Posted on 08/04/2020 6:36:12 AM PDT by rktman
Stingrays are routinely used to target suspects in drug and other criminal investigations, but activists also believe the devices were used during protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, and against Black Lives Matter protesters over the last three months. The Justice Department requires federal agents to obtain a probable cause warrant to use the technology in criminal cases, but there is a carve-out for national security. Given that President Donald Trump has referred to protesters as “terrorists,” and that paramilitary-style officers from the Department of Homeland Security have been deployed to the streets of Portland, Oregon, it’s conceivable that surveillance conducted at recent demonstrations has been deemed a national security matter — raising the possibility that the government may have used stingray technology to collect data on protesters without warrants.
To better understand the kind of surveillance that may be directed at protesters, here’s a breakdown of what we know and still don’t know about stingrays, and why their use is so controversial.
(Excerpt) Read more at theintercept.com ...
Google knows where I am at now and what I have typed.
It knows the stores I visit and how long I shop.
It knows I don’t go hunting and when I replied to the census.
They can probably catch a lot of the useful idiots in the protests this way, but they wont get any high value targets. Personally, I hope they do catch and charge anyone who started fires to destroy property or who assaulted people.
The organized members of the movement are very likely have prepared for this though. Probably used burners, which can be tracked too, but harder to use as evidence against specific individuals.
George Bush Jr. backed “total information awareness” in 2001.
Well, apparently they know where Mrs rktman is and think it’s me.
Yes, he was a great President who took up arms against our enemies after a devastating attack that could have been prevented if there was better surveillance of potential enemies operating all over the country.
Pacifists cowards hold his going to war against him
Off-the-shelf Stingray devices cost somewhere between $16,000 and $125,000, far too rich for a poor hacker’s pocketbook. Of course, what the government can do for $100,000, anyone else can do for five hundred. Here’s how you build your own Stingray using off the shelf hardware.
https://hackaday.com/2016/04/08/build-your-own-gsm-base-station-for-fun-and-profit/
Good? Do you think this will only be used for righteous purposes?
You miss the point entirely
It will be used for American purposes. You exhibit leftist tendencies when you oppose finding and arresting criminals
Illegal Search and Seizure!
"They also can inject spying software onto specific phones or direct the browser of a phone to a website where malware can be loaded onto it,"
I'm not defending the scum rioters, I'm being cautious about it being used against US!
Ha, good one.
I carry my phone only for work. At 5:00PM it gets placed on my desk until the next day.
My phone does not know where I go or what I do until we start work again in the morning.
Grew up without a phone. No problem doing without it for a couple of hours.
I used to work in Law enforcement relations with a major cell phone provider. It’s kinda fascinating what law enforcement can do with a subpoena. And all this device tells them is what number to subpoena.
Every time your phone pings the tower the ping is stored in a database. Each ping carries with it all information identifying your phone and, therefore, the owner of the phone. Once they have that, they can subpoena all these pings as far back as they feel is necessary. It’s like time travel. Once you are on their radar, they can trace your phone’s precise whereabouts for years into the past.
And actually that information is available to the owner of the phone as well. I can use my google account to see where I went on any day in the past for years back. My flights to seattle show me driving I-65 to Nashville, and then a straight line to Seatac airport (I’m not pinging from 35,000 feet), and then everywhere I went in Seattle.
So this means that once the cops use this device at an event, they can correlate the phones’ locations and see when multiple members were in the same place at the same time, and where that place is.
It’s all pretty fascinating. That’s why I tell people that if they are going to commit a crime, leave your phone at home. ;)
And If you are going to want to take video and pictures at an event, use a real camera.
Yep. High value targets know how to get around this sort of stuff. It’s easy, as long as it’s important enough for you to bother.
It’s a tool. Tools can be used for good or bad. The tool itself is amoral. Kinda like a gun.
They’re the ones who want government in every part of our lives. Welcome home, b!tches.
I understand that. Someone will use it for nefarious purposes.
I have no proof, just my thoughts.
There is a reason that it’s gotten very difficult to get a phone with a removable battery. And that the manufacturers are being pushed away from removable SIM cards to “soft SIMs.
Because freedom is dangerous -— to totalitarians.
I hold many things against him, some even far more deeply now than when he was in office, but that is not one of them.
When 9/11 happened, I assumed we were at war and treated things that way.
I supported the PATRIOT Act, but I see how wrong I was to have done that. I have since realized that having power like that, even with layers of complex safeguards that are supposed to ensure legal compliance by the government, are useless.
Human nature being what it is, people circumvent those safeguards. They not only circumvented them, they stepped on and over them. I was foolish to accept that.
But I don’t hold his taking us to war against him. 3,000 Americans were murdered on that day, and I was of the mind that we should exact justice.
I understand the division on how the enemy was fought, but I don’t give credence to those who say we shouldn’t have fought at all.
I wouldn’t be so harsh. EEGator is correct in being concerned with this.
There are a lot of things in our lives today that impinge or potentially impinge on our freedom in ways we don’t know and cannot see.
We all fall prey to the “Well, I’m not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to worry about” mindset, but it is well to keep in mind as Freeper Cuban Leaf has wisely said, that it is a tool, like a gun. It can be used for good purposes or bad purposes.
There is a duality to nearly everything. A hammer can be used to build a beautiful house, or it can bash a man’s brains in.
To that point, we have to be wary that the government will decide that those of us who “aren’t doing anything wrong” need to be doing something wrong so they can take action against us.
This is an area where a government can prey on its citizens, and we need to tread with caution.
I believe we need to use things like this because of the interstate and international organization of this unrest (only fools would believe it is grassroots) but it it is a double-edged sword.
I feel that we need this technology, but it feels like juggling snakes that could just as easily bite us.
According to the article, this tool only identifies you. It doesn’t listen in on your calls. It’s kinda like facial recognition. Or “stop and frisk”. And that is wholly appropriate during these riots.
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