Cops Deploy StingRay Anti-Terror Tech Against $50 Chicken-Wing Thief (theregister.co.uk) 194
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Register: Police in Maryland, U.S., used controversial cellphone-tracking technology intended only for the most serious crimes to track down a man who stole $50 of chicken wings. Police in Annapolis -- an hour's drive from the heart of government in Washington DC -- used a StingRay cell tower simulator in an effort to find the location of a man who had earlier robbed a Pizza Boli employee of 15 chicken wings and three sandwiches. Total worth: $56.77. In that case, according to the police log, a court order was sought and received but in many other cases across the United States, the technology is being used with minimal oversight, despite the fact it is only supposed to be used in the most serious cases such as terrorism.Annapolis police never found the thief.
True Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
The real crime here is that 3 sandwiches and 15 wings costs $56.77.
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http://badassmemes.com/wp-cont... [badassmemes.com]
Re:True Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
The critical point (left out of the story) is that the culprit robbed the deliveryman at gunpoint. When you stick a gun in someone's face, the value of what you steal doesn't make your crime less serious.
Re:True Crime (Score:5, Funny)
It's America. Robbing or being robbed at gunpoint is guaranteed by the Constitution.
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Only by Wall Street. In this case it was a mugging, which is a serious violent crime. Not sure if stealing cell phone data is the correct response to that though... more like pepper spray and a beating is deserved.
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"less likely to point a gun at a 'helpless' victim if said person had a better than even chance of being armed themselves"
In most cases they'd have the drop on you so armed or not, you'd still have a better than even chance of taking a bullet without being able to retaliate.
Unless you're walking around without your gun at the ready and safety off, you're better served by body armor.
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If you mean gun in hand and ready then no but when I carry, I can shoot immediately after drawing and with practice, drawing in a concealed way using distraction like a magician might is pretty easy to do.
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I don't see where in the original story it mentions anything about a gun in the chicken wing case. The source of the story talks about a number of cases where Stingray was used, one of them being a 77-year old woman whose cell phone and other items were stolen at gun point. The part where it talks about the chicken wing theft doesn't say anything about a gun being involved. Unless I missed that part.
Re:True Crime (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't cite a single reputable source for the chicken wings and sandwiches being stolen at gunpoint (or with a knife or any other potentially lethal weapon) then we have no way of determining whether you are talking out of your ass or not. The fact that you are posting anonymously then points in the direction of not wanting to tarnish an otherwise proper reputation, and that only lends credence to assuming you are full of it.
TL,DR: Citation needed.
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Grab the next delivery out of the driver's car while he is at the current house delivering?
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In that case, this is about armed robbery, and how much was stolen is actually completely irrelevant.
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https://pizzabolis-annapolis.f... [foodtecsolutions.com]
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The real crime here is that 3 sandwiches and 15 wings costs $56.77.
They must come wrapped in gold leaf, delivered on the backs of Nubian slave girls.
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Ah, so what warranted the over-the-top-and-then-some cyberwar on chicken thieves was that some political bozo had to stay hungry.
Why didn't you say so, now it all makes sense.
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If it's available, it will be used.. (Score:5, Insightful)
... it is only supposed to be used in the most serious cases such as terrorism....
A law enforcement official once told me that he will use any and all tools that are available to him, regardless of their intended usage.
.
So stories like this no longer surprise me.
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no one is watching the watchers and this is the result of that.
power, unchecked, gets us this.
but keep giving the cops more destructo-toys and spy gadgets. I'm sure there is another boogeyman we should all be afraid of.
look, kids today at least know the reality. when I grew up, we were taught to respect and trust the cops. now, kids know better. so, at least the truth gets out there. sadly, though, it is not helping change the way things are done.
Re:If it's available, it will be used.. (Score:5, Informative)
no one is watching the watchers and this is the result of that.
power, unchecked, gets us this.
I know this is slashdot .. but did you miss the part in TFS where the cop GOT THE COURT ORDER FIRST????????
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I think the point is that the court order shouldn't have been given... since this is an 'national security' level tool... and we're talking about a pizza shop.
