (you know, tits sure ain't for little kids!) and demands that people have to be dressed all the time. Or do you smoke? In the current craze, don't expect it to stay legal. Will we believe you when you tell us you quit when it gets illegal? Smoking is such a hard to drop habit, ya know...
Ever been driving in front of a police car? How does it feel? No, you didn't do anything wrong, did you? But ... was it comfortable? Did you feel relaxed?
A crime should probably not be committed. But putting people under the stress of total surveillance, or only the feeling that it could be, will most certainly do more harm than good.
Re:The Wire (Score:4, Funny)
Ever been driving in front of a police car? How does it feel?
Yes, and it felt fine. They didn't stop me, so I simply drove comfortably below the speed limit. A bit boring, but nothing to worry about. If you want to get rid of them, go even slower and they will pass.
That's obstructing traffic, and a crime.
Re:The Wire (Score:5, Informative)
Ever been driving in front of a police car? How does it feel?
Yes, and it felt fine. They didn't stop me, so I simply drove comfortably below the speed limit. A bit boring, but nothing to worry about. If you want to get rid of them, go even slower and they will pass.
I was once honest to gawd pulled over for going exactly the speed limit. It was in a neighborhood where most people speed through, so I guess the officer found someone obeying the speed limit mighty suspicious.
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Depending on where you are, you are able to receive a speeding ticket for going the speed limit. Most provinces in Canada allow this so someone going 80 km/h on an icy country road (which typically will have an 80 km/h speed limit, intended to be obeyed during the summer) can be told they're going to spin off the road and die, perhaps killing someone along the way.
Oh yes. Here in the States, it's called "Driving too fast for conditions". It's not handed out too often, usually during really bad winter storms where someone is bing an asshat, or in an accident where they obviously shouldn't have been on the roads at all.
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Oh yes. Here in the States, it's called "I'm giving you a ticket because I wanted to". It's not handed out too often, usually only when the cop thinks he can get away with it or if he feels that a citizen needs to be cut down to size.
Fixed that for you.
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Driving below the speed limit show guilt, as normal people don't drive under the limit. It is probable cause in some places, as a large percentage of people driving under the limit are intoxicated.
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Then you won't have a problem with the police installing a webcam in your bedroom and putting it online for the world to see, right? After all, someone might commit a crime in there and all that matters is that crimes shouldn't be committed.
Re:The Wire (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, and police use of stingrays is a crime. They are transmitting on radio frequencies for which they are not licensed. Any evidence which is illegally collected is of course properly thrown out by a court. The end does not justify the means.
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In the end it all falls back to the fact that crimes shouldn't be committed.
Well, there is one more eensy-teensy little thing about the government remaining within the limits set for it by the people.
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Except, according to TFA, we aren't talking about wiretaps here — the contents of the phone calls is not accessed by the police. Only the locations of the devices and the fact of the calls.
IANAL, but warrant is, probably, not necessary in such cases — long ago it was established, that although police need a warrant to open a letter, they can study the envelopes to their hearts' content.
Federal law (chap 206) says a court order is requi (Score:5, Informative)
Under federal (U.S. Code â Title 18 â Part II â Chapter 206 â Â 3122 a), state and local law enforcement must get a court order before using a device which records which numbers are called.
Using such a device (called a pen register) without a court order is punishable by one year in jail.
So it's not necessarily unconstitutional, but it's absolutely illegal, by the plain text of chapter 206.
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In that case, I want ACLU to refund my donations. They aren't doing their job...
ruled unconstitutional, so someone good. EFF (Score:4, Interesting)
The story does mention the court ruled the use of a Stingray without a warrant is unconstitutional, so someone is doing their job.
Personally, I prefer to give money to the EFF rather than the ACLU since the ACLU advocates for racial discrimination, but everyone has their own opinions.
I find it very offensive that the ACLU says my daughter has to be given extra points in order to compete, because black people like her are too stupid to do well by their own talents and effort. That's a particularly nasty type of racism, in my view. I also think they are wrong to say that I should be denied admission in favor of someone less qualified because I happen to havevpale skin. That part bothers me much less than their patronizing attitude toward my wife and daughter, though, their belief that my wife and daughter can't manage without special favors and protection from snotty white people.
interesting point, but it transmits inquiries (Score:4, Interesting)
That's an interesting point. There is a strong general presumption that anyone is allowed to RECIEVE anything transmitted over the airwaves. One good reason for that is that it's quite common to receive things on accident- a lot of night time "static" is in fact someone's communications.
