The IRS Has Stingray Devices (theguardian.com) 83
An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian reports that the use of stingray technology — devices that simulate cell towers in order to gather phone data — is not limited to intelligence agencies and law enforcement. It turns out the Internal Revenue Service owns some of the devices as well. It's unknown how or why the tax agency uses the stingray devices. The only reason The Guardian figured it out was that they happened to see an IRS invoice from when they paid a company to upgrade one of their devices and provide training on its use. It's thought they're being used when the IRS collaborates with other agencies to knock down money laundering operations. "... there are currently between 2,000 and 3,000 "special agents" in the IRS who form the criminal investigation division (CID). They have the ability to get PEN register orders – the only authority needed to use Stingray devices."
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Who unanimously and solidly approved the federal government's use of the devices years ago, and even now as they are used against themselves, refuse to back down because they are certain that next election cycle they'll be in charge and will want to be able to use them against those damn dirty liberals.
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The group that's against a large, invasive federal government somehow supports illegal wiretapping? Going to have to call BS on that one.
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The group that's against a large, invasive federal government somehow supports illegal wiretapping?
The same "group that's against a large, invasive federal government" that loves telling women what they can't do with their bodies? Telling me what herbs I can't smoke? Telling Americans that people of a certain religion should never be President? The only things that group is against are taxes, regulation of industry, and punishment for white collar crime.
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You're confusing the TEA Party with the GOP. They're not the same thing, no matter how much the GOP tries to suggest otherwise.
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The TEA Party is just a branch office of the GOP who have latched onto taxes as a single-issue voting bloc. Go find me a TEA Party candidate who is pro-choice and also opposes warrantless wiretapping, Stingrays, etc.
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There are no TEA Party candidates since the TEA Party never managed to become an actual political party. The GOP saw their eminent demise and decided to pretend they were it, and somehow they've been allowed to do so unchallenged.
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The TEA Party is just a branch office of the GOP who have latched onto taxes as a single-issue voting bloc. Go find me a TEA Party candidate who is pro-choice and also opposes warrantless wiretapping, Stingrays, etc.
Most Tea Party candidates oppose warrantless wiretapping, Stingrays, etc. In fact, most do not care for the GOP at all (and the GOP wishes that the tea party would go away.)
Pro-choice is a human rights issue for those that believe that a fetus is a life. Regardless of whether you see a fetus that way, for those people, they do believe that the government should prevent what they see as murder.
As much as people would like to argue that being pro-life is simply "the man" trying to control a woman, it is mor
Re:The IRS Has Stingray Devices (Score:5, Funny)
"The only things that group is against are taxes, regulation of industry, and punishment for white collar crime."
We're also against criminalizing bacon, which is why today's UN statement means war.
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The same "group that's against a large, invasive federal government" that loves telling women what they can't do with their bodies?
People keep forgetting that the tea party - or republicans - did not start that fight. The democrats did. And they deliberately included abortion inducing drugs to force the fight. Most social conservatives do not give a shit either way about birth control but do feel strongly against abortion.
Hobby Lobby, who most people like to villainize, always covered birth control for their employees. It was the addition of those abortion pills that they fought against.
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The reason that people villainize hobby lobby is that they take the insulting stance of not trusting their own employees to do what is right and moral according to their own morals, and the
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The reason that people villainize hobby lobby is that they take the insulting stance of not trusting their own employees to do what is right and moral according to their own morals, and they want to enforce their own religious views upon the private lives of those employees. They don't know that any of their employees are doing any such thing, but they made a big deal about it being even possible, and want to create an option where they can take the power to make those decisions out of the hands of their employees..
Once again, they were paying for birth control pills for employees. And just because something is done "in private" doesn't mean it's right and forcing someone else to pay so that it can "privately" be done is just as wrong.
You are saying that the employee should be able to force their moral views on their employer even though that employee is the one with a choice on whether to even work for that company (Hobby Lobby cannot ask "would you get an abortion" and use that answer as part of their official hir
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The group that's against a large, invasive federal government somehow supports illegal wiretapping? Going to have to call BS on that one.