Re:If it's available, it will be used.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you miss the part where Stingray devices involve massive privacy breaches on the general population, so using one for a trivial robbery is massive overreach.
Yes, I know they got a court order, but it would be a safe bet that the police obfuscated the actual nature of the Stingray device, because that's what they do.
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> Did you miss the part where Stingray devices involve massive privacy breaches
> on the general population, so using one for a trivial robbery is massive overreach.
Next time they'll just nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.*
* Unless they guy left the area.
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Yes, I know they got a court order, but it would be a safe bet that...
In other words, the "government is evil" narrative works so much better if you add a few more facts.
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If you add real facts, yes, the narrative works so much better.
Many of the cases where warrants have been requested by police for the use of Stingrays have obfuscated the actual nature of the surveillance. This is documented fact.
Perhaps you don't like facts getting in the way of your desire to be snarky?
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Could someone do a Freedom of Information request on what the police put into court. Either the cop or the judge should lose his job./p?
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Crikey!
Those things are deadly!
Too soon?
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I think this just make TheGratefulNet's point ever stronger: you can't trust cops but you can't trust judges even more.
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I think this just make TheGratefulNet's point ever stronger: you can't trust cops but you can't trust judges even more.
Yeah, it's pretty bad when the "Checks and Balances" themselves need "Checks and Balances"...
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It's Checks & Balances all the way down
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We hold judges to such a high and undeserved "esteem" that we fail to realize that they are just like everyone else, flawed often critically. WE should not hold ANYONE it high esteem just because of their office, nor should we esteem a person less because of lack thereof. But we do, all of us.
This is part of the decline in our society, is that we place value not on a person, but only what they can do for us.
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They do over here in Europe. They're subject to insanely tight peer review, and stepping out of line usually means that your career is pretty much over.
Then again, they're not appointed by politicians, so yes, there is still some sanity in at least one of our branches.
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Actually you might want to read the story.
1. They actually got a court order.
2. It was an armed robbery. AKA at gunpoint.
Does not seem so crazy evil anymore.
Waxes moustache, sips Pabst... (Score:2)
If he'd controlled the gun with an app, it would be disruptive and we'd all be OK with it.
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That second point makes it even more ridiculous. You commit armed robbery and all you get is $50 worth of chicken wings? That's just sad.
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It is but is more and more likely to happen. As people use cash less and less using a gun to rob people becomes a lot less profitable. When I was a kid people often robbed Supermarkets, Gas Stations, and Liquor stores. Those stores could have lots of cash on hand but even by the early 70s Supermarkets started to take checks which really cut down on robberies.
If someone mugged me on most days they would get under $5.
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interestingly, some businesses have no choice but to be cash based.
example: pot shops. feds prohibit them from using most banking services (they allow the shops to exist but they make life very hard for them, nearly impossible). and so, you have armed guards at pot shops and cameras everywhere as a defense.
you are right, though; we are becoming more and more cashless and I'm not really sure that's such a great thing. convenient, but you lose all anonymity. that's not a fair trade.
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Actually I would say that the odds of me getting robbed are no greater than yours. I am 51 years old and have never been mugged in my life.
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"Thanks Obama"
"This is the result of Trump winning the GOP"
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you're right - I think the thief really fowled up, there.
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we have kangaroo courts. a court order is bullshit. fisa courts are also bullshit.
if you are rich, you buy justice. the rest of us just get fucked over if we ever encounter LEOs or other authority figures with a chip on their shoulder.
the fact that we don't trust the cops anymore also extends to the courts. afterall, its one BIG happy family. courts rarely blame the cops and practically every 'warrant' is stamped 'OK!'.
I do find it 'cute' that some people think that the corruption stops at the cop leve
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"It was an armed robbery. AKA at gunpoint."
What difference does that make?
A knife or baseball bat are as deadly if you're close enough to be grabbing chicken wings.
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Actually you might want to read the story. 1. They actually got a court order. 2. It was an armed robbery. AKA at gunpoint. Does not seem so crazy evil anymore.