HOWEVER, wireless phones have a two-way handshake with the tower. After receiving from the phone, the Stingray sends back "this is tower HJFG-7484. What are your parameters ", or something like that. By connecting with your phone and falsely claiming to be a phone-company tower, the Stingray os actively performing as a pen register. In fact, the Stingray probably sends to the phone "I have a call for you " in order to cause it to reveal it's current location. It would then send a disconnect before the phone started ringing audibly. That's all active snooping.
A different device would be one which only LISTENED to genuine communications between the phone and tower, decrypted the call metadata, and recorded it. Different laws would apply.
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My question is why is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act not being brought in to play ? This seems like a prime use for it's unauthorized access provisions.
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The "Stingray" mimics a cell tower, and operates at a frequency which the police are not legally entitled to broadcast. They force a disconnect from your legal cell tower and take all traffic, and can read and write data and metadata from/to the phone. They are fully capable of intercepting your content communications as well. this isn't exactly an envelope, this is setting up fake mailboxes and catching all mail that goes through and injecting data/metadata/intercepting content into the mail as well. There
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IANAL, but warrant is, probably, not necessary in such cases
Judge Kendra Ausby ruled last week that the police should not have used a stingray to track Andrews without a search warrant
It's right there in the summary. All you had to do was finish reading it before posting.
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"Should not have used" is not quite the "it was illegal to use", is not it? Has a different ring to it...
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If it were said at a cocktail party, I imagine it would be different. If it were said from the Bench, not so much....
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Hey, I know that one!
HOT L BALTIMORE [imdb.com]!
So what do I win?
Time to hold the government accountable (Score:5, Insightful)
When violating the Supreme Law of the Land means that none of the law-breakers involved get punished, it's clear that something has to be changed. Whether it takes an amendment or not, what needs to happen is that if you're so gung ho certain that you've got the right guy that you feel like you don't need to obey the law, well then go right ahead. That guy goes down for murder and you go down for violating the Constitution. Oh, you didn't have any guy so you went on a fishing expidition and you infringed the rights of 100 Americans looking for someone breaking the law? That's 100 counts.
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We can? Really? Why can we assume that? Do you have an actual argument supporting that claim or are you a criminal ... er, I mean, moron?
Re:Time to hold the government accountable (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, read the article - they are saying sometimes the methods used to capture the criminal are not always pushed up the chain to the prosecutors. That's a problem, but it's not some heinous problem that people are making it out to be.
Intentionally withholding and or conspiring to withhold information to wit the defense is entitled *IS* absolutely heinous. Intentionally providing false information in the form of "parallel construction" is also absolutely heinous.
They aren't violating the supreme law of the land.
How do you know? Are you a lawyer? Courts have ruled both ways on 4th amendment violations. The arguments used to justify this is that people don't have any expectation of their location privacy.. because...drumroll ... telcos get the information... I would very much like to know in what context can "no expectation of privacy" even be falsified in the 21st century.
When someone violates my rights, though, I want them caught and punished, even if it's just stealing the loose change out of my car's change holder.
Any thoughts about the rights of the (quoting TFA) "many of those arrested" who were never prosecuted to not be molested by police fishing expeditions?
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"Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary."
Re:Time to hold the government accountable (Score:5, Informative)
but using a stingray isn't a violation of anyone's rights, so good for them.
Wrong. It is illegal to use a Stingray to capture information without a warrant.
Judge Kendra Ausby ruled last week that the police should not have used a stingray to track Andrews without a search warrant, and she said prosecutors could not use any of the evidence found at the time of his arrest.
In this case the POLICE are the ones violating your rights by employing Stingrays without a warrant and the judges are telling them so. Just because you don't consider it a breach of your privacy doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree with you and give up our rights.
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When a stingray is deployed, it doesn't just cause the suspect's phone to connect to the bogus tower. It affects all of the phones in the area, which can inform the police of people other than the suspect who are present in the same area and to obtain the locations of those phones, too. There's no guarantee that the police don't look at that data or retain it.