Sorry, but check your history. That same group is responsible for DHS, the TSA, torture, "extraordinary rendition", and of course the absolutely massive spying operations that they only started complaining about when a Democrat was elected president. Republicans pioneered the use of the IRS to go after "enemies" too, but they only complain about it whenever there's a Democrat in office as well, and you never hear them complaining about government overreach when the government is trying to regulate persona
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The TEA Party didn't even exist back when those things were going on..
I'm sure conservative means different things to different people, but I don't personally know of any that supported the formation of the DHS, the groping of the TSA, nor any of the domestic spying that's been exposed. The Constitution doesn't agree with much of that either. Torture may get some wiggle room, depending on whose definition you go by. You don't truly believe that the entire population of conservatives were completely on bo
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Republicans pioneered the use of the IRS to go after "enemies" too, but they only complain about it whenever there's a Democrat in office as well.
This is a lie, by the way. Nixon tried to use the IRS as his attack dog, but his IRS Commissioner refused the order. It took until Obama for a President to actually surround themselves with enough yes-men to get the job done. Unlike Nixon, Obama actually got the cover up right as well.
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Why do you think Trump is polling so well? The rotting corpse of the GOP sunk its teeth into the TEA Party. There's no one useful to vote for, so people are choosing to light the whole mess on fire by voting for the one self serving asshole that's at least honest about being a self serving asshole.
Rand is shooting himself in the foot by being such a wimp about taking the speaker role. We don't need someone who's afraid of fighting for something being the leader of our nation. Maybe the exiting speaking
If I Were Guessing (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If I Were Guessing (Score:5, Informative)
The investigation into the IRS found nothing wrong. Not sure what shenanigans you are commenting about. Its commonly known that the IRS is allowed to censor political groups, hand over confidential IRS filing forms to other political groups, ask questions that are illegal for them to ask of political groups, campaign for politicians while on "the clock" and so on. All of this is perfectly acceptable as long as it hurts the GOP and helps the DNC.
On the other hand, if a GOP president talks about having the IRS audit someone he will face articles of impeachment.
So I'm not sure what you are talking about over the last few years, they only go after individual citizens that are vocal against the current administration, all perfectly legal after the DOJ investigation.
BULLSHIT [wikipedia.org]
Over the two years between April 2010 and April 2012, the IRS essentially placed on hold the processing of applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exemption status received from organizations with "Tea Party", "patriots", or "9/12" in their names. While apparently none of these organizations' applications were denied during this period,[Note 2] only 4 were approved.[54] During the same general period, the agency approved applications from several dozen presumably liberal-leaning organizations whose names included terms such as "progressive", "progress", "liberal", or "equality".
liberal and conservative groups were in fact treated differently because liberal groups could be approved for tax-exempt status by line agents, while tea party groups could not.
At least as early as mid-2011, higher-ranking IRS officials knew that conservative groups were being scrutinized.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that inappropriate criteria had been used by IRS personnel to select certain applications for tax exemption status for further review and that inappropriate procedures were applied against organizations based on their names or policy positions.
The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued. Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months.... For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications [reviewed in the audit] as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).... Many organizations received requests for additional information from the IRS that included unnecessary, burdensome questions (e.g., lists of past and future donors).
Every single one of those claims is clearly supported.
You're a fucking moron.
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The IRS is not just about collecting taxes anymore. It's about hindering political movements that the current administration doesn't like. The IRS chief in charge of the persecution of Tea Party groups, more or less, flipped the bird at Congress, and walked off with a juicy pension. Not that I like Tea Party groups, but I'm just wondering where Hilary will strike next.
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Heh. Remember the olden days, before we knew what we know now, when this post would have been insightful?
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You do realize that's from 2013, right?
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lol. You leftists are such idiots its funny.
Right now they're laughing at you, you're holding up your end of the stereotype quite well. . You should change the channel once in a while. ;)
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You do realize that's from 2013, right?
Every once in a while Fox News burps, and another gem re-escapes from the Bubble of time.
You realize that it won't be long (Score:1)
We'll see that agencies of all types will have been using these. I can see how the military may feel compelled to switch these on around bases to eavesdrop after the Fort Hood shooting, and the IRS when conducting Department of Treasury-related investigations to bring down Al Capone might need one on a stake out, but these are exceptions rather than daily operations. Are we all really well served by just any government department messing about with communications?