Yes it does. While I agree that armed robbers need to be apprehended and tried, this particular tool is not something that should be used like this. What about the rights of everyone else in the area who got their calls rerouted through this thing? Stingrays are meant to be used against terrorist threats. You know, things like dirty bombs and 9-11 type stuff. Not a crime that probably happens every 2 minutes somewhere in the US.
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Actually armed robbery is pretty rare and can lead to someone dieing. But if you feel that this was not a correct use of the tech then your issue is with the courts and not the police.
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look, kids today at least know the reality. when I grew up, we were taught to respect and trust the cops. now, kids know better. so, at least the truth gets out there. sadly, though, it is not helping change the way things are done.
This is the truth.
I was watching the start of "Fear the Walking Dead", not new I know.
It occurred to me; the reaction of the people of LA to the police helped the zombie plague to get a foothold. Had the zombie plague started somewhere else, like Switzerland for example, it might not have escalated the way it did in the USA.
When people hate and fear and loath their government, government representatives and the people who are supposed to help and protect them, society becomes incredibly fragile and vulnerab
Re:If it's available, it will be used.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why you never EVER trust a cop.
They are not there to protect you, understand that.
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it is said and believed by most kids these days:
"if you call a cop to come out and deal with a problem you are having, ONE of you will be taken back with him; and it may not be the one you think it should be"
or to that effect.
you have a noisy neighbor, you call the cops to get some peace and quiet. but maybe things go weird and the neighbor lied about you and the cop believes him. the cop is NOT going to go back without his 'man' and so one of you has to take the hit.
this is strong motivation to NOT call
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So let me get this straight...
You've never called the cops, and your source for information is "said and believed by most kids these days".
Please, do keep telling us how you think it's the police who are prejudiced.
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Stories like this get me angry for more than just the standard "misuse of power" reasons. Years back, my identity was stolen (someone opened a credit card in my name and only a quirk of fate caused it to come to me instead of the thieves). The police investigating it seemed uninterested in following up any leads and confessed to me that they didn't want to pursue it because the trail would likely lead to another jurisdiction. The fact that they'd do the work and someone else would get the collar meant, t
Re:If it's available, it will be used.. (Score:4, Insightful)
While you may feel stitched up about their response I don't believe the reality is what you think it is. Identify theft is likely to cover multiple jurisdictions and hence fall under a larger organisation like the FBI. Your local police have neither the resources or the skills to track that type of crime, so they do what they are meant to, they document the offence and the details and it will get slurped by the FBI or whoever is looking after that type of case and it will be data matched and investigated by them.
With an armed hold up, you have someone who is willing to threaten someone with a weapon for a small return. The logical step is that that same person is also willing to harm someone for a small return. They are much more geographically restricted and pose a clear and present danger to the wider community. You also know that there will be no long term record trail, such as that created by identity fraud, so you have a very small window to successfully catch them.
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Surely you have a centralised records database that the FBI has access to? For your local cop to call the FBI seems like a total waste of time to me.... I would have thought they load the info into a database and the FBI uses it if they desire.
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Pretty much the FBI's response to my identity theft. They might have noted it in some crime statistics database somewhere but otherwise there was no followup. I didn't lose a large sum of money so they weren't interested in following up on it.
What do you do when the local police won't follow up because it will likely cross jurisdictions and the FBI won't follow up because you didn't lose enough money to get on their radar?
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... it is only supposed to be used in the most serious cases such as terrorism....
A law enforcement official once told me that he will use any and all tools that are available to him, regardless of their intended usage.
. So stories like this no longer surprise me.
Aren't we all glad they haven't been given nuclear weapons... yet?
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SHHHHHHH, don't give them any ideas!
What an idiot! ;)
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I can't help but think of this [youtube.com] immediately.
So? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
They had a court order to do it and that is a felony.
So these obscenely privacy-violating devices that totally ignore the Constitution (100% of the intercepted traffic was innocent people, after all - wiretaps are supposed to be very specific), which were originally pitched as "for national security and terrorism" now have the bar lowered to "violent felony" (where no one was actually hurt). This year. The bar will be lower still 5 years from now. The government never gives up power.