Let's say hypothetically that use of a stingray to find a suspect falls doesn't require a warrant. There's probably reasonable suspicion or probable c
Re: Time to hold the government accountable (Score:2)
A phone operating under normal conditions isn't particularly useful for triangulating its signal.
Actually, TDMA networks (which GSM is) with extremely small time slices (which GSM definitely is), are so timing-sensitive that all stations (read: phones) are constantly adjusting their transmit timing to compensate for distance. If the phone in your hand can calculate round-trip time to do that, the tower it connects to can certainly do so to calculate distance. After all, we know how fast the signal moves.
Sure, it's not triangulation, which requires three points (it's all on the name), but it provides
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Wrong, but I don't expect an AC to...
You claimed that people should have different expectations on others arguments based on who they are. That makes no sense in general and even less sense in the internet. After you repeated what you said before, with caps on the part the AC had pointed.
using a stingray isn't a violation of anyone's rights
It is such a violation of people's rights that a judge just decided that evidence found on an attempt to murder case should not be used because it was obtained through that violation. IANAL, be she is a Judge.
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Police need a warrant except when in hot pursuit - if I just report my car stolen and the phone is in the glove compartment, the criminal has no reasonable expectation of privacy. If someone smashes the window of my car, and I see who it is and call the police, then they shouldn't need a warrant.
Lastly, for the millionth time, the stingray is NOT listening to people's calls, it's ONLY tracking their location.
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Seems you're wrong the actual stingray device can do GSM Active Key Extraction which allows them encrypt the communications. So yes the devices can be used to listen to people's calls.
If it's your phone you can consent to it no warrant needed.
In any event the state has no business hiding the fact these were used and how. It's one thing to protect a witnesses entirely another to intentionally deceive in discovery. To protect a witness requires the judge to agree it's needed the police/prosecutors should n
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Seems you're wrong the actual stingray device can do GSM Active Key Extraction which allows them encrypt the communications. So yes the devices can be used to listen to people's calls.
If so, TFA didn't mention it - or wasn't concerned about it, at least, TFA was solely concerned about tracking.
If it's your phone you can consent to it no warrant needed.
In any event the state has no business hiding the fact these were used and how. It's one thing to protect a witnesses entirely another to intentionally deceive in discovery. To protect a witness requires the judge to agree it's needed the police/prosecutors should never be making that decision.
I agree that if they violated the state law they were wrong, and I see little reason why they would do that, but I don't see it as the heinous violation of rights (the tracking part) that everyone else seems to think it is. I think you have to a moron to "expect" that your location can't be tracked when you're using (including just having it on and with you) a cellphone.
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TFA does not mention it because the cops are actively trying to hide what this kit does and when they use it. They are getting called out on the location data. The bigger issue is a cop can arbitrarily listen in/track whatever with no oversight. Getting the same data from towers can also be done in realtime but leaves a paperwork trail.
The 4th circuit which covers Baltimore says it requires a warrant in United States v. Graham. Even the 11th which disagrees still requires the lower burden of a court ord
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Sorry to reply to myself, it's not a question of tracking we all know with a warrant current and historical data can be gotten. The issue this is warrantless gathering that can include violating multiple federal laws that they are getting away with since they are the cops. Pretty much if I can not do it legally they should not be able to without a court order or a specific law allowing it.
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
They have a tool and they're going to use it.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Until there are actual, real, PERSONAL consequences for the public officials who violate our civil rights under color of law, the abuses will NEVER EVER stop. "Forgetting" to get a warrant isn't an "oopsie". It's a violation of our 4th Amendment Rights. The founding document upon which our country was built is the highest law of the land. Breaking that covenant shouldn't be a slap on the wrist. It should be criminal charges at the very least.
and it IS a federal crime under chapter 206 (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a very clear federal law making this a crime, so they absolutely could be charged, if a federal prosecutor chose to do so.
U.S. Code , Title 18 , Part II , Chapter 206. Â 3122 a) says that state and local law enforcement must get a court order before using a device which records which numbers are called.
Using such a device (called a pen register) without a court order is punishable by one year in jail.
I don't know if any charges have ever been brought under that paragraph, but they very easily could be. The law is pretty clear.
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Don't you have private prosecutions in the US? In most countries if the state fails to act then citizens can pay for their own prosecution instead.