For example, do rail transport officials nee
separation of government functions (Score:2)
Are we supposed to be more concerned? (Score:4, Insightful)
The IRS has a law enforcement group that frequently goes after organized crime. I'd imagine they need to spy on criminal communications as much as anyone.
Aside from wondering whether any agency should have them, I don't know what makes the IRS worthy of note as an operator.
Re:Are we supposed to be more concerned? (Score:5, Interesting)
In cases where the agencies are working together, it's likely they have IRS agents use their own device with the much lower standard of evidence, per department policy.
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The IRS works with it's own court system and probably has it's own rules of evidence. So it would make sense for the FBI and IRS to run seperate surveilance operations.
Re:Are we supposed to be more concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because most people don't realize that nearly every executive agency has an armed "enforcement" division. It's unbelievably inefficient. There's already an executive branch agency tasked with enforcing federal law - the FBI. Why we also need the treasury department, EPA, BLM, Fish & Wildlife agency, the IRS, the NIH, NOAA, Postal Service, etc... is beyond me.
We need the border patrol, the secret service, and the FBI. Need something guarded? Hire the border patrol. Need something investigated? Call the FBI.
Re:Are we supposed to be more concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because generalization leads to it's own inefficiencies. The EPA is good on pollution. Fish & Wildlife knows how to manage wildlife stuff.
That being said, you are correct in wondering why they aren't subdivisions of the FBI.
Re:Are we supposed to be more concerned? (Score:5, Informative)
One historical reason is that a lot of the other agencies were created during the period between 1924 and 1972, the 48 years when J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI, and nobody really wanted to give him more power if they could help it.
Not giving Hoover more power (Score:2)
J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI, and nobody really wanted to give him more power if they could help it.
A perfectly logical move, come to think of it. Honestly, the federal government is large enough that some police for most of it's branches makes some sense.
Plus, by having each 'police department' in it's own agency, you don't have the problems of them getting distracted all going after pedophiles or something. Good for catching pedophiles, but eventually allowing the polluters, poachers, bank transfer fraudsters, and everybody else 'off the hook' isn't a good outcome either.
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Plus, by having each 'police department' in it's own agency, you don't have the problems of them getting distracted all going after pedophiles or something.
The agencies could still have investigators, but if they are worried about safety they can have an FBI officer assigned to them.
The EPA's specialty should be investigating pollution, not defusing a potentially violent situation, which is what the FBI should be used for.
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Because generalization leads to it's own inefficiencies. The EPA is good on pollution. Fish & Wildlife knows how to manage wildlife stuff.
That being said, you are correct in wondering why they aren't subdivisions of the FBI.
Absolutely. During the run up to fishing season, The PA F&W cops go around with the stocking trucks, because sometimes kookier fishermen who don't understand that you aren't supposed to fish while the fish are tumbling out of the nets can interfere with the stocking process. These are real LEO's only they tend to be a lot friendlier because 99.9 percent of us just enjoy watching and chatting with the stockers and F&W cops.
I'm trying to imagine the response of the outrage set if State Police or FBI
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Because most people don't realize that nearly every executive agency has an armed "enforcement" division. It's unbelievably inefficient. There's already an executive branch agency tasked with enforcing federal law - the FBI. Why we also need the treasury department, EPA, BLM, Fish & Wildlife agency, the IRS, the NIH, NOAA, Postal Service, etc... is beyond me.
We need the border patrol, the secret service, and the FBI. Need something guarded? Hire the border patrol. Need something investigated? Call the FBI.
You obviously are using the wrong definition of "efficient".
It's "efficient" in making sure We The People don't get out of line.
Yay.
<SARCASM>Let's give this government more resources, more money, and more power. It won't be used against us! Come on, pay your fair share!</SARCASM>
Jesus H. Fucking Christ, ANYONE who believes (n.b. I did NOT use "thinks") this US government needs MORE revenue is beyond reason.
NSA wiretapping - if they had more money, there'd be less power abuses!
IRS with Stingray
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Fish & Wildlife/DNR makes sense. Most of the time its one person in a remote area which is both taking care of the area and also enforcing law. Furthermore given the environment, protection is needed from the very resources they are protecting. It makes perfect sense to have them armed and empowered.
