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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @07:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the is-any-tla-not-listening-in dept.

The Guardian reports about the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) buying and upgrading Harris Corporation Stingray IMSI-catchers in 2009 (PDF (21 MB) and text (10.2 KB) versions of 2009 invoice) and 2012 (upgrading Stingray II to a HailStorm, see quote below) and that they're now the 13th US federal agency confirmed to use the technology which pretends to be legitimate cell towers in order to eavesdrop on mobile communication. IMSI-catchers are not restricted to "only" catching metadata; they can catch all communications and also perform any kind of addition MITM attack like malware insertion. No warrants are said to be required, only PEN register orders. The invoices was obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Quote from the Guardian article:

The 2009 IRS/Harris Corp invoice is mostly redacted under section B(4) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is intended to protect trade secrets and privileged information. However, an invoice from 2012, which is also partially redacted, reports that the agency spent $65,652 on upgrading a Stingray II to a HailStorm, a more powerful version of the same device, as well as $6,000 on training from Harris Corporation.

The CEO of Harris Corporation is William M. Brown (PDF 54.8 KB) who according to Forbes was number 279 in CEO compensation in 2012. Here's the rest of the Harris Corporation management.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday October 27 2015, @03:21PM

    by Francis (5544) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @03:21PM (#255127)

    Wait what? You mean all those audits they do to determine if people have been illegally evading taxes isn't law enforcement?

    The IRS exists mainly to ensure that people have paid the taxes that they owe and to investigate returns that might be fraudulent. That sounds an awful lot like law enforcement to me. Especially given that some of the things they investigate are felonies rather than just misdemeanors or civil.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @12:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @12:06AM (#255348)

    IRS != FBI

    It is pretty simple really. I fart like a trumpet often, doesn't make my ass a musical instrument nor me a musician.

    • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday October 28 2015, @04:35AM

      by Francis (5544) on Wednesday October 28 2015, @04:35AM (#255436)

      In other words, you're an idiot and proud to be an idiot.

      How about the Secret Service, they're not the FBI either, I suppose they aren't law enforcement either.