Not sure why you wasted your time pulling up all those links. Maybe you have plenty to spare.

I'm simply refuting the claim.

And, by responding to your rather snippy remark about how I spend my time (that took seconds to retrieve those links, FWIW), I'm giving the story even more attention.

Happy now?

Try to kick one of the originals instead of posting the 3rd or 4th OP on the same topic.

However, a Guardian investigation in April revealed a non-disclosure agreement that local police and prosecutors were forced to sign with the FBI before using the Stingray devices, which mandated them to withdraw or even drop cases rather than risk revealing Stingray use.

Last edited Sat Sep 5, 2015, 11:07 PM - Edit history (1)

is going to help LE find the three men who gunned down a police officer back east. We have people who steal things that don't belong to them. We have people who break into homes where they don't live. WE have people who gun down their neighbors or strangers or someone who they are angry with. We have people who buy illegal drugs. WE have people who buy illegal weapons.

We as a people want everyone to follow the rules while we break them. i think they should review all 2000 cases and release them if the judge finds they search was unreasonable. But the technology serves an important purpose. But we are so self-centered we never care about a problem until it personally affects us. I'm not like that> i believe we need surveillance because we as mericans are a shitty self-absorbed ignorant people.

maybe we would need less surveillance if we would feed the hungry, healthcare to the uninsured, educate our children, train our young into a career, provide training and jobs for the unemployed. Maybe we shiuld get guns off the street with common sense gun control measures, like universal background checks. Maybe AMericans need to start electing people who the people's interest at heart instead of the corportists.

but in the meantime, we're gonna have to rely on surveillance no matter how intrusive.

the point of this article is that the fbi ,prosecutors and police conspired together to with hold evidence the accused has a legal right to know about

do you think there was no crime when the Constitution was written?

should be made available.

Although some people already have those systems in their homes. This is about surveillance in public spaces and about devices that tap into systems (cell towers) in those public spaces.

I know it seems like an either or issue but it really isn't. It's very complicated.

And what law enforcement is doing here is criminal. Literally.

... the justice department just recently established and policy against using these devices without a warrant , but that's a policy decision not a court order.

State and local governments are free to employ the device without a warrant. There is nothing criminal about it.

The dispute concerns failure to inform the defense that the device was used, not the use of it. I'm not sure what bearing that has on the actual guilt or innocence of the accused. In any case, it wasn't criminal behavior on the part of the procecutors or the police.

The bottom line is that use of the device without a warrant is permissible and the defense, apparantly , should be informed. Or, depending on the final ruling, maybe not.

The move also follows a change in federal policy on Thursday in which the US department of justice said that agencies under its aegis would have to obtain a specific warrant to use Stingrays. But this change in policy does not affect local police forces or state-level agencies, where the use of cell-site simulators and other devices is still shrouded in secrecy, and requires only a low-level court order called a PEN register, or “trap-and-trace” order, to grant police permission for its use.

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Pen Register Act

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was passed in 1986 (Pub. L. No. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848). There were three main provisions or Titles to the ECPA. Title III created the Pen Register Act, which included restrictions on private and law enforcement uses of pen registers. Private parties were generally restricted from using them unless they met one of the exceptions, which included an exception for the business providing the communication if it needed to do so to ensure the proper functioning of its business.

For law enforcement agencies to get a pen register approved for surveillance, they must get a court order from a judge. According to 18 U.S.C. § 3123(a)(1), the "court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device anywhere within the United States, if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation".[6] Thus, a government attorney only needs to certify that information will "likely" be obtained in relation to an 'ongoing criminal investigation'. This is the lowest requirement for receiving a court order under any of the ECPA's three titles. This is because in Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that use of a pen register does not constitute a search. The ruling held that only the content of a conversation should receive full constitutional protection under the right to privacy; since pen registers do not intercept conversation, they do not pose as much threat to this right.