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In a word, "no".
We can do a civil suit for this sort of thing, but that's expensive and allows only civil penalties, not criminal penalties.
A side effect of being one of the oldest continuous governments extant, I think. (think about it: most current governments in the world are younger than the USA. A large minority, if not a majority, are 100 years old).
not at the federal level any more (Score:2)
There are no longer private persecutions at the federal level. State laws vary, but most are restrictive. As is often the case, Texas is a bit of an outlier in that a citizen can contact the grand jury directly and seek an indictment.
California, Louisiana, and Texas tend to have more differences in their laws than other states, with California always trying new things, Texas prioritizing individual rights vs less government, and Louisiana having French / Cajun traditions.
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A behavior I've seen among police I've known is profiling and persecuting. Mark a bad apple, then bust'em on whatever you can. Preventative enforcement - very efficient, completely unfair, and difficult to prove as illegal.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. The police do not get to violate civil liberties because some piece of property got stolen and they don't know whodunit. That's the entire point.
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What civil liberties are being broken when they search for a piece of stolen property? That property could be in a bin, ditch etc. Now to enter a premise they need reasonable suspicion that the property is in that premise. Triangulation of a signal from stolen property gives that suspicion at which time they need to get a warrant. The act of searching for a stolen device electronically itself shouldn't require a warrant.
This really is no different than seeing a stolen car in the driveway of a premise.
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The act of searching for a stolen device electronically itself shouldn't require a warrant.
Wrong. It should, and per federal law, it does. That's been covered elsewhere in this thread, so I won't rehash it. Read the thread. Federal law disagrees with you.
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Federal law says not to add a pen register. It doesn't say you can't triangulate a signal from a stolen device.
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Federal law says not to add a pen register. It doesn't say you can't triangulate a signal from a stolen device.
But they are in fact using a device which fulfills the function of a pen register, and that is its primary function, in order to do this -- when they don't have to, they can just ask the cellphone company. But in order to do that they have to get a warrant, ostensibly -- although we have many confirmed reports of them being able to get positioning information without one. I'm not objecting to them conducting the search. I'm against them doing it without a warrant. If the search is justified, then there shou
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The act of searching for a stolen device electronically itself shouldn't require a warrant.
In which case they could easily get consent from the owner of the device to intercept its communications.
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Triangulating the location of a stolen phone is not "ransacking every inch of your house".
If you know stolen property is in a house then searching that house, with a warrant, is reasonable even if you don't know who stole it.
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That is what you propose here. I really try to not engage in ad hominem, but either you are a troll or an idiot.
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Searching for stolen property without knowing the person who stole the property shouldn't require a warrant.
I'm not certain you thought this one out to the consequences.
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Human rights are being trumpled
"Trumpled"???
That's the best typo I've seen this week.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Funny)
Well, our rights haven't been Trumpled yet,and I'll see how he does in the primaries before worrying that it might happen in 2016.
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What's really shocking about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's really shocking about this (Score:5, Informative)
What's really shocking is that the police invested any effort in tracking down a mobile phone thief. The victim must have been someone with influence.
Yep. In at least one case mentioned in TFA the phone was taken from a police facility parking lot. You know that phone had to belong to a cop. From the article:
In Baltimore, at least, it’s how the police tracked the man they suspected stole a phone from the back seat of a car parked outside the city’s central booking facility in 2009. Two days after the theft, an officer said in a court filing that detectives found Danell Freeman holding the phone in the doorway of an East Baltimore public housing complex. The court filing did not say how detectives knew to look for the phone there, but a police surveillance log indicates they used a stingray.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get that level of service if my phone was taken.
Re:What's really shocking about this (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get that level of service if my phone was taken.
You can feel reassured, if you told them that your phone was taken, they would write a report about it.
Surely the LYING is more serious? (Score:2, Interesting)
They deceive the court (by withholding vital information or by flat out lying), in order to uphold an EULA! So EULA > LAW
Surely that's the big crime here, those officers should not be accepting orders from the FBI to lie to a court. Its perjury or withholding evidence. Actual real crimes being committed.
It's like the parallel construction thing, call it Parallel Construction and it sounds positive. But its fabrication of evidence, an officer goes into court and lies about the chain of evidence to a judge
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Steal a stingray (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe we need to set up a bitcoin bounty for a stingray. I'd imagine reverse engineering it would reveal a wealth of information.
