NSA/DHS attempt to cover up a potential massive nationwide spying operation by police
Police used the 'stingray device' about once every five days between the spring of 2007 and August 2010, the new information shows. And check out how they’re using it, as relayed by ACLU attorney Nate Wessler:
In this case, police used two versions of the stingray — one mounted on a police vehicle, and the other carried by hand. Police drove through the area using the vehicle-based device until they found the apartment complex in which the target phone was located, and then they walked around with the handheld device and stood “at every door and every window in that complex” until they figured out which apartment the phone was located in. In other words, police were lurking outside people’s windows and sending powerful electronic signals into their private homes in order to collect information from within.
It’s really excellent news that a court ordered the public disclosure of this information about government stingray deployment, especially in light of the federal government’s absolutely outlandish efforts to keep such information secret from public view.
A California Court had to order the NSA not to destroy evidence a second time!
"In communications with the government this week, EFF was surprised to learn that the government has been continuing to destroy evidence relating to the mass interception of Internet communications it is conducting under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act even though the court explicitly ordered it to stop in March," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Specifically, the government is destroying content gathered through tapping into the fiberoptic cables of AT&T."
She added: "Once again, the government has apparently secretly and unilaterally reinterpreted its obligations about the evidence preservation orders, and has determined that it need not comply. Today marks a year to the day that Edward Snowden leaked documents confirming the NSA's massive spying, yet the government is still engaging in outlandish claims and gamesmanship – even destroying evidence – to block an adversarial court ruling on whether its mass spying is legal or constitutional."
Click here to read more.
On Friday June 7th. a judge ordered the NSA to stop destroying evidence a THIRD TIME!
Click here to read more.
We’ve known for some time that the federal government’s obsession with secrecy has been trickling down to the state and local level. But what happened in Florida this week boggles the mind.
Want to know more about how the NSA is spying on us? Read EFF's "65 Things we know about NSA surveillance that we didn’t know a year ago".
When the ACLU filed a public records request to the Sarasota police department seeking records about its use of stingray cell phone sniffers, the department replied that it possessed responsive documents.
Nate Wessler explains:
The Sarasota Police set up an appointment for us to inspect the [stingray surveillance] applications and orders, as required by Florida law. But a few hours before that appointment, an assistant city attorney sent an email cancelling the meeting on the basis that the U.S. Marshals Service was claiming the records as their own and instructing the local cops not to release them. Their explanation: the Marshals Service had deputized the local officer, and therefore the records were actually the property of the federal government.
We emphatically disagree, since the Sarasota detective created the applications, brought them to court, and retained the applications and orders in his files. Merely giving him a second title (“Special Deputy U.S. Marshal”) does not change these facts. But regardless, once the Sarasota Police Department received our records request, state law required them to hold onto the records for at least 30 days, to give us an opportunity to go to court and seek an order for release of the documents.
Instead of complying with that clear legal obligation, the local police allowed the records to disappear by letting the U.S. Marshals drive down from their office in Tampa, seize the physical files, and move them to an unknown location. We’ve seen our fair share of federal government attempts to keep records about stingrays secret, but we’ve never seen an actual physical raid on state records in order to conceal them from public view.
In short, the federal government intervened to obstruct a local police agency from complying with Florida state law. Apparently the feds are terrified of transparency.
But what’s the government got to hide? A lot, according to this excellent review of the secrecy regime surrounding electronic surveillance orders nationwide.
One particular thing the federal government has to hide is that it may be conducting mass, warrantless location tracking of our cell phones—at least according to a federal judge who just ruled on the NSA’s phone records program.
Idaho’s Anna Smith lost her challenge to the NSA’s collection of her phone records, Smith v Obama. But while U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ruled that Supreme Court precedent in Smith v Maryland holds that we have no privacy interest in the numbers we dial on our phones, there’s no such precedent to say we don’t have privacy interest in other information the NSA collects or may collect on hundreds of millions of Americans—including Ms. Smith—as a matter of course.
Judge Lynn Winmill said:
The data collected by the NSA goes beyond the telephone numbers that Smith dials, and reaches into her personal information. For example, the NSA’s collection of the time and duration of phone calls is revealing: Would most citizens want to keep private the fact that they called someone at one in the morning and talked for an hour or two?
And what about location? Would most phone users expect to keep private (1) their location at any moment and (2) their travel path over time? The NSA collects “trunk identifier” data that shows the location where a cell-phone call enters the “trunk” system to be relayed eventually to the number being called. While this would not pinpoint a phone user’s precise location, it would narrow it down considerably. Moreover, the data also includes “comprehensive communications routing information.” While this phrase is ambiguous, it may mean that for a single call, all the trunk identifiers are collected by the NSA, allowing the agency to track “how a cell phone user moves from one cell phone tower to another while traveling.” The speed with which the phone moves from tower to tower could indicate, for example, whether the device is being used in a car or while walking down the street.
http://privacysos.org/node/1426
NSA Chief Michael Rogers defends facial recognition database:
The new head of the NSA, Michael Rogers denies claims that were never made and accusations that were never stated.