Simple questions (Score:1, Insightful)
If police are spending lots of money on stingray devices, shouldn't they use them to track down enough criminals to justify the expense? Also, if the individual really did commit the crime, isn't it fair for the police to track him and apprehend him?
I suspect I'll get downmodded to -1 so people can avoid the questions and pretend like they're not here. Can anyone actually answer the questions rather than evading them through moderation? I don't think Slashdot is capable of giving good answers.
How much? (Score:2)
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Iron Law of Law Enforcement Agencies (Score:3, Insightful)
As the cliche goes... (Score:2)
No . . . when your only tool is a HAMMER . . . (Score:2)
because logic isn't about playing the odds (Score:3)
logical arguments should be rigorous. slippery slope arguments are 'well often times X means Y, so in this case X means Y also'
it's pretty much the same reason why we frown on racial stereotypes or profiling, gender discrimination, or anything of that sort.
OK with this if it cuts both ways (Score:3)
I'm OK with great transparency of the citizens to the police, if they get warrants. As long as there's great transparency of the police to the citizens, if we make polite requests to know exactly where they were and what they were saying every minute they were on the clock.
They should be bugged all the time and the data available for retroactive viewing. That's harsh - I'd hate it on my job - but policing is a very high calling and they carry deadly weapons in our name...and, oh, yeah, they have the power to surveill any of us on request now, because our lives are computer-mediated and they've reserved the right to access all those records that didn't use to even exist.
That's given them vastly expanded powers to do their job (for us! hooray! This wing-bandit was caught and his stupid gun taken away! Yay!) but power breeds trouble and it justifies an enhanced surveillance...of the police. Sorry guys.
Annapolis police never found the thief (Score:1)
Yeah, but a couple of them found out their spouses were out on the town. Please... who are they really tracking?
"Thief" or "Robber"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The summary says he was a "chicken wing thief", but the story says he "robbed" the employee. Theft and robbery are different, for good reason. Stealing property is nonviolent. Robbing someone of property (i.e. taking it from a person by force or threat of force) is a violent crime. When someone sticks gun in your face and demands that you hand over the goods, it doesn't make much difference if the goods are chicken wings or jewelry, does it? Without more information about what this guy actually did to forcibly acquire those chicken wings, it's not very reasonable to conclude that this should have been a low priority case and the cops went overboard. Was he armed? Did he really threaten force? Did he assault the guy? TFA does not answer the real questions.
The issue at hand is that the Stingray device allows the police to spy on all cell phones in the geographic region it covers. It's not a question of whether or not the guy committed a forcible felony versus just a felony or misdemeanor but whether or not this guy is a huge enough threat to society as a whole to violate the right to privacy of the other 200,000 people running around Annapolis who may have had their lawful communications intercepted by the police.
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But the question of whether he was a violent robber is central to your question. Somebody going around committing robbery might actually be enough threat. The value of the actual stuff taken isn't the most relevant part of the crime (if anything, a lower value robbery increases how dangerous a robber he is, because apparently he'll do violence over nothing).
Somebody who nicked a few sandwiches and chicken wings, however? Bad guy, we should catch him, but not a serious societal threat. My guess is the gu
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But the question of whether he was a violent robber is central to your question. Somebody going around committing robbery might actually be enough threat. The value of the actual stuff taken isn't the most relevant part of the crime (if anything, a lower value robbery increases how dangerous a robber he is, because apparently he'll do violence over nothing).
Somebody who nicked a few sandwiches and chicken wings, however? Bad guy, we should catch him, but not a serious societal threat. My guess is the guy fits this category but I'm waiting for more info before getting too charged up.
The guy committed the crime at gun point. But he's not exactly a mass murderer, either. They obviously knew who he was or they wouldn't have been able to even use a Stingray against him. Furthermore, they failed to catch the guy. All of this leads me to believe it was excessive use.
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The guy stuck a gun in someone's face and demanded items from them on the implied threat that if they didn't cooperate he would shoot them. If someone is willing to do that for a couple of chicken wings and a sandwich they are clearly desperate and the next step to shooting a person is not a great leap.
