Nine years later police finally admit StingRays spy on innocent people
Finally, in the year 2015 a full NINE years after DHS/Police first began using StingRay surveillance gear to finally admit they're spying on innocent people.
Also, it's ironic that only after the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) issued StingRay usage guidelines did they admit they've been used to spy on innocent people. Watch the video below to find out about the recent changes to StingRay usage:
Click here to read about the DOJ, FINALLY requiring a warrant to use StingRays.
Here's some background info. on StingRay surveillance, they were first patented in 2001 and cost $68,479 for the original Stingray; $134,952 for Stingray II.
An Arstechnica article claims law enforcement first began using them in 2004:
"Federal authorities have spent more than $30 million on StingRays and related equipment and training since 2004, according to procurement records. Purchasing agencies include the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service, the Army, and the Navy. Cops in Arizona, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and California have also either purchased or considered purchasing the devices, according to public records. In one case, procurement records (PDF) show cops in Miami obtained a Stingray to monitor phones at a free trade conference held in Miami in 2003." Click here to read about the IRS, DEA, FBI etc., spying.
In the past couple of years police claimed they couldn't divulge StingRay surveillance capabilities because they'd break their non-disclosure agreements!
Fast forward NINE years later to October 2015:
A cover memo sent to prosecutors finally admits that StingRays (a cell site simulator) can be used to identify the telephone numbers of "all powered-on phones in the immediate vicinity
... it should not encompass digital digits as that would entail surveillance of all persons in the vicinity of the subject."
Police have been lying to the public about StingRays for nearly a DECADE!
According to the ACLU:
"The court documents raise questions about DOJ’s new guidelines. DOJ announced that going forward it will seek a warrant based on probable cause to use a StingRay, subject to certain exceptions. In addition to an exception for “exigent circumstances” (a well understood exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement), the new guidelines also create a potentially expansive exception for undefined “exceptional” circumstances."
"What does DOJ think might count as an “exceptional” but apparently not “exigent” circumstance?
Police can also 'bug' your cellphone remotely and listen to EVERY conversation:
[Police] "... can intercept conversations using a suspect’s cell phone as a bug. You don't even have to have possession of the phone to modify it; the 'firmware' is modified wirelessly.”
What does all this mean? It's depressingly easy for police to obtain a warrant and continue to use StingRays to spy on anyone...
As ProPublica points out police can get a court to sign off on an order that only requires the data they're after is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation"— a lesser standard of evidence. Police can also get historical phone records with an administrative subpoena, which doesn't require a judge's approval.
Tim Dees a former cop reveals this disturbing fact:
"There are judges that will sign about anything a cop puts in front of them, and others who actually read the affidavits before signing them. If the police are serving a lot of search warrants that turn out to be a dry hole (which happens to everyone now and then), it's time to put some pressure on the judges to up their game."
"In my experience, abuses of the search warrant process most often take place in rural environments, where the signing judge is a part-time, non-attorney magistrate who has a long-standing and less-than-impartial relationship with the cops. That kind of arrangement invariably leads to civil rights violations."
Daniel Rigmaiden busted for tax fraud in 2008 said...
“I was not surprised to learn the IRS had its own cellular surveillance equipment,”Daniel Rigmaiden told Newsweek. “The IRS has a criminal investigation unit that performs law enforcement operations similar to the Secret Service or FBI. It can pretty much be assumed at this point that law enforcement everywhere can track and locate cellphones.”