Rogers insisted the agency was not collecting such images of U.S. citizens, unless they were linked with an investigation of a foreign subject, and then only after taking the appropriate legal steps.
"We do not do this on some unilateral basis against U.S. citizens," he told a conference hosted by Bloomberg. "We just don’t ... decide, 'Hey, today I’m going to go after Citizen X, Y or Z.' We don’t do that. We can’t legally do that."
He said some people thought the NSA was combing through databases of photographs for U.S. drivers licenses but said that was not the case.
In terms of collecting images, no one stated anything to the contrary. The collection is likely operating like many other NSA collections -- on a large scale that increases the likelihood that incidental collection of American data and content will occur. The "appropriate legal steps" are the same ones that have been used as talking points over the last year.
Likewise, no one suggested in the article that the NSA targeted US citizens. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about the NSA's programs is the fact that they're clearly untargeted. The NSA doesn't select a person and start the surveillance from that point. The surveillance is pervasive and ongoing and any selection tends to occur long after tons of data/communications have been collected. It's the after-the-fact nature of the programs that makes them so dangerous. Further, the lack of solid minimization rules means tons of data from bulk collections sits around in NSA servers just waiting for someone to find a reason to look through it. So, while the NSA may not "unilaterally target American citizens," it has the mechanisms in place to do so.
As for Roger's last non-denial, it was clearly stated in the New York Times article that there was no indication that the NSA had access to US drivers license databases. Rogers' last denial addresses "some people" (whoever they are) that have a clearly wrong interpretation of the leaked documents, but doesn't address what was actually written. And it completely avoids the undeniable fact that, with as many "input" channels as the NSA has, collecting the sort of information a drivers license database holds would be simple enough, even without direct access.
Rogers also doesn't address the previous denial handed out by a spokesperson who refused to clarify whether or not the NSA collects images of Americans from social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter. Instead, Rogers focuses on the anonymous concerns of people who may or may not exist. Plausible deniability, delivered implausibly. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140604/09345627457/nsa-chief-defends-facial-recognition-database-denying-claims-that-werent-made.shtml
Vodafone admits govts use 'secret cables' to spy on citizens' phones:
Vodafone said that secret wires have been connected to its network and those belonging to competitors, giving government agencies the ability to tap in to phone and broadband traffic. In many countries this is mandatory for all telecoms companies, it said.
Vodafone published its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report which describes exactly how governments it deals with are spying on innocent citizens. It's calling for an end to the use of “direct access” eavesdropping and transparency on the number of warrants issued giving access to private data.
The company said that the 29 countries it operates in have different laws that demand that they restrict or block certain access to customers, or allow governments to directly access information about them. Refusal to comply with those laws was “not an option”, it said, as those countries could then stop them from operating within its borders.
In some countries this means giving access to the content of phone calls and other electronic communications, or access to metadata such as the number of calls made, the numbers they were made to and the location of the caller when those calls were placed. In some countries, not including the UK, they are made to provide a "direct access" cable straight into their network to allow governments to siphon off any data they wish, without having to issue a warrant.
Who needs a warrant to spy on everyone's phone calls in the U.S. ? Just ask the NSA/DHS who use the DOJ to issue favorable rulings all the time or like its police who are so fond of saying; nothing to see here, move along!
Vodafone's group privacy officer, Stephen Deadman, told the Guardian: "These pipes exist, the direct access model exists.
"We are making a call to end direct access as a means of government agencies obtaining people's communication data. Without an official warrant, there is no external visibility. If we receive a demand we can push back against the agency. The fact that a government has to issue a piece of paper is an important constraint on how powers are used.
"We need to debate how we are balancing the needs of law enforcement with the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens. The ideal is we get a much more informed debate going, and we do all of that without putting our colleagues in danger."
Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, said: "While governments have starved this debate over surveillance by saying nothing and denying everything, some companies have acted more responsibly by bringing data to the table. Vodafone is taking a commendable step by taking this issue on at an international scale. And they are trying to identify the legal basis for governments' claimed powers. What we are now discovering is that the picture is even more bleak than previously thought. Governments around the world are unashamedly abusing privacy by demanding access to communications and data, and alarmingly, sometimes granting themselves direct access to the networks.
Click here to read Vodafone's law enforcement disclosure report.