As such I would suggest he does present a clear and present danger to the community.
I also think this is an interesting snapshot of life in America. Here people are concerned about the use of stinray to cat
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The guy stuck a gun in someone's face and demanded items from them on the implied threat that if they didn't cooperate he would shoot them. If someone is willing to do that for a couple of chicken wings and a sandwich they are clearly desperate and the next step to shooting a person is not a great leap.
As such I would suggest he does present a clear and present danger to the community.
I also think this is an interesting snapshot of life in America. Here people are concerned about the use of stinray to catch an armed criminal. If this has occurred in Australia the streets around would have been in lock down, a chopper would have been in the air and people would be inviting police to do a door to door search. And it's not because Australians are under the thumb, we just see firearms crime as really really really really serious and we don't hate our police force. I mean genuinely, our police force will have random dance offs with nightclub goers. Sure no one likes being pulled over by the cops, and there are plenty who hate them and call them pigs, but it doesn't appear to be the same as in the US.
Okay there is a huge difference between a door to door search and a helicopter orbiting the city versus spying on the communications and location of everyone who are within the man's suspected location. For one thing, you have to have personnel on the ground (or in the air) the entire length of the search. The other just requires the city to put up a fake cell phone tower and you have no idea that you're being spied upon. How long until cities just start putting up fake cell phone towers everywhere? Cou
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The guy had taken one of the attendants mobile phones. They were tracking that in order to pinpoint his location.
Obviously though where I would draw the line and you would are different. I guess I don't see a lot of difference between a stingray and directly accessing the information held by a telco.
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The guy had taken one of the attendants mobile phones. They were tracking that in order to pinpoint his location.
That part I did not catch when I read the real news story.
Obviously though where I would draw the line and you would are different. I guess I don't see a lot of difference between a stingray and directly accessing the information held by a telco.
The difference is scope. The telco would have a hard time giving them the position on so many people all at once whereas the Stingray lets them see everyone that is within its broadcast area. Since Annapolis is relatively small and not along a major interstate, it may not have resulted in a very large privacy breach. However, it's the county seat for a very populous county (over 2.5M I believe), and also has a large US Naval college there. So who
If you don't use it then how do you know it works? (Score:2)
Actually a gunpoint robbery (Score:3)
Yes, the proceeds of the robbery was only food, but this guy seem dangerous enough to use this technology under court order.
No Surprise (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not surprised, this is Maryland we're talking about.
Source: I live here.
Incomplete story (Score:2)
Have the chicken wings been safely recovered and repatriated to their rightful owner?
Armed Robbery (Score:4, Insightful)
The crime was armed robbery, where the criminal pointed a loaded handgun at a human being and threatened to kill them if they did not give up their property. That's what makes this a serious crime - the threat of imminent death. It is completely legal to respond to an armed robbery by basically summarily gunning down the robber without warning.
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They couldn't find him? (Score:2, Insightful)
That is the real crime. It either means:
1) The tech doesn't work.
2) They had the wrong phone number - which most likely means they hassled some innocent man.
3) A guy that stole $50 was smart enough to beat their technology.
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So what are we to think about them chasing a "real" terrorist ?
Ones that are quite a bit smarter than the average mugger.
Giving the dumb kids the smart toys doesn't do anything if they are using them for hammers !
Might not the stinkray be a crappy tower? (Score:2)
It's not the $50 ... (Score:2)
It's not the $50. It's what this portends in terms of a breakdown of the whole rotten, corrupt system. It's like the point made by Yevgraf in recollecting the time he found Doctor Zhivago pilfering firewood for subsistence by tearing down pieces of a fence.
"I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate fo
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In case you don't know, Putin has Stalin's library in his office. He gets visitors to choose books at random and read Stalin's frequent annotations (possibly as an intimidation tactic but maybe it's a lot deeper than that). Putin sees both himself and Stalin as Tsars and who are we to correct him?
That's one of many reasons to consider that Russia has not changed as much as it appears at a superficia
Lawyers??? (Score:2)
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Car robberies are probably way less frequent than car theft. Not the same thing.