As for most of the others, I agree they should leverage the FBI or other proper enforcement agencies.
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Just because you can call two different things "investigation" doesn't mean the process for each is going to work the same, o
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Thats fine in other distant nations where a US agency with in-house intelligence collection can work in both the intelligence and enforcement roles.
If another nation has few laws and allows US technical methods to be used over vast areas 24/7 thats international cooperation.
The main issue for US public courts is unsafe convictions been reexamined given collect it all parallel construction at a city, state, parish level with devices and federal support.
Are the officia
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IRS investigators also watch the "tax protesters" who regularly file returns claiming they owe no taxes due to the sixteenth amendment not being properly ratified and other random conspiracy theories. When I worked at the IRS I got these returns all the time. We forwarded them to the criminal investigation unit.
I did get to see a few tax returns AFTER they went to CI; they were fairly interesting. Everything you would ever want to know about these people was attached in a report, sometimes hundreds of pa
Well if you have nothing to declare... (Score:2)
Re:Well if you have nothing to declare... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether I have something to hide is none of your business, government.
Whether I break the law or don't is. What I'm hiding in the privacy of my home is my business and nobody else's.
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devices? IRS has Real StingRays (Score:4, Funny)
Hang on... (Score:5, Interesting)
the use of stingray technology is not limited to intelligence agencies and law enforcement.
there are currently between 2,000 and 3,000 "special agents" in the IRS who form the criminal investigation division (CID).
Does that not count as law enforcement? I mean, yeah, it's tax, so it's not one of the cool crimes, but still.
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By today's standards it would only count if they are driving around in armored troop carriers.
hobbyist stingrays? (Score:2)
are stingrays illegal to purchase? are they difficult to build? this would be an awesome hobby project.
Re:hobbyist stingrays? (Score:5, Informative)
are stingrays illegal to purchase?
The Harris Corporation branded Stingray IMSI catcher is restricted for sale to law enforcement agencies.
are they difficult to build?
Quite easy. There are also some other brands on the market available for sale to anyone.
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are they difficult to build?
Quite easy.
Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls [wired.com] - 31 July 2010
Defcon 18 - Practical Cellphone Spying [youtube.com] - 17 Mar 2012
How to spoof a cell phone tower (cell site, base station) — homemade IMSI-Catcher [stackexchange.com] - 16 Feb. 2012
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Heck, so do local police forces (Score:1)
All your freedom is belong to Russia.
Way to sell out your freedom for Security Paranoia, America!
The IRS is law enforcement.... (Score:2)
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Won't someone please think about the laughing, wise-cracking criminals?
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If you're a serious terrorist or a member of $criminal_organization, carrying a cell phone seems to have more risks than benefits. So why do it ?
Lois Lerner sent enough incriminating email from her government provided BlackBerry that she had to destroy it. Are we sure that her replacement in the targeting program is any smarter?
The question for candidates in this election cycle (Score:1)
"What is your hypothetical administration going to do to end this nonsense of the federal government spying on it's citizens without a warrant when:
1- Historical information shows clearly that incidents of crime and terrorism have not been reduced in a credible way by warrantless wiretapping of citizens.
2- Warrantless wiretapping has lead to trials where the first and fourth amendment rights of the defendants has been largely ignored
3- Evide
I'm confused (Score:2)
I would have thought, with The Leveson Inquiry and all, that if a newspaper managed to get hold of such a device they'd keep quiet about it.
Every Agency has special agents (Score:2)
NSA gains data and evades responsibility (Score:2)
Here's how it goes:
1) Give stingray technology to multiple agencies.
2) Reduce the number of stingrays your agency operates to avoid those pesky congressional investigations AND reduce your yearly operating budget.
3) Get data from other agencies on request.
4) Profit!
Obilg Python (Score:2)
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So every gov TLA can use one of these... (Score:2)
So when are cell phone comms going to be encrypted? Why should operators like T-mobile and Sprint allow this to continue? AT&T/Verizon are hopelessly corrupt at this point. I only hold out hope where there's some desire for competition.
What can be encrypted using existing technologies and what can't?
Doing it wrong (Score:2)