Some have argued that the government should be required to present "specific and articulable facts" showing that the information to be gathered is relevant and material to an ongoing investigation. This is the standard used by Title II of the ECPA with regard to the contents of stored communications. Others, such as Daniel J. Solove, Petricia Bellia, and Dierdre Mulligan, believe that probable cause and a warrant should be necessary.[7][8][9] Paul Ohm argues that standard of proof should be replaced/reworked for electronic communications altogether.[10]

The Pen Register Act did not include an exclusionary rule. While there were civil remedies for violations of the Act, evidence gained in violation of the Act can still be used against a defendant in court. There have also been calls for congress to add an exclusionary rule to the Pen Register Act, as this would make it more analogous to traditional Fourth Amendment protections. The penalty for violating the Pen Register Act is a misdemeanor, and it carries a prison sentence of not more than one year.[11]

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the article says content can be extracted with the new devices so smith vs maryland should not apply

much also hinges on wether a pen trace is part of an ON GOING investigation or a fishing trip

the fbi knows there are problems with the use , i am guessing that is why the secrecy

the defendant still has a right to know about all evidence the state has against then....the fbi conspiring with local police to deny the defendants right to challenge is the illegal part

I don't want to live in your vision of a world. I'll take liberty over safety any day.

But the people who are more interested in what you think, pay attention to are people who make or sell things.

I said private, such as my private phone conversations which is what we were talking about.

the fbi under current admin is supposed to be enforcing the Constitution, not conspiring with local authorities to break it

although not why you are here.

Really? That's what you want to do?

No criminology research to back it up, just going to spew that complet fucking nonsense with no source at all?

Just no.

horrifying. Absolutely horrifying.

we've discussed this. And we weren't talking about MD, either.

https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them

at demonstrations.

"anonymous tip"
"lucky timing intercept"
- parallel construction

Something like "Baltimore Surveillance Story (important)". The title is kind of vague.

"hey, let's go smoke a bowl over by the section G-4 sign", when they would show up and start smoking said bowl the SWAT team would pop out and take em down.

The richest county in Michigan is now a Test Bed of Freedom™ in the fight against, uh, Saddam, uh, Al Qaeda, uh Putin...



Secret military device lets Oakland deputies track cellphones

Military device sweeps activity in wide area

Joel Kurth and Lauren Abdel-Razzaq
Detroit News, April 5, 2014

Pontiac— Oakland County commissioners asked no questions last March before unanimously approving a cellphone tracking device so powerful it was used by the military to fight terrorists.

Now, though, some privacy advocates question why one of the safest counties in Michigan needs the super-secretive Hailstorm device that is believed to be able to collect large amounts of cellphone data, including the locations of users, by masquerading as a cell tower.

SNIP...

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is one of about two dozen forces nationwide — and the only one in Michigan — with the $170,000 machine. So little is known about Hailstorm that even national experts will only speculate about its capabilities. The technology from Florida-based defense contractor Harris Corp. is believed to be an upgrade of Stingray, a suitcase-sized contraption that is installed in cars and used to trick nearby phones into connecting with it and providing data to police.

SNIP...

Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst and principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he began noticing police agencies nationwide purchase Hailstorm about the same time as Oakland County. The county received a $258,370 federal grant that paid for all but $105,000 of the device, training and about $56,000 to purchase a vehicle to contain it, records show.

Butler said the machines were developed for military and spy agencies and information about them is on “bureaucratic lockdown” because the manufacturer, Harris, claims specifications are “a trade secret and proprietary.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140404/SPECIAL/304040043

For those who "own and operate" this and the rest of the super secret spy technology on behalf of "We the People," the enemy isn't the Other. It's "Us," as in "We the People." Were it otherwise, We with "something to hide" would all be "Suspected Terrorists."

Manufactured by the Harris corporation and around the size of a briefcase, Stingrays are one of a class of surveillance devices known as “cell-site simulators”, which pretend to be cellphone towers in order to extract metadata, location information, and in some cases content from phones that connect to it.

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the patriot act supports this illegal spying on American citizens, bernie voted against it which is a huge reason i support him

.... the information you might have stored on the Sim card, like the address book. Generally you would need the sim card key that is stored by the cell provider for connecting and completing calls. An article I read claimed that some sim card can be cracked - but that can be prevented by implementing the protocols correctly. The content is probably not vulnerable without the key from the cell provider.

"Proprietary trade secrets" are not classified information . .. super secret spy technology is a hyperbolic exaggeration . All of the protocols and technology that goes into cellular communication are open and freely available for exploitation by anyone with the knowledge and skills - and that skill set is fairly wide spread. Everyone who operates a cell phone knows that their location is known by doing so - otherwise the dang thing wouldn't work.

I highly recommend it and I am only on chapter 5


The cops are out of control in this country, plain and simple

And use them to arrest people for smoking weed.

Yay, drug war.