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The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Chicago Police Department is fighting a lawsuit to force them to reveal how they use Stingray cell tower-emulating devices:
Since 2005, the department has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on cell-site simulators manufactured by the Harris Corp. in Melbourne, Florida, records show. The devices — with names like StingRay and KingFish — capture cellphone signals.
Cops can use the technology, originally developed for the military, to locate cellphones. Police agencies in other states have revealed in court that StingRays and similar devices have been used to locate suspects, fugitives and victims in criminal investigations.
But privacy activists across the country have begun to question whether law enforcement agencies have used the devices to track people involved in demonstrations in violation of their constitutional rights. They also have concerns the technology scoops up the phone data of innocent citizens and police targets alike.
The Chicago Police Department has also been running a CIA-style black site, according to a recent report by the Guardian.
When the federal government began imprisoning people at Guantanamo in violation of the Constitution, some argued it was the only place, and that there were exceptional, extenuating circumstances. When the network of CIA black sites around the world and its practice of "extraordinary rendition," known to normal people as, "kidnapping," were revealed, some argued it was only for terrorists and other bad guys. When the NSA's mass violations of the Constitution were revealed by the Snowden leaks, some argued that it was for our own protection. Each time, they were justified as defense against the "Other."
Is this Chicago case a harbinger of things to come, that those tools and practices developed to violate the rights of the "Other" elsewhere, are now being applied to "Us", here?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday March 25 2015, @02:48AM
"The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
– Lysander Spooner
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:11PM
I fail to see how quoting a 19th century anarchist is relevant or even meaningful.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Wednesday March 25 2015, @07:21PM
the constitution has failed to prevent our current police state due to the non-enforcement of Title 18 USC § 1918 [cornell.edu] which explicitly states anyone holding government office that ignores, subverts, or suggests to ignore or subvert the constitution (all acts that work towards overthrowing our constitutional form of government) is to be fined or jailed for a year, and also due to the past 100 years of the "drug war". alcohol prohibition took a constitutional amendment, thus by precedent if nothing else all drug prohibitions require one to be legal. once the constitution-subverting precedents were set "fighting against drugs" (which was really nothing more than racism, fighting to keep non-whites oppressed), it was easy to use them to further subvert the constitution. the process was so slow (and so many people supported each individual step) that its only recently that we can see that our constitutional form of government has been overthrown.