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You can buy the equipment needed to make your own on eBay. There is nothing mysterious about them, they are just base stations configured to tell phones to prefer them. It's a standard feature of cellular base station networking equipment.
More interesting are projects like Android IMSI-Catcher Detector [github.io] which can alert you when your phone connects to one of these fake base stations. It's kind of alarming to see how many are in use around London, for example. If you are going to raise some cash then give it t
America is an Oligarchy, and Not a Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
According to this study [cambridge.org], America is an oligarchy. Here is a quote [newyorker.com] (as per the New Yorker):
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then Americaâ(TM)s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
When I hear about abuses of power, when I hear about the NSA spying on everyone, when I hear about militarization of police, when I hear about local police departments running roughshod over the Constitution as implied in the parent article, I start to think that something is deeply wrong in America. Then I remember that Americans still have the right to vote in those who rule them. And that is encouraging. But then I realize that most Americans have lost the ability to comprehend the systems of power that rule them. I remember that too many Americans vote based on shallow ignorant views, that they are persuaded by 30 second political TV commercials instead of actual rational argument, which is boring and long and tedious. And I remember that those 30 second TV commercials are expensive, and that politicians must go begging to those with large amounts of money in order to buy those 30 second commercials. And I remember that when politicians accept money from those very wealthy interests, that they become enslaved to them. And this makes me feel hopeless.
Then I remember that if Americans stopped listening to shallow arguments given in 30 second TV commercials, if they started to demand rational argument instead of the shallow blather that has so far persuaded them, then they could take back power from the corrupt wealthy interests who have driven the country into the ground over the last three and a half decades. And that makes me a little bit hopeful.
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>if Americans stopped listening to shallow arguments given in 30 second TV commercials, if they started to demand rational argument instead of the shallow blather that has so far persuaded them, then they could...
doesn't matter, won't happen.
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According to this study [cambridge.org], America is an oligarchy
That paper costs $30. Could you please summarize the evidence supporting their major ideas?
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Perhaps misinformed, but also poorly educated. What I was taught in public school about my constitutional rights was really just about next to nothing. But it goes well beyond either misinformed or ignorant - like the people in this thread who are willfully and without thought thinking that this issue has anything to do at all with constitutional rights. And, as it normally happens, 99% of the people getting all up in arms abut this probably didn't even read the article to find out what the problem actua
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What I was taught in public school about my constitutional rights was really just about next to nothing.
Despite this you were able to draw conclusions on the constitutionality of warrantless stingray use. Care to share the basis for your conclusion?
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Gee, I dunno - learning after out of public school?
When someone asks you to explain the basis for your decision and you respond "learning!" it's clear that you needed to spend more time in school learning how to speak to people, because you're not communicating.
Let's hear the argument as to how this is not a violation of your right to be free from unwarranted searches.
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but they don't violate any constitutional rights.
You keep saying that, but so far you've offered absolutely zero support for the idea that they don't violate any constitutional rights. If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to present an argument, not just keep repeating your unsupported assertion. That's how it works.
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I agree! I've read every volume of Marx and Engel's 'Das Kampf'...
And we'd almost be inclined to believe you if you could at least get the TITLE right. TFP. HAND.
Think back a few decades (Score:2)
Why just sell to nations when 100's of cities can be made to pay for device upgrades that keep track with cell phone hardware.
What was once used for one person over in a foreign country is now tracking all in very hidden domestic setting.
The real risk is who else is buying another set of hardware in the same area to run counter surveillance, use by internal affairs or for years of federal tracking of interesting local state law
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Public private partnerships for realtime access to all CCTV networks are been worked on in many city areas.
The use of small or large manned aircraft has been seen at a state and federal level over the years but seems to be in the press too much now thanks to low level wireless search patterns over hours. Locals tend to notice that.
New Senate Bill Would Require Warrants for Federal Aerial
If they're going to invade our privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, if you call the police, and tell them that someone broke into your house, they will respond and......write a report.
"Are you going to go find him?"
"No."
"But you have the fingerprints!"
"We'll put that in the report."
".........."
Re:If they're going to invade our privacy (Score:4, Informative)
Depends a lot on what kind of neighborhood you live in. Like airlines, police reserve their highest level of "customer service" for the wealthiest patrons.
