We've Been Stingrayed: FBI's secret deal with police hides phone dragnet from courts
Another day, yet another 'discovery' that, yes, it really is worse than we thought.
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Stingray spying: FBI's secret deal with police hides phone dragnet from courts
By Jessica Glenza and Nicky Woolf * Friday 10 April 2015 * The Guardian
The FBI is taking extraordinary and potentially unconstitutional measures to keep local and state police forces from exposing the use of so-called “Stingray” surveillance technology across the United States, according to documents obtained separately by the Guardian and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Multiple non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) revealed in Florida, New York and Maryland this week show federal authorities effectively binding local law enforcement from disclosing any information – even to judges – about the cellphone dragnet technology, its collection capabilities or its existence.
In an arrangement that shocked privacy advocates and local defense attorneys, the secret pact also mandates that police notify the FBI to push for the dismissal of cases if technical specifications of the devices are in danger of being revealed in court.
The agreement also contains a clause forcing law enforcement to notify the FBI if freedom of information requests are filed by members of the public or the media for such information, “in order to allow sufficient time for the FBI to seek to prevent disclosure through appropriate channels”.
The strikingly similar NDAs, taken together with documents connecting police to the technology’s manufacturer and federal approval guidelines obtained by the Guardian, suggest a state-by-state chain of secrecy surrounding widespread use of the sophisticated cellphone spying devices known best by the brand of one such device: the Stingray.
Stingray box
“The device has the ability to pull content, so all the sudden your text messages are at risk, your phone calls are at risk, and your data transmission, potentially,” said John Sawicki, a former police officer who consults attorneys on technological evidence, of the Stingray device made by Harris Corporation. Photograph: Harris Corporation.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/10/stingray-spying-fbi-phone-dragnet-police
= new reply since forum marked as read
So if it sinks like a stone, maybe you can repost with a more trend-worthy header
(Some media companies allow for folks to watch on "demand"
then you can clearly see that the Big TV stations are fine with this.
Of course, the Talking Heads insistently argue: we need to have Homeland Security and the FBI utilize the local police to do the spying. Especially since this is being done as merely a cost saving measure. <sarcasm intended>
And "60 Minutes" reporter Leslie Stahl never once mentioned the US Constitution in terms of whether this "at home spying" is okay. Nor did she think about how very poorly trained, and lacking in oversight the local police departments are.
As a nation, we all just witnessed the Carolina, local police officer shooting of unarmed, non-threatening Walter Scott. That police officer is not at all different from many of the police here in my Northern Calif. county.
Is this who we want spying on us? Our local police? What if my making an unfavorable reference to the local police means that now I am one of the targets of the police spying? (A guy who is one of the lead participants in the Cop Block Movement in Idaho has been charged with a felony - basically for holding a sign and protesting the police!)
