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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-no-one dept.

The ACLU has released documents obtained from Florida public records requests to law enforcement agencies that give a more complete account of the use of Stingray surveillance technology. "Stingrays, also known as 'cell site simulators,' or 'IMSI catchers,' are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers and force phones in the area to broadcast information that can be used to identify and locate them." The Register reports:

Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have shown that US cops are using the FBI's Stingray mobile phone tracking tech much more often than first thought. And the Feds are going to great lengths to hide the full extent of its use.

"The documents paint a detailed picture of police using an invasive technology - one that can follow you inside your house - in many hundreds of cases and almost entirely in secret," said Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney at the ACLU. "The secrecy is not just from the public, but often from judges who are supposed to ensure that police are not abusing their authority. Partly relying on that secrecy, police have been getting authorization to use Stingrays based on the low standard of 'relevance,' not a warrant based on probable cause as required by the Fourth Amendment."

The ACLU requested information about Stingray use from three dozen Florida police departments and found out that the system has been in use in the Sunshine State since 2007 - much earlier than first thought. According to a May 2014 email, the Stingray system has been used in 1,835 cases in Florida, none of which were national-security related. More than a third of cases using the technology involved robbery, burglary, and theft, and the rest were largely "wanted persons" cases.

The documents also included details of a few specific cases where Stingrays have been used. In one, defense lawyers were able to use the FBI's reluctance to reveal details about the technology to get a sweetheart deal of a sentence for their clients.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:59PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 26 2015, @09:59PM (#150128) Journal

    besides, we don't care too much anyway

    Please speak for yourself.

    You mean... did you stop buying tickets to the lame plays on "security theatre"? No? I guessed so [ktar.com]

    (my point: until Snowden, TSA was a constant irritant to the population, at least based on the number of published news in the mainstream media. Now? Second-hand web sites and blogs).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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