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I noticed it most obviously when I lived in L.A., but what even counts as a "petty crime" seems to vary with the wealth of the area. If your middle-class house gets burglarized, that's a run-of-the-mill police report that doesn't get much investigation. But if a mansion in Beverly Hills is burglarized, now that's taken seriously.
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Leicestershire police said the policy had "no noticeable impact on victim satisfaction,"
Which means they were mainly doing poor work to begin with.
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I've been lucky that the last time I was the victim of a crime was in 1992. I got my car window smashed in a restaurant parking lot and my stereo stolen. The cops gave me a police report number for insurance and that was the end of it.
But I've heard from two different people who live within a few blocks of me recently who had been burglary victims and the police dusted for prints in both cases, including one where the only break-in was the garage and the item stolen was a low-end bike.
Our neighborhood is,
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The thief was caught. So they actually did something.
In fact, the news broke after the police caught the thief and was asked how they did it. In other words, you can argue that it was a violation of privacy but you can't argue that it was ineffective.
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The thief was caught. So they actually did something.
The phone was stolen from the police station. You can conclude that the police are willing to do something when they lose their own phone.
It's a capabilities war (Score:3)
I know technical solutions to political problems but cheap and trivial availability of technology is what's directly fueling these shortcuts.
Running software on mobile handsets to detect and map the use of stingrays is hardly unreasonable or impractical. If enough people did it stingrays might become sufficiently risky and worthless such that police departments would find the time to ask a judge for warrant to get information from Telcos.
Why are they committing petty crimes at all?! (Score:2)
In Baltimore and Elsewhere, Police Use Stingrays For Petty Crimes
While it's nice to know they're equipped with the latest tech, they really shouldn't be committing petty crimes in the first place.
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if the police remained exclusively involved
in crimes that were petty.
Criminal acts ... (Score:2)
So when the police lie about how they obtained evidence, allow an NDA with a corporation to be used to deny due process, and use this shit without a warrant ... this stuff should be a criminal act.
This should be the kind of thing which gets you stripped of your duties and t
Murder is a petty crime? (Score:2)
Permission from the owner (Score:2)
Create an app to detect this (Score:2)
Since most people spend 95% of their time at either home, work, or some such place, you'd think there could be an app that lets you know you are connecting to a strange tower it doesn't know about. That app could even have a setting to disconnect if such an incident were to happen. Since these are so secretive, there is no way to know if nefarious types are using them for illegal purposes. This would seem to help keep phones secure from anyone legally or illegally using such a Stingray device.
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Re:I been wondering (Score:4, Informative)
And here is an insightful write-up on Stingrays (IMSI catchers). A good plain-terms read on how they function with a small dose of theory.
http://communications.support/... [communications.support]
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Totally doable. The last time this topic came up on SlashDot, I think the discussion included a pointer to an ap for rooted Androids (or at least some specific models) that could detect stingrays. So this could be easily crowdsourced... if enough people carried Stingray detectors, and automatically uploaded to a website the plotted them on a map, we could pretty much have a real-time map of stingrays in operation. The problem is more social than technical at this point.
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And why would you do that? Don't you want the police to catch petty criminals? All the device does is allow them to locate a specific cellphone. They don't listen to your calls, or know who you're calling - it just listens for the phone trying to connect to cell towers and then they triangulate a position. It's nothing the cellphone companies can't already do (and have done at the behest of the police on serious crimes), although it might be more precise and faster and easier. And we're not talking abo
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Oh, I quite agree! That is why I am an advocate for repealing the 4th amendment! I mean, why would anyone want that? Don't they want the police to catch petty criminals?
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Many people feel that your location is private, as long as you're not in a public place.
Also, it's not just the "target" phone: as I understand it, a stingray appears as a cell tower to all the phones near it. So it's catching people who aren't even suspected of a crime, and may lead to dropped calls when the phones try to
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Such changes in networking conditions could be mapped.
Phone Firewall Identifies Rogue Cell Towers Trying To Intercept Your Calls (09.03.14)
http://www.wired.com/2014/09/c... [wired.com]
Upgrades and updates ensure all tracking is now more seamless in any area less of the drop down to another generation of network service. Voice, mapping, rewind packages work "as" any
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