Cellphone spying technology being used throughout Northern California

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.news10.net/story/news/investigations/watchdog/2014/03/06/cellphone-spying-technology-used-throughout-northern-california/6144949/

Michael Bott, and Thom Jensen, News10 2:25 a.m. EST March 7, 2014

At least seven law enforcement agencies in California are using controversial technology that allows them to secretly collect data from cellphones and track people, News10 has learned.

Hundreds of pages of documents, from grant applications to purchase orders, show that the technology has been here for years and it's been used in dozens of arrests. In Oakland, a device called a StingRay allows police to track people and collect real-time data from every cell phone within a certain radius. The city's Targeted Enforcement Task Force II used a Stingray to make 19 arrests in 2009, according to an Oakland Police Criminal Investigation Division report.

StingRays are being paid for mostly by Homeland Security grant money distributed by the California Emergency Management Agency, under programs such as the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) or the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP). Grant applications from several agencies show local law enforcement are justifying the purchase of StingRay technology as an anti-terrorism tool, but it's being used to apprehend and prosecute suspects in routine crimes, from robberies to homicides.

None of the 19 arrests made using the StingRay in Oakland in 2009 were related to terrorism.

Added on edit: A spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that StingRays can also capture
the content of phone calls:

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/03/13/129328/

...Can you start off by explaining more about what kind of information the StingRay can gather? Can it eavesdrop on actual conversations?

It can capture conversation. There have been some assurances that these specific sorts of StingRays being used by local law enforcement aren’t doing that, but we do know that they have the capability of doing so.

They also have the capability of capturing the metadata or the information about how you communicate. And in these specific instances of local law enforcement using them, they’re using that information to pinpoint the person’s location.

It’s my understanding that this technology is being used by some law enforcement without a warrant. An Oakland Police Department spokesperson told me in an email that prior to 2009 no warrant was required — but that now, depending on how it’s being used, a search warrant may or may not be required. What’s your understanding of how often warrants are being obtained?

That’s a big question mark because there’s a lot of secrecy surrounding the use of these devices. I’m not quite sure why the shift in 2009, and I’m encouraged that they claim they are using search warrants today, but I will note that there has been some concern revealed through public records requests that the ACLU of Northern California did, that some federal court officials, some federal judges, were concerned that law enforcement requesting orders to use these devices weren’t being completely forthright with the judges. That they were in fact using StingRays to get some of this information. And so, again, there’s a lot of uncertainty about it. They certainly should be using a search warrant, because these devices capture very rich, detailed and intimate information about a person’s location and how they communicate and who they communicate with, and also have the capability to catch the actual content of conversation

[Thinkingabout]

1. Moral of the story, don't use communication devices. Don't send txt messages,

Data information or make phone calls.

[Wilms]

2. ^

[marions ghost]

3. This is referred to

in the book Dragnet Nation.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-hi-tech-police-surveillance-the-stingray-cell-phone-spying-device/5331165